State Representative Gina Hinojosa says she’ll put a stop to state takeovers of local school districts if she’s elected governor of Texas.  The Austin Democrat held a press conference on Monday at a closed elementary school in downtown Austin. Hinojosa is challenging Republican Governor Greg Abbott in November, and she’s making public education a focus of her campaign.  On Monday, she called for the removal of Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath, head of the Texas Education Agency.State Representative Gina Hinojosa says she’ll put a stop to state takeovers of local school districts if she’s elected governor of Texas.  The Austin Democrat held a press conference on Monday at a closed elementary school in downtown Austin. Hinojosa is challenging Republican Governor Greg Abbott in November, and she’s making public education a focus of her campaign.  On Monday, she called for the removal of Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath, head of the Texas Education Agency. view article

Committee members examined allegations that cities have failed to update local ordinances while discussing potential "Death Star 2.0" reforms ahead of the next legislative session.   Texas lawmakers are examining whether local governments are complying with a state law designed to prevent cities and counties from regulating in areas already governed by state law—and whether stronger enforcement tools are needed to ensure compliance    The Texas House Select Committee on Governmental Oversight held its first hearing Thursday to review implementation of the Texas Regulatory Consistency Act, a 2023 law that limits local regulations in broad areas of state law. Supporters say the measure helps businesses by ensuring consistent rules across Texas, while opponents argue it restricts local control. view article

The Republican said he agreed to speak at the event prior to Clayton Tucker’s involvement because it was “the right thing to do.” Both are critics of data center construction in Texas.  At least 248 data centers are currently planned to be built in Texas, almost half of which are set to be built in unincorporated areas, a Texas Tribune analysis found. The state currently has 335 existing data centers. view article

The spot will stream throughout the Spurs-Knicks series on ESPN+, depicting Gov. Greg Abbott as a basketball-playing string puppet committing “turnover after turnover of our money to his donors.” view article

Republicans are grappling with a stunning Democratic upset: a swing of 30+ points away from the G.O.P. in a deeply conservative part of the state. While the race was local, political operatives are already gaming out the impact on the midterms, how it could scramble the fundraising race, and what it portends for the Hispanic vote in the age of ICE. view article

The former state senator will leave office July 17 after overseeing seven statewide elections and a high-profile legal fight over Texas' primary system.  Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson announced Tuesday that she will step down from the position on July 17, ending a three-and-a-half-year tenure leading the state’s elections and business filings agency.  “It has been an honor to serve the people of Texas in this role,” Nelson said in a statement. “My time as Secretary came at an important moment for Texas, and I am proud of what we have been able to accomplish as an agency in under four years.”  Gov. Greg Abbott praised Nelson’s service, calling her “a true champion for the people of Texas and an extraordinary Secretary of State.”  “I am deeply grateful for her long and loyal service and outstanding leadership,” Abbott said. “She has represented our state with grace and honor across the globe, and Texas is better because of it.” view article

Adrian Reyna’s childhood is marked by memories of running around the halls of Brewer Elementary School where his mother was principal during the 1990s. Decades later, Brewer Elementary is now called Brewer Academy and sits closed on the West Side of San Antonio, and Reyna is a master teacher at San Antonio Independent School District, working in a grant-funded position meant to strengthen teaching pipelines.   As of Tuesday night, however, Reyna appears to be on his way to a seat in the State House of Representatives to represent Texas House District 125, a district his father Arthur “Art” Reyna represented from 1997-2001.  view article

Reaffirming a statewide tuition freeze first announced in 2024, Abbott told higher education leaders they may not raise undergraduate tuition or fees. view article

The proclamation will order state lawmakers to convene in Tallahassee starting June 1.  Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on May 27 called for a special legislative session to pass his plan to exempt homeowners from paying property taxes on their permanent residence.  The Republican governor revealed his plans to sign a proclamation that would require state lawmakers to convene in Tallahassee and discuss his “Save Our Homes” proposal starting on June 1.  “Taxing something that you own repeatedly, which is a property tax, is the worst way to do taxation,” DeSantis said in a news conference on May 27. view article

