The Costs of Standing Strong

We had one last school board meeting as the school year ended. Our board meetings are typically in two parts. There’s a work meeting, and a few days later an official board meeting. These are usually on the first or second Monday/Thursday or Thursday/Monday combination of the month. This month these were June 13 and June 17.

Cy-Fair ISD board meeting Monday, June 17, 2024
screenshot from here

At last Thursday’s work meeting, June 13, I expected the major discussion to be related to changing the library book removal policy, because of activity in social media. I read through the proposed language and felt pretty good about it, although I had a couple of questions.

What happened at the Thursday meeting, however, was a lot of hubbub about the removal of certain chapters from textbooks before approving them for purchase in the district. This related to a vote taken at the previous board meeting, in May. I wrote about this in some detail then. And I made a prediction that has so far come true:

You can assume that the loud cohort will scream again, at the next board meeting, and the one after that…. Tolerating their tantrums is going to be one of the costs of standing up to them in order to stop allowing them to indoctrinate our kids.

And so it goes.

The Curriculum Selection Complaint

At the work session, a teacher who had been on the curriculum selection committee, specializing in earth science, filed a formal complaint against the board for violating policy by not rubberstamping the recommendations of the committee. She spoke, along with her lawyer.

The complainant (and the hoard of others complaining) failed to note that the board is instructed to use to committee to vet and select materials to be used; it does not say the board has to purchase all the materials recommended.

There was a point at which the board member who had moved to remove the particular materials last month, Dr. Natalie Blasingame, disagreed that a National Geographic text was the gold standard; she would have preferred a different text (a different text that was also approved by the SBOE, but that this committee did not select). She did not push to have her choice used instead; she limited her request to only those texts selected by the committee—and then asked for removal of particular chapters. It’s not clear to me whether the Board has the power to choose SBOE-approved books beyond what is recommended by the local committee, but the fact is they didn’t attempt to do so.

CFISD Board Vice President Dr. Natalie Blasingame
screenshot from here

During the discussion, the complainant and her lawyer both admitted that the board indeed had the authority to act as they did; in other words, they did not violate the policy the complaint claims they violated.

That should end the issue. But with these people, nothing but getting their way will do.

During the Thursday work session, we learned more details about what was being removed. One thing we learned was that it wasn’t Dr. Blasingame’s preference to remove entire chapters. She would have been satisfied with particular paragraphs being removed. However, the books could only be provided on a chapter-by-chapter basis. This means that, for students, those chapters will not be available to them for reading.

But what about the TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills)? That was the insistent question. How are they going to learn materials required of them in annual testing, if they can’t get to these materials?

The short answer is, the same way they always have: by whatever means the teachers bring it to them.

To begin with, none of the problematic material is part of TEKS. There are, however, TEKS items in the removed chapters. But the way most classrooms work is not by simply having students read the textbook and then discussing and testing. In fact, only occasionally will the students be assigned reading from the texts (which are digital online copies, not physical books, by the way). Much of the material—including material coming from the texts—is presented in class by the teacher, with supplementary materials, graphs, charts, data, stories, etc., along with activities, labs, etc.

The teachers can use the full textbooks as a resource, just as they normally would; they just can’t present the problematic materials. So the hue and cry about all the extra work of creating curriculum is irrelevant. There was a complaint that teachers couldn't prepare and were way behind in their lesson plans, because of this unsureness about materials—except that it has been known, since last month, what was the minimum available, and there was no reason not to go ahead and lesson plan.

One item mentioned in the May meeting was “depopulation.” The complainant said she had done a search of all the material, and that word was not even used. However, when the problematic section was read last Thursday, the idea that humans are harmful to the planet and we need fewer of them was clearly there—and that is something this community does not want indoctrinated into our students.

In a private online forum, a participant tells this:

started reading some of the chapters that were removed from the science books.  ~98%+ of the material is fine however when you get to the statement saying we're all gonna die if we don't stop using fossil fuels you can see why people had an issue with the content…. Please show me the empirical peer reviewed study that proves that we're all gonna die if we don't stop using fossil fuels. It is not science.

My guess is he’s not directly quoting from the text, but we’ve all read similar assertions from the “mankind is bad for the planet” faith viewpoint. It doesn’t coincide with science—and is even less something you could call settled science. Why did it pass with the SBOE? You’ll have to ask your SBOE representative. Ours has made a point of telling school boards that they didn’t have to accept a text just because the statewide board approved it. They could and should make local decisions.

There was another example of vaccines. There’s a concept, new to me, called “phenomenon-based instruction.” It appears to me to mean that concepts are taught using particular event, a phenomenon, possibly from the news. The phenomenon in this particular section of the textbook was COVID-19. So when the concept of vaccination comes up, we’re not dealing with actual vaccines (remember, they had to change the definition of vaccine to apply the word to the COVID-19 jab). We are not dealing with something that causes immunity, reduces spread, or even necessarily lessens the intensity of the virus. And we’re taking on serious risks by taking this non-vaccine non-helpful intervention. All that aside, when a chapter (in that context) states flatly that vaccines save lives, even that is questionable, which board member Todd LeCompte pointed out. (There’s a clip here.) Which vaccines have saved lives? What is the evidence? We used to have maybe three required. Now there are over 70 required. And since the rise in required vaccines, there is a dramatic rise in autism (from 1/10,000 children to 1/36). Is the link between autism and increased vaccination causal? There are people who think so. Which means it is not settled science, and to state it as if it is fact does not increase the critical thinking of our students; it uses authority to stop them from critically thinking.

There was a fair amount of attack on the board for not being the experts, and that they ought to defer to the experts. First of all, Dr. Blasingame is an expert. Second, teaching is not rocket science (even when you’re teaching rocket science). We members of the community can read the material and see clearly what ought not to be there. We’ve seen it before; we’ve put the requests to remove it from schools in our platform and have accomplished some legislation.

And I’ll just mention here, anyone who graduated from high school ought to be able to understand with sufficient clarity any materials used in K-12. The expertise is almost always about how to manage a factory-style group of students, not how or what information to pass along to students. And, I don't want to overstate this, but I’ve been a textbook writer—biology was one. Textbooks are collections of knowledge, for convenience. And some are worthwhile. But every important concept can be taught without a textbook, maybe better than with one, as our teachers already know.

