Why I Almost Gave Up on the Texas Legislature This Year

This is not the column I planned to write. It is the one several readers asked for after the last session — an honest answer to a question conservatives keep asking each other quietly.

I want to be careful here, because this is the kind of thing that gets quoted out of context. I am not switching sides. I am saying something that a lot of Texas conservatives say privately and almost never say out loud: this year, I came close to giving up on the Legislature entirely.

The Part Nobody Wants To Say

The frustration is not that the other side wins arguments. The frustration is watching our own side pass a bill, hold the press conference, bank the fundraising email — and then discover eighteen months later that nothing measurable changed on the ground.

A law with no enforcement mechanism is a press release with better formatting. We have several of those. Everyone in Austin knows which ones they are, and almost nobody will name them, because naming them costs you invitations.

Why I Didn't Walk

Because the alternative is worse, and because the people who benefit most from conservative exhaustion are the ones counting on it. Turnout collapse is a strategy — it just isn't ours.

And because the mechanism that actually works is not glamorous. It is documents. It is showing up to a Tuesday-night board meeting where eleven people are present. It is asking the same question in writing until somebody answers it in writing.

What I'm Doing Instead

Measuring outcomes instead of announcements. When a bill passes, the only question that matters is what changed in the district, the agency, or the classroom — and who is responsible for checking. If no one is assigned to check, the answer is nothing changed.

That standard is uncomfortable applied to people you voted for. Apply it anyway. It is the only version of accountability that isn't just applause.