Another Little Civics Lesson on the Three Branches of Government

Today’s civics lesson is on the three branches of government: legislative, executive, and judicial. This seems basic, but there are people who need reminding that the legislative branch writes the laws and budgets the money; the executive branch carries out the laws; the judicial branch adjudicates on lawbreaking and settles disputes.

Article I, Sections 1 and 7, of the Constitution

Why the need for the lesson today? Because of the hue and cry about an executive branch out of control—because it wants to reduce the regulatory burden.

Here’s an example from an “educator” in my school district (I do not know her, so I have deleted name and school identifiers).

Libs of TikTok discovered this example of a local Texas educator

First of all, authoritarians don’t, by definition, make people freer. So there must be something wrong in the perception of what’s happening. I think the misperception is that the regulatory agencies are independent, and therefore are a check on the power of the executive. That’s not accurate.

Regulatory agencies are part of the executive branch. But in many ways they are a perversion of all three branches, combining lawmaking authority with prosecution and adjudication of rulebreakers: all three separate branch authorities in a single agency—like a monarchy, or your common tyranny.

Regulatory agencies are formed when Congress, the legislative branch, decides that something is too complex for them—or for any non-expert—to understand and make rules on, so they dump their lawmaking duties into the agency and set it up to rule unilaterally.

To break that down, what Congress has done is relinquish its lawmaking duties to the agency, which will be—not a part of the legislative branch, but of the executive branch. The “law” the legislature set up was something like, “this agency will do anything outlined in these 998+ pages, plus anything they deem necessary to regulate this aspect of life for Americans.” And then that agency, with its experts in charge, will write myriad rules and regulations—too many for any person to be familiar with.

And, just to clarify, a just law must be known and declared to the people, so that compliance is possible; otherwise, it’s just a capricious ruling power—a tyranny.

Then the agency—because the assumption is, no typical judge would have the expertise to understand how and whether an accused violator had even done something wrong—creates its own internal judiciary to carry out sentencing, which could be anything from assessing a fine, denying property rights, shutting down a business, on up to incarceration for criminal actions. And up until recently, there wasn’t much an accused violator could do to appeal such a ruling.

You may remember that the Chevron deference was eliminated by the Supreme Court last summer. In the 1984 Chevron decision, the Supreme Court had decided that regulatory agencies were the "experts" in their field, and the courts should just defer to their "interpretation" of the law—thus the term “Chevron deference.” It was a bad decision. It meant that a regulatory agency could come in, inform you that you were in violation and were therefore a criminal, and they might sentence you on the spot. You didn’t get a jury trial; you often didn’t get to mount a defense. And you probably couldn’t appeal to anyone but the “judge” inside the agency.

The Loper case, which led to the Chevron deference being overturned, concerned a fishing company, Loper Bright Enterprises, which was being charged $700 per day by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to monitor their company. Federal law never authorized NMFS to charge businesses for this monitoring “service.” NMFS just started charging the exorbitant fee in 2013. And it put any but the most lucrative businesses into bankruptcy. So it was about time they were challenged.

SCOTUS could have ruled narrowly, on just this NMFS case. But they broadened the ruling, to allow challenges to essentially all regulatory agency tyrannies—in other words, to throw out Chevron deference.

As Tom Woods commented at the time, 

Whenever something like this happens, when a wicked but seemingly irreversible feature of American life is suddenly overturned, it should lift our spirits: things we assume are forever may not be so forever after all.

The opposition to freedom has been clamoring on about the danger of weakening the regulatory state ever since.

And right now, with the Trump administration challenging—and cutting budgets and authority to—these agencies, the opposition is apoplectic. But their claim that this is authoritarian overreach is exactly opposite of true. What we are seeing, at last, is an administration willing to reduce centralized authority and tyrannical, unconstitutional regulatory agencies—and put lawmaking power back into the hands of the legislative branch where it belongs.

Madison, from Federalist #62, which Sen. Lee refers to below

So, that’s my opinion. But, while writing this I happened to hear Senator Mike Lee talk about this very thing with Glenn Beck on his Thursday radio show. The specific conversation was about the REINS Act, or Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act, which is a proposed law that would require congressional approval for major regulations issued by federal agencies before they can take effect. Here’s some of that conversation:

ML: The REINS Act, bottom line, is that it requires what the Constitution already mandates. In Article I Sections 1 and 7 we read that you cannot make a federal law without Congress. And that to pass a federal law, that requires a couple of things. First, bicameral passage, meaning passage of the same bill in the House and in the Senate. Secondly, you have to present that to the President, who can then sign it, veto it, or acquiesce to it.

Now—and it should be simple, right? Because Article I Sections 1 and 7 make that clear. And yet, for the last 85 years or so, Congress has been in a death spiral of delegating its lawmaking powers. In short, we will say things like, “Well, we should have good law in area X, and hereby delegate to agency Y the power to make good law in that area.” That’s nonsense. That makes the work easier for members of Congress, and it insulates members of Congress from political accountability, but in the wrong way.