The opponents are claiming the removal of the materials is censorship. It is a decision not to buy materials that the board—and the community that voted them in—find objectionable and untrue. Censorship is the refusal to have certain ideas heard, often true ideas. A student’s speech can be censored, for example. A guest speaker could be censored by being uninvited or shut down through the heckler’s veto. Materials not used are not censored; they are simply not chosen as the materials to use.

The Pre-Purchase Review of Books

There was another issue at the meeting that drew attention of the media, again questioned by board member Julie Hinaman. It related to an update in the policy for acquiring library materials. There’s a 30-day window for the public to review what is being considered for purchase. Again, anything not chosen is money not spent, not books being censored. But the “they’re denying books for our students” crowd are really upset that they can’t put everything they want, not just before their own children, but before all the children. This includes pornography, which they are claiming is valuable for some of our “diverse” students. Anyone who claims pornography should be provided to minors ought to be labeled a child predator. Let’s be clear on what they’re wanting to do to our kids.

Anyway, there’s a proviso that the books would be listed for the board members five days before the list goes public for that 30-day window. As the board counsel explained, the intention was a courtesy to the board. If they are going to receive complaints about books on the list, it would be helpful to them to be aware of the books a little ahead of time. Since the books aren’t yet purchased, it is only the names of the books being provided to the board; they would still have to seek them out themselves to read or learn about them, which can take time. There is no provision for board members to remove books from the list prior to that 30-day public window. (There’s a clip of this exchange here.) But that is what they were being accused of—having some backroom mechanism for influencing the list before the public even sees it.

CFISD Board member Julie Hinaman
screenshot from here

There’s an awful lot of uproar about this supposedly rogue board depriving students of their educational opportunities. We will have to continue to disagree on this—because we worked very hard to elect a board that would finally be responsive to the community, to stop the sexualizing agenda, the SEL and DEI agendas—the agendas pushed by teacher unions and other nefarious moneygrubbing tyrants who have been working for decades to dumb down our kids while claiming they’re the ones caring for the children.

The Organized Opposition

You might not be aware of the organizing of the opposition—trying to make themselves look like a vast majority. I use the word “organized” in the sense of “community organizing,” as in Obama's life work. There are going to be several organization names. One of them is Cypress Families for Public Schools. Board member Julie Hinaman (the lone opposition on the board) belongs to this one. A number of names you would recognize from the public comments and citizen participation each month belong to this group.

When reducing the number of campus librarians became part of the budget discussion last month—at the suggestion of school principals, as a way to handle the budget deficit—there was another organization formed, recruiting people by telling them librarians were being fired (not true), and campus libraries were being closed (also not true), so they could recruit more anti-board furor. I believe the group is CFISD Parents for Librarians. I think parents joined thinking it was an open forum and a way to support libraries (the policy for which they were not being told the truth). But it has been used as a recruitment to the board opposition (i.e., opposition to the majority of voters who elected this board purposely intending to repair the damage over the past two decades from the previous board members). Here’s an example of the ugliness our board members are getting thrown at them in this group:

If we want to protect librarians, teachers/staff, and CFISD, we GOTTA also understand just who is governing our district, their history, their intentions and agenda, and the company they keep.

After the meeting last night, Christian Nationalist extremist trustee Lucas Scanlon said to a community member that he felt the public comments were "mean." Oh, REALLY?!?!

The poster goes on to make multiple accusations against Scanlon, and his wife, Bethany. I am in multiple groups with Bethany (an excellent source on the library books we’d like removed). She often shows examples of these people telling lies about her. I see her defending herself and her husband; I do not see any “vile” or “mean” posts against such persons as this poster—ever.

After my blog post on last month’s meeting, the opposition let me know—because I’d mentioned an email exchange with the board president in which I asked about the ad hominem attacks from the citizen participants, the entirety of the brief contents I had stated—that they were doing a freedom of information request (I’m unsure of the specific title for such a request in our district) to obtain all such correspondence between me and the president, and I’m assuming between him and any other citizen. This is an attempt to intimidate. Fortunately, there’s nothing to see there. But it’s also a warning to all board members to avoid any written exchanges with citizens, despite their board emails being available on the website for the purpose of open communication with the community. Every correspondence is likely to be construed as collusion.

We heard from former board president (whom we voted out), Bob Covey, earlier in the meeting. The Houston Chronicle caught a photo of him later in the meeting, yelling at the board, out of turn. Board counsel threatened to remove him from the meeting (and he did leave). Because I listened online, I missed the outburst; it didn’t get picked up on the microphones, so what he yelled was not in the transcript. But the lack of decorum is astounding.

Former CFISD board president Bob Covey, who had spoken earlier,
yells at the board before leaving. Photo from Houston Chronicle.

A couple of years ago we had similar (but less vile) disruptions from our side—when we were not allowed to voice our opinions. But these people are being heard. In fact, they organized well enough to fill up the entire slate of citizen participation, leaving supporting citizens no time to speak.

Texas House Rep. Jon Rosenthal also spoke. He accused the board of violating the open meetings act by colluding behind the back of Julie Hinaman last month, because the other board members were ready —after a month of study following the April meeting—to vote to remove those chapters and she was not. Hinaman was clearly blindsided by that vote. But if she had spent her time using that extra month to read the materials, she could have predicted what would be problematic to the rest of the board. The board meeting’s conversation (I think this was in Thursday’s work session) made it obvious Dr. Blasingame had spent plenty of time discussing openly her concerns and how to handle them with Dr. Macias, the curriculum director for the district. Others were present during those conversations. It wasn’t something that happened in the darkness of some secret board meeting that excluded Julie Hinaman.

book cover image from Amazon.com

There’s another organization that might be behind some of what’s going on. This is a rabbit hole I went down last night, after a conversation with a friend who had attended Monday’s board meeting. She saw two separate community members carrying a book called We Are Indivisible. It’s written by the founders of a group called Indivisible.org. In a 2017 interview with one of the founders, Ezra Levin, he says the movement started during a Thanksgiving break in an Austin, Texas, bar, shortly after the election of Donald Trump in 2016. He and his wife, Leah, came up with a 23-page document laying out a strategy for political activism, which got boosted by such pro-tyrannists as Robert Reich and George Takei. He relates:

As former congressional staffers, Leah and I decided in that bar to write a guide aimed at demystifying the congressional policy process and copying the Tea Party strategies and tactics (minus the racism and violence).

