Tuesday marked the first day lawmakers could file bills for next year’s legislative session.  Lawmakers in the Texas House and Senate filed more than a thousand pieces of legislation Tuesday, offering an early look at the issues they hope to prioritize when they gavel in for the 89th legislative session in January.  Tuesday marked the first day lawmakers could file bills they hope to pass when the Texas Legislature reconvenes next year. Republicans control both chambers and expanded their majority in the House and Senate after flipping a handful of seats during this year’s elections. The ouster of many Republicans by challengers further to their right during this year’s primaries means that the Texas GOP’s far-right wing will have unprecedented sway over the upcoming legislative session. Few of those lawmakers filed bills on Tuesday, but it's likely they'll seek to push the Legislature's already deep-red agenda even further right once they file their own bills. view article

McMahon led the Small Business Administration from 2017 to 2019. She is the wife of Vince McMahon and the co-founder of World Wrestling Entertainment. view article

The William B. Travis Building in downtown Austin where the Texas State Board of Education meets was raucous Monday afternoon with more than 150 people who had driven from across Texas to testify about controversial state-developed instructional materials.  While the Texas Freedom Network, a nonprofit which advocates for religious freedom and public education, held a news conference outside the building to denounce the handling and prevalence of Christian Bible stories in the state-created curriculum materials, called Bluebonnet Learning, a group of pastors who’d driven to Austin from across the state prayed and sang devotional songs in the building's front lobby to encourage the board to pass the curriculum. view article

Lawmakers in the Texas House and Senate filed more than a thousand pieces of legislation Tuesday, offering an early look at the issues they hope to prioritize when they gavel in for the 89th legislative session in January.Tuesday marked the first day lawmakers could file bills they hope to pass when the Texas Legislature reconvenes next year. Republicans control both chambers and expanded their majority in the House and Senate after flipping a handful of seats during this year’s elections. The ouster of many Republicans by challengers further to their right during this year’s primaries means that the Texas GOP’s far-right wing will have unprecedented sway over the upcoming legislative session. Few of those lawmakers filed bills on Tuesday, but it's likely they'll seek to push the Legislature's already deep-red agenda even further right once they file their own bills. view article

State Rep. Brooks Landgraf, R-Odessa, introduced a set of bills this week that would give millions of dollars to the state to seal abandoned oil wells, some of which are causing massive blowouts of toxic liquid and creating pools of wastewater. The financial boost would help clean up environmental damage caused by a century of oil and gas production that made Texas one of the world’s leading energy producers. The package needs approval from both legislative chambers, the governor and voters in fall 2025. If passed, it would reallocate the money that goes into the state’s savings account – $21 billion – to new spending. Right now, taxes gathered from oil and gas companies are divided among Texas’ savings account, schools and highways.The proposed law would pull 1% of all taxes from oil and gas production to plug the wells, and another 1% would go to bolstering emission reduction efforts.    view article

Legislation requiring school districts to obtain written consent from parents before teaching human sexuality courses in public schools has been filed.  view article

Republicans netted only two new seats in the Texas House in Tuesday's election, but of the influx of new members who either ousted incumbents in the GOP primary or won open contests means the lower chamber's center of gravity shifted more to the right. view article

​Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick publicly debunked claims that voting machines in the state are changing the selections voters make.  Republican National Committee Co-Chair Lara Trump, whose father-in-law is GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, posted on social media that Texas had looked into claims about voting machines in Tarrant County switching voters' selections and the "error has been corrected with the voting machines."    But Patrick, who is also a Republican, quickly corrected the national party leader on social media. The lieutenant governor said fewer than 10 people out of the nearly 7 million Texans who had already cast ballots across the state claimed that their selections were changed, but officials could not confirm a single instance of that happening. view article

Voters in states including Florida, Colorado and Kentucky face major decisions on their education systems on Tuesday.   view article

When a Republican is elected president, he often brings loads of Texans to Washington with him. That’s because of the state’s size, influence and political leanings. view article