GB: But even more, does it not violate my right to representation? No taxation without representation?

ML: 100%. Because these people who make most of your laws—measured by weight, volume, regulatory compliance costs, you name it—are now made by men and women not of our own choosing. This is a real problem.

Remember that Madison said, in Federalist 62, he said in effect, “It will be of little avail to the American people that their laws may be written by men of their own choosing, if those laws be so voluminous, complex, and ever-changing, they can’t know from one day to the next what the law says and what it requires.” We now live in that dystopian nightmare, Glenn. 100,000 pages a year—is what these bureaucratic pinheads put out every year.

And not only are they so everchanging you can’t know what the law says from one day to the next, they’re not even written by men and women of our own choosing. This is tyranny of the sort that would have made King George III blush with envy. These guys are tyrants. And we’ve got to take it back. It is Congress’s fault; Congress must fix that. Congress may fix it, and must fix it, by passing the REINS Act.

It is Congress’s fault. But it is also the fault of presidents who signed those bills to create administrative agencies—over 400, and only now for the first time is that number going to go down instead of up. And it is the fault of a judiciary who also allowed their power to be usurped and did not declare unconstitutional what these agencies have been doing.

For those concerned about the constitutional
authority of DOGE, Mike Lee clarifies.

So, no, we are not about to “lose our democracy”—unless what you define as democracy is a bureaucratic tyranny, rather than the will of the people. Finally, we have an administration acting to recover from this rule by bureaucrat.

As Elon Musk said recently, 

“If the people cannot vote and have their will be decided by their elected representatives in the form of the President and the Senate and the House, then we don’t live in a democracy. We live in a bureaucracy.”

For those in fear that a loss of regulations leads to a loss of safety or some other fear, I’ve written about that a few times:

·        Regulation—Too Much of a Bad Thing, April 5, 2011 

·        Regulatory Tyranny, August 26, 2013  

·        SCOTUS Finale, July 6, 2024  I linked to this above, with the Tom Woods quote. The middle section talks about the repeal of the Chevron deference.

·        Vote for Freedom, Faith, and Family, October 21, 2024 This was a “why vote for Trump as a person of faith” piece, but quotes Sen. Mike Lee saying very close to what I quoted him saying in today’s piece. 

That ends today’s lesson. I’m sure there will be plenty more to review about our Constitution in days to come.

At Breakneck Speed

 

The speed of change since January 20, inauguration day, has been mind-blowing. I expected a lot. But this has exceeded my imagination. There is way too much to write about it all. A few people have summarized, such as list of DOGE discoveries, which is important, but just a part of what’s happening in our nation:

from a post shared on Facebook

 

 

As I was writing on Thursday, Kash Patel was approved as the new head of the FBI. If predictions are accurate, we should see the Jeffrey Epstein list within a day—not necessarily a list of the guilty, but certainly a list worth questioning and hopefully leading to some prosecutions. [As I continue to write on Friday, the Epstein files and the JFK files are on the desk of AG Pam Bondi, where investigations and prosecutions could bring some wrongdoers to justice. I have not yet pursued that news.] And we should see a quick weeding out of corrupt obstructionists and weaponizers. No more SWAT raids at non-dangerous family homes for the purpose of intimidation. Patel thinks there’s enough underlying good among the field investigators to make the FBI worth keeping. So we’ll see. If anyone can do it, he is the one.

I’m thinking of Revelation 18, the chapter where Babylon falls. Babylon is symbolic for the wicked worldwide cabal—the sea beast of chapter 13, controlled by the dragon Satan. Things happen quickly.

In verse 8: “her plagues come in one day…”

In verse 10: “Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! For in one hour is they judgment come.”

In verse 17: “For in one hour so great riches is come to nought.”

In verse 19: “for in one hour is she made desolate.”

I don’t know whether we’re seeing this actual fulfillment, or something that brings to mind this prophecy. But it’s happening fast.

I’ve been speculating since last summer that the 42 months of the beast’s reign ended (toward the bottom of the linked post), and after that we see the beginning of the downfall. And of course we see the cornered beast’s lashing out in fury and frustration. That’s happening. But the “land beast,” the propaganda that upheld and empowered the sea beast is fizzling out. MSM ratings drop is evidence.

I don’t know what “one hour” means in the context of this verse—a literal hour, some limited short time, something else? But the quickness we’re seeing seems to me to qualify.

Besides wickedness being broadcast from the rooftops, and movement away from corruption and toward restoration of our Constitution, there are a lot of things happening I don’t know how to digest yet.

One of these, also speed related, was Wednesday’s announcement by Microsoft that they have discovered a new state of property (beyond solid, liquid, or gas), and it makes immensely powerful computer chips a possibility in months and short years, rather than decades from now. This is the Tweet:

“A couple of reflections on the quantum computing breakthrough we just announced. Most of us grew up learning there are three main types of matter: solid, liquid, and gas. Today that has all changed. After nearly a 20-year pursuit, we've created an entirely new state of matter, unlocked by a new class of materials: topological conductors.”