Isn’t that sweet. Just like us tea partiers—minus the absolutely nonexistent “racism and violence.” Except maybe adding in the anti-racism version of racism, maybe along with some violence, or at least obstructionism in the style of Cloward and Piven. And fundraising—they do a lot of that, unlike our local tea party, which has never handled money at all, and doesn’t organize any protests ever. (We do learn about the legislative process and share information with each other, and freely contact our legislators.) And they add in a whole lot of lying, because you can’t recruit people to such causes by telling the truth about them. They’re very much about killing the preborn—that’s a priority above almost all else.

They have collaborated with Organizing for America, MoveOn, Working Families Party, and Planned Parenthood, among others, to “stand strong against the Trump Administration’s racist, misogynistic, and broadly bigoted agenda.” So, just like the Tea Party—except the exact opposite in every conceivable way.

There are thousands of Indivisible groups, according to Levin. And I am told there is a group in Katy, Texas, aiming particularly at the County DA race, to oppose the Republican, Dan Simons, and put in the radical tyrant who primaried out the Democrat DA, Kim Ogg, because she wasn’t willing to put all the violent felons back out on the streets. Rep. Rosenthal and one other speaker hinted that we’re going to find out in November (in a year when the school board is not on the ballot) just how much trouble we’re in. I think this means they are targeting every Republican near us who is on the ballot.

So this is the enemy army we are up against. These are the ones using social media to lie about what is actually happening in our school board. They are setting their sights on every political race. They will be showing up—with signs already made—at every possible event. And they are calling the media to be there, telling their side of the story to any willing-to-be-partisan reporters.

Stand with Our School Board Heroes

I will note that the school board positions are unpaid. What they are going through is likely to give anyone pause before signing up to run in the future. But we can thank them for being heroes—to our community and to our kids.

There’s no board meeting in July—except a “special called board meeting” on July 23; I don’t know what that is about (no agenda posted yet). The next official meetings are the work session August 3 8 and regular board meeting August 7 12. [Apologies for the error; I thought I was looking at the coming 2024-2025 year, but I was mistakenly looking at the 2023-2024 schedule.] All are at 6:00 PM, in the board meeting room of the Henry Administration Building.

These are not times in which you can sit back and trust that all will go well. In August, you might want to put the next meeting on your calendar, so you can show up to support these brave board members.

Is the Tide Turning?

I didn’t write last week about the conviction of President Trump on 34 felony counts of letting his accountant assign legal expenses as legal expenses in his ledger. There are plenty of people responding to that.

But I’m wondering about the fallout of the lawfare attacks. Are people realizing what has been going on? Are they waking up and rejecting the overlords? And—is this bigger than just the US presidency? Is it worldwide?

Here are some evidences that the tide might be turning back toward freedom, prosperity, and civilization.

 

El Salvador

Tucker Carlson interviewed the president of El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele: “President Nayib Bukele: Seeking God’s Wisdom, Taking Down MS-13, and His Advice to Donald Trump” Tucker Carlson.

President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele
screenshot from here

In the interview, it is right after an inauguration. But I gather it is his reelection; he has had two or three years to make progress. And the progress has been significant. As President Bukele says, you have to start with peace—get rid of unrest from war, from civil war, from crime. And once you have peace, to walk around freely, to have your rights respected, then you can work on quality-of-life things: infrastructure, economics, developing resources.

When he started out, El Salvador was the murder capital of the world. It was full of cartels, gangs, drug lords, violent criminals. Now, in three years, it has become the safest country in the Western hemisphere.

The US has a murder rate of 6 per 100,000 population. El Salvador has a rate of 2. It is literally three times safer than the US. It’s safer than Canada, safer than Chile, safer than Europe.

Tucker Carlson asks, how did they do it? What lessons are there for the rest of us? Bukele says the transformation happened in just a couple of weeks. They built up the police. They used the army to fight crime, equipping them with needed weapons, vehicles, drones, whatever was needed.

There were about 70,000 gang members, creating terror by random killing—with 6 million targets. It took a miracle—a lot of prayer that civilian casualties would be as low as possible. They did it without any civilian casualties. There were eight casualties among police and military. But they made 70,000 arrests. There were an additional 500,000 collaborators, but they spared them, because most of them were just trying to survive while being pressured by the gangs. Getting the 70,000 murderers off the streets meant essentially crime was completely eradicated.

MS-13 is a satanic group, he says. So it took a miracle from God to fight them. That is not hyperbole. One story he told was of a gang member, in prison now, who left the gang. He had been casual about killing; he didn’t know how many, 10 or 20. But then they had him in a room where they were ceremonially killing a baby. He asked what they were doing, and they told him the Beast had asked them to do it. That crossed a line even for that hardened murderer.

The real battle is between good and evil.

Tucker asks the question, why, if a country has the means to shut down crime, why would it not do so?

We’re wondering that question here locally. Crime is high. Violent criminals are put back out on the streets. Even the liberal DA was pushing back, because things had crossed a line for her. So the Democrats put up a let-out-all-the-criminals-out extremist to replace her.

Out here in the relative safety of the suburbs, we don’t have a lot of theft—unless you leave your car out of the garage or fail to have a security system. We can still safely walk the streets. But maybe it’s best not to do that at night. It’s not downtown Chicago (or even downtown Houston). But it’s not El Salvador either.

Once there is peace, then the next step is economic—to raise the standard of living. We should be watching how they do.

 

Argentina

The conservative president of Argentina, Javier Milei, did an interview with Ben Shapiro: “On the Front Lines of Freedom | President of Argentina, Javier Milei” Sunday Special, Ben Shapiro, The Daily Wire April 14, 2024.

