Today begins with sad news of the passing of my friend and colleague, Ross Kecseg. He was just 36 and is survived by his lovely wife, their young son, and a grieving family.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Thursday, September 24, 2020
Modify your email preferences.

Because Ross was always about the mission and the work, here is today’s Texas Minute.

• A growing number of Republicans are taking issue with Gov. Greg Abbott’s string of unilateral executive orders in response to the Chinese coronavirus. Now his actions are the subject of a lawsuit from the Republican Party of Texas, which is urging the Supreme Court of Texas to overturn Abbott’s executive order extending early voting in the November election. Brandon Waltens has the details.
      
• Though numerous lawsuits have been filed in the last few months in relation to Abbott’s orders, this latest carries some big names beside the party itself – including Republican Party of Texas Chairman Allen West and Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller. The suit was filed by Houston-based attorney Jared Woodfill, and includes Texas Right to Life president Jim Graham, grassroots leaders Julie McCarty, JoAnn Fleming, and Cathie Adams, as well as a number of current and former Republican officeholders.
      
• In a statement to Texas Scorecard, Woodfill had harsh words for Abbott, accusing him of “[forgetting] that the Texas Constitution is not a document that he consults at his convenience.”
   
• “It is an uninterrupted charter of governmental structure that limits Governor Abbott’s ability to act as a king. If the Texas Supreme Court allows this structure to erode, so too does the promise of liberty. Given the extraordinary circumstances Texans have faced over the past seven months, it is shocking that Governor Abbott has continued to unilaterally suspend laws while refusing to convene the Texas Legislature.” – Jared Woodfill
   
• This shouldn’t be surprising. To be honest, Greg Abbott has been governing Texas during the pandemic like a power-grabbing Democrat.

• In the latest chapter of the ongoing fight to “reimagine” the Alamo, state officials decided overwhelmingly to block the controversial plan to remove a historical memorial from the hallowed Texas battlefield. Jacob Asmussen reports the Texas Historical Commission voted 12-2 to keep the Alamo Cenotaph, a 60-foot-tall marble structure honoring the Alamo defenders, on the battlefield where the men fought and died in 1836. 
   
• This victory came after intense efforts by grassroots activists seeking to protect the Alamo from leftist historical revision.
   
• The Cenotaph, also called The Spirit of Sacrifice, was built in 1936. It features inscriptions of the Texian and Tejano soldiers known to have fought in the pivotal struggle of the Texas Revolution and carvings of soldiers, including William Barret Travis, the commander of the small band of men who resisted the vast Mexican army’s assault of the Alamo fort.

• Students in Fort Worth will finally be going back to school, reports Erin Anderson. The flip-flopping Fort Worth Independent School District board compromised on a plan to offer struggling families a two-week phased-in option for on-campus learning.
     
• In a marathon meeting that started at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday and lasted until 4:00 a.m. Wednesday morning, school board trustees voted 5-4 to seek a TEA waiver extending the district’s back-to-school transition, allowing administrators to stagger students’ return to campuses over a two-week period starting on October 5.

• Airline pilot and lifelong Texan Craig Dow has penned an open letter to Texas’ lawmakers urging them “to take action to guarantee that the arbitrary and open-ended infringements upon the rights of the people never again occur.”
   
• Mr. Dow offers practical suggestions for ending the kind of unilateral executive overreach mentioned above, which has caused the Republican Party of Texas to sue over the actions of a Republican governor.

Your Federal & State Lawmakers