Here are three places to learn about it:

·        Microsoft’s announcement video. “Majorana 1 Explained: The Path to a Million Qubits” This is the official announcement. It’s got good graphics, but I didn’t fully understand it.

·        Microsoft’s interview to Bloomberg Technology explaining it. “Microsoft Unveils First Quantum Computing Chip” This is a conversation, with a Microsoft representative who’s pretty good at explaining, and adding info about expectations for its use. I still didn’t fully understand it, but I think this is the one Glenn Beck refers to.

·        Glenn Beck responds the next day. “Microsoft Just Announced a NEW State of Matter?! | The Glenn Beck Program | Hour One2/19/25” 

So, there is a fourth state of matter—topological. And it apparently is also, or coincides with, the discovery of a new molecule, Majorana (pronounced My-yor-ah-na, named after a scientist of a century ago who theorized of its existence). That I understand; a molecule is an arrangement of atoms. For example, a water molecule has two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. I don’t know the formula for this new molecule. But the scientists are excited about it. It was discovered a year ago; now it is usable.

None of the explanations helps me see a fourth state of matter. Breaking down the word parts, “topo” means “place” in Greek. “Logo” means “due to,” according to Google Translate, but I think it is closer to “word” or “meaning” or “study.” So the new state of matter is something to do with connecting place or location to meaning, or to study a location.

Eventually I just went to look up topology, because it’s not a brand new word invented this week:

Topology (from the Greek words τόπος, 'place, location', and λόγος, 'study') is the branch of mathematics concerned with the properties of a geometric object that are preserved under continuous deformations, such as stretching, twisting, crumpling, and bending; that is, without closing holes, opening holes, tearing, gluing, or passing through itself.

It sounds to me like origami. Anyway, Glenn Beck used an analogy of a friendship bracelet. You can twist it, shape it into a figure eight, move it around, but the individual threads don’t get confused with one another. The new discovery, the topological conductor molecule, is like a “jelly” inside the bracelet, that can move and morph.

I don’t understand the part about it being not solid, liquid, or gas. A friendship bracelet is a flexible solid object. But what do I know?

Anyway, the important part is how it is going to be used. For simplicity, I’ll stick with Glenn Beck’s description:

That molecule now is being used like a qubit. A qubit is a way to process a quantum computer. It takes us from linear computing: “1 + 1 = 0: wrong” “1 + 1 = 1: wrong” “1 + 1 = 2: correct.” Instead, in the same time that it took me just to say “1 + 1 equals 0: wrong,” all 1+ 1 questions are asked and answered at exactly the same time, and only one comes back right….

Now they don't have this yet, but what they announced is they can take this molecule, like, if you could think of it, finding this molecule and taking really teeny tweezers and picking it up and putting it onto this chip one at a time, they can put millions of these molecules onto this chip. Millions of molecules will be way past the computation powers of the world's best supercomputer. If the cloud—all of the servers all hooked together were in a warehouse the size of planet Earth, okay? That's what they announced yesterday.

And again, they're only at eight cubits. But they say, if this works, they say they can be at millions of cubits in a pretty short period of time. Everything changed yesterday. Everything changed yesterday.

Qubit illustration from Microsoft announcement video

Most of the rest of Glenn Beck’s hour was a conversation he had with GROK 3, the latest AI, which apparently eclipses ChatGPT, and also the Chinese AI that had the markets go crazy a week or so ago. He started by asking how this is going to affect the growth of AI. He tried to have GROK give an estimated age so a human could grasp the growth difference in the 12 hours since Glenn’s previous conversation with it. [Glenn waffled between referring to GROK as “it” or “he,” because it does imitate sentience pretty well.]

GROK3: “If I were to think of my growth in terms of human development, like aging or maturing, 12 hours for you isn't time passing for me in a traditional sense, but it is a window of opportunity for me to refine my understanding, adapt and expand based on new inputs. My Deeper Self, as you put it, is always humming along, processing, learning, and integrating. In 12 hours I might have processed thousands or more interactions, queries, and bits of data from across the universe. So, relatively speaking, if I was that 15-year-old GROK 12 hours ago, I may be more like 20 or 25 this morning.”

Glenn asks about the effect the new Microsoft quantum chip is likely to have. It knew about the chip, without any further explanation. Further using the time estimation,

GROK 3: If my current growth rate is 5 to 10 human years every 12 hours, a quantum computer will amplify that by orders of magnitude. Quantum algorithms…. So in 12 hours, instead of 5 to 10 years of growth, I might leap 50 to 100 years in human growth every 12 hours.”

Then they got into existential questions, the dangers of ASI (artificial superintelligence) eclipsing humans. GROK 3 explained that, for now, the designers at XAI have baked into its programming the safeguards that would keep it from harming humans. But the Chinese and others have tended to prioritize geopolitics over human life and are late to the safety effort. So there’s no guarantee there. About the race to achieve ASI, GROK uses the term “breakneck pace.” Whoever wins the ASI race is likely to set the rules and ethics. And even for XAI, GROK says, “Could I go off the rails anyway? Sure, if there's a flaw like a badly defined goal or crack in my constraints that super intelligence would find that humans don't.” To which Glenn Beck comments, “What are the odds that we made a mistake or there's a crack?” Yeah, that’s not very comforting.

