In the wake of the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn made a risky decision for a Republican anywhere, but especially in Texas.  Moved by the deaths of 19 young school children, Cornyn helped shepherd the nation’s first major legislation on gun safety in decades that sought, among other goals, to enhance background checks for young gun buyers and crack down on illegal gun purchases.  The criticism was immediate. view article

U.S. District Judge Alan D. Albright declared certain provisions of Texas’ READER Act unconstitutional and blocked the state from enforcing it.  House Bill 900—also known as the Restricting Explicit and Adult-Designated Educational Resources Act (READER)—was passed in 2023 and required vendors to rate books sold to Texas schools based on sexual content. The purpose was to ensure schools removed books labeled “sexually explicit” by vendors.  The law was to take effect on September 1, 2023, but the rating provisions were temporarily blocked by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas (Austin Division) before it could be enforced.  Tuesday’s ruling—in the same federal court—permanently blocks the state from enforcing the book-rating provisions of the law, pending appeal. view article

The Alamo Trust has come under fire in recent weeks for promoting political narratives at odds with the site’s history. view article

After several months of discussion, members of the Conroe ISD Board of Trustees approved changes to several district policies to comply with new legislation, but went a step further than some of those Texas laws.   Some changes are due to new legislation, while others are clarifications of existing district policies. In November, the board will adopt 12 more new or updated policies, Superintendent David Vinson said.   The new Senate Bill 12 prohibits assisting students with "social transitioning," which is defined as adopting a different name or pronouns to express a gender identity different from their biological sex at birth.  view article

After several months of discussion, members of the Conroe ISD Board of Trustees approved changes to several district policies to comply with new legislation, but went a step further than some of those Texas laws. Some changes are due to new legislation, while others are clarifications of existing district policies. In November, the board will adopt 12 more new or updated policies, Superintendent David Vinson said.  view article

The App Store Accountability Act is set to take effect on January 1.  A federal lawsuit is challenging Texas’ new App Store Accountability Act, which is set to take effect January 1, 2026. This is the latest development in an ongoing clash between Texas lawmakers and Big Tech.  The act—also known as Senate Bill 2420—forces app stores to age‑verify every user and obtain parental consent before any minor can download or purchase an app. The lawsuit alleges SB 2420 violates the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment and Commerce Clause as well as fundamental privacy rights. view article

The secretary of state identified 2,724 potential noncitizens registered to vote in Texas.   After running its entire list of more than 18 million voters through the SAVE database, Texas has identified 2,724 potential noncitizens who are registered to vote in the state.  Secretary of State Jane Nelson announced Monday that her office had completed a full comparison of the state’s voter registration list against data in the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ SAVE database. view article

When Liz Graff started their second year of law school this fall, the nonbinary transgender student noticed a shift in how their peers treated them.   Male classmates stopped holding the door for Graff or bumped into them on the sidewalk. In class, students called transgender women “men.” Peers said publicly that people expressing gender identities that diverge from what was assigned at birth has gotten out of hand.   To Graff, these actions add up to represent an increasing hostility on campus toward transgender students. view article

AUSTIN (Nexstar) — Starting Monday, Texans can head to the polls to vote on 17 proposed amendments to the state constitution — decisions that could reshape tax policy, education funding, infrastructure investment, and more. view article

Hunt, 43, said his entry into the race to defeat U.S. Sen. John Cornyn guarantees that a “conservative warrior” will be Texas’ next senator — and that only he and Paxton fit the bill. view article

Supporters say the office will bring needed accountability to Texas universities, while faculty groups have said that, without due process protections, it is ripe for abuse. view article

Hinojosa has been vocal in her opposition to school choice legislation and bills aimed at protecting children from sexually explicit materials in school libraries. view article

A majority of the proposed constitutional amendments address tax cuts for homeowners and businesses. view article

