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Good morning,

Citizens seeking to impact public policy are often shackled by the low expectations set by political cronies. I’d suggest it is past time for the grassroots to raise expectations for state lawmakers.

But first… here is the Texas Minute for Friday, Oct. 28, 2022.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

78% Of Texas Republicans: 2020 Election Was Stolen

• Last month, Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan made the claim at a liberal fundraiser that there was “no evidence” the 2020 election was stolen. A new poll from the Defend Texas Liberty PAC shows, however, that 78 percent of Republican voters disagree with Phelan and believe that cheating did affect the 2020 presidential election.
      
• The organization has polled a variety of key issues, which DTL’s leader – former State Rep. Jonathan Stickland – described as showing that Republican voters in Texas are more conservative than leadership in the Texas House.
        

• “We test different issues every month, but one result that remains the same is that Republican voters are more conservative than ever. They want lawmakers to fight for them and are clearly supporting those kinds of leaders based on multiple polls,” said Stickland.

Paxton Joins Other State AGs to Protect Children

• Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has joined 12 other state attorneys general in composing a letter, led by Tennessee, to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, “warning him against clamping down on speech critical of pediatric ​‘sex-change’ treatments.” Soli Rice has the details.
     
• Paxton’s office explains that the U.S. attorney general should “defend American citizens and their Constitutional rights, and to stand up for freedom of speech, which includes the right to criticize procedures that permanently change our children’s lives.”

Hispanic Caucus Rejects Mayra Flores for ‘Extreme MAGA Values’

• The Democrat-led Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) blocked U.S. Rep. Mayra Flores (R-TX) from joining, citing her “extreme MAGA values.” Read the article by Katy Drollinger.
     
• Flores requested membership this month and was subsequently denied for being a Republican, even though she was born in Mexico and represents part of Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, a historically Hispanic region.
       
• “As the first Mexican-born American Congresswoman, I thought the Hispanic Caucus would be open in working together,” said Flores. “This denial once again proves a bias towards conservative Latinas that don’t fit their narrative or ideology.”

Lawmakers Jab CDC Over COVID Shot Recommendation for Kids

• Texas State Rep. Brian Harrison (R–Waxahachie) is leading the charge in Texas’ refusal to accept the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendation to add the COVID-19 shot to the child vaccine schedules. Check out Soli Rice’s article for background.
      
• Harrison and 19 other state representatives, including members of the Texas Freedom Caucus, wrote a letter to the CDC this week “formally rejecting their unscientific efforts to force COVID-19 vaccines on Texas students.”
      
• “Texas is under no obligation to follow this recommendation” and that it was made “without any clinical trial data, no recognition of the near-zero risk of death from COVID-19 in children, and no evidence of efficacy in children,” wrote the legislators.
     
• Signers included: Keith Bell (R-Forney), Briscoe Cain (R-Deer Park), Gary Gates (R-Rosenburg), Phil King (R-Weatherford), Mayes Middleton (R), Dennis Paul (R–Houston), Matt Shaheen (R–Plano), David Spiller (R–Jacksboro), Jeff Cason (R-Bedford), Sam Harless (R–Spring), Matt Krause (R), Tom Oliverson (R–Cypress), Matt Shaefer (R–Tyler), Bryan Slaton (R–Royse City), Lynn Stucky (R–Sanger), Valoree Swanson (R–Spring), Steve Toth (R–The Woodlands), Tony Tinderholt (R–Arlington), and Cody Vasut (R–Angleton).

📺 WATCH NOW: Harrison On The Headline

• Speaking of State Rep. Brian Harrison… He is the featured guest on this week’s edition of The Headline with Brandon Waltens. Watch their conversation right now on YouTube, Rumble, or the Texas Scorecard website.

Education Conference Pushes ‘Porn Literacy’ for Minors

• As parents across the state fight against explicit books in their children’s schools, one education conference aimed at Texas teachers (and subsidized by taxpayers) is promoting “porn literacy” in high school sex education classes. Katy Drollinger has more info.
      
• Every year, the South by Southwest festival sponsors SXSW EDU, a conference held in Austin for teachers and other educators. To say it pushes the far-leftist agenda would be an understatement.
     
• SXSW EDU announced half of their 2023 conference’s 185 sessions and workshops, including presentations on “Developing Antiracist, Pro-Human Students,” “Counteracting Book Bans Through Libraries,” and “All In: How Educators Can Support Student Activism.”
     
• Another session, entitled “Why Porn Literacy Belongs in Sex Education” and hosted by “clinical sexologist” Avril Louise Clark, calls on educators to include discussions of pornography in sex education classes for minors.
      
• So while Texas’ public schools are failing to educate kids in math, reading, and science, they are using your tax dollars to push porn. Congrats.
      
• Is your local school district sending employees to the SXSW EDU conference? You should ask your school board…

Fentanyl: Cheap, Easy, Potent

• Sydnie Henry explains the history of fentanyl and reports on the highlights of the senator’s conversation with Dr. Spiers.

Friday Reflection: What Do You Expect?

We have been conditioned as citizens to treat politicians as our nation’s leaders. They are not; they are the people’s servants. Politicians are to "leadership" in our nation what the pimple-faced order-taker at a fast-food chain is to healthy nutrition. Only less so, because at least sometimes that order-taker actually does the work of bringing you a diet soft drink while you wait for your greasy burger and fries.

Of course, the politicians spend a lot of time and energy trying to convince you otherwise. They want you to think that by letting them set the policy agenda for you, they are doing you a favor. They tell you they have special insider knowledge about what is and is not feasible. Again, not dissimilar to that fast-food clerk who knows what things the cooks in the back really don’t want to mess with making that day.

In the case of the fast-food joint, customers settle for what is available, or leave if they cannot get what they want.

As the citizen-leaders of our republic, conservatives have been doing way too much "settling" for the low-bar results tepidly offered by our civic clerks.

Frankly, though, that is because we often treat government the way we treat lunchtime hunger as we drive past a fast-food joint. We enter with a vague notion that we’re hungry, while knowing nothing on the menu offered is actually that good for us, and then let the clerk direct us to paying for what they want us to have.

As we approach government, we must do so with steadier resolve. As citizens, we cannot let our republic’s fate be limited by what the politicians say they will – in their time – get around to doing. We must set higher standards for them, and demand loudly that they be achieved.

(Let me offer this quick aside: As the sovereign master of our republic, it is no more your responsibility to have a "plan" for implementing your ends than it is for you to know how to work the milkshake machine at the burger shack. The politicians run for office explicitly on the promise of solving the problems and producing the outcomes you desire.)

What you do need to know, though, what is absolutely critical, is that you know what you expect and refuse to settle for anything less. Rally your friends and family to your cause, and then communicate those expectations loudly, clearly, and without wavering.

Effective citizenship starts with knowing what you expect, and then not letting up until it is accomplished.