Good morning,

We’re constantly told how this is the worst campaign for president, ever. That the level of decorum is in the toilet. But is it, really, the worst? And what does that even mean?

I close out the week reflecting on those questions in today's Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Friday, September 18, 2020
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• Gov. Greg Abbott announced yesterday a new set of plans for slowly reopening Texas. Brandon Waltens reports the new criteria for businesses to reopen at higher capacities will be based on the hospitalization rates in local areas. Bars must remain closed unless half of their income is derived from sales of something besides alcohol.
     
• While not directly addressed, the governor implied his statewide mask mandate could continue until a vaccine for the Chinese coronavirus is in circulation.
     
• State Sen. Bob Hall (R-Edgewood) was critical of the governor’s plan, writing in a statement: “Governor, 25 percent tyranny is still tyranny.”
   

• “Today the Texas government reiterated its newly found disdain for liberty and justice when they proudly announced their vision for reopening Texas. This is not enough. Texans do not want incremental liberty and freedom. Texans want and deserve liberty and freedom in full.” – State Sen. Bob Hall

     
• The governor’s new orders will allow nursing home residents to designate two people as “essential family caregivers” who must then be trained before they can enter the nursing facility for a scheduled visit. 
     
• So now nursing home residents have slightly better visitation rights than convicted felons in state prisons...

• McKinney City Councilmember and Black Lives Matter activist La’Shadion Shemwell has refiled his voting rights lawsuit against the city’s special election to recall him from office. Erin Anderson reports the councilman is claiming the process is racially motivated.
   
• Shemwell claims “white city officials,” including Mayor George Fuller, supported the recall rule changes “for the purpose of diluting the strength of Black and Latino voters” in his eastside majority-minority district, violating the 14th and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act.
   
• The city was required to order the recall election, originally set for May, after citizens submitted a recall petition in December signed by over 3,000 voters.

• After Democrat officials in Austin enacted an onslaught of harmful policies against citizens, the community is fighting back. Jacob Asmussen reports on an effort to remove members of the Austin City Council from office.
   
• “Over the past six months, our jaws have dropped at the stunning disregard for and rapid degradation of our quality of life in Austin as displayed by our Council and Mayor.” – Austin activist Becky McMillian

• Cities and counties in North Texas are adopting property tax rates that will either deliver smaller increases in their average property tax bills or lower them altogether. Check out the roundup by Robert Montoya.

• We are excited to announce the launch of our Texas Scorecard Journalism Fellowship! This is a comprehensive fellowship program designed for conservative Texans under the age of 25 with an interest in public policy, effective civic engagement, political accountability, and Texas history. 
   
• The Spring 2021 Fellowship program runs from Dec. 14-Dec. 18, and Jan. 4- May 31.
   
• Applications are due by October 15, 2020.

Friday Reflection

To believe the handwringing social media posts I scroll past every day, this is the worst presidential election in history. We’re told  that our Founding Fathers must be rolling in their graves. Whatever other cultural decay we have experienced, a bipartisan propensity for political hyperbole and historical revisionism seems healthy enough.

I cringe every time a well-intentioned friend makes reference to the “decline” in the tone of our elections, the devolution of campaigns. It’s one thing to remember the past fondly; it is something else to romanticize it irrationally.

Let’s consider the invocation of the views of the Founding Fathers. 

In 1798 it was the “father of the country,” the man who eschewed partisan politics (in our modern mythology), George Washington himself, who said it would be easier to rub a black rock into white “as to change the principles of a professed Democrat; and that he will leave nothing unattempted to overturn the Government of this Country.”

Boom.

Two years later, the Founding Fathers were still running the show. The presidential election of 1800 featured the incumbent John Adams being challenged by Thomas Jefferson. The campaign was marked by vicious slander and bitter attacks. Adams’ people derided Jefferson as a dangerous atheist, while the Jefferson camp said Adams was a “hermaphrodite.” (If you don’t know what that is... trust me: it is not nice.)

Things didn’t get better. Democrats in 1876 falsely campaigned on the claim Republican Rutherford Hayes had shot his mother while drunk. (And, yes, I skipped past the sordid attacks on Andrew Jackson’s beloved wife.)

In 1884, Grover Cleveland was called a "lecherous beast" and "moral leper” by Republicans, owing to the fact he had fathered a child out of wedlock.  

And let’s not forget the high-water mark of political decorum: the 1920 presidential race in which Democrats urged Americans to vote against Republican Warren Harding because he had black ancestors.

None of that is to excuse the current election cycle, only to suggest we might all do well to consider the problem isn’t the devolution of campaigning but the corruption of the human heart. We get so wrapped up in our support of our candidates that we dehumanize our political opposites. When we think of an election as the be-all and end-all of our civilization and life, it warps our view of everything around us.

We’d do well to consider the words of the author of Hebrews: “...let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Yes, the tone of elections could be improved, but they are – like late-night social media binges – merely a reflection of our collective heart. Rather than hoping for a return to a past that never existed, our current elections – and the future of our Republic – would benefit from more of us fixing our eyes on the steady goal of God’s standard.