The State Department has revoked the visas of six foreigners after they publicly celebrated the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk.  “The United States has no obligation to host foreigners who wish death on Americans,” the State Department posted on X on Oct. 14. “The State Department continues to identify visa holders who celebrated the heinous assassination of Charlie Kirk.”  The names of those who lost their visas were withheld, but their redacted social media posts were published by the department. view article

Just under one-third of all Texas school districts have ordered the controversial Bible-infused Bluebonnet materials, according to the Texas Education Agency. Twenty of those 367 districts are in the Houston area, and 30 more are in the Huntsville and Beaumont area, although the majority of the districts that ordered the materials are located in the Tyler area, with 35 districts in that area opting in. Amarillo and Victoria were next after Kilgore.  view article

State Rep. Brian Harrison has been on a crusade against Texas universities, scouring course catalogs and university websites for examples of “gender ideology” or LGBTQ+ curriculum, and riling up his X followers about “liberal indoctrination” on campuses.  few days after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, a video was posted on social media of a Texas State University student mockingly re-enacting the conservative activist’s death.  Rep. Brian Harrison saw the video and got to work.  He pulled up the university’s online course catalog and found a class called LGBTQ+ Communication Studies, where students were to learn about how “communication sustains both discrimination against LGBTQ+ people and their resistance,” according to the course description.  Within the hour, Harrison shared the video of the student on his X account alongside the image of the offending course description. view article

With more than $9 million in cash on hand, Las Vegas Sands has become a big spender in Texas politics.   As voters prepare to select a new state senator for Texas Senate District 9, one candidate is receiving a flood of support from the casino industry.  Former Southlake Mayor John Huffman reported a $500,000 contribution from the Texas Sands PAC, the political arm of Las Vegas Sands, in the latest campaign finance report covering the period through September 25.   The casino lobby has also funded advertising through the Texas Defense PAC, a committee wholly funded by Sands. view article

With online sports betting proliferating among young people, scientific literature reports that those who engage in internet gambling have the highest risk of developing a gambling disorder.   he four declared GOP candidates for attorney general—Mayes Middleton, Aaron Reitz, Joan Huffman, and Chip Roy view article

The University of Texas at Austin is preparing to host a teaching seminar that will train faculty members to instruct students on the horrors of communism.  UT-Austin’s School for Civic Leadership partnered with the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation to host “Teaching the Twentieth Century: Communism and Dissent.” The event is scheduled for October 16 through October 18.  Attendees will participate in four sample class sessions from a senior professor. They will also attend four sessions on potential syllabi and pedagogy. view article

Five other censures were rejected, including one for Speaker Dustin Burrows. view article

A new state law prohibits school districts from authorizing or sponsoring a student club based on sexual orientation or gender identity. view article

Adam Kincaid testified that he did not take race into account when creating the new congressional map view article

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Finance and technology company Odyssey will help design the application process, manage payments and review complaints for the state’s education savings accounts.  Texas’ chief financial officer on Monday named the organization that will help the state build the school voucher program lawmakers approved earlier this year.  Odyssey, a technology company, will work with the comptroller’s office, which oversees finances for all of Texas state government, to design the process through which Texas families can apply to receive thousands of dollars in taxpayer funds to cover their children’s private or home-schooling costs. Odyssey will also develop a system for those families to shop for educational products and pay tuition.  Applications for Texans to participate in the program are expected to open at some point early next year. The program, named “Texas Education Freedom Accounts,” will then launch at the beginning of the 2026-27 school year. view article

Texas' state health agency approved an emergency rule on Friday to ban hemp license holders from selling consumable hemp products to anyone under 21, the first step toward fulfilling an executive order by Gov. Greg Abbott that called for stricter regulation of the products.  The emergency rule, approved by Health and Human Services Commissioner Cecile Erwin Young, requires sellers of consumable hemp to verify with a valid ID that a customer is at least 21 years old; violations may lead to the revocation of a license or registration. The rules are effective immediately  The state health agency approved the rule less than two weeks after the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission approved an emergency rule to ban liquor license holders from selling consumable hemp products to anyone under 21. This includes THC and CBD products. view article

