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Here is today's Texas Minute.

– Brandon Waltens 

Friday, July 31, 2020
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• On August 3, Robert Montoya reports, the Carroll ISD school board will vote on whether to adopt an action plan that would spend $425,000 of taxpayer money on tasks such as forming a District Diversity Council, creating a snitch line for students to accuse each other, and establishing an LGBTQ+ student focus group. All of this is being done to address “microaggressions,” but parents have time to voice their opposition to the elected members of the school board.
   

• Recently, Texas Scorecard received a draft of Carroll ISD’s Cultural Competence Action Plan. The draft says this plan came about in response to a social media video in 2018, in which Carroll ISD students used racial slurs. Instead of letting parents take appropriate action with the students involved, the school board proposed this plan for every student to combat what they call “microaggressions.”

• All of this will cost the taxpayers $425,000 to start, with a yearly cost of a quarter of a million dollars from 2021-2025.

• A new report from Forbes explains why Texas is in trouble. Last year, 78,064 state and local government employees made more than $100,000 each, and 18,600 of them out-earned Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who made $153,750.
   

•  The report found speech writers for university presidents making up to $140,000; library directors collecting $202,875; community college presidents making up to $505,000; and city managers raking in an eye-popping $1.85 million over the last three years. 
   

• As the Texas Legislature prepares to enter a session in January in which they will face a drastically reduced economic forecast due to coronavirus closures and lower oil prices, everything must be on the table as they balance the budget. 

• After recent riots swept the nation and left behind a trail of burned cities, destroyed livelihoods, and murdered citizens, Austin City Council members are now pushing to significantly defund local police and even demolish their headquarters.
   
• Jacob Asmussen writes that three councilmembers—two Democrats and one self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist—have proposed cutting out various parts of the Austin Police Department, with the stated goal of ultimately removing at least $100 million, a quarter of the budget, from the already understaffed force.
   

• The council would take most of the money and spend it elsewhere on social services. Councilman Greg Casar said when the council finishes coming up with all of their police cuts, “we can reach an over $100 million change in the police budget toward progressive change.”

• His colleague Jimmy Flannigan, however, took Casar’s ideas even further—saying they should also demolish the police building downtown.

• Conservatives are draining the swamp in Amarillo. Thomas Warren writes that the recent election of Ronny Jackson in the congressional primary runoff election earlier this month is a sign that local voters are fighting back against the establishment political system that has long dominated Amarillo politics.

Be sure to tune into the Friday Roundup today at 11 a.m. on Facebook Live, where we recap some of the week's biggest stories. This week, we will be joined by former Colleyville councilman and congressional candidate Chris Putnam to discuss why now is the time for Texas parents to take back public schools from the radical left.

Friday Reflection

by Michael Quinn Sullivan

It’s in the Gospel of Matthew where we find Jesus’ wise admonition that “No one can serve two masters.” Practical experiences shows us that no matter how hard we try, it is always true. And it is especially true in politics.

I find very few instances in which someone ran for office for the sake of being corrupt. No, corruption happens over time as elected officials start seeking the approval of lobbyists and their fellow elected officials, rather than the voters for whom they work. It happens when they worship the master of governing power rather than serve the citizens.

Not a day goes by, it seems, in which I don’t hear a legislator tell me that they have to do such-and-such – or, more often, cannot do that thing – because they “have to work with these people.” Those people, of course, being their fellow lawmakers. They don’t want to upset the legislative apple cart or disrupt the congeniality of the process or risk being unpopular in Austin or Washington.

Remember, Texas’ legislative session runs for just 140 days out of 730 days, and lawmakers are actively working with other lawmakers for even less time that that. Definitionally, none of the other members of their chamber can vote for them. Yet for many of them, being loved and respected by their fellow lawmakers is more important than keeping the promises they made to their actual constituents – to the people they serve.

Politicians cannot seek both your approval and the approval of the political establishment. The tension of even trying will always result in the citizens losing precious liberties at the altar of contrived congeniality in the religion of self-promotion. 

For our system of government to work, for liberty to be preserved, politicians must remember they are the citizens’ servants. We must expect them to serve the citizens first and only. 

And the citizens should remember it as well.