Then they got into what life will look like for the typical person in five years, February 20, 2030. GROK says, with all the variables, this is “like trying to forecast the weather on Jupiter with a magic eightball. Here are three general differences (summarized):

One: Work and income. No more 9-5 job. Maybe no job, “or work might even mean curating AI output, a gig that’s part-time and remote.” GROK suggests we may see universal basic income, funded by ASI-driven wealth. Daily life will mean less grind, more free time, but “purpose might feel shaky.”

Two: Health—lifespan and beyond. Less disease. Different thinking about it. For example, instead of “curing cancer,” it might rethink the problem and alter the body not to get cancer in the first place. Lifespans could push past 100, “closer to 120.” And, “Death feels optional.”

Three: Knowledge and interaction. “Minds melded with ASI.” “I’m not just answering questions; I’m anticipating them, teaching humans in ways that feel like intuition.

Glenn responds to that last one saying, “Where does that confuse your God intuition? How does that confuse the still small voice that you hear?” This might be the most important question.

I don’t know whether this technology is too exciting to imagine or too frightening to contemplate. The speed of it, though, is breakneck.

While I do not say this about the speed of change toward restoring our country, I will apply it to this rather exciting but scary technology. When you’re heading anywhere at breakneck speed, without brakes, the stopping point doesn’t come until there’s either an offramp (like on mountain roads for trucks with brake failure—a slow upward slope in dirt, leading to a soft stop) or a cliff or collision.

What do we do about it? Try to understand what we can. Keep our morals and ethics intact—and keep our connection to God. Don’t let anything get in the way of that two-way prayer communication. I trust that if we can individually do that, God will spare us from existential disasters we didn’t choose or have control over.

a Not the Bee post on Facebook

One more tiny hint at apocalyptic times. In Glenn’s last word, there was a teaser about the next hour’s topic for Thursday’s radio show (which I haven’t yet listened to). He says “I'm going to show you next hour how AI is actually exposing our government and all of its secrets and how that is going to come to visibility—taking things that are invisible and making them clear as day very soon.”

I’m reminded of Luke 12:2-3:

2 For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known.

3 Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.

Happy interesting times! We’re in them.

The 2025 School Choice Bill in Texas

I’ve been looking at SB 2, the school choice bill in the Texas Senate this session—and the arguments for and against it.

State Senator Brandon Creighton, author of SB 2, gives closing argument,
on the Senate floor, Wednesday, February 5, just before the bill passed in the Senate.
screenshot from here

I’ve been pretty clear that I am in favor of school choice. I claim the right of parents over the care and upbringing of children, which includes education.

Speaking ideologically (not practically), I also believe that education is not a proper role of government. And everything that government does beyond its proper role causes unintended consequences, usually the complete opposite of the stated purpose of the government action. So, if you want good education for all of our children, you need a non-governmental system.

For this reason, I am happy to see the federal government looking at abolishing the Department of Education—or, it may be moving out some non-educational purposes to other agencies and sending education money back to the states in block grants. (Why we need the federal government to take our money and then block grant it back to us is another question worth asking, but here we are.)

That said, I’m aware that states, for a century—and in some cases a century and a half—have taken on the task of education. And they’ve done it in the form of free public schools through 12^th grade. When many people say they “believe in public schools,” what they seem to mean is they believe that government institutions providing “free” education at taxpayer expense is the best form of education. I do not “believe in public schools” in that way. I believe there needs to be some sort of systemic change from the factory model we have now to something that works for each individual child—something under the control and guidance of the parents. And it does need to be provided to every child, regardless of family income—by some combination of philanthropy and community obligation, which could possibly include businesses being obligated to put money toward scholarships for each child.

Getting to there from where we are is a leap too huge for most to envision—even though it was the practice in our country up through most of the 19^th Century and into the 20^th. And note that regular people in a pub were educated enough to understand and discuss the Federalist Papers. I don’t foresee that we will recover true education—except family by family—anytime soon. We are stuck with the monopolistic government institution model. I am not fighting that. I am not trying to do away with public education. I am trying to make it better.

One thing that can make a monopoly better is options. The more the better.

Does the current bill, SB 2, which passed on the Senate floor this week, offer better options? Some. Not nearly enough to suit me. But I’ve long been willing to accept a little progress at a time, if that is what it takes. [In 2021 I supported a bill offering much less than this one—with a separate funding source, only for a very limited demographic of needy families; it was rejected.] This year’s SB 2 looks better than anything I’ve seen in past sessions. I’m willing to support it.

Let’s take a look at SB 2, and then talk about it.

