Good morning!

I'm ending the week with a reflection on the idiocy of the people who allegedly run our public schools... and I'm not talking about the educrats, teachers, or school boards. You might not like it; I don't like it, but it is what it is...

You'll find it at the end of today's action-packed Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Friday, January 28, 2022
Update/change your subscription.

• But first... I think I've mentioned it, but The Headline with Brandon Waltens has now shifted to 5:30 p.m. on Fridays. Three ways to catch the content: as it premieres, as a video archive, or as a podcast. You'll really like his new format hitting the headlines of the week!

Border Change

• Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has created a new Senate committee and charged it with overseeing both funding and policies related to the southern border. Katy Drollinger has the story.
   
• State Sen. Brian Birdwell (R-Granbury) will lead the three-member Senate Committee on Border Security. In addition to Birdwell, the committee includes Bob Hall (R-Edgewood) and Juan Hinojosa (D-McAllen).
      
• Up until now border issues were handled by the Veteran Affairs & Border Security Committee, chaired by Sen. Kelly Hancock (R-North Richland Hills). Patrick has renamed that the Veteran Affairs Committee.

School District Obstructs Transparency In Library Porn Issue

• Over at the Daily Caller is an interesting story about Tarrant County's Keller Independent School District. They have uncovered emails showing the district requiring parents to sign a non-disclosure agreement to serve on a committee before which challenges to pornographic books in the school libraries can be brought.
        
• Humorously, the district's NDA misspelled "confidential." Less humorously, the district plans to hide from public review the names of everyone who made decisions on the committee. So much for open and transparent government.

GOP Candidates Talk Elections, Economy

• The South Texas Alliance of Republicans hosted a forum for the gubernatorial candidates this week. Once again, reports Sydnie Henry, Gov. Abbott declined to attend.

Senator Sour Grapes

• As he scurries from public office, it was revealed yesterday that "Republican" Kel Seliger accused his senatorial colleagues of drawing racist representational districts. Seliger's written accusation was actually made in November as part of court filings related to a Democrat-pushed lawsuit against the state's new congressional and legislative districts.
     
• Yet the court documents make the subtle point that Seliger's real frustration was his certain re-election loss in 2022. And in a follow-up deposition earlier this month, Seliger admitted he didn't author that declaration he made in November... but rather signed what Democrat State Sen. Beverly Powell of Burleson gave him. Powell, a white liberal, is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the state maps.
     
• Having narrowly won re-election in the previous two Republican primaries, Seliger was already facing several primary challengers in 2022. To make things worse for the Amarillo native, former President Donald Trump had endorsed one of those challengers: Midland businessman Kevin Sparks. 
      

• As a result, Seliger abandoned the race and leaves the Senate with a record roundly described as the most liberal of all Republicans in the chamber.

GOP House Candidate OK With DEMs Chairing Committees

• A candidate for an open-seat House District told an audience this week he's not opposed to letting Democrats continue to chair major committees – despite widespread recognition the practice has led to Republican priorities being killed in the Texas Legislature. Brandon Waltens was there and has the story.
        
• Stan Gerdes is one of five candidates running for the GOP-heavy House District 17 seat, which includes Bastrop, Caldwell, Lee, Milam, and Burleson counties. The incumbent Republican is not seeking re-election.
      
• At a forum hosted by the Lost Pines Republican Women in Bastrop, the candidates for the seat were asked if they would support Democrats being made committee chairs in the Texas House, a practice that has repeatedly thwarted conservative priorities.
     
• Gerdes was the only candidate who would not commit to ending the practice, saying he didn’t want to make Austin like the nation’s Capitol. He said only "if elected and I get there" then would he look more closely at the issue.
      

• Republican Party of Texas Chairman Matt Rinaldi has repeatedly called for ending the practice of giving leadership positions to Democrats, saying he has “never seen an issue that so firmly unites Republicans across the political spectrum as this one does.”

'Crimes Against Humanity'

• That's how Jennifer Bridges, a Houston-area nurse fighting for Texans' bodily autonomy, describes the push to force people into taking the COVID vaccines. Even though the federal government's mandate has been stalled by court action, Bridges told Texas Scorecard's Jacob Asmussen in an exclusive interview, Texans are still losing their jobs for refusing to get vaxxed.
       
• She knows about that from personal experience. She was fired from Houston Methodist Hospital last year for declining to take the experimental coronavirus vaccinations, and found herself thrust into the national spotlight by speaking out.
        
• Bridges says Texas lawmakers, and particularly the governor, should be doing more to protect the state's residents: “Abbott will talk a big game and make himself sound good, but he doesn’t actually do anything.”

Friday Reflection: Who Are The Idiots?

Mark Twain didn’t like school boards. He spoke often and disparagingly of them. At one point he wrote, “In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.”

Why are school boards the pinnacle of idiotic behavior? The answer may not be what any of us want to hear.

Ours is a self-governing republic. We don’t elect masters, but servants. Our system only works when the citizenry holds elected officials and bureaucrats in careful check.

When an employer hires an employee who steals from the cash register and scares off the customers, the employer is at fault if he doesn’t fire that employee. The behavior an employer tolerates will be the standard for the rest of the employees to follow. 

The same goes for elections.

So let’s think about that Mark Twain quote. One must ask: why are school boards filled with ‘idiots’?

The answer? Voters have allowed it. It is our fault.

Self-governance as a governing model begins by governing ourselves.

In Texas, more than 90 percent of voters don’t vote in school elections. Even fewer ask the necessary questions that would provide the kind of civic oversight required in our system of government. If we’re not doing our job as citizens, how can we expect the elected servants to do theirs?

Everyone complains about multi-gazillion-dollar high school football stadiums… but then don’t vote in the elections where those are being debated. Everyone complains about their high property taxes… but then don’t vote in the elections where 50+% of the property tax “bite” originates… The list goes on.

The answer to why school boards seem to engage so regularly in idiotic behavior... is found uncomfortably in the mirror.

So while school boards might be, as Twain argued, the pinnacle of idiotic behavior, the fault rests with citizens who allow it.

If we want to stop the idiots, we ourselves must first stop being the idiots. School boards, and therefore the schools, will improve when the citizens are more engaged.