In Emails To Lawmakers Urging No Votes On SBOE Sunset, Rightwing Groups Call Measure A “Punishment”

A slew of right-wing groups were emailing members of the Texas Legislature yesterday demanding that they vote against SB 710, legislation which would have subjected the State Board of Education to review by the Sunset Advisory Commission.

Among other things, rightwing groups called the bill a “punishment” on the SBOE. In addition, Wall Builders, a group founded by former Republican Party of Texas Vice Chair David Barton, also sent emails lobbying against the bill in spite of the fact that Barton is set to be appointed by the SBOE to an expert review panel for social studies curriculum.

Let’s take a look at the emails. Here is one from the Texas Pastor Council:

Tell Legislature To Say “NO!” to Attempted Punishment of SBOE!
Stand with State Board of Education against efforts by educational bureaucracy to seize control

Pastors’ organization opposes efforts by the “educrat” lobby to neuter or destroy the SBOE

Houston, TX -  A number of bills moving through the State Legislature that would either remove authority from or even set the stage for elimination of the State Board of Education are “ill advised, wrongly motivated and punitive in intent” said the Texas Pastor Council (TXPC) today in opposing the legislation.  The TXPC stated that this legislation was wielded as a threat during recent SBOE debates on the “strengths and weaknesses” standards in science curriculum.

“There is no question that the education bureaucracy which has mismanaged and overspent on Texas schools for years is, with the complicity of politicians without principles, attempting a hostile takeover of this body elected by the people and accountable to the people,” declared the TXPC.  “Liberals are unhappy with the SBOE’s insistence on accuracy in history and social studies curriculums, ther stand for scientific open debate, against ‘fuzzy math’ and even their outstanding record in managing the Permanent School Fund.”

They continued by asking legislators should to let the SBOE fulfill their statutory duties without the threat of legislative retaliation and let each body answer to the people for their actions. “Legislative attempts to seize the funds from the PSF, sunset the SBOE and stonewall the confirmation of chairman Don McLeroy are the transparent work of educrats and ultra-liberal organizations like Texas Freedom Network to transfer education in this state securely to the elite and away from the citizens,” they assert.

In conclusion, TXPC is asking all pastors, parents and concerned citizens to contact House and Senate members to oppose all such legislation such as HB 710 (subjecting the board to the Sunset process), CSHJR 77 (transferring the PSF to a new, less accountable council) , etc. and urging the reconfirmation of chairman McLeroy.  “Legislators will choose between educational and fiscal accountability on one side and big-government bureaucrats, the left-wing TFN and all their cronies on the other.  We want to clearly express that we will most certainly communicate to our congregants which side they choose to serve,” they said.

TXPC is coalition of local pastor councils in a number of cities around Texas involving pastors across denominational and racial lines to speak with a united voice for truth, faith and justice.

Here is what the Free Market Foundation had to say:

Speak Out! Tell Your State Rep. To Vote “NO” on HB 710:
Another Direct Attack on State Board of Education (SBOE)
The Texas House of Representatives will vote on HB 710 TODAY!!  Here are the facts.
1.  HB 710 Attacks SBOE Because of Recent Decisions Supported by Citizens:  This is another extreme move to strike back at the SBOE because some House and Senate members did not like the outcome of recent SBOE decisions on science and Bible curriculum — even though the SBOE received thousands of calls and emails supporting their decision — most of which were made by a near-unanimous vote.
2.  HB 710 Forces SBOE to Be Only Elected Body to Be Subjected to Sunset Review:  This bill requires the SBOE to be subject to “Sunset Review,”  a form of periodic review where a group of 10 elected officials and 2 unelected officials review state agencies and can abolish such agencies.  If HB 710 passes, the SBOE would be the only elected body to be subject to Sunset Review, which means that down the road, the SBOE could be largely changed and even eliminated. This is unnecessary, because voters will hold their elected officials accountable in the voting booth, just as with House and Senate members.
3.  HB 710 Strips Voters of Their Role to Review the SBOE:  Voters can decide on their own if they think elected officials are doing a good job – that’s the input we have when we vote for any elected official, like House or Senate members.  HB 710 strips the public of our role as a “check” on elected officials and our control over fair representation.
The real issue here, though, is that this bill is just another attack on the SBOE because some people didn’t like their decision on issues like the science and censorship debate, even though the main vote on that issue was 13-2, with almost unanimous support by Republicans and Democrats.