President of Argentina, Javier Milei
screenshot from here

As Ben Shapiro tells us in his introduction, Milei is “an economist by profession and a maverick by nature.” His approach is libertarian, in a nation that has been dominated by populists and socialists. He has been a popular interviewee on economic issues since 2018, and hosts his own radio show, “Demolishing Myths.” His presidency is new; he was elected November 19, 2023, winning in a landslide election with the highest percentage of the vote in the history of Argentina as a democracy.

As Shapiro tells us,

In his victory speech, Milei promised the reconstruction of Argentina and an end to its economic decline in a new era. Since taking office President Milei has lowered the number of ministries from 18 to 9, deregulated the Argentine economy, and slowed inflation in the country.

Early in the interview President Milei explains the plan they undertook, and its almost immediate results:

We announced a zero deficit program, an adjustment in order to no longer have a fiscal deficit and to stop the issuing on the treasury front. We started also to clean up the balance sheets of the central bank to bring down the ten points of GDP in relation to the central bank. And at the same time as there was a currency gap of 200%, we introduced a staged correction to try and reduce the gap. And we were hoping that zero deficit would be achieved during 2024 at some point. All analysts predicted that would be impossible to achieve. And we basically succeeded in doing that within a single month.

A single month! They made the largest fiscal adjustment in human history, according to the IMF. They adjusted their central bank, taking a fiscal deficit of 10 percentage points of GDP down to 4. Within three months they made an adjustment amounting to 12 points of GDP.

Inflation in December 2023 had been at 25%. It dropped to 20% in January, and plummeted to 13% in February. March, a complex month (end of a quarter), would be around 12.5%, but they hope to quickly bring it down into single digits.

How has he done this? President Milei explains a change in the Argentine people. The usual politician asks for your vote to give the politician more power. They are asking for votes to give people control over their own lives, to give them back their freedom—as he puts it, “to be the architect of your own destiny.” This required a change in attitude among the people, a change that has been coming for some time.

And, mainly, they have succeeded “by embracing the values of the West, which means embracing the ideas of the Founding Fathers of the United States.” He explains that Argentina’s original constitution, drafted mainly Juan Bautista Alberdi back in 1853, was patterned after the US Constitution. When it was implemented in 1860, Argentina went from a backwater to becoming a leading world power. Those principles lead to prosperity. He says,

In fact, the 1000 reforms we sent to Congress in the first month, if all of them were to stand, to remain effective, Argentina would climb up 90 spots in terms of economic fame.”

He thinks they would be comparable to Germany, given a couple of decades. That’s with 1000 reforms. They still have another 3,000 to put forward. A better model, he thinks, is Ireland, which went from being the poorest European country to, within a few decades, achieving GDP 50% higher than that of the United States.

A Reuters article, “IMF staff, Argentina agree loan review to help unlock $800 million” May 13, 2024, verifies President Milei’s positive report: 

Milei's plan "has resulted in faster-than-anticipated progress in restoring macroeconomic stability and bringing the program firmly back on track," the IMF said. It cited also important work to protect vulnerable groups given "the backdrop of a contraction in economic activity."

 

European Parliament

European parliament votes went conservative this week. According to a Brookings commentary, “The European Parliament elections have upended French politics,” summarizes the situation thus: “The far-right is now the premier political force in France.”  What do they mean by far right? They mean, as Democrats in the US use the term, anyone slightly more conservative than extreme liberals. They use the phrase “far right” to scare people into thinking such mild conservatives are jack-booted thugs who may show up at your door at any moment in full-on Nazi fashion.

European Parliament results, chart found here

In a response to the Brookings article, Ashe in America, in a Badlands Media Brief (scroll down to this story) tells us MAGA is bigger than America; it’s worldwide:

MAGA is a global movement. The idea that each nation preserve and protect its people, traditions, culture, and history is the hearts’ cry of our current political moment—globally.

As evidence, he brings up this quote from the article:

‘RN [Rassemblement National, or National Rally party] has completely appropriated much of the vocabulary traditionally reserved to the left (a new move by the far right in France, but one that the MAGA wing of the U.S. Republican Party has frequently used). This is upending and fundamentally restructuring French politics.’

Words, apparently, matter. We’ve been in a war of words, or ideas—as every war is, even underneath a kinetic war. Maybe we’re beginning to prevail. As Ashe in America sums up: “Deconstructing their narratives and forcing a principled stance on Rights is working.”

 

Summary

There are other nations that show the worldwide movement toward freedom, prosperity, and civilization. Italy elected such a leader; I hope she can succeed. There are a couple of European leaders, interviewed I think by Tucker Carlson (or possibly Jordan Peterson), who are reliably conservative—and religious. (I should have kept notes, because I can’t recall who they are right now.)

What surprised me in the stories today was the speed with which things can change. You lock up 70,000 criminal gang members, and the country goes from murder capital to safest place. You get rid of unnecessary government ministries, and debt and inflation plummet, while GDP rises—almost overnight.

If the Beast of Revelation, or Babylon the whore of all the earth, is that ugly tyranny we’ve been battling in its various murderous forms, then we are seeing that it can be overcome quickly:

“Alas, alas, that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.”—Revelation 18:19

In the end, it will be Christ’s return the demolishes the evil. But in the meantime, we can follow His principles to do our part. Wherever we follow the principles of freedom, prosperity, and civilization, we see blessings can come very quickly.

