Good morning!

The historical context of a recent ruling from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals is a reminder that it is never a good idea to back down from a principled fight. There will always be self-proclaimed “experts” telling us to stand down and avoid a loss, but I end the week reflecting on the simple fact that only fighters win fights.

First, here is today's Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Friday, August 27, 2021
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Election Integrity Bill Advances

• Late last night, the Texas House gave preliminary approval to Republicans’ top-priority election reform legislation (Senate Bill 1), despite continuing opposition from Democrats. This is the legislative issue that led to Democrats walking out of the regular session May, and then stalling the special sessions for 37 days this summer.
      
• Erin Anderson reports the version passed by the House is different from that passed several weeks ago by the Senate. And both differ from the major election reform bills proposed during the regular session, which the Republican-controlled Legislature failed to pass.
      
• The House sponsor of the legislation was Andrew Murr (R-Junction), who calmly withstood hours of verbal lashings from Democrats.
     
• Once SB 1 passes a final House vote, the measure goes back to the Senate. There, senators can either concur with the House’s changes or request a conference committee that would hammer out a compromise version. That compromise version would then require the approval of both chambers.

Session Clock is Ticking

• The current 30-day special session expires on Sept. 5.
   
• While Senate has passed all of the items on Gov. Abbott’s special session agenda (twice), SB1 is the first measure passed by the House since the regular legislative session ended in May.

Get The Latest Today at 11 a.m.

• At 11 a.m. today, join Brandon Waltens for a live edition of The Headline. He’ll be joined by Texas Scorecard Senior Correspondent Jeramy Kitchen to talk about the sudden flurry of activity in the Texas Capitol. (The video archive and podcast will be available shortly after.)

Abbott Won’t Address Employer Vax Mandates

• While Gov. Greg Abbott has doubled down on his previous executive orders aimed at preventing governmental entities in Texas from requiring COVID-19 vaccines, he isn’t going to be taking action against such requirements from private employers. Brandon Waltens has the details.
     
• A spokesman for the governor has said employers should be able to mandate COVID-19 vaccines on their employees: “Private businesses don’t need government running their business.”
     
• During the regular legislative session earlier this year, the Legislature passed (and the governor signed) legislation prohibiting governments from issuing vaccine passports and businesses from requiring COVID vaccines from their customers. The new law does not address employer-employee relationships, however.
     
• Despite the issue of employer-mandated vaccines not currently being on the call for the special session, two measures have been filed to prevent the mandates: House Bill 24 by State Rep. Candy Noble (R–Lucas) and House Bill 125 by State Rep. Tony Tinderholt (R–Arlington). 

DEMs Push Further Left

• In what they call a “response to increasingly radical, right-wing laws that hurt Texans, coupled with a rapidly growing progressive movement in Texas,” 20 House Democrat lawmakers created the new Texas House Progressive Caucus on Thursday. Jeramy Kitchen has the story.
   
• Notably, all of the members of this new, far-left caucus were participants in the quorum bust that paralyzed the House for 37 days; three of the Democrats serve as chairmen and six serve as vice chairmen of standing House committees – all appointed by Republican Speaker Dade Phelan.

New Series Premiere!

Scorecard Store Opening: 15% Off!

• The Texas Scorecard Store is now open! To celebrate, everything is 15% off today and through Sunday when you use the discount code SCORECARD at check out. (Hey – this is actually a bigger discount than the ‘employee’ discount we give the staff!)
     
• Right now, you’ll find mugs, hats, sweatshirts, and t-shirts in a variety of colors and sizes. And we’ll be regularly adding more items - so stop in often.
      
• Let everyone know you are a citizen who is keeping score and taking action!

Friday Reflection:
Only Fighters Win Fights

When the Texas Legislature was considering a ban on dismemberment abortions back in 2017, lawmakers were urged to oppose the legislation by all the usual suspects – but also by a “pro-life” group. Their excuse was that they didn’t think it was a fight Texas could win. They were inexcusably wrong.

In a hyperbolic memo sent to legislators on March 31, 2017, the executive director of the Texas Alliance for Life, Joe Pojman, declared with absolute certainty that the bills “Will Not Survive a Federal Court Challenge” (his capitalization).

Pojman explained that his lawyer, Paul Linton, had written two legal memoranda concluding that “unquestionably” the courts would strike down any ban on dismemberment abortions.

Wow, TWO whole legal memoranda. And… “unquestionably,” he said.

A month before that memo, Pojman gave condescending testimony to the Senate that year – testifying “on” the dismemberment ban rather than “for” or “against” it. But no one was fooled; he was arguing from a positions of cowardice, waving a “white flag” on the very issue his organization claimed to champion.

Maybe Pojman really believed his faulty prognostications, or maybe he just didn’t want Texas being too bold in pro-life advocacy. Either way, he lacked the courage of the convictions for which his organization ostensibly believes.

As it turned out, the Texas Legislature ignored both. Pojman and Linton, listening to the state’s bold, pro-life majority. The language of the “dismemberment” ban was amended to 2017’s omnibus prolife measure Senate Bill 8, setting it to take effect on Sept. 1 of that year.

For a time, the Pojman plea for legislative cowardice seemed prudent. A leftwing federal judge in Austin blocked implementation of the law – specifically the portion banning dismemberment abortions. That case has been quietly winding its way through the federal judicial labyrinth.

Late last week, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals gave the law its approval, clearing the way for it to finally take full effect in the Lone Star State. Babies will no longer be brutally torn to pieces by profit-hungry doctors serving the genocidal agenda of Planned Parenthood.

Now, it is entirely possible the U.S. Supreme Court might eventually decide differently. But it is also entirely possible the Supreme Court will side with the Fifth Circuit, the Texas Legislature, Gov. Greg Abbott, Attorney General Paxton, real pro-life Texans, and the moral righteousness of the law’s intent.

All of that is good news on its face. But this incident should serve as a broader reminder about the importance of ignoring the “pleas” for reasonableness from the bought-and-paid-for shills of the crony establishment.

All too often in the legislative process people with Ph.D.’s and J.D.’s will waive around white papers, condescendingly urge the conservative rabble to stand down on an issue. They will make expert-sounding claims about judicial survivability, legislative processes, and other governing complexities to inspire cowardice or sow confusion. And, all too often, activists get suckered in. We let good public policy be sacrificed on the altar of legal reasonableness built by our opponents in service to a decidedly unholy god.

The fear of losing can be paralyzing. But here is the good news: none of us are called to be “successful,” we are called to be faithful.

You may not win every fight you enter, but you lose every fight from which you run. Fights are won only by those who are fighting. In pursuing good public policy, the fight is always worth it. 

The fight is all that matters. We cannot be faithful to that fight when we allow our hands to be tied to our ankles. In public policy, the grassroots can have political agendas imposed upon them – or the grassroots can be the ones imposing the agenda.

Yes, there will always be “reasonable” men who consider invitations to haughty cocktail parties more important than fighting for principles. They should be called out, and then ignored.

There will always be people with pedigrees who will push the grassroots to stand down from a fight today in exchange for the ill-defined promise of “future success.” Those people should be mocked and tossed aside.

Rather than be shackled to the political expectations of the establishment cronies, grassroots activists should disrupt the status quo by forcing all three branches of government, and culture at large, into the fight for a better Texas.

Cowardice is always a killer. Victory is found only in boldly fighting forward.