Here is the email from WallBuilders, signed by David Barton himself:

The Texas Legislature: Stripping Power from the People

Several bills are working their way through the legislature to strip power from the elective Texas State Board of Education (SBOE). Some are related to management of the permanent school fund and others to the control of textbook content.

Regarding the former, in 1854 Congress paid Texas $10 million in exchange for Texas’ claims to western lands. $2 million of that payment was set aside to fund public education but within only a few years, the fund was depleted by poor legislative management. In 1876, under the new Texas Constitution, the fund was replenished and the SBOE was created to “preserve and protect” its assets. The fund has grown from meager beginnings to the current $17 billion – the nation’s second largest educational endowment.

Like many state legislatures currently facing economic shortfalls (and being unwilling to reduce their spending), the Texas legislature wants more income. One way would be to remove the school fund from the SBOE and place it under a board controlled primarily by the state legislature. Considering the success of the SBOE in managing the accounts, and given the proclivity of modern legislative bodies to pilfer designated funds, the unsoundness of this proposal is self-evident.

The latter bills would remove control of textbook content from the SBOE, placing it under appointed (and thus unaccountable) individuals. Since each member of the SBOE represents twice as many voters as a state Senate district, and ten times as many as a state House district, to remove power from the SBOE is to remove power from the voters.

Some point to the SBOE’s recent decision to allow “strengths and weaknesses” to be presented in science textbooks as justification for the removal of their power. It is ridiculous that the Texas legislature should punish the SBOE simply for allowing both sides of a controversy to be presented to students, especially when the SBOE’s 13-2 vote on that issue comports with 84 percent of Americans, including 68 percent of Democrats, who agree with that position.

By removing power from the people’s elected representatives, the Texas legislature is violating a fundamental governing axiom set forward by Thomas Jefferson:

I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them [the people] not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.

Imagined government problems are not fixed by transferring power from elective (and thus accountable) bodies to appointed (and therefore unaccountable) ones. In fact, in recent years it is the appointed bodies that regularly demonstrate their contempt for the people, striking down democratically passed measures on everything from school funding to marriage definitions, and term limits to criminal sentencing. One reason that Texas policies have remained so much sounder than much of the rest of the nation is that we leave most power in the hands of elected officials rather than appointed ones.

The elected SBOE best protects the interests of citizens and students. In fact, just last month it suspended the work of an appointed educational panel for removing all references to “free enterprise” from the pending standards for history and government textbooks!

Recall that the SBOE also:

* Opposed the infamous “Rain-Forest” algebra textbook (the first 100 pages of that math book were filled with a denunciation of the Vietnam War, Maya Angelou poetry, 100 ways to save the Rain Forest, etc. – but not higher math).
* Returned spelling books to the classroom and reintroduced phonics to the teaching of reading rather than relying on the appointed panel’s “whole-word” approach – an approach now universally condemned as an abysmal failure.
* Restored the teaching of grammar as a separate emphasis in English texts (the education panels had eliminated that emphasis, ridiculously believing that students would simply “absorb” grammar by osmosis while reading “rich literature”).

The elected SBOE has consistently opposed the dumbing-down of textbooks that was being encouraged by appointed panels of educrats. But now the Texas legislature wants to punish the SBOE (and Texas citizens and students!) by placing textbook content in the hands of a so-called “independent” panel. Concerning such “independent” bodies, Thomas Jefferson warned:

It should be remembered as an axiom of eternal truth in politics that whatever power in any government is independent is absolute also….Independence can be trusted nowhere but with the people in mass.

The Texas legislature should abandon its ill-conceived attempts to strip power from the SBOE and transfer that power to unaccountable educrats and panels. Furthermore, as a body that has largely failed to meet its own fiduciary responsibilities to the taxpayers, the Texas legislature should not attempt to punish an elected body that has met theirs.

Two centuries ago, U. S. Constitution signer James Wilson observed:

Here, the people are masters of government; elsewhere, the government is master of the people.

The Texas legislature should honor this basic principle of government, but it has not. In fact, the House has already passed HJR 77 to strip management of the permanent school fund from the SBOE, and votes on several bills to strip textbook content are forthcoming.

Please call your state representative and senator (more than once if possible!) and let them know how outraged you are at their attempts to strip power from you by destroying the power of the elected SBOE – demand that they vote against every bill to remove power from the SBOE. Then please spread this word to others so they can also call.

God Bless!

David Barton

I guess the words “conflict of interest” have no meaning to Barton. I’d also love to know the source of the quote he mentions…or is it one he made up, as he has admitted to doing in the past?

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