Good morning,

Closing out the week, I reflect on the importance of speaking out.

This is the Texas Minute for Friday, August 15, 2025.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Special Session Ending, and Starting, Today

• Even though the 30-day clock is not set to expire until Tuesday, the House and Senate are expected to adjourn out of the special session today.
      
• The Senate has completed the work set forth by the governor in the call of the special session. In contrast, nothing was accomplished in the House because Democrats—rather than fight—fled out of state to disrupt the quorum requirements for conducting legislative business.
    
• The governor will be calling the chambers back into an immediate special session with the same agenda, including congressional redistricting. Speaking at an event in Williamson County yesterday, State Sen. Charles Schwertner said he expects his chamber to move quickly to re-file and pass all the legislation again within the first few days.
       
• The Texas House Democrat Caucus issued two demands yesterday as "conditions" for their return. One demand, that the House adjourn today, had been announced earlier in the week. The second demand was that California promise to gerrymander itself further by reducing the number of Republican congressional seats there. Currently, more than 40 percent of the statewide vote there goes to the GOP, while less than 20 percent of the congressional districts can be won by Republicans.

China Made Up 8% of Foreign Buyers in Texas' Real Estate Market

• According to a new report by Texas Realtors, the purchase of residential properties by international buyers increased by nine percent in 2025. Buyers from Mexico accounted for 30 percent of the purchases, while Canada and China each accounted for eight percent. Addie Hovland has the details.
       
• The percentage of Chinese buyers is expected to drop next year. A new state law takes effect on Sept. 1 that bars the sale of Texas residential, agricultural, commercial, and industrial land to citizens of foreign countries designated as national security threats by either the U.S. Director of National Intelligence or the governor. Those currently include China, North Korea, and Iran.

Poll: Majority of Republican Primary Voters Support THC Ban

• In a recent opinion research poll conducted by Baselice & Associates, 62 percent of Republican primary voters are found to support a total ban on consumable THC products.
       
• The poll also found 63 percent of Republicans opposed efforts to regulate THC products, rather than ban them outright.
      
• Steve Dye, the police chief in Allen, told lawmakers this week that more medical research is emerging that "THC consumables are extremely harmful, particularly to our younger populations." He said that the Texas Police Chiefs Association has not found a way to successfully regulate THC.

Fight To Safeguard Secret Ballot Continues in Harris County

• Erin Anderson reports that a federal fight over protecting voters’ right to cast a secret ballot is underway in Harris County.
    

• The fight began last year when Texans discovered that, under certain circumstances, publicly available voting records could be used to match specific voters to their ballots, undermining the secrecy of their votes. The Texas Secretary of State’s Office responded by instructing local election officials to redact any information on publicly released documents that could connect a voter to their ballot choices. For some voters, that’s not enough to ensure confidence in the current system.
       

• The Public Interest Legal Foundation filed a lawsuit against Harris County, alleging the voting system allows thousands of ballots to be tracked back to individual voters in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.
       

• Harris County Clerk Tenisha Hudspeth, the county’s elections administrator, doesn’t deny government employees can access data required to deduce how specific people voted—only that such access would be “unauthorized.”
      

• “The secret ballot is a cornerstone of political privacy.” – J. Christian Adams, president of Public Interest Legal Foundation

Small Texas Business Targeted by Impossible Foods

• A small Austin‑based performance lifestyle company is locked in a years‑long trademark battle with plant-based meat giant Impossible Foods. As Travis Morgan reports, the small business has operated under the “Impossible” name since 2010—three years before the other company.
       
• In 2010, Impossible LLC was founded by Joel Runyon. The company’s name originated from Runyon’s personal “list of impossible things” he sought to accomplish. As he completed these goals, he would check them off the list. This led him to create a blog encouraging others to “do something impossible.”
       
• Three years later, a company called Maraxi, Inc.—which reportedly made artisanal cheeses from nuts—was looking to rebrand and make “plant-derived foods to replace animal-based foods worldwide.” The leading name choice for this rebrand was “Impossible Foods.” It then proceeded to sue the Texas company.
      
• Impossible Foods has become notorious for lawsuits of this kind. The multi-billion-dollar company has been accused of burying small businesses under legal fees in “David vs. Goliath” fights.
      
• "I really don’t like bullies," said Runyon. "From being unemployed in my parents' basement to running an ultra marathon on every continent to raising hundreds of thousands of dollars to build schools for kids around the world through Impossible.org – IMPOSSIBLE ® has been my life’s work."

This Sunday on REAL TEXANS

NOTE: All three announced candidates seeking the GOP nomination for comptroller have been invited to schedule an interview.

Friday Reflection

Loud Stones

Jesus was highly confrontational. Every aspect of His ministry was filled with confrontation. He confronted individuals’ complacency with sin, their misunderstandings about God, and their attitudes toward each other. He also took every opportunity to confront the corruption of the ruling elite. 

One of my favorite vignettes from the New Testament is a confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees. They wanted Him to silence His followers, who were hailing Him as the Messiah. Jesus refused. “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

Jesus then just moved along, no doubt leaving the Pharisees sputtering in anger.

That occurred in the final days before His crucification, but for me it echoes an incident earlier in His ministry. During a different trip to Jerusalem, Jesus healed a man who had been paralyzed for 38 years. 

The Gospel of John tells us that this paralytic man lived in a particularly nasty personal torment. Local myth had it that when the waters of the Bethesda pool were disturbed, the first person in would be healed of their malady. While the paralyzed man sat each day near the pool, he had no one to help him move to the water.

The establishment political and religious leaders certainly weren’t going to waste their time helping him.

So Jesus did. Jesus healed the man without making him so much as get his fingertips wet. But when the man picked up his things to leave—he was healed!—the establishment’s shrill response was predictable: Sit down and be quiet. They had their regulations, after all.

For the establishment elite, neither the Sabbath nor the Law was about honoring God and loving their neighbor. The laws and customs around it had become a tool for enriching themselves and enabling their self-decreed importance as cultural regulators.

The former paralytic man was having none of it. We’re told he “went away” and told people what Jesus had done for him.

When confronting the self-important establishment and their shrill regulators today, we should follow that healed man’s lead. As citizens in this self-governing republic, we have an obligation to keep moving, loudly proclaiming what is true, no matter how inconvenient it is to those in power.

Quote-Unquote

"To sin by silence, when they should protest, makes cowards of men."

– Ella Wheeler Wilcox

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