 

Additional Things I’ve Noticed That Show Things May Be Changing:

·       “Survey: Voters Are Increasingly Rejecting Lies of Gender Ideology” Katherine Hamilton, Breitbart, June 12, 2024  

·       “Catherine Herridge identifies 'most important 10 seconds' of special counsel's remarks after Hunter Biden conviction” Chris Enloe, The Blaze, June 12, 2024  “we have additional trials and investigative work to be done” 

·       Catherine Herridge’s X post 

·       “Forget ‘Never Trumpers’—More Voters Now Say They’ll Never Vote For Biden” Robert Schmad, Daily Caller, May 18, 2024 

·       “‘My Goodness’: CNN Data Guru Breaks Down How Bad Biden Is Doing With Black Voters” Harold Hutchison, Daily Caller, May 17, 2024 

·       “Who’s really calling the shots in the Biden administration?” Stephen B. Presser, The Blaze, June 11, 2024 

·       “Behind Closed Doors, Biden Shows Signs of Slipping” Annie Linskey and Siobhan Hughes, Wall Street Journal, June 4, 2024 

·       “‘Biggest Mistake Of My Life’: Biden 2020 Voters Explain Why They’re Backing Trump In 2024” Mary Lou Masters, Daily Caller, May 17, 2024 

RPT Convention Debrief

I spent last week (May 20-26) at the Republican Party of Texas Convention in San Antonio. I intended to have this debrief done a week ago. But I didn’t finish. Then I spent two days doing a careful edit of the platform (along with other editorial team members). Then my computer cord finally gave out (it has been threatening for some months) and wouldn’t turn on. It spent a day in the shop. By then my other regular weekly assignments were urgent. So here we are.

Exhibit Hall at the RPT Convention, Tuesday, May 21, before it was open

I’m not the only one taking this long to debrief. Luke Macias, of Texas Scorecard, did his video podcast debrief just yesterday. He covers three main topics: the runoff that just happened, the state party chair race (which relates to the runoff races), and rule changes. These he covers with a lot of inside knowledge. He just touches on the platform. But I recommend spending a half hour listening to him. Here I’m mainly giving my perspective and experiences. (And, bonus—or “so sorry,” depending on your viewpoint, this makes up for not writing last week by being way way way too long this week. If you read through it all, thank you so much!)

Need to find someone after general session?
Try telling them to meet at the elephant.

This convention is, as we’re often reminded, the biggest political gathering in the country—and probably, therefore, in the world. It’s bigger than the Republican National Convention. Everything’s bigger in Texas.

Still, for a presidential year, it seemed pretty low-key. There were about 7,000 delegates, plus visitors, vendors, elected officials, etc., but we could have accommodated over 9,000 delegates. I only spent about 20 minutes in the exhibit hall, but it seemed smaller, less full of booths, and less full of people than some I remember in the past.

Senator Ted Cruz gave a good speech on Saturday, May 25.

This was my tenth RPT Convention as a delegate. But the previous three I was editing the platform, which kept me occupied day and night at least through Friday of the convention, and then of course varying lengths of time afterward. This time I just advised those I’d passed the assignment on to, and I did some help with document prep. Then, as I mentioned, I just spent a couple of workdays in a semifinal careful edit. But mainly I was just a regular delegate this time around.

I testified in a temporary subcommittee on Tuesday. I didn’t do well (did I mention, our power had been out because of the derecho that struck Houston derecho that struck Houston May 16, so I hadn’t been able to write and print out a speech, which is kind of necessary for me). Oh well. The platform is just one way to get a message out. The next step is contacting legislators about how we want legislation written. Just another day in the life of an individual grassroot.

As a (not very brief) debrief, I’ll talk about some of the business accomplished at the convention.

Party Chair and Other Races

The biggest candidate decision was the new RPT Chair. Chairman Matt Rinaldi, who has held the position for the past three years (after Allen West stepped down to run for governor), announced he wasn’t going to seek reelection. I had liked Rinaldi. I don’t know what political pressures led to his decision not to run. There are always political details I do not understand. I am a policy person more than a political person.

RPT Chair Matt Rinaldi conducts business on Saturday of convention;
CD 38 was seated too far back to see the stage, so we watched screens.

The RPT job covers a lot of territory, but mainly it is there to get good Republicans elected and then to get good Republican policies passed into law. There’s a lot of fundraising involved in the election of candidates. And there’s a lot of managing, somewhat neutrally, the differing factions within the party.

Matt Rinaldi was more focused on policy than previous RPT chairs that I have been aware of. (He did a pretty in-depth interview with Luke Macias here.) To me, that is a good thing. He was also very vocal about Speaker Dade Phelan’s work against the party’s priorities—which come up from the grassroots at the convention, with the platform and legislative priorities voted on by the delegates. Along with that, he was against Phelan’s prosecution/impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton at the tail end of the last legislative session.

It was a relatively short campaign season for RPT Chair. There were several candidates I was getting emails and texts from for a couple of weeks—and inundated with during convention week. I was previously familiar with only one, who was local, Dr. Dana Myers (she’s an MD, before taking on other careers). She had been the incumbent RPT Vice Chair and announced she was running for chair before Rinaldi announced his decision not to run. However, Rinaldi and many strong conservatives recommended Abraham George. The preference seems to be the balance of policy over fundraising—but without neglecting the necessary fundraising.

I had listened to a candidate forum, held here in Harris County a week or so before the convention. I crossed one candidate off my list (would have to consult notes to know who that was). At least three seemed OK to me. During the last couple of days before the vote, there were some vile attacks against Abraham George; I don’t know where they came from. Dana Myers made it clear it wasn’t from her. (She also received a fair number of attacks.) There were at least two candidates who announced the week of convention; my guess is it was from one of them. I don’t know when/if we’ll ever know.

The vote happens in the Senatorial District Caucus, early Friday morning. There had been some form of rule change about how these caucus votes happened. Our SD7 has people from two counties, and they needed to do their votes separately. The counties and SDs are weighted differently. Then, using math, these are combined into one weighted SD vote. These votes are turned in to the Nominating Committee, which then gives a report in a general session. That session was supposed to start around 10:00 AM Friday, but it couldn’t begin until all the SDs were finished caucusing. It got underway around 1:30 PM. And even then, the Legislative Priorities were discussed first, because the Nominations Committee still had to do all their math and prepare their report.

One side of the room during our Thursday first SD7 Caucus

There were people complaining that this was the least organized convention they’d ever seen. But, literally, no business beyond hearing speeches could be done when those caucuses were still meeting. Organizers could do nothing to change that. A rule change to hasten that type of caucus vote next time might be needed.

