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Here is today's Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Thursday, November 18, 2021
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State Agency Imposes Vax-Or-Else Policy

• Despite Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order, UTHealth Houston is the latest state agency to impose President Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate on its employees and others. UTHealth is a division of the University of Texas System, and falls under the authority of the UT Board of Regents, the Higher Education Coordinating Board, the Governor of Texas, and the Texas Legislature.
       
• In an email blast sent just before noon on Nov. 17, UTHealth Houston’s president, Giuseppe N. Colasurdo, wrote that due to mandates from the “federal government,” everyone must be vaccinated by Jan. 4, 2022. The policy applies to all “faculty, staff, residents, fellows, contractors, vendors, and volunteers.”
   

• While his email does not specifically mention termination, Colasurdo points to UTHealth’s newly established “COVID-19 Vaccine & Workplace Safety Policy.” That document is password-protected from the general public, but a source has provided Texas Scorecard with the language. The policy states “Employees who fail to comply with this policy will be subject to discipline up to and including termination.”
   

• Meanwhile, students who refuse the vaccine “will lose the ability to continue in a university-sponsored training program or academic program for non-compliance.”

• So Greg Abbott was just fine with a hair salon owner going to jail for violating his “close small businesses” order in 2020, but he’s doing nothing to stop UT from ignoring his 2021 prohibition on vax mandates?

GOP Official: Party Affiliation Should Not Be ‘Litmus Test’

• A member of the State Republican Executive Committee doesn’t think party affiliation should be a “litmus test” when Texans go to the polls. Carlos Cascos, who previously served as Greg Abbott’s secretary of state, made the statement this week on his Facebook page. Brandon Waltens has the details.
   
• “Voting for someone simply because they have a R, D, I or other acronym should not be the litmus test for a vote. As I have said many times, neither party has a monopoly on good government,” wrote Cascos.
         
• Cascos has been asked which Democrat candidates he believed were worth supporting, as well as if he had voted for Democrats in recent elections, but he hasn’t responded.
      
• 1) If Republican Party officials don’t consider voting for Republican candidates to be critical, why should anyone else? 2) Isn’t “we have a monopoly on good government ideas” kind of the main thing political parties offer?

Texas Rates ‘Average’ On Financial Transparency

• While Texas did not earn the worst score on Truth in Accounting’s latest study, officials have room for improvement when it comes to being financially transparent with citizens. Sydnie Henry has the report.
   
• States were rated on a scale of 0 to 100, based on eight factors. Colorado had the lowest rating (46), while Utah had the highest rating (86). Texas scored a 77, an average rating among the 50 states and unchanged from last year.

Parents To School Board: Keep Boys Out Of Girls’ Changing Rooms

• Parents in the suburban Austin area are petitioning the Round Rock ISD school board to end a potentially dangerous free-for-all private room policy. Jacob Asmussen has more details.
   
• In a recent report by Texas Scorecard, it was revealed the district has taken an unsecured locker room rule at the schools—where boys are allowed in girls’ private rooms and vice versa. Interviewees also knew of school plans to place boys in girls’ hotel rooms during school trips.
   
• “Currently, Round Rock ISD has no written policy regarding who can use which multi-stall bathroom, leaving individual campus administrators to come up with unwritten, oftentimes permissive rules. This has resulted in numerous female students being subjected to biological males entering girls’-only spaces while they are in stages of undress,” wrote petition author Michelle Evans of the local organization Moms for Liberty.
   
• Think this is just a problem in suburban, conservative Round Rock? Are you sure?

Democrat Defends Porn In Schools

• Cody Grace, a Democrat candidate for Texas House District 6, defended pornography in Tyler ISD while calling concerned parents “extremist.” Griffin White has the details.

Taylor Targeted

• Once a favorite of conservatives in Collin County, second-term U.S. Rep. Van Taylor is now facing two opponents in the 2022 Republican primary for Texas’ 3rd Congressional District. As Erin Anderson reports, both rivals are challenging Taylor from the right.
     
• Former County Judge Keith Self and political newcomer Suzanne Harp are courting conservative GOP voters who say Taylor changed after going to Washington. “Van has become tone deaf and is not listening to his constituents,” said Terry Wade, a conservative leader within Collin County GOP.
      
• Many activists cite among their concerns Taylor being one of two Texas Republicans to join Democrats in creating the January 6 Commission. He defended the vote on the Mark Davis Show, “Our best chance to get the answers America needs is through this bipartisan commission.”
      

• Taylor’s voting record while in Congress has earned high ratings from several conservative groups, though his scores dropped significantly from 2019 to 2020. While he has a perfect score of 100 from Heritage Action, his rating with Club for Growth dropped from 100 in 2019 to 86 in 2020, and the American Conservative Union shows he went from 100 in 2019 to 82 in 2020. FreedomWorks’ rating had Taylor drop from a 93 to 67.
      

• He was first elected to Congress in 2018, after having served in the Texas House and Senate.
      

• Under the new maps adopted by the Texas Legislature, the 3rd Congressional District is solidly Republican – though one Democrat has announced a run for the seat.

Klick Role Highlighted

• A new advertisement began rolling out in Texas House District 91, highlighting the role of Republican State Rep. Stephanie Klick (Fort Worth) in ending the legislative prospects of multiple pieces of legislation seeking to ban the practice of gender modification and mutilation. Jeramy Kitchen reports the 15-second ad was produced by the Conservative Response Team.
   
• “Sex-change operations on minors are sadistic torture but remain legal in Texas because Stephanie Klick killed the bill to stop them. Tell Stephanie Klick to apologize for keeping sex-change operations on minors legal in Texas. Tell Klick it’s time she resigns.”  – Conservative Response Team ad

Democrats Departing Texas House

• Retirements and departures from the Texas House of Representatives continue ahead of the filing deadline with three more Democrats announcing they will not be returning to the chamber in 2023. 
   
• Those departing include State Reps. Ina Minjarez (D–San Antonio), Joe Deshotel (D-Beaumont), and Alex Dominguez (D–San Antonio). Minjarez is running for Bexar County judge and Dominguez is running for the Texas Senate. 
   
• This brings the total number of House members not seeking re-election to 22; 13 Republicans and nine Democrats.

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