Happy New Year, John –
It was 10 years ago today that Texas Scorecard was launched on a singular notion: Texas citizens must control the culture and government of the Lone Star State. To do so effectively, though, citizens needed better access to information about the real fights on issues impacting their lives from the state house to the local school house and everywhere in between.
Here is what we understood: In politics, someone is always keeping score. Until January 1, 2015, the insiders, the cronies, and the sycophantic media were the ones doing so. They shaped “narratives” with cherry-picked facts in their effort to deceive the voters and keep themselves in charge.
With Texas Scorecard, our goal has been to make sure the citizens had the information they needed to start keeping score themselves. Our part has been simple: We report real news with the facts in their truthful context. Our context—the perspective that underlies our reporting—is that in our self-governing republic, the citizens are supposed to be in charge. The politicians are your servants.
This has made me and my team unpopular in and around the Texas Capitol. That’s fine with us; the Austin sewer reeks of corruption. Anyone seeking the applause of the lobby, striving to enter the backrooms of power, usually ends up stinking.
We want to open the windows, let in the sunshine, and fumigate the place. We don’t want a seat at their table; we want to get rid of their table.
It took a while for the Austin powerbrokers to figure out we weren’t interested in serving them. That’s why disgraced former Speaker Dennis Bonnen and his toady lieutenant, Dustin Burrows, tried to ensnare me in a quid pro quo trap in 2019. They thought the allure of “access” would bend us to their will or provide a legal club to beat us.
Instead, we shone a light on their misdeeds, and Bonnen was forced from office by activists who didn’t like seeing what the cockroaches were doing in the darkness of the Capitol.
Our team’s reporting has led to the downfall of players in higher education, and we’ve been blamed for the fallout caused by exposing pedophiles in schools, corrupt municipal officials, and—of course—duplicitous lawmakers.
Even as we’ve created enemies inside the halls of power, we’ve made lifelong friends around the state. The Texas Minute is read daily by hundreds of thousands of Texans, and that number is growing. Our video programs were viewed 13 million times in the last 12 months alone.
Yet this is only possible because of our readers. We don’t hide our content behind paywalls, accept advertising, or apply for government grants. We operate through the sacrificial and generous donations of thousands of real Texans who want real news available to their friends and neighbors.
When we began, we were exclusively a “words on paper and screen” operation. I would have laughed (or shivered!) at the thought of daily videos, weekly shows, and long-form documentaries. But we’re producing those products specifically because citizens have asked for them.
We don’t exist to exist. We don’t exist to serve the interests of the powerbrokers and kingmakers. We exist to help you be more effective as a citizen. We will, for as long as you will let us, continue to stand with you in the fight for life and liberty in the Lone Star State.
Respectfully yours,
Michael Quinn Sullivan
Publisher