Eventually the Nominations Committee announced the winner, whom they put into nomination, as Abraham George. Then the floor was opened up to other nominations. A candidate has to have won in at least three SDs in order to be eligible to be nominated from the floor. There were three that first round of voting: Abraham George, Dana Myers, and Weston Martinez. These were the three I liked best from the candidate forum.

party chair vote tally underway, on Friday, May 24

A floor vote takes a long time. The delegates have to be seated and verified (to make sure no non-delegates get to vote). They have to be seated in their SD, but in separate counties, which is a little challenging. (Despite loud announcements and a long enough time to get there, there were delegates locked out during the first round of voting. They got in by the second round.) Then everyone gets a piece of colored paper on which to write their vote. The votes are gathered and counted, and the math is done to give them their weighted strength, and those are reported one SD at a time (there are 31 SDs). And then more math is done to verify the winner.

The floor vote got us down to Abraham George and Dana Myers. So we had another floor vote, using a different color of paper.

My phone was dying, so I used the counting and reporting time (about 45 minutes per round of voting, after the time to verify delegates in their seats and have them vote) to plug into a wall, and to entertain myself by editing the platform—the printed copy of which had just been handed out. We were supposed to be doing platform debate in this afternoon general session, but we had to do this vote first.

Abraham George was the winner of that second round. I think he’s from India, immigrated (legally) with his family when he was about 17. I voted for him, and I wish him well in this tough job.

Abraham George is the new RPT Chair

Then came the Vice Chair vote. The Nominations Committee showed D’Rinda Randall as far in the lead, but there were three candidates eligible to be nominated from the floor. (The fourth candidate was male, and party rules require the Vice Chair to be the opposite sex of the Chair. If Dana Myers had won for Chair, he would have been the only eligible candidate for Vice Chair.) Because of the time it was taking, one who was put into nomination was going to decline, to save the body a floor vote. But when the other one was put into nomination, she rescinded her decline. That meant there would be at least two floor votes.

But there wasn’t time. There was a gala scheduled for Friday evening that many delegates had paid good money for. I think the featured speaker was Rep. Matt Gaetz. (Maybe Senator Ted Cruz too; I’m not sure.) But without getting the SD business done that day, we wouldn’t have a vice chair or a platform. So they decided to call a late-night session at 9:00 PM Friday, after the gala. I was heading to Bulverde to have dinner with friends—because no business was supposed to be scheduled that night. As we adjourned around 6:45, I was already quite late. And there was no way I could come back. Since Platform is what I’m most interested in, I was pretty irate about that. But I just had to let it go, and my friends and I had a lovely evening.

It turned out the delegates held the votes for Vice Chair, and D’Rinda Randall won. 

D'Rinda Randall is the new RPT Vice Chair

And then they had platform discussion—adding three planks from the floor; I’ll get to that. But they chose to postpone the voting until Saturday afternoon. The voting is an up-or-down vote on each individual plank, with each delegate filling out a scantron form for their vote. The scantron included voting on Legislative Priorities as well. So I was pleased that I didn’t miss that.

The other SD Caucus business that happened in the Friday morning caucuses was to elect the SREC (State Republican Executive Committee). Each Senatorial District elects an SREC Committeeman and Committeewoman. There was no general assembly needed for these, since they represent the SD level. We had only some mild competition in ours, even though our committeeman had decided not to run for reelection. Again, any divide seems to be between conservative policy people and what you might call big-tent people (which translated into welcoming the Log Cabin Republicans; I had long been welcoming of them in our party on economic issues, until the last few years of LGBTQ pressure, which there just is no place for in a party trying to conserve our Constitution and our civilization. If they give up the pressuring, they could be welcome, but I don’t see that coming.) Anyway, I think in our SD we can all still be friends afterward.

first Congressional District 38 caucus, Thursday, May 23

On Saturday afternoon, we were seated in Congressional District Caucuses, to do business related to national business: National Committeeman, National Committeewoman, Delegates to the National Convention, and Electors to the Electoral College. (Yes, the electors are real people, and this is the process through which they get that privilege.) The CD Caucuses happened at 8:00 AM, again. A similar process was gone through—but without the separation into counties. So the Nominations report was relatively prompt.

National Committeeman was unanimous: Dr. Robin Armstrong (also an MD). I don’t know whether he even had a challenger. I didn’t participate in any 8:00 AM caucuses, because I don’t function in mornings generally, especially when I can’t go back to bed later and also may need to do some long driving. Whenever I can’t plan for a long nap, I just have to forego morning activities. And, might I comment that, when you’re dealing with a large segment of the delegates being 60+, and many quite elderly, working from 8:00 AM to near midnight and starting up again at 8:00 AM is kind of a ridiculous expectation.

National Committeewoman took a floor vote, but it went relatively smoothly, and only required one round. The winner is Debbie Georgatos.

the only photo I got of Debbie Georgatos,
the new National Committeewoman

And then there was the reading of names of the delegates and electors. Beyond that, we had to fill out our scantron sheets for the Platform and Legislative Priorities votes. And that concluded Saturday’s business.

Rules

There was one important rule change worth noting. The Republican Party of Texas is calling for a closed primary. That was already in our platform, but it wasn’t touched by the legislature. Huffines Liberty Foundation, in particular, has articulated how we can make the change at the party level, even without the help of the legislature.

Mark Ramsey presents the Rules Committee report, Friday, May 24

There are only 16 states, including Texas, that have an open primary. I grew up and voted until age 26 in a state with a closed primary. Part of the registration process is to declare your party—instead of wavering up until election day and then declaring your party. You can’t vote in a primary unless you declare a party at some point; it’s a matter of well ahead of time or at the last moment. During the Dade Phelan race, there’s data to show that a significant number of Democrats crossed over to vote for Phelan, who allows them to accomplish their Democrat goals, or at least thwart the Republicans. The number was several times the difference of 366 votes in his race against challenger David Covey. Fifteen other Phelan supporters in the Texas House were defeated. It took big money and Democrats for Phelan to squeak out a return—and we hope this loss of support will result in a change of Speaker.