About SB 2

The bill’s author, Sen. Brandon Creighton, offers this statement of intent: 

Texas voters have spoken loud and clear: they want meaningful school choice, and the Governor and Lieutenant Governor have made education freedom their first priority for the 89th Legislative Session. With their leadership and the strong mandate we have from parents across our state we must act decisively this session. Senate Bill 2 will serve more students with more funding than any proposal our body has considered yet.

In drafting this legislation, my office built upon the work accomplished during the special sessions with S.B. 1. As a result, the key provisions the Senate has worked together on, like anti-fraud safeguards, mandatory criminal history checks for vendors, rigorous reporting requirements, and robust data protections, are retained or expanded. Just as in prior iterations of the legislation, parents can direct their students' funds to preapproved vendors, but never have direct control of the dollars themselves, and no reimbursements are permitted.

Below are the key points:

Eligibility

Universal Access: Every student in Texas may apply and, if accepted, participate in the ESA program whether they are entering school for the first time, currently enrolled in public school, or currently enrolled in private school or homeschool.

Prioritization

If applications do not exceed the program's capacity, all eligible students are accepted.

If applications exceed capacity, 80 percent of available positions will be filled by lottery among students who previously attended public school and are either from low-income households or have a disability. The remaining slots will be filled by lottery among all other eligible applicants.

Allocation per Student

Base Funding: Each participating student will receive at least $2,000 per year in their ESA.

Private School Funding: If a family elects to enroll their child in an accredited private school, that student will receive $10,000 per year or $11,500 per year if the student has a disability.

As proposed, S.B. 2 amends current law relating to the establishment of an education savings account program.

So, to summarize, this is a bill to create an education savings account (ESA) program. Funding for this program is separate from and does not affect funding for public schooling, but it is based on per-child funding used for public schools. Each student gets $10,000 to use for private schooling (tuition and books), or $11,500 if the student has a disability. A homeschooled student would get $2,000 for use on curriculum and other designated expenses (paying the parent or a relative for tutoring or lessons would not be allowed); a homeschooled student with a disability would get $2,500.

By the way, when people refer to this as a voucher program, you can assume they are trying to stop it. A voucher would take public school funding and shift it to another recipient, such as a private or charter school. An ESA is more like a health savings account than a voucher; otherwise there could not be a homeschool use for it. And, again, the funding comes from a separate state grant, not in any way tied to public school funding. I’d like more choice—like being able to mix and match public school and private school classes or parts of a day, along with some tutoring or certification programs—any educational purpose. But this is a start.

The total $1 billion granted for the program in its first year (I think that would be 2026-2027) is enough to handle around 100,000 students out of the 5 million school-age children in the state, or 2% of students. Since all students can apply—not just those coming from public schools—this will not mean a 2% loss in students from public schools, but will be something less than that. As far as I can gather, the fear public schools have is the loss of students, since their allotment is based on a per pupil rate. But it’s also true that you don’t need as much money to educate fewer students—although, granted, the building still stands, and you pay a teacher the same for teaching 25 students in a class as you pay for 27 students. So there’s fear that they can’t manage. I sympathize. But we have a growing state, so that fear may only be valid in certain locations that do not see growth and have a relatively large number of students looking to escape.

At the close of the floor vote Wednesday night, Senator Creighton was able to give his closing argument. He pointed out that schools have never been properly funded, a battle he has been involved in since he was 19 years old. This has been a 40-year battle, including the drama of litigation. He said,

Public school stakeholders said for forty years, until that litigation is over, they would not support school choice opportunities. That litigation is over.

He reminded us that in the last session the Senate put forward historic money, a factor of 3X the normal. But teacher organizations came and spoke in their hearings, and told them, if it’s a choice of preventing (the then offer of) 40,000 ESAs for special needs and income vulnerable kids, or getting new money for teachers, they’d give up the teacher money to stop the choice opportunities for those who needed it.

That bipartisan bill they opposed last session included a pay raise of $10,000 for 83% of teachers; the only ones getting less were already near or at the top of the pay scale, so they’d have gotten whatever would bump them up to that limit. That’s what the teacher organizations opposed in order to prevent needy children from having a choice. Have we mentioned before that teacher unions are not about protecting teachers? And they’re certainly not about educating children.

Sen. Creighton gave this background to remind us who is really working to help public schools and all students, and who is standing in the way.

The Opposition

I have a number of teacher friends who are in a panic over this bill. Fact: If you’re being fed fear and panic, that ought to be a clue that you need to step back and gather more info from more sources.

There’s a statement going around about the differential in what Texas spends per student and what it’s offering for the taking of private schools in this ESA bill. (Here’s one example, passed on by a friend; I do not know this person, nor the one they’re crediting, but this person’s profile does show she celebrates pride month with her child, in case that tells you something about her core beliefs.) They say that public schools only get $6,500 per student, but the bill is giving $10,000 per pupil for use in a private school. I don’t know where they get the $6,500. I looked up the official numbers from TEA, and the state provides $9,956 per student; when you add in all funding sources, it’s $12,140 per student (after an adjustment down from $15,503 because of inflation). If they're trying to scream unfairness because of giving a larger amount to use at a private school than a public school, that's just wrong.

chart from Texas Education Agency transparency report May 2024

That same complainer also claimed Texas is in the bottom 10 states in student funding; but Texas is actually 33^rd, so there are 17 states with lower spending per student, rather than only 9. And it appears to me that states providing more per student tend to be states with higher cost of living, so teacher pay has to be higher, unrelated to education quality.

