Good morning,

When lazy politicians snidely demand that citizens have “a plan,” it betrays their fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of our republic. It is supposed to be citizens who set the agenda, and the public servants are to make it happen – not the other way around.

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

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Friday, September 24, 2021
Update your email preferences.

Trump To Abbott: Audit The Election

• On Thursday, Donald Trump issued a public letter urging Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to add an election audit to the ongoing special session agenda. The governor has not responded. Jeramy Kitchen has the story.
   
• “Despite my big win in Texas, I hear Texans have big questions about the November 2020 Election. Bills to audit elections in your great state’s House and Senate were considered during Texas’ Second Special Session. Instead, the legislature passed a watered-down amendment that doesn’t even apply to the 2020 Presidential Election,” wrote President Trump.
   
• The 45th President of the United States specifically endorsed legislation by State Rep. Steve Toth (R–The Woodlands), House Bill 16.  
   
• “Governor Abbott, we need a ‘Forensic Audit of the 2020 Election’ added to the call,” concluded the president’s letter. “We’re quickly running out of time and it must be done this week. Texans know voting fraud occurred in some of their counties. Let’s get to the bottom of the 2020 Presidential Election Scam!”
   
• While the governor has not reacted to the Trump letter, one of Abbott’s Republican challengers – former State Sen. Don Huffines (R-Dallas) – said he was glad to see it.
   
• “Along with thousands of grassroots Texans, I have repeatedly called on Greg Abbott to stop blocking a forensic audit of the 2020 election. I am glad President Donald Trump is also demanding we know the truth about the election.” – Don Huffines

Abbott Under Fire

• Join Brandon Waltens live at 11 a.m. today for The Headline. He’ll wrap up the week’s news, with a focus on Gov. Greg Abbott taking heavy hits from inside and outside Texas – especially from his supporters.
   
• If you miss the live broadcast, the video archive and podcast will be available later in the day.

Does New Election Integrity Law Make Things Worse?

• Even as election integrity advocates celebrate the passage of major legislation to improve voting security in Texas, the activist group Grassroots America looked at the final bill and found a major problem: It actually weakens penalties for voter fraud. Erin Anderson explains how it happened.

GOP Caucus Chair Announces Retirement

• Despite being the chairman of the House Republican Caucus, State Rep. Jim Murphy of Houston routinely voted against many of his fellow Republican colleagues and Texas GOP legislative priorities throughout his tenure. Yesterday, he announced that he won’t be returning to the legislature.
   
• Murphy has consistently rated among the lowest Republicans on several legislative indexes. Texans for Fiscal Responsibility rated Murphy a 35 out of 100 on their Fiscal Responsibility Index, while the average Republican was rated as a 57. The Rice University index rated him as the 76th out of the 83 Republicans in 2021.
   
• Background: A Not-So-Republican Caucus Chairman.

Spending And Taxes

• The cities of Fort Worth and Dallas, as well as the Tarrant Regional Water District, this week all approved hiking local spending and property taxes. Robert Montoya has the report.

Friday Reflection: Imposing Agendas

No demand against the citizens is quite so cutting as when a politician, after being chastized for inaction, replies, “Ok, fine what’s your plan?” It is a retort designed to render critics mute, and it is a reminder that our public servants aren’t serving us. 

The “what’s your plan” line of attack from politicians is evidence that we have all lost our way. Politicians strut around with it as their rhetorical weapon of choice. Whenever it is aimed by a politician or a politician’s sycophantic supporter, I see citizens pushed back on their heels.

The question’s potency arises from its simplicity. We are taught as children by our parents not to have a complaint for which we don’t have a solution. In business we are told to present our boss with a plan, not a problem.

But in our republic, the citizens are neither children nor employees – and the officeholders are not our parents or bosses. Or, at least, that is how our system was designed.

In our self-governing republic, the highest title in a particular jurisdiction is not president, governor, or mayor, but citizen. The citizens are the politicians’ employers. The citizens are the guardians of the republic.

Yet we have allowed the governing roles to be flipped around. We have allowed politicians to see themselves as the nation’s masters. We have allowed elected officials to see themselves as our betters, as the American nobility, as the dispenser of rights. We pretend the politician is our buddy, not a scheming, lazy employee. 

Throughout history up to today, the master-servant model is well understood. The master must merely have a goal in mind, it is the servant’s job to make it happen. The head of the house doesn’t need to know the mundane details of the kitchen operations when demanding that dinner be served promptly at seven o’clock. It is up to the servant to make it happen, or suffer the consequences.

There is no “partnership” between a master and a servant. Citizens are not in partnership with politicians. Politicians in our republic exist to implement the agenda set by the citizens in keeping with the limitations of the Constitution.

As a citizen, you have no obligation to come up with the detailed operational plans for reducing taxes or whatever other policy goal you have in mind. If you want to, that’s great – but it’s not required and shouldn’t be expected. The men and women who stand before the body politic and declare themselves mentally and morally fit to solve the problems identified by the citizens must, once hired, get to work – not make self-serving excuses for inaction. 

Those politicians who demand that you give them a plan for an issue are telling you they only want the title, not the work. Your job as a citizen is to set expectations for the public servants. It is their job is to deliver.

Citizens must impose an agenda on politicians, and then hold those public servants accountable for achieving it.