Good morning –

So many voices want to deny American exceptionalism because they want to destroy America. 

More on that at the end of today's Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Friday, June 25, 2021
Update your email preferences.

Special Agenda Speculation

• With a special session of the Texas Legislature scheduled for July 8 – but without an agenda yet set by the governor – Jeramy Kitchen reviews Greg Abbott’s recent comments to glean what lawmakers and citizens can expect. 
   
• The governor has specifically mentioned election integrity reforms and banning critical race theory, both of which were botched primarily by the Texas House leadership. Other issues might include bail reform, free-speech protections on social media, and allocation of federal COVID-19 relief dollars.
   
• Oh… and funding of the Legislative Branch, since Gov. Abbott used the line-item veto to zero it out for 2022 and 2023.

• At 11 a.m. today, join Brandon Waltens on The Headline. He has invited me to join him in discussing the session’s biggest unsung win – spending limits and what it portends for the future – as well as engage in some rank speculation about the special session.

Visitation Rights

• For the latest edition of Texas Scorecard’s Autopsy Reports of the 87th Session, Robert Montoya examines the status of legislation protecting the visitation rights of residents in long-term nursing facilities. The heart-breaking issue came to light last year when Gov. Greg Abbott stopped families from being able to check on their loved ones.
   
• “As long as visitation is still restricted, and as long as people in long term care still are not fully restored all their rights, then Texas is not fully open.” – Mary Nichols of Texas Caregivers for Compromise

Edinburg’s Abortion Ban

• Amid growing buzz over changing politics in the Rio Grande Valley, the mayor and city council of Edinburg expressed unanimous support for becoming the latest “sanctuary city for the unborn.” David Vasquez has the story.

Y’All Answered

While we still don’t know officially what issues will be on the July 8 special legislative session that has been called by Gov. Greg Abbott, he previously indicated election integrity will be on the list. Democrats, meanwhile, have said they will seek to obstruct those reforms. So yesterday we asked if you were confident Gov. Abbott and Speaker of the House Dade Phelan will prevent Democrats from obstructing election integrity reforms in a special session.

Readers responded: 92.3 percent said “no,” while 7.7 percent said “yes.”

• “No, why should we be confident Gov. Greg Abbott and House Speaker Phelan will act to prevent more Democrat obstructionism on election integrity reforms. They too often haven’t acted in the past.” – Buddy Saunders
      

• “The track record is already available...if they had really cared about the issues, they would have pressed them in the regular session.  Politics is as politics does.” – Arthur Potter
      

• “I honestly answered “No” that I am not confident because of past performance. Only if Texans loudly and strongly chew their hineys off and seriously hold them to it with emails, calls, letters, etc. would we have a chance of conservative priorities getting passed.” – Andra Haney
      
• “Speaker of the House Dade Phelan is still the problem...  He needs to go before anything good can be accomplished.” – Joe Zimmer
       
• “The real game is between ordinary Texas citizens vs the Texas political class in Austin which includes the leadership of both parties and their cronies whose actual goal is simply to continue to wield power. They cleverly set up the game so that ‘heads they win, tails we lose. How many times must we play until we stop playing and expose their fraud?” – Jon Francis

Friday Reflection:
America the Exceptional

We live in an age with countless voices united against American exceptionalism. We are under an anti-American barrage every day from leftists politicians, actors, media personalities, college professors, and coffee shop baristas.

The only way for them to instill the tyranny that will empower leftists is to convince us to forget just how extraordinary it is to be an American. 

It began by selling the lie that there is nothing special about being an American, that we are just like everyone else. But the fact is, America is anything but common.

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher understood that. She once said, “Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.”

But it was not just any philosophy, but one grounded in the simple truth – even if imperfectly applied –  that all men are created equal and have the right to govern themselves.

In the early 1840s a young historian named Mellen Chamberlain sought out one of the last surviving participants in the Battle of Concord to ask him about that experience. The minuteman’s name was Levi Preston, who was 91 at the time.

(Mr. Chamberlain later recorded the interview in his work, John Adams, the Statesman of the American Revolution.)

Chamberlain asked Preston why he had fought the British. The answers weren’t what the historian expected, for Preston did not speak of the oppressive British rule, the stamp tax, the tea tax or the writings of philosopher John Locke.

“Well, then,” asked Chamberlain, “why did you fight?”

Preston’s answer still takes my breath away: “Young man, what we meant in going for those redcoats was this: We always had governed ourselves, and we always meant to and they meant that we shouldn’t.”

It was this concept of self-government, so natural to Levi Preston and his contemporaries, that changed the world. It is at the practical root of American exceptionalism. It’s why our nation has thrived, even as other, older and more established nations withered and even died. 

It is why tyrants abroad and would-be tyrants at home run down America, denigrate our nation, and seek to draw us away from our founding principles.

America is exceptional because we, the people, govern ourselves. Levi Preston and his generation had the moral courage to do what they knew to be right: reject an offer of tyranny so that self-government and liberty could thrive.

We do not elect almighty leaders, but public servants. We cannot tolerate unlimited government or make allowance for the divine right of politicians. 

We must govern ourselves, thank you very much.

Yet recent events show that self-government is fragile; it only exists to the extent we continue to jealously guard it and actively participate in it. If self-government is to continue, if liberty is to flourish, if we are to remain independent, we must be informed, engaged and active citizens.

We must every day intentionally join Levi Preston in fighting for the right to govern ourselves.