Good morning,

With questions swirling about what kind of property tax relief (if any!) Texans will actually see, I end the week reflecting on our lost right to property ownership.

But first, here is the Texas Minute for Friday, March 24, 2023.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Full House Will Finally Consider Legislation Next Week... But Not GOP or Abbott Priorities

• More than halfway into the legislative session, the Texas House will finally consider its first set of bills. But, as Brandon Waltens reports, none of them are priorities of either the Republican Party of Texas or Gov. Greg Abbott.

       

• The first bill to be voted on by members is legislation to remove the phrase “mentally retarded” from state law, replacing it with “severe intellectual disability.” Next up will be legislation exempting tampons, diapers, and other similar products from the sales tax.
       

• Lawmakers will then consider legislation dealing with honey, and allowing fireworks sales on the Hindu holiday of Diwali.
      

• Who has time to cut property taxes or protect children from sexual predators – the Texas House wants to better regulate honey!
       

• When the House begins to vote on these bills, it will be 78 days into the state’s 140-day regular session. The Senate, in contrast, began passing bills on March 8, almost three weeks earlier.

House Committee Hears Testimony On TikTok Ban

• While concerns that the Chinese-owned social media app TikTok is collecting Texans’ private data continue to grow, the Texas House State Affairs Committee heard testimony on a measure that would prevent the app from operating in the state. Katy Marshall has the details.

       

• State Rep. Jared Patterson’s (R–Frisco) House Bill 2206 calls for Texas to ban social media platforms from individuals and entities from China, Iran, North Korea, or Russia. The measure bans social media platforms owned by foreign governments and platforms where these governments own a majority of stock.

       
• Last year, Gov. Greg Abbott directed all state agencies to ban TikTok from state-issued devices and agency internet networks. This order led to several public universities prohibiting students from accessing TikTok while connected to campus internet services.
      
• Patterson's legislation was left pending in committee. It is uncertain when, or even if, the committee will schedule it for additional consideration.

Parents Support Plan To Keep Explicit Books Out Of School Libraries

• Parent-backed legislation to keep sexually explicit books out of school libraries drew hours of intense, and sometimes profane, testimony during a public hearing at the Texas Capitol this week, reports Erin Anderson.
       

• Ever since COVID closures gave families a closer look inside public education, parents have been pressing local school officials to remove sexually explicit materials found in their students’ libraries. At times, they’ve been left with little to show for countless hours spent reading and reporting offensive content.

      

• Dozens of parents testified in favor of the measure, which puts the burden on vendors to rate books with sexual content.
       

• Meanwhile, several librarians spoke against the proposal, saying they are the “experts” who should be trusted to determine what is appropriate reading material for school children.

      
• While some opponents claimed the legislation targets books by and about LGBTQ people, the author – Rep. Jared Patterson – said the target is clear: sexually explicit content that is inappropriate for young readers in a school setting.
      
• "If you can’t read this material on the television or over the radio, or if you can’t show these images on TV, they have no home in a school library, where students go without their parents to check out books." – State Rep. Jared Patterson

📺 WATCH: The Headline... Filthy Books?!

• On today's edition of The Headline, Brandon Waltens is joined by Christin Bentley, a Tyler ISD mom who has been at the forefront of the fight against "filthy books" in Texas' public schools. 
      
• Watch The Headline on the Texas Scorecard website or YouTube channel. It is also available on Scorecard's streaming apps for Roku TV, Apple TV, iOS, and Android devices.

📺 WATCH: The Luke Macias Show... Injured Educrats

• The long-held alliance between Democrats and liberal Republicans to support teacher union policy is fracturing substantially. Luke Macias explains what's going on this edition of his show.
      
• Watch The Luke Macias Show on the Texas Scorecard website or YouTube channel. It is also available on Scorecard's streaming apps for Roku TV, Apple TV, iOS, and Android devices.

'Trump Train' Defendants Seek Dismissal

• A Texas couple sued by Democrats for participating in a 2020 “Trump Train” are asking a federal judge to dismiss the case as an anti-First Amendment attack on political free speech.
        

• In October 2020, New Braunfels residents Joeylynn and Robert Mesaros joined a group showing support for President Donald Trump’s re-election by trailing a Biden campaign bus as it traveled through Central Texas.

