Good morning –

Today we compare the actions of the two chambers of the legislature during this special session. And in the One Click Survey you’ll find a simple question: should Democrats serve as committee chairs in the GOP-dominated House?

First, here is the Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Wednesday, July 21, 2021
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Border Security At Center Of Capitol Forum

• Texans who have been directly affected by illegal immigration shared their stories at the event put on by State Rep. Bryan Slaton (R-Royse City) at the Texas Capitol.  Brandon Waltens has the report.
     
• “What is taking place right now is an invasion at our southern border,” said Maria Espinoza of the Remembrance Project. “The most egregious of all crimes due to illegal immigration is loss of life.”
     
• “If you’re a country, you have borders. We don’t have a border right now,” said Dan Golvach, whose son was fatally shot by an illegal alien in Houston.

Election Integrity Efforts Detailed

• Tired of Democrats distorting the contents of election integrity bills and smearing the reforms as racist, Republican lawmakers in the Texas House and Senate have set the record straight about what is—and isn’t—included in their proposed legislation. At the top of their list of what’s not in the bills: “voter suppression.”
   
• State Rep. J.M. Lozano (R-Kingsville) said voter integrity “has been proposed by both Republicans and Democrats in every single state for decades.” Erin Anderson has the details.
     
• “This is about protecting voters. Sadly, it’s our most vulnerable voters who are most often preyed upon,” said State Sen. Bryan Hughes (R-Mineola).
   

• The House and Senate election integrity legislation, while not duplicates, are very similar. Among the provisions of the House version are legal assurances that all voters have equal access to the polls, the likelihood of fraud is reduced, and ensures every legally cast ballot is counted.
     

• Other provisions of the election integrity effort include:
  ✅ Additional / extended early voting hours (same number of no-excuse early voting days, which some states don’t have at all);
  ✅ A minimum of six hours of Sunday voting (up from five) to be offered between 9 a.m.-10 p.m.;
  ✅ Voter ID numbers required on mail-in ballots, same as for in-person voting (superseding signature matches);
  ✅ A process for voters to fix mail-ballot errors;
  ✅ Stronger criminalization of paid ballot harvesting and voter assistance fraud;
  ✅ No third parties pre-filling voter registration applications;
  ✅ Secure handling of electronic election records and materials;
  ✅ Automatic forwarding of voter registration to voter’s new home county; and,
  ✅ Prioritizing election-related lawsuits for timely resolution.

Tale Of Two Chambers

Today we offer a quick comparison of the results of the Texas Senate and House so far in the special session called by Gov. Greg Abbott. The 30-day session began on Thursday, July 8, 2021.

Property Tax Burdens Getting Worse…

• A new report from the Texas Public Policy Foundation finds that the Lone Star State “has the 15th worst property tax burden on businesses and the 6th most burdensome property tax on homeowners in the nation.” 
       
• That number has gotten worse in the last year, as noted by Cary Cheshire of Texans for Fiscal Responsibility. WalletHub found in 2020 that Texas had the 7th highest property taxes in the nation.
   
• Yet with a $7 billion budget surplus that could be used to knock property taxes down 10 percent, lawmakers are putting less than a billion toward the effort spread over four years. 

…Especially In “Red” Collin County

• Collin County might be thought of as a Republican stronghold, but the Metroplex-region county is also home to soaring property taxes. As Tera Collum reports, the five Collin County school districts with the largest tax hikes also have fewer than 5,000 enrolled students each.
     
• For example, Anna Independent School District’s taxes have gone up 88 percent since 2013. Meanwhile, Princeton ISD’s property taxes have risen 99.5 percent in the same period.

Blue-Haired Beckley Wants To Stay In Washington

• The famously blue-haired Metroplex Democrat, Michelle Beckley, announced yesterday from Washington, D.C. that she has no plans to return to the Texas House. The Carrollton lawmaker is using her obstructionist trip to Washington as a platform to announce a bid for Congress, challenging Republican freshman Beth Van Dyne. Jeramy Kitchen watched Beckley’s cringy announcement video so that you don’t have to.

Austinites Want To Fund Police

• Amid a tumultuous two-year public safety disaster in Texas’ capital city, tens of thousands of citizens are moving forward a campaign to fund their police department over the city council’s objections. Jacob Asmussen has details on the latest petition effort from Save Austin Now.

ONE CLICK SURVEY

When the 87th Session of the Legislature began, Republicans like Briscoe Cain of Deer Park and Jeff Leach of Allen argued strongly in favor of continuing to have Democrats serve as committee chairs in the GOP-controlled Texas House. (Leach has since said he would strip the absent Democrats of their chairmanships.)

Should Democrats continue to hold those leadership positions?

Once you’ve clicked an answer, reply to this email with any thoughts you’d like to share!

… Coming Soon …

The Texas Scorecard store!