Chuck DeVore is the vice president of national initiatives at the Foundation. He writes about the economy and how energy, tax and regulatory policies influence general prosperity, and he frequently appears on Fox News. He also guides the Foundation’s growing national work in criminal justice reform. He authored the book The Texas Model: Prosperity in the Lone Star State and Lessons for America.
Holdout Texas Democrats remain in Washington, D.C., denying the state House of Representatives the two-thirds quorum needed to conduct business, with their walkout over election integrity legislation now entering its second week. Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott called a special session starting July 8 to consider legislation left undone when House Democrats walked out in...
Democrats in the Texas House of Representatives just flew maskless in a private jet with a case of beer to Washington, D.C. Normally, this would just be a fundraising trip to see powerful special interests in the nation’s capital. But this flight out of Austin had a different purpose – a quorum-busting walkout to prevent a vote...
California’s electric grid operator declared a “Flex Alert” Friday morning, showing all that mandated solar and wind power can’t reliably keep the lights on in California. California’s politically driven renewable energy mandates are likely to cause more blackouts this summer outside of California after a remarkable ruling by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) that allows California to hijack...
Was last week’s record heatwave in the Pacific Northwest caused by a climate-altering buildup of human greenhouse gases? The once-august Scientific American claimed it was, declaring, “Unprecedented Heat Wave in Pacific Northwest Driven by Climate Change.” Other outlets like the Washington Post echoed this narrative. It’s helpful to remember climate change commentators live by two rules: First, everything...
The world wants to come to America and many in America – at least in the Biden administration and the Chamber of Commerce – want the world to come. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the Texas-Mexico border, where the surge of would-be immigrants has completely overwhelmed the Border Patrol and local law enforcement. If current trends continue,...
It is no secret that pro-growth policies — low taxes and a light regulatory burden — have propelled population growth in Texas and Florida while the opposite has occurred in California, Illinois, and New York. Elected officials’ response to COVID-19 likely accelerated this trend in 2020, with Florida and Texas netting more than half of the nation’s...
A few years back, Gallup polled Americans on which social entities they thought had too much power. Lobbyists came out on top with 71 percent, beating big business, banks, the federal government, and even labor unions. Gallup has also over the years asked Americans which professions they trust most. Nurses and military officers usually come out on top....
David Frum is a prominent member of the foreign policy priesthood, albeit an accidental one, and he continues to urge U.S. foreign policy errors in a new Atlantic article about China. “China Is a Paper Dragon” argues the Biden administration is unnecessarily concerned about the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Frum’s argument is part of a larger...
As in Georgia, Florida, and other states, the Texas legislature is working to strengthen the state’s election law against the left’s largely successful 2020 effort to subvert it. Texas last passed an election code omnibus bill in 2017 (I testified in favor of the bill). That bill, as with 2021’s efforts, aimed to increase safeguards...
The U.S. Census Bureau released its once-in-a-decade national census on April 26. Most of the discussion about the census has focused on states losing or gaining seats in the U.S. House, a process known as reapportionment. For the 2022 midterms, seven states will be down one member of the House: California, Illinois, Michigan, New York,...
How rights are viewed—individual or collective—explains today’s sharp disagreement over the rules for running elections, both in Congress and in states considering election integrity bills. Democrats—specifically the dominant extremist variety—view rights through the collective lens of race. Critical race theory (CRT), based in Marxism, is essential to understanding their objectives. CRT holds that personage is...
The Texas State Senate on Wednesday approved Senate Bill 1509, by Sen. Brandon Creighton, a key elections bill that protects the integrity of mail-in ballots. After passing the Senate 19-12, the bill now heads to the House. The bill addresses the fact that mail-in ballots can be too easily exploited by ballot traffickers in Texas....