      

• In July 2021, four Democrats involved in Biden’s presidential campaign—including former Texas state senator and failed gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis—sued the Mesaroses and several other Trump supporters in federal court, alleging civil conspiracy and civil rights violations. Davis and the other Democrats claim the Metaroses violated a federal law that guards against interference with the right to vote.
      

• “This lawsuit is an egregious abuse of the judicial system,” said the Mesaroses' lawyer, Jarad Najvar. He argues the Democrats’ “novel legal theory” would upend settled First Amendment law and chill the completely legal and non-violent speech of conservatives. “My clients were sued for nothing more than driving along I-35 with their Trump and other political flags proudly displayed on their vehicle, which they have the clear right to do.”

Senate And House Looking To Rein In 'Rogue' Prosecutors

• Committees in the Texas Senate and House are considering different ways to ensure local prosecutors are enforcing state law. Sydnie Henry has the details. 
       
• In the Senate, Sen. Joan Huffman (R-Houston) has proposed legislation that would bar “prosecuting attorneys from materially limiting or prohibiting the enforcement of any criminal offense, whether that be by adopting and enforcing policy or by demonstrating by pattern or practice.”
          
• In the House, Rep. Jeff Leach (R-Plano) would reconstitute a long-defunct "Prosecuting Attorneys Coordinating Council." He says the entity would have the “singular purpose to accept and investigate complaints alleging incompetence or misconduct by elected prosecutors across the state.”
         
• This "council" would gather complaints and determine what steps to take, if any. Members of the council would be appointed by the governor, lieutenant governor, speaker, and the Texas Supreme Court. 
       
• For whatever it is worth, the left-wing American Civil Liberties Union opposes both measures.

Friday Reflection: Our Lost Right To Property

No religious text is more strongly in support of property rights than the Bible. The right of an individual to own property – fully and completely – is central to Scripture. 

Indeed, property rights are so intrinsic to Scripture, you find them twice in the Ten Commandments. The first you probably know, the Seventh Commandment: “You shall not steal.” 

To understand the full significance of the Ten Commandments, it is helpful to think of their obverse. For example, the Fifth Commandment is “You shall not kill.” Easy, right? Just don’t kill anyone. But because the Law of God is about something more than the letter of the law, but its spirit, we understand that the Fifth Commandment also goes to the way we protect, honor, and celebrate life. It is not enough that I don’t kill someone, I need to be actively engaged in helping those in need.

When Scripture tells us that God has commanded that we shouldn’t steal, that implies something deeper about the nature of property and human rights. By virtue of being told not to steal, we are also being told that people have a right to own property. 

This goes deeper in the Tenth Commandment: “You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.”

Those last three words: “is your neighbor’s.” It is important to understand what it means to “covet” a thing. It is to want something so much that one will do something unethical or illegal to get it, whether it is a home, spouse, employee, or whatever. It is very clear this is not a warning against aspiring to be better. Quite the opposite. This is a warning, along with the injunction against outright theft in the Seventh Commandment, to not let ourselves scheme to take away that which belongs – again, ownership – to someone else.

In our alleged capitalistic system, in our Republic where we pay high lip service to the principles of free markets, we have allowed a very unscriptural view towards property to arise.

In Texas, we do not own our homes or land. They all belong to the state. You disagree? Try not paying your annual rent payment to the school district, city, county, hospital district, and community college, and see how long you get to remain on their land and in their home. I wrote “rent”; sorry, I meant “property taxes.”

Same difference.

Our property tax system is based on coveting what our neighbor possesses, and wanting it so badly we scheme to punish him for having it. We dress it up, of course. It is about the children. Making sure they have nice things. Hogwash.

Consider the biennial debate in the Texas Legislature. It is not about allowing you to own your property, but haggling over ways to make taxpayers think the politicians are reducing the rent paid to government for that which should rightfully belong to the individual. Senior citizens, who did everything "right" by saving money and buying a home, find themselves in their golden years kicked off their property because they cannot afford the taxes. The government will find a better, younger tenant...

While some politicians campaign for office declaring themselves a friend to the notion of finding a path toward eliminating Texas’ immoral property taxes, once in office they have a funny way of not trodding down any path leading in that direction.

Property rights must be about something more than trimming trees when you like or repainting the front door. We do not truly have a right to property until we own it without paying rent to the government.  

Ultimately, we must recognize the centrality of property ownership in pursuit of our inalienable right to life and liberty.

Quote-Unquote

"If history could teach us anything, it would be that private property is inextricably linked with civilization."

– Ludwig von Mises​