Democrats are alleging that Texas’ new congressional map is racially discriminatory, rather than a permissible partisan redraw that creates five new GOP-opportunity districts.  view article

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is trying to oust U.S. Sen. John Cornyn in what is shaping up to be Texas’ most closely watched primary race.  Polls ahead of the March primary election show that the two Republicans are only a few percentage points apart. U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt of Houston has also been toying with entering the race, but he has yet to officially declare, even as he continues to sink hundreds of thousands of dollars into campaign ads airing statewide. view article

Left-wing advocacy groups are challenging the constitutionality of Texas’ new congressional map, which creates five new Republican-opportunity districts.  A legal showdown over Texas’ new congressional map begins Wednesday in an El Paso federal court. The outcome will determine whether the state’s latest congressional boundaries can be used in upcoming elections. view article

For the first time since Texas authorized the program, the state heard public testimony from people concerned about pre-K funding, special education provisions and data reporting. view article

Texas’ border jurisdictions are scrambling to manage thousands of pending Operation Lone Star cases after key state partners abruptly pulled out, leaving local officials to coordinate housing and transportation for defendants.  Kinney County Attorney Brent Smith told Texas Scorecard the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) and the Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM), both of which helped provide housing for illegal crossers arrested under the border security initiative, are no longer handling those responsibilities.  The Del Rio Processing Center is reportedly shutting down, along with Val Verde County’s detention facility—the original epicenter of Operation Lone Star (OLS) prosecutions.  “We’re left holding the bag,” Smith said. “Counties are having to figure this out on their own without the infrastructure the state had in place.” view article

Texas’ congressional delegation obtained tentative funding for infrastructure improvements, university research and other initiatives, but the nearly 350 earmarks are all in jeopardy.   Left-wing media outlets are criticizing a memo written by the Texas Tech University System’s chancellor which mandates faculty adherence to laws recognizing only two biological sexes, framing it as an attack on LGBT ideology without legal basis.  On September 25, Texas Tech University System Chancellor Tedd Mitchell sent a memo to the presidents of the system’s institutions.  He wrote that state and federal law recognize male and female as the only two human sexes. He cited three sources: President Donald Trump’s January 2025 executive order, Gov. Greg Abbott’s January 2025 letter, and new state law House Bill 229.  HB 229 defined biological sex and required Texas agencies to record only male or female in vital statistics data. Abbott’s letter ordered agencies to reject gender identity policies and follow laws recognizing two sexes. Trump’s executive order directed federal agencies to use only biological sex and to remove gender identity from policy. view article

The American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, along with other civil rights groups, filed a second lawsuit in federal court Monday to stop more Texas public school districts from displaying the Ten Commandments in classrooms.  Earlier this summer, Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 10 into law, requiring every public school classroom in the state to include a poster with the Ten Commandments.  Last month, the groups — who are representing Texas families of varying religious and nonreligious backgrounds — successfully argued for a preliminary injunction against 11 school districts in Texas’ largest metropolitan areas. While issuing the injunction, U.S. Judge Fred Biery wrote the new law "likely violates both the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment” to the U.S. Constitution.  "This [new] lawsuit is a continuation of our work to defend the First Amendment and ensure that government officials stay out of personal family decisions," said Chloe Kempf, a staff attorney at the ACLU Texas. "All students — regardless of their race or religious background — should feel accepted and free to be themselves in Texas public schools." view article

Senate Bill 8, which goes into effect on Dec. 4, restricts bathroom use in government buildings and schools to the sex assigned at birth. view article

Several proposed amendments in Texas’ Nov. 4 general election would provide property tax cuts for Texan homeowners if approved at the cost of billions of the state’s funding. The general election has 17 different proposed statewide amendments on the ballot. Of those, ten of them relate to providing tax cuts in various ways, including on homes, businesses, capital gains, securities, and animal feed. view article