Good morning,

Our constitutional republic cannot last if we as citizens continue to tolerate deceit from those who are supposed to serve us. More on that below.

This is the Texas Minute for Friday, April 5, 2024.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

A Contract with Texas

• Sources at the Texas Capitol said yesterday that conservative legislators are finalizing plans for a “Contract with Texas” that would serve as a rallying point for legislative action in 2025. While the idea is welcome by some, there are establishment Republicans are reportedly rushing to release a watered-down version of the proposal.
       

• One incumbent lawmaker said the push has been driven to deliver on specific reforms that have been popular with voters.
       

• That includes a prohibition on Democrat committee chairs in the House, and a pledge to get all of the Texas GOP’s 89th Session legislative priorities on the floor for a vote before April 15, 2025.
       

• The effort is reportedly being opposed by the House Republican Caucus and the so-called Freedom Caucus. Those groups don’t want Speaker Dade Phelan or other incumbents to feel compelled to take and keep strong conservative positions ahead of the May 28th runoff.

Texas Soldier Arrested for Attempted Human Smuggling

• A soldier in the Texas State Guard was caught this week using a government vehicle to smuggle an illegal alien into the country in exchange for cash. Emily Medeiros has the story.
     
• Identified as 26-year-old Savion Johnson, he is currently facing charges that include evading arrest, human smuggling, and unlawfully carrying a weapon. 
      

• Sources have revealed that the soldier was allegedly promised $5,000 to $6,000 to transport the illegal alien.

RELATED NEWS

Texas Secretary of State Debunks Claims Million Voters Have Registered Without Photo ID

• Reports on social media continue to circulate that the Biden administration might be weaponizing Social Security numbers to get illegal aliens out to vote. But, as Will Biagini reports, Texas' Secretary of State has refuted recent claims on social media that 1.2 million new voters have registered in Texas since the start of 2024.
      
• “It is totally inaccurate that 1.2 million voters have registered to vote in Texas without a photo ID this year,” Jane Nelson explained in a press release. “The truth is our voter rolls have increased by 57,711 voters since the beginning of 2024. This is less than the number of people registered in the same timeframe in 2022 (about 65,000) and in 2020 (about 104,000).”
      
• Nelson admitted that the numbers reported on the Social Security Administration’s Help America Vote Verification website are incorrect and that the state is currently working to determine why that is.

Denton School Officials Criminally Charged for Electioneering

• Citizens’ complaints have led to criminal prosecutions of two Denton Independent School District administrators for illegal electioneering, marking the first time Texas school officials have been held criminally liable for using district resources to electioneer. Erin Anderson has the details.
    
• Local voters submitted affidavits to Denton County District Attorney Paul Johnson on February 27 that alleged criminal election interference by Denton ISD administrators Jesus and Lindsay Lujan, a husband and wife. Both were indicted this week on charges of unlawful use of internal mail system for political advertising, a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail and a $4,000 fine. They are scheduled for arraignment on May 13.
      
• Jesus Lujan sent messages to school staff using the district’s email system. He offered incentivizes to employees to vote in the Republican primary for candidates who “support public education and school funding.” Which primary a voter participates in is public information, and it has long been alleged that school district officials routinely check voting records to see which employees have voted in school bond elections.

Opposition Rises to Highway Expansion Projects in Houston

• A new activist group called "No Higher No Wider I-10" has formed in response to a proposal designed to mitigate traffic on a portion of I-10 in Houston from Voss Road to I-45.
    
• TxDOT has offered plans to elevate and widen the highway. Opponents claim it will “harm the city’s landscape and infrastructure, while still not reducing congestion.”

Friday Reflection:
Trust is the Currency that Matters Most

In the economy of civics, “trust” is the only currency that counts. We all know that a flat-out lie is wrong, yet we tolerate “shading” the truth if it serves our political purposes. It is so easy to pull honest-to-goodness facts out of context to deceitfully further our own ends.

Scripture is replete with condemnations of lying. Proverbs 12:33 tells us “Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight.”

And let us not forget the most inconvenient of the Ten Commandments. To be clear: the Ninth Commandment doesn’t say, “Don’t lie,” which is how we try to explain it. True enough, but this explanation misses the mark through simplification.

Instead, God tells us to “not bear false witness against your neighbor.” This covers a lot more waterfront than just “do not tell a lie.” It goes to the heart of what we say, what we communicate, and what we are attempting to make our neighbor hear. It even goes to what we don’t say.

This is where context matters. Fact presented out of context creates a lie.

We see this all the time in politics.

Not long ago, a Republican lawmaker bragged about how he was a proponent of a popular GOP reform. In fact, he was responsible for the measure being watered down to the point of being useless. After the bill was gutted, he then voted for it. So when he told his constituents he supported the measure, he was telling a version of the truth way outside the context of what had actually happened.

It’s not just the politicians. The establishment media does the same thing every day. From carefully selected camera angles to skipped nuances, most of what we read and watch is simulataneously “factual” and a lie.

The crony politicians and the establishment media do it for the same reason: to preserve their power and keep the citizenry uninformed.

Tyranny thrives when the people are misinformed. To secure liberty, we must expect something better.

This means our loyalty cannot be to politicians, parties, and institutions. This constitutional republic will fail when we as citizens tolerate deceit from those who are supposed to serve us.

Our American system of self-governance requires that we as citizens tell each other the truth, putting facts in context in the service of helping each other be more effective.

Telling the truth isn’t always convenient to the establishment politicians, their apologists in the media, or paymasters in the lobby, but it is critical to the high calling of citizenship. 

Quote-Unquote

"Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government."

– Thomas Jefferson