Good morning!

Here is today's Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Thursday, June 10, 2021
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• Election integrity reform is mostly dead this year due to mismanagement by Republicans in the Texas Legislature. But it may be revived—if the same lawmakers who bungled the priority over the past several months can do better in a special legislative session.
     
• In our continuing series of autopsy reports on the 87th Legislative Session, Erin Anderson finds conservatives’ top-priority election integrity overhaul was bungled by Republican legislators in a way that set Democrats up for an easy win.
      
• “Our Republicans did not manage the calendar as well as they should have,” explained Jill Glover, who oversaw the Republican Party of Texas’ legislative priorities.
      
• The GOP lawmakers had every opportunity to do it right, and proceeded to squander their advantages. After all, election integrity was the top legislative priority of the Republican Party of Texas – and it was the only RPT priority given fast-track emergency status by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott on February 1. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dade Phelan both publicly endorsed major election reform bills filed in the House and Senate.
      
• Yet even then, lawmakers in both chambers failed to consider election integrity (or any of the governor’s emergency items) until the legislative session was beyond the first 60 days. The Republican lawmakers instead delayed work to the very end, which ultimately led to defeat.

• Parents in a north Texas school district are concerned about an image featured in last year’s yearbook depicting Donald Trump as Hitler. Tera Collum reports their frustration has been compounded by the district’s top bureaucrat failing to respond to their complaints. 
      
• “We found out that parents had complained about it but had heard nothing from our superintendent, so that was even more upsetting,” activist Natalie Genco, a parent from Colleyville, told radio host Chris Salcedo yesterday. “Parents paid hard-earned money for this yearbook to receive propaganda.” 

• Amid a contentious public safety disaster in Texas’ capital, a growing chorus of citizens are now calling for city officials to reveal what they did with hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars that were wasted under the guise of subsidizing the homelessness crisis. Jacob Asmussen has the details.
   
• “It’s time they show where they’ve been spending the money,” said Matt Mackowiak, co-founder of citizen group Save Austin Now. “Taxpayers deserve to know how $160 million were spent over fiscal years 2018-2020 and what we have to show for it.”

• Texans commuting around the state will see new campaign signs for the 2022 gubernatorial race, touching on issues important to Republican primary voters. Jeramy Kitchen reports Don Huffines – who is challenging incumbent Gov. Greg Abbott in the 2022 Republican primary – is focusing his billboard messages on closing the border, removing taxpayer subsidies to illegal immigrants, and eliminating the property tax system completely. 

• Political races are shaping up ahead of the 2022 primary election season, with former Austin City Council member Ellen Troxclair announcing her bid to replace Sen. Dawn Buckingham (R–Lakeway), who formally announced her own candidacy for Texas Land Commissioner earlier in the week.
   
• The field for the Senate District 24 seat is expected to grow in the coming weeks and months.
   
• The exact date of the Republican and Democrat primaries is not yet known, pending redistricting later this year.

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