Good morning,

Here is today’s Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Thursday, September 30, 2021
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EXCLUSIVE: visit TexasScorecard.com at 8:30 a.m. this morning for an exclusive report and photographs from the ongoing crisis at the Texas-Mexico border. Is the Texas National Guard protecting the border, or helping illegals get across?

SOS Details Election Audit

• Last week, the Texas secretary of state’s office announced it had launched a “full and comprehensive forensic audit” of the 2020 general election in four Texas counties: Dallas, Harris, Tarrant, and Collin. Erin Anderson reports on emerging details about the two-phase process.
   
• Phase 1, which is reportedly already underway or completed, involves standard post-election review procedures conducted in accordance with current state law. Phase 2 is described as a comprehensive examination of various election records—similar to what was expected from “forensic audit” legislation proposed earlier this year—set to be conducted or completed in the spring of 2022.
   
• “One of the questions that I want answered before any audit is done in Texas is: ‘What are we going to do with the results?'” asked Fran Rhodes, who works on Tarrant County’s early voting ballot board. “If we don’t know that going in, then the likely outcome of any audit report will be that it sits in someone’s file cabinet and nothing is ever done about it.”

A&M Trying To Hide COVID Grant Records

• Texas A&M University is seeking to hide applications for agencies and institutions wanting access to the millions of dollars in federal grant money the university is helping manage. As Robert Montoya reports, the grant’s purpose is to push people to get one of the COVID-19 vaccines.
     
• Those encouraged to apply for the A&M-administered grants were educational and government agencies, faith-based organizations, associations, community coalitions, and nonprofits.
     
• On August 23, Texas Scorecard sent an open records request to Texas A&M asking for “all application materials” they received. Texas A&M asked if we would agree to redactions, and we said yes. The university then replied they were “withholding the requested information under section 552.104 of the Texas Government Code,” and Texas Scorecard received nothing.
     
• Now, Texas A&M wants the Attorney General of Texas to let them keep all the documents hidden from public review.
     
• Sarah J. Fields of Texas Freedom Coalition says citizens have a right to see the records.
     
• “We believe the public has a compelling interest in knowing which institutions are applying for the Texas Vaccine Outreach and Education Grant Program and how the money will be used prior to it even being granted,” she told Texas Scorecard. “Texas A&M should be forthcoming, as the compelling interest of the public and its right to information certainly supersede the desire of Texas A&M to keep this information private.”

Bush Strategist Running For Lite-Guv As A Democrat

• Left-wing political pundit Matthew Dowd has declared his Democratic candidacy for lieutenant governor of Texas. Dowd was chief strategist for the Bush administration in 2004 but publicly denounced the Republican party in 2007. Since then, Dowd has served as a political analyst for ABC News. Griffin White has the details.

Child Mutilation In Texas

• Texas lawmakers have yet another chance to outlaw coercive practices that are harming children. Will they? Jacob Asmussen reports lawmakers have repeatedly refused to take action prohibiting the psychological, chemical, and surgical procedures that irreversibly alter children’s genders. 
     
• The issue surfaced in large part because of the high-profile case of Jeff Younger’s 9-year-old son, James, whose mother wanted to force him—against Jeff’s wishes—to take sterilizing drugs and eventually be castrated.
     
• Since the national coverage of the case two years ago, the issue became a Republican Party of Texas priority (with nearly 2 million Texans also voting to ban the procedures in a Republican primary election). Yet the GOP-dominated Legislature has refused to address the issue.
      
• Same goes for Gov. Abbott, who ignored the issue completely until this summer when he sent a letter to one of his administrative agencies asking for their opinion on gender modification surgeries being performed on children. He did not ask them to address the psychological or chemical component.
     
• The governor has left the issue off the special session agendas, despite putting regulations regarding the care of tethered dogs front and center.

Speaking Of Dog Tethering…

• Gov. Abbott put dog tethering restrictions on the call for this current special session, despite vetoing a bill on the issue earlier this year. Sydnie Henry explains the issue.
   
• In the waning hours of the regular legislative session earlier this year, the Texas House and Senate both passed the Safe Outdoor Dogs Act. The legislation required water and sturdy shelter be available for the tethered dog, and set a required length for the tether: five times the length of the dog as measured from the tip of the dog’s nose to the base of the tail.
     
• Gov. Abbott vetoed that measure, saying “Texas is no place for this kind of micro-managing and over-criminalization.” He has not explained what changed in the intervening months to take the issue from deserving of a stern veto to a special-session legislative priority.

Austin 9-1-1

• The Austin Police Department will stop responding in person to non-emergency calls, reports Adam Cahn. This is the latest consequence of the Democrat-run city council’s decision to defund the police department.

Special Elections RoundUp

• Texas House District 10 has a new representative: Brian Harrison won a decisive victory over former State Rep. John Wray. The Austin crony establishment lined up behind Wray, but Harrison – a former Trump Administration official – carried the night. Rep.-elect Harrison will take office immediately.
   
• Meanwhile, Republican former State Rep. John Lujan and Democrat Frank Ramirez finished first and second in a five-way special election to represent Texas House District 118, putting them in a runoff to replace former State Rep. Leo Pacheco (D–San Antonio) for the remainder of the current term.

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