Good morning! 

Think one vote doesn’t matter? Women have the constitutional right to vote thanks to one Tennessee legislator’s vote back in 1920.

Here is today's Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Tuesday, August 18, 2020
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• Though he’s yet to be sworn in to the Texas House, incoming Republican lawmaker Bryan Slaton announced Monday his first bill will be to end executive overreach during future crises. Slaton wants to “end the current abuses of the Texas Disaster Act of 1975,” which has been Gov. Greg Abbott’s justification for his “unilateral” actions during the Chinese coronavirus pandemic. Brandon Waltens has the details.
          
• According to Slaton, besides frustrations with their property tax burden, “Abbott’s executive overreach was the most frequently criticized policy by voters at the polls.”

• Gov. Greg Abbott will be joined in Fort Worth later today by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, House Speaker Dennis Bonnen, and a variety of state and local politicians to discuss “a proposal related to police funding.”
     
• Be weary of any promises of “state funding” or “state resources” to subsidize or otherwise make up for what local city councils are cutting... Such a scheme would probably increase taxpayers’ overall burden and decrease accountability, while making more “local” money available for favored leftist causes like subsidizing abortion services.

• State estimates show more than 405,800 Texans have recovered from a confirmed coronavirus infection, compared to 9,983 who have died. The state’s population currently exceeds 29 million. Robert Montoya has the details.
     
• Why are Gov. Abbott’s mandates still in place?
       
• Many of Texas’ most vulnerable citizens are finding themselves living in “solitary confinement.” That’s the description Michelle Guppy used to describe the living conditions for her family after Gov. Abbott's coronavirus mandates shuttered a program used by her son Brandon, a special-needs adult. 

• In a new commentary, Adam Cahn describes how a reporter for Austin’s most progressive media organization has launched a sexist broadside against local mothers and the survivors of sex trafficking.
   
• Just when you think the establishment media couldn’t get any worse, they plumb new depths...

Please join me in congratulating our development director, Shelby, and her husband, Austin Griesinger, on their wedding this past weekend!

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