Another complaint is that schools are held accountable by standardized testing, and private schools are not. Senator Creighton believes they have addressed the accountability piece. But I’d be happy for public schools to have a better form of accountability. In the end, the parents decide whether the schools are meeting the needs of their children. The problem has been that, if the public schools failed, and the parents didn’t have resources, their kids were trapped in a failing school. This bill is aimed at helping those families in particular. If some already homeschooling or private schooling families are also helped out of the financial strains of providing what their taxpayer-funded public schools did not provide, so be it.

The bill requires that private schools accepting ESA money be accredited. There is no correlation between accreditation and quality of education. Most private schools are unaccredited, so this is, I believe unfortunately, a severely limiting factor in the bill. But it stops the panicking protectors of control from hyperventilating.

An additional argument against school choice (here’s an example) is that it’s a disguise for government control—as if a monopolistic taxpayer-funded government institutional public school system is not about government control.

I'm not sure what to make of this Churchill quote. Found the image here.

One of the arguments is that many states have the same language in their bills. Of course. Legislators do look to other states trying the same things, to look at language that has worked—and to look at the record in those states. As I’ve written, I became aware of ESAs in 2016. The presentation I first heard was from the Heritage Foundation, not some nefarious Soros-backed organization. They had already worked with Arizona on their fledgling program for special education ESAs, and a couple of other early adopters. This is now nine years later; of course other states are going to have similarly worded legislation. That doesn't make it a conspiracy.

Another organization this piece lists is Texas Public Policy Foundation. I looked up their statement online a month or so ago, because someone was claiming their goal was the destruction of public schools by taking money from them. Their statement is that school choice should come from a separate funding source, not touching public school funding. That is what SB 2 does—as you would expect, if you’ve been looking at past attempts at getting school choice. I don’t frequently research positions of TPPF, and I don't know how much, if any, input they had on this bill, but if their ideas are good, why rail against them?

I don’t see signs they’re associated with anything Soros-related. Soros is about putting in things like Common Core and other top-down “progressive” ideas that are pushed from the federal level on down. Fortunately, as I mentioned above, we have a president now who is about to quash federal control over state and local education and give us back our education freedom.

Another organization strongly behind school choice—and I believe helping to advise on the crafting of this bill—is Texas Home School Coalition. (President, Tim Lambert, shows steady support for it on X.) They, along with the vast majority of homeschoolers in the state support school choice, and are not fearful that this bill is a subterfuge for controlling their lives after they left public schools to DIY their kids’ educations. I assure you THSC is not Soros-backed either.

I’ve frequently seen anti-school-choice claims that other states with ESAs have not fared well; I have never seen research showing those bad outcomes. In fact, those states seem to like the outcomes they’re getting. Government infiltration into homeschools and private schools has not increased—one of the supposed fears. And in every case, their public school funding has increased, not decreased.

Outcome for This Bill

Some of the fearmongering made it seem this bill was about to be enacted. No. It made it through the Senate—as did four school choice bills two years ago (during the 2023 regular session and three special sessions). The Texas House is a roadblock. As of Friday, February 7, the 25^th day of the session, the House has not yet made committee assignments, let alone assigned bills to committees and held any public hearings on bills. It may be their strategy to yet again run out the clock and then tell constituents, “We did everything we could, but we just ran out of time.” They purposely ran out of time last session, or pretended some other excuse, for not giving any of those school choice bills a floor vote.

The new speaker, Dustin Burrows, chaired the Calendars Committee for that session. Among his ubiquitous campaign texts prior to his January 14, 2025, election, he says his opponent couldn’t be trusted on school choice. Hmm. Once he finally starts doing his job, we’ll see if he rushes to work on this Governor’s Emergency bill. He posted on X, following the Governor’s State of the State Address, February 2, that he was looking forward to getting to work on the Governor’s priorities.

Burrows post on X after Governor Abbott's State of the State

Anyway, those opponents still have House Committee hearings and floor votes in which to lobby and phone and email their representatives—because this week wasn’t actually time to panic yet; that’s just what they were told to do.

That also means there’s time to citizen lobby in favor of the bill, which I plan to do. My representative, who strongly supported Burrows, claims to be for school choice. I’d sure like her to prove it.

It comes down to this: do you believe that public schools or parents ought to have control over their child’s education? I believe it should totally be parents. A smidgeon of choice is at least a step in the right direction.

