Texas senators on Wednesday unanimously approved Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s agenda on property tax cuts this legislative session, which would pump billions of state dollars into public schools and give bigger tax breaks for homeowners and business owners.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has embraced Senate Bill 8, which will get its first committee hearing Wednesday. But House Speaker Dade Phelan hasn’t made school choice legislation a priority.
A federal judge granted the delay due to a “family surgery” involving one of the attorneys for Longview resident Ryan Nichols. Nichols’ attorneys had been seeking a continuance, but not originally for the reason it has now been granted.
Senate Bill 29 prohibits state and local governments from implementing mask or vaccine mandates to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The bill also prohibits mandatory school or business closures.
Housing advocates, builders and real estate experts agree that the state simply isn’t building enough homes to keep up with its booming population and economic growth.
Two Texas lawmakers are once again taking a stance on daylight savings time, filing to senate bills which would let Texans vote on whether or not to keep it or essentially do away with it.
Wildfires are always a risk in East Texas, especially with the hot summers and long droughts recently.A house bill is in motion to create and conduct various studies that would establish risk zones.
Mexico’s president claimed Monday that his country is safer than the United States, a week after two U.S. citizens were killed and two kidnapped and later rescued in the border city of Matamoros.
Republican lawmakers in Texas are proposing legislation that would make it a state felony to cross the border from Mexico illegally and create a new border police force that could deputize private citizens.
Video of the scene at the Paso Del Norte bridge on Sunday showed hundreds of migrants brush past Mexican National Guard officers on the Mexican side, some carrying children on their shoulders. Many appeared to be Venezuelan, by their accents.
By KAREN BROOKS HARPER, YURIKO SCHUMACHER AND ALEX FORD
If Texas’ budget surplus were distributed directly to Texans, it could pay for 12 years of school lunches, seven months of rent or 11,000 miles of travel. Here’s how to put the big number into perspective.
Rep. Bryan Slaton has filed a bill to provide tax incentives to those who follow a specific family model, as well as a bill to criminalize certain gendered performances.
The bills would allow the state to hire companies to build emergency gas-fueled power plants, among other ideas for swinging the state’s power balance away from wind and solar.
More than nine months after the Uvalde school shooting, top GOP lawmakers maintain focus on school safety reforms and investments in mental health resources in hopes it will prevent future tragedies.
In its first bill passed this session, the Texas Senate sought to ensure juvenile mental health hospitalizations are reported to the federal firearm background check system.
Five women who said they were denied abortions even when pregnancy endangered their lives are suing Texas over its abortion ban, the latest legal fight against state restrictions since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade.
Speaker of the Texas House Dade Phelan today announced three priorities for the chamber this legislative session that focus on building a more resilient Texas by expanding the state’s framework for broadband development, dedicating dollars toward improving water infrastructure and cutting burdensome red tape around property development projects in the state.
State Senator Charles Perry was a leader in legalizing the hemp industry in Texas in 2019 and is now authoring new legislation for more regulation and penalties for some uses.
After a ProPublica-Texas Tribune investigation found courts failed to report juvenile mental health hospitalizations to the federal firearm background check system, lawmakers from both parties are backing bills to ensure compliance with the law.
East Texas Now’s Jeremy G. Butler talks to White House Correspondent Jon Decker about top U.S. Officials’ unnanounced trips to Ukraine, including the most recent by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.
The poll from the University of Texas at Austin, released Thursday, found a plurality of voters support redirecting tax revenue to help parents pay to school their kids outside the traditional public education system.
Seventy-seven Republicans signed on as co-authors to Rep. Valoree Swanson’s bill extending restrictions on transgender athletes to college sports. Gov. Greg Abbott has expressed support for the legislation, which is also a priority of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.
DeSantis and Abbott often appear to be locked in an unspoken ideological arms race as they take turns leading and then following one another, enacting policies and backing bills that push both states further to the right.
The 88th Texas Legislative Session began in January and the House and Senate versions of the General Appropriations Bill specific to TDCJ has been filed.
State Rep. Gina Hinojosa, D-Austin, has proposed an amendment to the state constitution to raise legislator pay and tie it to teachers’ pay, saying it would give lawmakers a living wage and allow a broader range of Texans to serve.