There are questions about how this change to a closed primary will be accomplished. Will we need everyone to register again? Will we query those who have a mixed record to ascertain their party as part of registration? Do we have an easy way for people to be recruited into our party, who want to promote conservative, constitutional ideas, to switch from Democrat? I hope these things are worked out. We have two years to make it happen before the 2026 primary. There has been precedence set in other states (Idaho, recently). And the legislature could ease the process with enabling legislation.

floor debate on Closed Primaries, during Rules report, Friday, May 24

But what should be obvious is that we don’t need or want people who do not support conservative, constitutional ideas to be choosing our primary candidates.

There’s a common complaint that one party is just as bad as another. That isn’t actually true, particularly at state and local levels. But as far as it is true, it is because of “can’t we all just get along” compromises, which always mean—in Spherical Model terms—going further south into tyranny instead of standing firm up in the freedom zone. If independents want to have a say in who they’re voting for, they could join a party that most closely aligns with their beliefs—or else let those parties decide on the candidates and just choose from among them.

We want to attract voters in the general election. But we don’t want to attract primary voters who are not aligned with our values and allow them to choose our candidates; that only makes the choices more likely to be squishes. What we want is to get the best conservative candidates we can, and then show how electing such people will benefit all voters.

Platform

The platform—pending results from the plank-by-plank voting of the delegates, which I haven’t seen yet—is 252 planks long. That’s down from 274 in 2022, which was down from 337 planks in 2020 (but not fewer words).  Wordcount appears to me to be up again this year, even though we have fewer planks. That usually means the ideas of multiple plans were consolidated into other planks. Occasionally an idea is changed. And frequently new ideas are added—which we want to have happen, based on what we see happening in our world. But seldom are ideas omitted.

There was another numbering difference. For the sake of scantron voting, we have needed to give plank numbers to the Preamble and Principles (made up of an introductory paragraph followed by 10 principles, for a total of 12). I always thought it was confusing to have a plank number in front of a principle number. This year they started plank numbering with the first plank in Constitutional Issues, and gave the Preamble and Principles separate numbers after the platform planks only for the purpose of scantron voting. But that means that 12 of the fewer planks were simply because we didn’t give plank numbers to the Preamble and Principles. So it was only a decrease of 10 planks, not 22 planks.

This year there was a concerted effort to identify planks where legislation had accomplished them. Sometimes even then the idea needs to remain, but sometimes those are ripe for deletion. And still it doesn’t happen.

The Permanent Committee was set up classroom style. I was actually quite close,
front row behind the committee, between the two sides. This was so
they could all see the screen, because internet failures didn't allow them
to see the work live on their own computers. The photo makes it look very far,
but the setup did feel very distant.

Article 5 Plank

Let’s start with the three that were added during floor debate Friday evening. As I said, I wasn’t there for this discussion. And there may have been other amendments from the floor that I haven’t seen yet. (When I edited, it was prior to the convention secretary providing his floor debate file; the past two times, for reasons that escape me, he has waited a week to pass to the editorial committee what I think should have been passed within minutes of close of convention. But, oh well.) Anyway, an ongoing controversy is over the Article 5 Convention of States plank. This has been at the end of the Constitutional Issues segment. Legislation on the Article 5 Convention has passed in Texas already, but the plank remains, because nothing happens until enough other states pass their Article 5 legislation calling for a constitutional convention. There are people against the idea of calling for a constitutional convention. Those fearful say, once you get into a convention, anything can happen. Not legally, of course; it’s limited by what the states call the convention for. But when has the Constitution limited the federal legislators? Anyway, the opponents want to have it removed from our platform (and they want disenabling legislation too).

three planks that were added to the platform during floor debate

I was present for the Permanent Committee of the Whole—that is the discussion after caucuses have elected their permanent committee members, for Platform, Rules, Legislative Priorities, and any other committees. This happens on Thursday; the work done up until that point has been done by appointed temporary committee members. Sometimes members change, although I’m not aware of any changes from Temporary to Permanent Committees this year.

So the Permanent Committee hears additional testimony and then considers amendments to the Temporary Committee Report (the Temporary Committee’s version of the platform). They have very limited time to do this, and it seemed even more limited than usual this year.

And yet, one of the things that happened was the removal of that Article 5 Convention of States plank on Thursday evening. It was a very close vote. It required a roll call vote, and I believe the difference was one vote. These are the same people who voted just the night before to have it in.

I hadn’t been aware, but the Constitutional Issues subcommittee had removed the plank. It was added back in during Temporary Committee of the Whole. Then there must have been some overnight pressure—enough to change a person’s vote—to remove it again in Permanent Committee.

And then it was brought before the body of delegates Friday night, and, as they have done in past conventions, they voted to restore it. Wording changes from the 2022 plank add the purposes for the convention. During scantron voting on Saturday, this and the other two were given temporary numbers at the end of the platform, for the sake of scantron voting with delegates looking at their printed copies, so those printed plank numbers could be referenced without change. Numbers are never permanent until all edits are completed. But, once again, we have the Article 5 Convention of States plank, which will probably end up as plank 24. It reads:

Article 5 Convention of States: The Texas Legislature shall extend the call for a Convention of States to impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, and limit the terms of office of federal officials and members of Congress.

Abortion Transportation Plank

The next one restored during floor debate was this:

Prohibit Abortion Transportation across State Lines: We support legislation to prohibit the use of any government funds, as well as the transportation of pregnant women across Texas state lines for the purpose of procuring an elective abortion and for the provision of a private right of action against all persons and organizations who aid and abet in the harming of the woman and the killing of her preborn child.

Like I said, I missed that floor debate. But I think this had been an accidental deletion that happened between Temporary and Permanent Committees of the Whole. There was a loss of work that happened for reasons that are unclear to me. It has to do with the speed of work under intense time pressure, and multiple people handling things, maybe slightly differently. I had a way of doing things to prevent this (based on some loss of work that happened in 2020 between subcommittee Monday meetings and the next day; I think we were hacked, in that case; I believe I was able to restore everything because I had saved work in multiple ways, but it made security and work history my priority thereafter). My guess is there may have been use of the “track changes” feature at an unsafe time, and/or possibly a reliance on “version history,” which has never been very satisfying to me. I really don’t know. Anyway, I can’t promise that this wouldn’t have happened had I been editing this year. I have great sympathy for the lead editor, and I’m sure he’s already put in place protocols to prevent it from happening again.