Texans have faced higher home prices and rents amid the state’s economic boom — and housing experts say the state needs to build a lot more homes to rein in those costs.  The Texas Tribune this week published a pair of stories examining the state’s housing affordability crisis, the role local rules may play in exacerbating that crisis, the options that officials have to rein in soaring housing prices and the political obstacles that make it difficult to address the problem.  Here are five key points from those stories: view article

In the last presidential election cycle, four distant years ago, Texas Democrats pursued an ambitious campaign to take control of the state House. Bolstered by millions of dollars that flooded in from the national party apparatus, Dems targeted as many as 22 GOP-held seats across the Texas suburbs. The strategy was built upon Beto O’Rourke’s near-victorious U.S. Senate campaign in 2018, in which he carried a narrow majority of the state’s 154 state House districts. All they needed to do was flip nine seats that O’Rourke had carried. Democrats were so optimistic heading into Election Day 2020 that multiple state reps, having suffered in the minority for years, announced bids for the speakership in anticipation of their party taking control of the lower chamber for the first time in nearly 20 years. With the potency of the GOP’s gerrymandered maps having waned, and the next round of redistricting on the horizon, it was now or (possibly) never.   What happened instead was, of course, a failure of disastrous proportions as Democrats failed to net a single seat. Then, a few months later in the 2021 legislative session, Republicans redrew the state’s political maps to extend their single-party control of the statehouse for another decade. Their gerrymandering this time opted for maximum protection of their current majority of red seats. Without fear of electoral backlash, the GOP-controlled House and Senate has marched a long line of extreme conservative legislation into law.  view article

A new poll shows that 53 percent of Texas voters believe Democrat presidential nominee Kamala Harris will raise taxes.  view article

Decisions about funding, policies and the structure of the education system impact the day-to-day experiences and long-term outcomes for Leander ISD students and staff. As the Texas Legislature prepares to convene in 2025, the district is inviting you to play a critical role in determining the force of the future. Feedback and priorities from families, educators and local stakeholders will help inform #1LISD’s advocacy efforts during the next Texas legislative session. view article

(RNS) — ‘After more than three decades of incremental growth, the tide has turned in the battle for parental choice and education,’ said Nicole Stelle Garnett, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame. view article

BROWNSVILLE —U.S. Reps. Vicente Gonzalez and Mayra Flores are once again battling to represent a portion of South Texas and each are promising to improve the economy and curb the flow of migrants through the border — albeit with very different tactics. view article

As we near the 2024 Election Day on Nov. 5, I’d like to offer a friendly reminder that the early voting period will begin Oct. 21 and will end Nov. 1. While I always encourage folks to take advantage of the early voting period to avoid Election Day lines, what’s most important is that you plan to participate in the process by exercising your right to vote. For more information about early voting locations, what you’ll need to bring with you to the polling locations or any other questions you may have, please visit votetexas.gov.  With that, we’ll step back into our examination of House interim charges. view article

Oliverson said he will end the practice of awarding Democrats powerful committee chairmanships in the Texas House.   In an interview with the Luke Macias Show, Republican State Rep. Tom Oliverson of Cypress explained how he would use the speakership to change the structure and culture of the House.   Oliverson, who announced his candidacy for House Speaker last month, said he will “give the voters what they voted for, which is actual representation.”   He described the results of the March GOP Primary as Texans “calling for a change.”   Oliverson also explained there is a “pattern of behavior” in House leadership that he doesn’t support—namely, lording power over members, pushing them around, and telling them how they have to vote. view article

Democrats — riding a wave of enthusiasm sparked by Kamala Harris’ nomination — think they can flip just enough House seats to stop Republicans from passing school vouchers.   view article

A pro-casino PAC is contributing significantly to two of Texas’ top officials, Gov. Greg Abbott and Comptroller Glenn Hegar, ahead of the upcoming legislative session. According to new campaign finance filings, the Texas Sands PAC donated $150,000 to Abbott and $100,000 to Hegar during August and September.  The PAC also made smaller donations, giving $15,000 to Railroad Commissioner Christi Craddick and $5,000 to Democrat State Rep. Toni Rose. These contributions are part of a broader strategy as more donations are expected leading up to the legislative session in January. The recent report covers activity between July 1 and September 26. view article

