Good morning, 

Get your tickets now for the Conservative Leaders Gala on Dec. 7!

Here is today's Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Friday, November 15, 2019
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• A study released this week by the conservative Mercatus Center finds Texas to be the 5th most regulated state in the nation, a dubious distinction that puts the Lone Star State on par with California and New York. (You might recall Ross Kecseg writing about a Mercatus study back in June which found Texas ranked 22nd in its fiscal condition.) 
     
• Being a committee chairman in the Texas House pays off. A new study by Transparency Texas finds top Texas House chairmen raised 395 percent more for their campaign coffers than their rank-and-file colleagues. Brandon Waltens reports that controlling who gets prized chairmanships (and thus, who has access to more campaign cash) is just one of the ways the Speaker of the House exercises control over the chamber.
           
• Speaking of committee chairmen... yesterday we reported Speaker Dennis Bonnen’s Democrat chairman of the Homeland and Public Safety Committee, Poncho Nevarez, was found to have been carrying cocaine on a flight from his home Eagle Pass to Austin. (He still hasn’t been arrested or charged, despite admitting to the George Soros-funded Texas Tribune that it was, indeed, his cocaine.) 
     
• Reacting to the news, State Rep. Mayes Middleton (R-Wallisville) posted on his Facebook page: “I have long believed all Legislators need to be drug tested. House and Senate members get taxpayer funded pensions and healthcare and vote on $250 Billion+ budgets. Others in government have to be drug tested, why shouldn’t we?”
     
• It will be interesting to see how many legislators rush to join Mr. Middleton in that initiative.
     
• Meanwhile, Texas’ Agriculture Commissioner was the first statewide elected official to offer a comment on the situation. Miller called on House Speaker Bonnen to immediately remove Nevarez from the chairmanship. He wrote on Facebook: “Navarez has no business having any oversight authority over the Texas Department of Public Safety. Why are the people of Texas just now hearing about this when the search warrant was executed on October 29th? Surely, some of our state elected officials would have been informed of this serious matter. ... Why hasn't Speaker Bonnen removed this liberal Democrat from his Chairmanship. Why was he appointed to this position in the first place? Why no interest from the leftist mainstream media?”
     

• In another effort to win elections in the courts, Erin Anderson reports Texas’ Democrats are challenging a decades-old, Democrat-passed ballot position law they now claim unfairly helps Republicans. At issue is a law granting top spots on general election ballots to candidates whose party won the last gubernatorial election.
     

• The Texas law at issue was passed in 1985 by a Democrat-controlled legislature and signed by a Democrat governor, Mark White. Texas voters haven’t elected a Democrat governor since 1990 or a Democrat to any statewide office since 1994.
     

• Political Science 101: Never make laws presuming your party will always be in power.
       

• Taxpayers are enjoying a late election victory in Midland. The debt proposal put forward by the Midland Independent School District failed by 25 votes after final provisional ballots were tabulated. Matt Stringer reports the MISD proposal would have cost property taxpayers a total of $880 million in debt liability.

Friday Reflection

The American patriot Sam Adams once wrote, “It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.”

That statement echos a basic truth we find repeated throughout scripture: when we are with God, even the smallest minority becomes the victorious majority. One of my favorite examples of that is found in the sixth and seventh chapters of Judges. There we read how the people of God were preparing to attack their enemies; the Israeli force was 20,000 strong against an even larger opponent. God was going to give the Israelites victory, but it would be on His terms.

You can today in Israel travel to the spring where God had Gideon winnow the troops in what might be one of the more unconventional military tactics in the Bible (and, let’s face it, the Bible is full of them).

First, God told Gideon to let any who were fearful of taking on a powerful army leave. Half did so. Then, He instructed Gideon: “Every one who laps the water with his tongue, as a dog laps, you shall set by himself. Likewise, every one who kneels down to drink.”

There were just 300 who lapped the water; God wanted them. The rest were sent packing. As a quick aside: Would you want to be with those uncouth water-lappers? It’s a reminder God’s army usually isn’t what we’d expect.

It’s no secret why He did this; He was abundantly clear. God said He did not want Israel to “boast over me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’” He wanted them to understand their victory was His working, not theirs.

In the polity of God, He is the unified majority. As was demonstrated at Gideon’s spring, an army of thousands can be routed by 300. But God wants the 300 to understand the true source of the victory.

As we go about faithfully setting “brush fires” of liberty, we must remember our allies are of God’s choosing, and that victory will come in God’s time.

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