Good morning!

Politicians must understand that the political hammers citizens use to build their path to office will be used to fight them out. More on that at the end of today's Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Friday, August 13, 2021
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Still No House Arrests

• Yesterday marked the 31st day in which House Speaker Dade Phelan and the Republican majority had been unable (or unwilling) to compel Democrats to attend to legislative business in the Texas Capitol.
      
• As you might recall, the Republican members of the Texas House on Tuesday voted to compel the attendance of quorum-busting Democrats – up to and including arrest. Yesterday afternoon, the House Sergeant-at-Arms finally got around to deputizing law enforcement officers to go about that task. When or if they will do so remains to be seen.

Abbott Takes Heat For Not Protecting Kids

• No doubt Gov. Greg Abbott thought he was playing high-level chess when he punted a question about children being coerced into gender-transition procedures over to an agency he controls. Instead, the question he asked – and the narrow answer the bureaucrats provided – has only made things worse.
     
• After ignoring the issue for four years, being silent about it during the regular legislative session, and not adding it to either special session agenda, Abbott was pressed about it a month ago by Dallas radio show host Mark Davis. Backed into a corner, the governor promised action within the week and a half that followed. No action came for three weeks, and when it did… it was in the form of the aforementioned narrow letter, asking the Texas Department of Family & Protective Services if surgeries that mutilate a child's genitals constitute child abuse.
      
• As Jacob Asmussen reports, DFPS responded to that most narrow question this week – with neither the agency nor the governor acknowledging that the real problem has been drugs that block puberty, chemical castration, and even psychological “counseling” designed to confuse a child into accepting a new gender identity.
   
• “It’s past time for Greg Abbott to put an end to the games and be honest with voters about where he stands on these issues. He can either demand legislation to protect vulnerable kids from abusers, protect girls’ and women’s sports at the K-12 and collegiate level, and protect women in public restrooms, or he can come out as an ally of the transgender movement,” said Don Huffines, one of three individuals challenging Abbott for the GOP gubernatorial nomination in 2022.

When You Give A Democrat Power…

• Even as parents and Republican leaders are criticizing Texas public schools for imposing a new round of mask mandates, the chairman of the Texas House Committee on Public Education has drafted legislation… authorizing those mandates. The chairman, of course, is a Democrat put in that position by House Speaker Dade Phelan. Jeramy Kitchen has the story.
   
• Legislation by Harold Dutton Jr. (D–Houston) would allow a school board to require masks or face coverings in schools for children 12 years old or younger.
      
• In 2020, Gov. Greg Abbott arbitrarily gave schools the power to require that students wear masks. This summer he issued an executive order denying them that power going forward, but schools around the state are imposing the mandates anyway.
   
• Earlier this year, several Republican lawmakers attempted to file legislation that would ban mask mandates in state law. House Speaker Phelan never allowed those legislative initiatives to move forward.

• Establishment Republicans have long defended the practice of letting Democrats helm major committees. State Rep. Briscoe Cain (R-Deer Park) has spoken passionately in defense of the GOP putting Democrats in charge of legislative committees.

What If You Throw A Filibuster And No One Cares?

• No one in Texas cared about – or even noticed – the filibuster staged one night this week by a Democrat member of the Texas Senate. Carol Alvarado’s performance perfectly encapsulates the miserable state of Texas Democrats: meaningless and uncreative obstruction.
       
• Her stunt involved starting a filibuster after debate ended on a bill that had already passed the chamber twice this year. Yes, she filibustered all night… when nothing else was going on. She ended her push in time for regular work to begin the next morning. The bill she opposed then passed, with no one mentioning her pointless exercise.
      
• The “filibuster” was roughly analogous to a high school student pulling an all-night study session to cram for a test in a class he is not taking. Except, in that scenario, it is conceivable the student learned something.
      

• Texas’ legislative Democrats are essentially irrelevant as an independent political force in the Lone Star State. Democrats in the Texas Capitol only have the power given to them by Republicans.

Senate Passes Election Integrity Bill… For A Third Time

• And the House hasn’t. Still.
     
• Erin Anderson explains what the Senate’s election integrity bill does, why it is important, and what to expect next.

Catch The Headline

• At 11 a.m. today, join Brandon Waltens live on The Headline as he and Jacob Asmussen talk about the local governments that have decided to defy Gov. Greg Abbott on the new round of mask mandates.

• Before I close out the week, please join me in wishing a very happy Saturday birthday to Texas Scorecard’s administrative assistant, Luke Marshall.

Friday Reflection: Be A Hammer

Politicians who ignore their base are nothing new. What is “new” are citizens being willing to fight back. 

Let’s go back to about 100 B.C., the Syrian Seleucids had taken over Judea, and their culture took root among the upper-class Jews in Jerusalem. These were Jews ready to be done with the law and other religious trappings of Judaism. They wanted to be accepted, socially and economically, into the kingdom of their latest masters.

That didn’t sit well with observant Jews, particularly those living in the countryside. They saw two enemies: their backstabbing countrymen, and the Hellenistic Seleucids whose king had—for a bribe—unceremoniously forced out the rightful high priest.

The country rabble didn’t like it, and they decided to fight back - literally. Over the course of a decade, the Maccabees - named for their founding military hero, who reportedly fought with a massive sledgehammer - set about the work of reclaiming their country. Victory was achieved after they captured Jerusalem, sent the Seleucidians packing, and installed a new high priest.

The Maccabees wanted Israel to govern itself, so they could worship and go about life under God’s law. Unfortunately, the freedom purchased with the blood of the rabble was quickly squandered. In what would end up as Israel’s last chance at real sovereignty, the political and religious leaders stumbled.

Rather than embrace the system of self-governance God presented to Moses, they installed yet another human king. Divided loyalties arose, creating the “Pharisee” and “Sadducee” parties who competed—sometimes violently—for political leadership.

This created an opportunity for the region’s new superpower, Rome, to step in. By 63 B.C., Israel had become a client kingdom. In 37 B.C., all pretense was dropped and the Roman Senate installed Herod the Great as “King of the Jews.”

Self-governance in Israel was destroyed by preening politicians more concerned with their own power and prestige than the principles of the people they nominally served.

We can all relate. Time and again grassroots activists have given of their time and energy to elect men and women whose heads are quickly turned by the establishment elite. Rather than staying true to the principles upon which they campaigned, the politician betrays the grassroots and undermines his own legacy.

The ancient Jews stopped fighting, and lost their country for two millennia. 

We must not allow the liberty achieved through self-governance to be sacrificed by politicians on the self-interested altars they erect to themselves. Even when elected officials become faithless, we citizens must remain faithful to our principles.

As citizens, the answer to all this is frustratingly simple: we must remain vigorously in the fight. The politicians must understand that the political hammers we use to build their path to office will be used to fight them out. 

The fight for liberty doesn’t end when we elect “the right person” - it only intensifies. We must be fully and completely involved in the governing affairs of our cities, schools, counties, state, and nation.

That is the cost of citizenship in our republic. That is the joy of citizenship in our republic. That is the high calling of self-governance in our republic.