Good morning –

“Just be nice,” the politicians say as they undermine the republic and erode our liberty. I close the week by reflecting on the modern virtue of “niceness” at the end of today’s Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Friday, July 9, 2021
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Legislature Starts 30-Day Special Session… By Funding Themselves

• As the special session gets underway, committees in both the Senate and House are meeting today. Rather than focus on election integrity or border security, both chambers are starting off their work by restoring the funding for the legislative branch that was vetoed by Gov. Greg Abbott.  

Election Integrity

• With Texas lawmakers back in Austin addressing their unfinished business from the regular legislative session, election integrity is at the top of voters’ concerns. As Erin Anderson observes, advocates see this as a second chance for the Texas Legislature to overcome Democrat opposition and do what other Republican-run states were able to accomplish this year: enact meaningful reforms to restore voters’ confidence that elections are secure and their votes count.
        
• Put differently: will Republican lawmakers have the courage to follow Florida and Georgia in securing Texas’ elections?
          
• In a surprising move, the House election integrity effort will be led by Andrew Murr (R-Junction) rather than the chairman of the House Committee on Elections, Briscoe Cain (R-Deer Park) – and the bill will be sent to a new select committee rather than Cain’s committee. 

Priorities, By The Number

• It might seem trivial, but the “bill number” assigned to legislation speaks volumes about where it ranks in the mind of a chamber’s presiding officer. This special session is no different.
   
• Lt. Gov. Patrick assigned “Senate Bill 1” for this special session (as noted above) to election security.
   
• In contrast, Speaker Phelan gave “House Bill 1” to restoring funding for the legislature.

• Join Brandon Waltens and Jeramy Kitchen at 11 a.m. live for The Headline for a discussion about the start of the special session. (The video archive and podcast will be available early this afternoon.)

Tinderholt Aims At House Democrats

• With Texas House Democrats threatening to again bust the quorum requirements of the chamber in order to thwart election integrity reform, Republican Tony Tinderholt (Arlington) has filed a resolution to punish such behavior. Jeramy Kitchen has the details.
      
• Tinderholt’s resolution would modify the House rules to strip chairmanships, committee membership, and seniority from those members who participate in quorum-busting. Yet Speaker Dade Phelan (Beaumont-R) would not respond to Tinderholt’s inquiries yesterday about advancing the measure for the House’s consideration.
      
• It’s almost like Phelan and his Republican lieutenants work for the Democrats…

Border Security (Finally) A Priority

• Despite the recent push by Gov. Abbott, border security was not a priority for him in the 2021 regular session. But now that it is a priority in this special session, State Sen. Bob Hall (R-Edgewood), and State Reps. Jeff Cason (R-Bedford) and Bryan Slaton (R-Royse City) have re-filed legislation that was ignored just a few months ago.
     
• Slaton proposed in March a measure he has re-filed that would pay for the construction of the border wall and name it the “President Donald J. Trump Wall.” Cason has a series of measures designed to turn off the “magnets” incentivizing illegal immigration, while Hall wants to create an interstate compact on border security and immigration enforcement that bypasses the federal government.

Why No Protection For Children?

• Citizens and lawmakers alike are urging Gov. Greg Abbott to add to the special session agenda an urgently needed ban on child disfigurement operations. Jacob Asmussen has the details.

Florida Rising

• Data shows Florida is leading when it comes to relative job growth, while the Lone Star State is leading in business bankruptcy filings. As Robert Montoya reports, the Sunshine State is besting both Texas and California in key economic indicators.

Antifa Targets Austin City Manager

• Despite his own left-leaning ideology, Austin City Manager Spencer Cronk has been targeted by Antifa, with a cell of the organization showing up at his home to protest and intimidate. Adam Cahn has the story.

Friday Reflection: Stop Being Nice

Most of us live our days striving to be nice. We think we can just be all smiles and exude love by being nice to those who do evil. It’s a niceness that doesn’t appear in scripture, and provides only a self-serving sense of cowardly righteousness.

In scripture we don’t find this modern version of “nice” that so many church leaders and secularists push Christians to embrace. We find love. We find generosity. We find kindness. We find sincerity. We find patience.

But this gooey, saccharine-sweet niceness is nowhere to be found.

On nearly every page of the Gospels you will find Jesus dining with culture’s untouchables, healing the infirm, instructing the weak – but He isn’t “nice” – he is firm, honest, truthful, patient. He lovingly tells them the truth about their sin. He tells them to “go and sin no more.”

But with the ruling elite of the day? With the rulers who profit from self-dealing and cronyism? He calls them “serpents” and a “brood of vipers.” He says they are “whitewashed tombs.” He calls them murderers. These words weren’t directed at the occupying Romans, or the atheists, or adherents to other religions; they were pointed at His fellow Jews.

Nothing about that was “nice.” It was true. It was honest. And it was a kindness to those who were being oppressed.

No doubt many wanted Jesus to just be nice. You can hear them demand, “More of the ‘water into wine’ and ‘free bread and fish,’ Jesus, and less of the viper-talk.”

It is no different today. I can only speak to the experience of Republicans, but those who yell the loudest for citizens to be “nice” to politicians are the ones profiting off selling out the values and principles for which the GOP reportedly stands.

We can be nice serfs, or we can be driven citizen-leaders. We can smile pleasantly as our Republic is run into ruin, or we can fight for the inheritance of self-governance meant for ourselves and our posterity.

Rather than be “nice,” let us first and always strive to be passionate citizens faithfully committed to the cause of liberty.