Good morning!

Wow, typing the date in the subject line made me realize April is almost gone. We seem to have misplaced a month... Can we get a spring do-over?

Here is today’s Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Wednesday, April 29, 2020
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• The constitutionally required decennial census has been made more challenging due to the present crisis. The deadline for official population count numbers has been set for March 2021, but the Trump Administration has suggested release of the data could be postponed until later in the summer of 2021. This presents specific challenges for legislative and congressional redistricting.
       
• In a new commentary, Jim Ellis explains the problem is intensified for states that are either gaining (Texas) or losing (California) congressional districts in the reapportionment. Estimates allow for early work to be done, but until the Census Bureau provides the official tallies new boundaries cannot be finalized.
       
• Civics reminder: Federal law caps the number of U.S. House members at 435, allocated between states based on population – though every state gets at least one. Texas currently has 36 seats in the U.S. House, but that number is projected to increase by three.

• The plan created by Gov. Greg Abbott’s strike force – which he announced Monday – to slowly reopen Texas in phases received a less than enthusiastic response from his party’s base of activists in north Texas at a rally yesterday.
      
• At the “Back To Work” rally in Dallas yesterday, activists chanted “shutdown the shutdown.” Robert Montoya reports community and business leaders like entrepreneur Lisa Luby Ryan think “every single job, not 25 percent of the jobs, but every single job is important.”
      
• Former State Sen. Don Huffines (R-Dallas) was blunt in his assessment of Abbott’s handling of the state’s economy: “I thought it was an embarrassment for the State of Texas. He shut all the businesses down in one day, he can open them all in one day.”
        
• Like other Texans, the Texas House’s Freedom Caucus doesn’t understand why Gov. Abbott appears to be arbitrarily keeping certain businesses closed: “Barbers, cosmetologists, gyms, and salons are hurting. They can responsibly reopen now. They know coronavirus is serious. Texans know it’s serious. Texans can reduce the risk. Responsibly getting a haircut, exercising at a gym, or visiting a salon is possible. Let Texans decide.”
       
• I think what we have learned is that barbers, hair stylists, and gym owners didn’t have Mike Toomey as a lobbyist.
   
• “The government shouldn’t be picking winners and losers,” Michelle Smith, a leader of the popular Facebook group Open Texas, told Texas Scorecard. “All businesses are essential to the health of our economy, and those people have to feed their families.”
           
• “What would Sam Houston think … what would Stephen F. Austin think? Texas did not fight for their independence from a totalitarian government only to find itself under one now.” – Joel Starnes
        
• In a new commentary, attorney Warren Norred writes he is “disappointed in Gov. Abbott’s ongoing pretense to be able to create laws out of thin air. It’s particularly disappointing when he decides that he can eliminate ANY use of ANY salon, no matter how carefully it operates, but allow your Petri Dish Day Care facility to operate however it wants. A woman can get her poodle’s hair cut, but she can’t get her own hair cut?” 
   
• Meanwhile, Michael Swirsky thoughtfully explains why the anti-lockdown advocates were absolutely right... and why they have been mostly ignored.
   
• “The case against lockdowns is strong, but conservatives have lost political capital. Let’s use the little we have left to persuade Texas and the rest of the country that choosing freedom is in the common good.” – Michael Swirsky

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Today In History

On April 29, 1945, the Dachau concentration camp was liberated by 45th Infantry Division of the U.S. Seventh Army.