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Good morning,

You might be surprised to learn that not a single Texas Republican campaigned to “raise your tax burden slower” or to “make government more burdensome less quickly than the Democrats.” I end the week reflecting on why that's what we've been getting. 

This is the Texas Minute for Friday, March 28, 2025.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Islamic Center Under Securities Investigation Amid Growing Scrutiny

• More investigations have been announced into a controversial Islamic center in North Texas that is planning a massive housing development called EPIC City. Brandon Waltens has the story.
        
• Gov. Greg Abbott announced yesterday that the Texas State Securities Board has launched an investigation into the East Plano Islamic Center and its affiliated entities for potential violations of state and federal securities laws. According to the governor, the probe centers around whether EPIC has failed to comply with legal requirements meant to protect investors from fraud and financial abuse.
        
• The wave of investigations comes amid growing concerns from critics who say the project may be operating as a self-contained Islamic enclave—potentially at odds with state and federal laws.

UT Austin's Interim President Sides With Woke Faculty, Promises to Defend Status Quo

• In his first address to the faculty council, UT Austin's interim president expressed his solidarity this week with their efforts to maintain power over the institution. Robert Montoya has details from the meeting.
       
• Jim Davis told the faculty council that “it’s obvious we’re under public scrutiny” and suggested it needs to do a better job of telling its story. He cited leftwing publications—the Texas Tribune and the Austin American-Statesman—as "friends" in that effort.
       
• The faculty council represents the philosophy of “shared governance” in state universities. Simply put, “shared governance” is when the appointed boards of regents, accountable to Texans for managing universities, and their designees—like the chancellors and presidents—share power with an otherwise unaccountable body of university faculty.
      
• Legislation moving in the Texas Senate would restore the constitutional governance of the institutions by stripping such faculty entities of power. When pressed by faculty members on the matter, Davis did not explicitly express a position on the Senate's proposal—but did say the regents have an “interest in supporting faculty.”

Lawmakers Slam Medicaid Provider for Spying on Patients and Legislators

• Lawmakers expressed serious concerns this week after learning that one of the state’s largest Medicaid contractors had hired private investigators to gather information on patients, journalists, and even public officials.
      
• During testimony before the Texas House Committee on the Delivery of Government Efficiency, Superior HealthPlan CEO Mark Sanders confirmed that the company had in the past employed private investigators to look into individuals who had either filed claims or were otherwise connected to company-related disputes.
       
• Committee Chairman Giovanni Capriglione (R–Southlake) pressed Sanders on the scope and motivation behind the investigations, citing emails from Sanders to private investigators. Capriglione then posed a direct question: Had Superior ever hired investigators to look into state officials or their families? The answer was yes. 
        
• This revelation triggered strong reactions from lawmakers—particularly State  Rep. Tony Tinderholt (R–Arlington). “It makes me wonder what the heck they're even doing with you in this position when you conduct yourself like that."
      
• Late yesterday, it was announced that Sanders had been fired.

Texas Senate Passes Ban on Red Flag Gun Laws

• Drawing a clear line in the sand on gun rights, the Texas Senate has passed legislation that would make it illegal for state or local officials to enforce federal red flag laws—going so far as to criminalize cooperation with such orders.
    
• Dubbed the “Anti-Red Flag Act,” Senate Bill 1362 by Bryan Hughes (R-Mineola) passed the chamber on a party-line vote of 20-11.
       
• The legislation prohibits the recognition, enforcement, or service of court orders restricting an individual’s access to firearms without a criminal conviction. It also bars local governments from accepting federal funding to implement or enforce such orders and declares them “unenforceable” within state lines.
      
• Chris McNutt, the president of Texas Gun Rights, said that while the Senate’s passage of the bill was a huge victory for gun owners, the battle isn’t over.

More Senate News

Senators Would Allow Texans to Sue Entities Pushing Abortion Pills

The legislation would allow private citizens to file lawsuits against internet companies advertising abortion pills. It also expands the attorney general’s power to prosecute such companies.

This Sunday on REAL TEXANS

J.M. Lozano

Friday Reflection
Keeping Promises

Making a promise only matters when the promise is kept. We each understand the need to keep our promises and do what we say. If only our politicians would do likewise …

Proverbs 25:14 reads, “Like clouds and wind without rain is a man who boasts of a gift he does not give.”

Politicians like to brag about how they will maneuver legislative debate and capture stunning victories—they just need the citizenry to back off so they can “get things done.”

In other words: shut up and look the other way.

Frankly, I’m losing track of how many times self-proclaimed conservative legislators have told grassroots activists to “stand down” on an important point of principle because a super-special, secret backroom deal has been cut for future action on bigger issues ... only for the promised results never to materialize.

Too many politicians want credit for making a deal, even if nothing of substance gets delivered. 

In the real world, a deal is only as good as the tangible results. Everything else is a con job.

For example, the property tax burden in Texas is still stifling despite more than 25 years of GOP promises to the contrary. If the new budget is adopted, the Texas state government will have grown by 40 percent in the last four years.

Is that what you expected to be down-ballot in an election that gave us Donald Trump slashing away at federal bureaucracies? Too many Texas Republicans have adopted the showmanship of Donald Trump without embracing his commitment to delivering on his promises.

Not a single Republican campaigned to “raise your tax burden slower” or to “make government more burdensome less quickly than the Democrats.”

Yet, that’s what we have been getting.

In the even-numbered years of political campaigns, politicians promise to be about the business of lowering tax burdens, reducing the size of government, and putting bureaucracies on a strict diet. In the odd-numbered years of Texas’ legislative sessions, we are treated to their dealmaking with the crony cartel of handout-seeking lobbyists, proclamations honoring the dishonorable, and shell games in place of real tax relief.

As the days slip away in this legislative session, as they have in the sessions for the last two decades of GOP control, the goods aren’t yet being delivered. In fairness, the Texas Senate seems at least to be trying. The Texas House is a whole different story.

Having crossed the halfway mark of Texas’ legislative session, Republican lawmakers must stop with the bluster lest voters see them as nothing more than con men. It is past time for the politicians to start delivering on their promises.

Quote-Unquote

"If we are too weak to take charge of our own morality, we shall not be strong enough to take charge of our own liberty."

– Calvin Coolidge