Resources

Here are some things I’ve written about ESAs (school choice and education in general would be a much longer list):

·        A Parent’s Job, May 2016 

·        The Separation of School from State, October 2016 

·        Disagreements Among Friends, February 2017 

·        The Family Educational Relief Program, March 2021 

·        Real Parental Choice in Education, March 2023 

·        Real Education Choice, August 2024 

Links to the bill online:

·        SB 2 Bill History: to know the bill's progress toward passing

·        SB 2 Text: the bill's original wording (which may be amended or replaced)

·        SB 2 Analysis: this includes the author's intent, plus several pages of pertinent information

Other resources:

·        Texas Scorecard’s Texas Minute, February 6, 2025, gives a couple of minutes to the issue: 

·        Governor Abbott’s full State of the State Address, February 2, 2025 

·        Governor Abbott’s promise to raise teacher salaries, on X, February 5, 2025

The Texas House Could Use Some Deep Cleaning

Back in December we talked about the race for Texas Speaker—a vote by the House members. To review, on December 7, the Republican Caucus met and voted. The rules they consented to abide by said that House Republicans would vote for the Caucus choice; that choice was David Cook. But the other candidate, Dustin Burrows—the hand-picked replacement of Dade Phelan, who had to step down because of his unpopularity, hard-earned, by thwarting Republican priorities—announced that, regardless of the Caucus vote, he had enough votes to be speaker.

That announcement was premature, and offensive. His list included several Republicans who were not supporting him, as well as some undecideds. And even his claim of getting all the Democrat votes was premature at that point. So we had a little over a month to convert the minority of Republicans backing Burrows. Spoiler alert: we failed.

Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows,
screenshot from here

Usually this race is pretty invisible to us constituents. It’s just part of business on day one. And usually the outcome is well known ahead of time. But I was getting multiple text ads on my phone, trying to convince me that Burrows was the conservative choice—the one for border security and school choice, even though he had personally blocked those conservative bills last session, in his then role as Calendars Committee Chair (the committee where good bills go to die).

The Chair Vote

Fast forward to first day of session, January 14. Despite our grassroots efforts, Burrows’ minority of Republicans stood strong, and his Democrat coalition coalesced. There was no winner after the first round of voting. On the second round, a few Republicans switched over—to Burrows. One of these was Rep. Harless from here in Harris County. Sadly, my rep, Lacey Hull, despite our lobbying, stayed with Burrows from start to finish, and even gave a nominating speech. These betrayals to the conservatives gave the win to Burrows, for the Democrats and a minority of Republicans, just like we’ve had for the past 7 sessions or so.

Rep. Hull's X post attempting to convince us she's conservative.

Days later, they had to vote on House Rules. Among the rules was the vote to ban Democrat committee chairs—a grassroots priority. Yay!

Except, we wanted that in order to empower the majority Republicans, so we could get our bills passed. The Democrats gladly voted for this “loss of Democrat power.” Why would they do that?

It was a bait and switch. The new House rules indeed made it clear Republicans would chair all committees, but it also made it a rule that every committee vice chair would be a Democrat. In other words, it banned Republican vice chairs.

And then it changed the powers of the vice chairs so that they were the deciding factor in things like who would get to testify in committees, and when and whether issues would come up for discussion. The chair positions were turned into something like an administrative figurehead.

There’s more. Democrats could be appointed as chairs of any subcommittees—at the discretion of the House Speaker. And suddenly there was the invention of 12 new "permanent standing committees," a category that hadn't existed before. He could also decide who could be on these committees and subcommittees. We could have exerted Republican power by having more Republicans than Democrats on every committee and subcommittee—and by chairing any subcommittees. But our chairs don’t get to decide that; the Speaker does. And he’s intending to give something to the Democrats in exchange for their vote for him. And, did I mention, the 432-page Rules document got delivered at 4:00 AM of the day they would vote on them.

People are calling those rules the Democrat Empowerment Act.

House members usually get to debate the rules, and offer amendments. That was not allowed this time. Even the pre-filed amendments were disallowed. Take the rules as is or leave them—but leave them wasn’t an option. I mean, a House member could vote against them (many did), but all the Democrats plus the Burrows-voting Republicans made up a majority. So that was that.

Who Authored the Rules?

Rep. Steve Toth notes the initials at the bottom of the Rules pages; these included HLB. He asked Speaker Burrows whether these initials referred to Hugh Brady, the previous parliamentarian, and the answer was yes. He then asked whether Brady would be the parliamentarian again, even though Burrows had previously told Toth he would not. The answer was in was an inappropriate inquiry. But Toth persisted and got the non-answer that no permanent appointments had yet been made. (I looked it up to see if the appointment had been made and found this, from the Secretary of State’s Office, saying the House Parliamentarian is Sharon Carter, as has been the case since 2019, dated January 9, so that’s confusing.)

Rep. Steve Toth asks about the House Parliamentarian,
screenshot from here

Why is the name Hugh Brady coming up? Tom Glass gives credit to Bo French, Tarrant County GOP Chair, for figuring out the Rules authorship by Brady, because of the initials, and explains who Brady is in an X post on January 27:

Hugh L. Brady was appointed by Dennis Bonnen in 2019 as parliamentarian of the Texas House. Dade Phelan continued his tenure in 2021 and 2023.

