Good morning!

This week the Texas Minute will recount the top ten stories of 2021, as selected by our readers from the list of Texas Scorecard’s most read and shared articles.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Monday, December 27, 2021
Change your email preferences.

But First… Today’s Conversation

• At 3 p.m. this afternoon, you can catch a wide-ranging conversation between Jeramy Kitchen and Freedom Caucus member Briscoe Cain, a Republican state representative from Deer Park. They discuss the important issues facing Texas… and the most controversial legislation that Mr. Cain directly impacted during the legislative year.

Child Gender Mutilations Continue

• Adults in Texas are allowed to psychologically coerce, with the aid of medical professionals, children into gender transitions – ranging from puberty-blocking drugs to chemical castrations and irreversible surgeries. 
     
• Jacob Asmussen tracked the issue as outrage grew while Gov. Greg Abbott and House Speaker Dade Phelan (R-Beaumont) refused to address it. Banning these actions and procedures was a top priority of the Texas GOP in 2021.
     
• Abbott could have prevented the whole saga by simply tasking the Legislature to outlaw all of the practices, but he has so far refused and repeatedly declined to answer why. He separately claimed the effort had a “nil” chance of passing Speaker Phelan’s House of Representatives, even though House Republicans say they have enough votes.
     
• “The Legislature could have addressed this. They failed to even, I think, get a bill out of committee, and I’m not sure why,” Attorney General Ken Paxton told radio host Mark Davis in early December. “To me, that seems like one of those issues that the Legislature should have taken seriously and, for some reason, it went nowhere in the Legislature.”

Woke Schools Wake Up Parents

• Amid a nationwide movement of parents opposing divisive public school policies rooted in critical race theory, Texas parents are rejecting local school boards’ “equity” standards and “woke” curricula which they say are failing to improve students’ education while further dividing them by identity groups.
     
• Erin Anderson explains that Critical Race Theory was the spark. It posits that racism is engrained in all American systems and institutions (including education) because they are based in “white privilege” and “white supremacy,” so people identified as belonging to certain groups should be treated differently to make up for past injustices.
     
• The renewed interest in classroom curriculum came, in part, due to the COVID shutdowns.  Because public school students were forced to access online classes from home, many Texas moms and dads got their first look at what local schools were teaching their kids.
     
• Though lawmakers passed a bill purporting to “abolish critical race theory in Texas” during this year’s regular legislative session—then adopted yet another CRT ban bill in September—school districts in cities and suburbs are still pursuing racially divisive policies.
   

• Incidents involving teachers promoting CRT-based “anti-racist” material cropped up recently in suburban North Texas school districts in Keller and Southlake. Despite intimidation from school board members, parents are continuing to speak out against CRT and other troubling policies pushed by liberal and establishment school officials.
   

• This shouldn’t be hard: Texas parents want public schools to provide their kids a quality education, not divisive political indoctrination.

Your Federal & State Lawmakers

Click the office to find more contact information.