Sherry Sylvester has been working for decades at the nexus of politics and public policy. She has directed multi-million dollar statewide campaigns in New York, New Jersey, and Texas, as well as dozens of state house and senate races. Campaigns and Elections Magazine has called her a “respected veteran” of hard-fought elections and in 2005, her alma mater, the Graduate School of Political Management, now at George Washington University in Washington D.C., named her “alumni of the year,” for her accomplishments in the field of professional politics.
She served for over a decade as the spokesperson and a strategic advisor to Texans for Lawsuit Reform, the most successful tort reform organization in the nation. She was a member of the original campaign and transition teams of Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick and she managed his 2018 re-election campaign. She served for seven years as Senior Advisor to the Lt. Governor and is currently a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
Testifying in support of Senate Bill 17, University of Texas at Austin professor Daniel Bonevac told members of the Texas House Higher Ed Committee that Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs function as “campus thought police…indoctrinating students and training activists.” Dr. Bonevac is in a position to know. He’s a tenured professor who has been...
The Texas Tribune began its coverage of the 88th Session this year with a news report screaming that “LGBTQ Texans Ready for Legislative Session as GOP lawmakers target them in dozens of bills.” The Tribune warns that many LGBTQ people say they are leaving Texas because of the GOP “assault” on their rights. If LGBTQ people are...
The Texas Senate just passed Senate Bill 17, which will require Texas colleges and universities to close their offices dedicated to “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion,” (DEI). Senate Bill 17 will also prohibit universities from requiring applicants for teaching and administrative jobs to provide a so-called “diversity statement” that is free of any offensive words like,...
When Walter Wendler, president of West Texas A&M University, blocked a drag show performance on his campus, likening it to blackface, he was excoriated by the organized LBGTQ+ community, which launched a petition calling it a “gross and abhorrent comparison of two completely different topics. It claimed Wendler was using an “incorrect definition of drag...
The University of Texas Board of Regents just made a very good decision to “pause any new DEI policies on our campuses.” Texas Tech, the University of Houston and Texas A&M also say they are working to end DEI on their campuses. In making the announcement, University of Texas Board of Regents Chairman Kevin Eltife...
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s office just sent out a memo to Texas colleges, universities and state agencies reminding them that they must follow civil rights laws and ensure that all hiring decisions are based solely on merit. Abbott’s Chief of Staff, Gardner Pate, explains in the memo that “…the innocuous sounding notion of Diversity, Equity...
The Texas Tribune began its coverage of the 88th Session this year with a news report screaming that “LGBTQ Texans Ready for Legislative Session as GOP lawmakers target them in dozens of bills.” The Tribune warns that many LGBTQ people say they are leaving Texas because of the GOP “assault” on their rights. If LGBTQ...
It has been observed that if California Gov. Gavin Newsom learned that the University of California system included professors and staff who persistently engaged in pushing free-market, merit-based achievement, and pro-capitalism messages, he would shut them down immediately. If he found out that the administrations of state colleges and universities were almost exclusively made up of individuals...
One thing to be thankful for this Thanksgiving is that it took the Pilgrims only a year or so to figure out that socialism was bad, both for individuals and communities as a whole. Four centuries ago, William Bradford, the first governor of the Plymouth Colony, stated flatly in his history of Plymouth that the Pilgrims had been wrong to think...
After early voting ended on Friday night, Texas voting data guru Derek Ryan issued his final report of who voted, compiling all the information available from the Texas Secretary of State, Two telling points emerged for us to ponder while we wait for the polls to close tomorrow night. First, the number of voters who...
There’s a political tactic called “inoculation” that came into mainstream parlance in the Bill Clinton era—it’s a kind of pre-emptive strike designed to protect against expected attacks and allegations. Going down to the wire to Election Day on Nov. 8, Texas Democrats have begun an inoculation strategy, deploying their strongest resource, the Texas press, to...
In 2007, when photo voter ID was first being debated in the Texas House, State Rep. Rafael Anchia, a leading Democrat leader from Dallas, spoke against it, telling his fellow legislators that they were targeting the wrong problem: “…Vote by mail that we know is the greatest source of voter fraud in this state,” Anchia said....