Public education took center stage as three Houston lawmakers Wednesday discussed the state’s takeover of the Houston school district and the prospect of the Legislature creating subsidies for private school tuition next year. view article

Last December, Sid Miller, the Texas commissioner of agriculture, posted a photo of himself brandishing a double-barrel shotgun on X and invited his followers to join him on a “RINO hunt.” Miller had taken to stumping in the March primary election against incumbents he deemed to be Republicans in Name Only. Not long after that, he received a text message from one of his targets, a state representative named Glenn Rogers. “You are a bought and paid for, pathetic narcissist,” it began. “If you had any honor, you would challenge me, or any of my Republican colleagues to a duel.” Rogers, a 68-year-old rancher and grandfather of five, represents a rural district west of Fort Worth. He was proud to serve in a Legislature that, as he told me recently, “couldn’t be more conservative if it tried.” Since entering office in 2021, he co-authored legislation that allowed Texans to carry handguns without a permit, supported the Heartbeat Act that grants citizens the right to sue abortion providers and voted to give the police the power to arrest suspected undocumented migrants in schools and hospitals. In a statehouse packed with debate-me agitators, he was comparatively soft-spoken — a former professor of veterinary medicine with an aversion to grandstanding. He was not in the habit of firing off salvos, as he had to Miller, that ended with “Kiss My Ass!” view article

Millions of Texans would lose food subsidies and farm insurance if Congress doesn’t act before the end of the year.   view article

A Texas A&M spokesperson has confirmed that the university will deactivate 38 certificates and 14 minors, including the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Studies minor. view article

A Texas A&M spokesperson has confirmed that the university will deactivate 38 certificates and 14 minors, including the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Studies minor. view article

wIn a close race, former Houston mayor Sylvester Turner won the Democrat nomination to replace the late U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee on the upcoming November ballot. Charles Blain explains the contest was decided by Democrat precinct chairs in the Harris County congressional district. view article

A program at Texas A&M University is offering students a certificate in Social Justice Leadership this fall. Erin Anderson and Robert Montoya report on this latest offering from Texas A&M’s Bush School of Government & Public Service. view article

After the State Fair of Texas announced a ban on firearms this year, Attorney General Ken Paxton is warning the City of Dallas about what he describes as an “unlawful infringement on Second Amendment rights.” view article

Mike Morath made the recommendation as concerns rise that phones are harmful to students’ mental health and distract them from learning.   view article

On September 18, 2023, just two days after the Senate acquitted Attorney General Ken Paxton in his impeachment trial, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called for a full audit of the impeachment’s expenses. view article

Accurate voter rolls are an essential component of trustworthy elections. The inverse is also true, and election after election, one party fights to keep the rolls dirty, making elections untrustworthy. view article

The vote for Speaker of the House will take place on the first day of the legislative session on January 14, 2025. view article

The state of Texas is proposing to adopt a curriculum for Texas public schools that includes Christian-based religious references in K-5 education. The proposal was unveiled by the Texas Education Agency in May and the plan includes a financial incentive of at least $40 per student for school districts that adopt the proposed curriculum. view article

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick issues new directives to increase D.E.I. scrutiny in higher ed. AUSTIN, Texas — Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick has issued a second round of directives for the Texas Senate, asking lawmakers to consider legislation that could change how the state does runoff elections, prevent protestors from wearing face masks, and further eliminate any lingering D.E.I. policies that may still exist in higher education. Since the Texas Legislature only meets biennially, there's a lot of work to be done before the start of a legislative session. "We compress effectively two years of legislation into approximately five months," Rice University's Dr. Mark Jones said. "the legislature needs to get working on issues long before the session begins in January." view article

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick issues new directives to increase D.E.I. scrutiny in higher ed. AUSTIN, Texas — Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick has issued a second round of directives for the Texas Senate, asking lawmakers to consider legislation that could change how the state does runoff elections, prevent protestors from wearing face masks, and further eliminate any lingering D.E.I. policies that may still exist in higher education. Since the Texas Legislature only meets biennially, there's a lot of work to be done before the start of a legislative session. "We compress effectively two years of legislation into approximately five months," Rice University's Dr. Mark Jones said. "the legislature needs to get working on issues long before the session begins in January." view article