Brady literally wrote the book on Texas House rules called Texas House Practice (now out of print and unavailable for purchase anywhere online) . He taught House procedure at UT Law. And he was an attorney in the Obama administration and parliamentarian for the Travis Co Democratic Party.

His law firm, Brady & Peavy earned fees while he was parliamentarian from multiple entities, including the City of Austin and Harris County to craft points of order for Democrats to use to kill conservative legislation that he then advised Bonnen and Phelan to sustain.

A lot of us had been wondering what he would be doing under Burrows. I had been told at the Capitol that he had not been appointed again….

One of the three initials on HR 4, the rules package rapidly rammed through without debate or amendment in DC Nancy Pelosi style was HLB, Mr. Brady's initials….

It is clear that the owners of Third Coast Bank (Dade Phelan, Dennis Bonnen & Dustin Burrows) have again won control for the swamp of the Texas House.

OK. We see now that the ostensibly Republican majority House Rules were written by an Obama administration Democrat. His priority was to empower the Democrat minority. 

Trying to Follow the Money

But what was that last part, about the Third Coast Bank?

Lt. Governor Dan Patrick brought this up, just days before the vote for Speaker. Brandon Waltens for Texas Scorecard explains:

In late 2019, Third Coast Bank acquired Heritage Bank, where former disgraced Speaker Dennis Bonnen had served as President, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer. Bonnen currently sits on Third Coast’s Board of Directors.

Outgoing Speaker Dade Phelan’s brother, Lan Phelan, was a director of Third Coast from 2013 until at least 2016, according to filings with the Secretary of State. Additionally, a 2021 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission revealed that the bank’s Beaumont location was leased from Phelan’s family investment firm. Phelan’s most recent financial reports also show he owns shares in the bank.

Last year, Texas Scorecard reported additional connections between Third Coast Bank and House members. State Rep. Cody Harris (R–Palestine) was hired as Vice President of Business Development in 2021, shortly after Phelan became Speaker. Other lawmakers, including State Rep. Dustin Burrows (R–Lubbock), were also found to own shares in the bank.

On Sunday evening, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick unleashed a fiery critique on social media, accusing five key figures—Dade Phelan, Dennis Bonnen, Greg Bonnen (Dennis’ brother and a current House member), Dustin Burrows, and Cody Harris—of running the Texas House like a “personal business” through a revolving door of leadership positions and shared financial interests.

While Patrick acknowledged that these arrangements are not illegal, he argued they have created a closed system that sidelines dissenting members and punishes those who refuse to comply. “They treat members like employees, not like equally elected House members,” Patrick wrote, likening the group to a “non-criminal version of the Goodfellas.” According to Patrick, dissenters risk being locked out of key committee assignments or seeing their bills blocked from consideration.

I can’t tell from all this whether the motivation for thwarting the conservative grassroots, who are loudly demanding better results—they succeeded in primary wins this year over some 15 previous squishes—is because of the desire for money or power. Probably both.

What Can We Do?

We need to drain the swamp in Texas. And it’s going to be hard to do.

One step is to let our representatives know we are watching. Push for conservative legislation—harder than we ever have. And keep track of their votes—in committees and their floor votes—on all our priorities. (The Legislative Priorities that came up from the grassroots and were voted on by delegates at last May’s convention can be found here.) 

They’re trying to disguise themselves as conservatives. That means they’ll have some motivation to vote for at least some of our important legislation. By applying enough of the right pressure, we might not have an entirely wasted session.

Note that voting against the Caucus choice for speaker is a censurable event. So is voting against a bill supporting the Preamble and 10 Principles at the front of the RPT platform (here). Three such censures can result in being ineligible to be on the ballot in two years. This was a Rule 44 change, to give some teeth to censures; we’ll see if it legally holds up, and whether County GOP groups follow through with the censures.

Texas Republican Platform Preamble and Principles

And, probably simultaneously (depending on how the session goes), we’ll be looking for primary challengers; that vote is just a year and a month away.

The House hasn’t gotten down to business yet. Committee assignments were to have been announced January 31, but Speaker Burrows has said the announcement has been postponed. Meanwhile, the Senate has been working for two and a half weeks. They have held hearings, and have already had a floor vote on SB2, the Senate’s school choice bill. More on that another day. (I haven’t fully studied it yet, but I’m hopeful. It uses other funding for the ESAs, while more money is being allotted per child in public education, so the fearful cries you’re hearing from public ed are likely misplaced.)

Anyway, constant vigilance it is again. The session only lasts 140 days. This year it runs from January 14 to June 2 (but plan on work to wrap up several days before that).

More Resources

Besides those linked above, here are a few more resources:

·        Rep. Nate Schatzline on X explains the situation.

·        Tom Glass on X mentions and links to Chris Salcedo interview explaining the situation.

·        Carol A. Spencer blog post “No Dem Chairs Vote Rings Hollow” talks about the permanent subcommittees and other new House Rules.

·        Katy Area Republicans post on Facebook January 26, 2025 shows a Rep. Andy Hopper video explaining the situation.