I think that’s a good plank to have in there. We had offered a new plank idea from SD7 about self-managed abortions—typically pills coming by mail, endangering the woman and killing the baby. There continue to be abortion-related issues, even in a state where abortion is illegal (except under limited circumstances related to endangering the life of the mother). And the fight for life goes on.

Robin Hood School Funding Plank

The third plank added from the floor was related to public school funding:

Robin Hood Accounting: We direct the Texas Legislature to have the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts and Texas Education Agency to provide a full accounting for the funds collected by recapture “Robin Hood” are spent to comply with the Texas Supreme Court-ordered mandate for Wealth Equalization.

This is comparable to a 2020 plank, which read:

School Finance: We support a simple, fair, and efficient method for financing our public school system. We oppose the “Robin Hood” system of public school finance and believe the Texas Legislature, not the courts, should determine the amount of money spent on public education and the distribution thereof. We oppose the Edgewood I and II decisions that legislate school finance from the bench.

This had been consolidated into a bullet point in a College Tuition and Student Loan Reform plank in 2022, which read:

We oppose Robin Hood schemes that raise tuition for some students to give to others.

That seemed to apply to college tuition practices, rather than public school funding, which is probably why the plank was brought back. The new plank is awkward. I suggested edits. But editorial power is pretty limited after the floor votes on something. So you’ve got this problem: If you take out modifiers, you’ve got “to provide a full accounting for the funds are spent.” Adding “how,” as in “how the funds” would probably solve it. But, awkwardness and all, thus it will probably read for the next two years. The idea can still get passed along to the legislature.

Other Planks of Interest

There are some ideas I appreciate seeing in there. In The Right to Keep and Bear Arms plank, a bullet point was added related to responsibility for gun-free zones: “Require that businesses or commercial property owners that prohibit licensed permit holders from carrying a firearm into their establishment assume liability for their safety since they are denying that person’s right to protect themself.” (It should be “themselves.” I’m seeing that now, not even sure I caught that in my careful edit. There’s always more.) Anyway, I’ve been saying this for a while. And I think it should apply to schools and churches as well. If you take away a person’s right to self-defense, you’d better assume liability for their safety.

There was a pretty thorough rewrite of the Foreign Affairs subsection of the National Defense and Foreign Affairs section. The ideas are mainly all there, but maybe more clearly stated, and with fewer planks. I would have liked to have witnessed the writing that went on in that subcommittee.

The subcommittee I sat through on Tuesday of convention week was Education. Overall, I’m pleased with changes there. Over the past several years, there has been a greater emphasis on parental rights and protecting children from sexualization and woke indoctrination. Those continue to be important in this platform, with more refinement as we work through the real-life battles in our school districts.

School choice continues to be a battle front. However, by this point the anti-choice (“we already have choice,” “you can’t have choice without strings attached”) crowd seems to have conceded the argument, and instead of no choice, have suggested just allowing tax credits (a person who takes their child out of public schools would get the amount of their taxes used for public schools reimbursed to them). That is at least closer to the conversations we need to be having. But I’ll talk more about that another day. Their suggestions didn’t make it into the platform. But my suggestions for greater choice (of course without government control) didn’t either.

In Health and Human Services, there was a challenge to the Homosexuality plank’s first line, which was added in Permanent Committee in 2022. The line is “Homosexuality is an abnormal lifestyle choice.” The rest is pretty noncontroversial for conservatives: no special status or entitlements based on LGBTQ+ identification. But that first line strikes many as too confrontational. In the end, the delegates kept it. And it doesn’t matter much. The opposition will call us hateful with or without that line, because they want the special legal status. So avoiding controversy is fruitless.

There was a wording change in the Counseling Methods plank, in Health and Human Services. It says:

Counseling Methods: Therapists, psychologists, and counselors practicing in the State of Texas shall not be forbidden or penalized by any licensing board for practicing authentic reparative therapy or other counseling methods when counseling clients of any age with identity disorder or unwanted same-sex attraction.

It used to say:

Counseling Methods: Therapists, psychologists, and counselors licensed with the State of Texas shall not be forbidden or penalized by any licensing board for practicing Reintegrative Therapy or other counseling methods when counseling clients of any age with gender dysphoria or unwanted same-sex attraction.

I highlighted the differences. I have no argument about changing “licensed with” to “practicing in.” That may be an improvement. And “identity disorder” is probably broader than “gender dysphoria,” since we’ve now seen the invention of animal identities, sometimes called “furries.” But I don’t believe “authentic reparative therapy” is an improvement. Reintegrative Therapy is a particular type of standard talk therapy, used in cases of trauma-caused dissociative disorder. The aim is to help the patient heal from the trauma, and then stop dissociating from their real self. In cases of gender dysphoria and same-sex attraction, the result can be overcoming the dysphoria and accepting the gender part of themselves they had dissociated themselves from. It has been more widely accepted, because the stated goal isn’t to “change” the person; it is to heal them. And the result of healing can be what the patient wants to have happen, which can include changing to normal biological desires and behaviors, including lessening or eliminating same-sex attraction.

Reparative therapy is a category name, mainly for therapies intended to change a person’s orientation. Some of these may be effective; some are not. All tend to be controversial, just because the LGBT community, such as it is, claims that orientation is inborn and immutable, against evidence to the contrary. There’s the word “authentic,” which may need some definition. Anyway, I think it was an attempt to cover more therapies, but it actually doesn’t include Reintegrative Therapy, which has been the most successful, because it seems to address an underlying cause, rather than intentionally aiming to change orientation. In the end, though, I don’t think the wording change will affect any legislation significantly.

There was a lot of energy during Senator Cruz's speech, Saturday, May 25

 

Final Words

Those who say the two parties are the same have not read the platforms—or at least not the Texas platform. The conservative grassroots in Texas is working very hard to restore freedom, prosperity, and civilization. And that’s a good thing.