Thomas Smith has won the Republican nomination for Court of Criminal Appeals Place 3 after defeating Alison Fox in Tuesday’s Primary runoff election. The CCA is Texas’ highest criminal appellate court.  The May 26 runoff followed the March 3 Primary in which none of the candidates secured more than 50 percent of the vote. Fox received 31.3 percent while Smith took 30.7 percent, forcing the two top vote-getters into Tuesday’s runoff.  Incumbent Judge Bert Richardson chose not to seek reelection to the statewide court, leaving the seat open. Richardson—who was first elected to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in 2014 and reelected in 2020—is instead running for Chief Justice of the Fourth Court of Appeals in San Antonio. view article

Incumbent Jim Wright loses after serving one term.   A majority of Republican Primary runoff voters chose Bo French over Jim Wright as the party’s nominee for the Texas Railroad Commission.  Both men were the top vote-getters in the March Primary, but Wright underperformed with just 32.1 percent of the vote. French won 31.8 percent. With neither scoring a majority in the five-way race, both were thrust into the May 26 runoff   Established in 1891, state law transitioned the Railroad Commission of Texas into a state agency with oil and gas oversight in 1917, with the last of its railroad oversight transferred to the Texas Department of Transportation in 2005. Currently, the Railroad Commission has primary regulatory jurisdiction and enforcement over the oil and natural gas industry and is responsible for both state and federal compliance. view article

Republicans Tom Sell and Jon Bonck won their primary runoffs Tuesday for a pair of open congressional seats in Texas’ South Plains and the Houston area, respectively, making them the heavy favorites to join the U.S. House next year representing the deep red districts.  Republican voters in Texas’ 19th Congressional District, which represents a wedge of West Texas from Lubbock to Abilene, elected Sell as the Republican nominee. Sell, a businessman with deep familial ties to Lubbock, was endorsed by several U.S. House GOP leaders, including House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer. view article

The Austin lawmaker now faces an uphill battle against Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the state’s second-highest executive, in November. view article

Middleton, a conservative state senator and oil and gas executive, put more than $16 million of his own money into the race. view article

The Ysleta Independent School District is in danger of wiping out its savings without significant changes as part of the 2026-27 budget, the district’s internal auditor and chief financial officer warned the school board Wednesday night.  “If we don’t change our expenditures, then we are going to end up consuming all of our fund balance” at the end of the next school year, CFO Lynly Cambern told the Ysleta school board.  Ysleta ISD is the second major El Paso district in as many days to warn of looming financial catastrophe, following El Paso ISD’s announcement Tuesday that it was facing a $52.7 million deficit this year and a $42 million deficit next year unless major changes are made. view article

John Cornyn is trying to fend off Ken Paxton. Both parties are picking attorney general nominees. And an oil and gas regulatory race has become uncharacteristically costly.  Nearly 14 months and $135 million later, Texas’ blockbuster Republican Senate primary will finally be decided Tuesday.  It’s a battle that nominally began last April, but whose contours were set long before — in 2023, when Cornyn cast doubt on President Donald Trump’s electability and Paxton faced an impeachment from members of his own party; in 2022, when Cornyn negotiated a bipartisan gun safety bill and Paxton was one of just two elected officials to show up at Trump’s presidential campaign launch; or perhaps in 2020, when the attorney general led the legal charge to overturn Trump’s presidential election loss. view article

Texas House District 41 was opened by the retirement of Rep. Bobby Guerra, a Democrat. Donald Trump carried the district with 50.3% of the vote in 2024.  Voters in the Rio Grande Valley on Tuesday will decide a pair of spicy runoffs for Texas House District 41 in the heart of President Donald Trump’s massive gains in the region in 2024.  Republicans are eyeing a seat opened by the retirement of Rep. Bobby Guerra, a Democrat from Mission who represented the area since 2013, after the president carried the district last cycle with 50.3% of the vote — a 7-point swing to the right from his 2020 performance.  Similar lurches toward Republicans played out across the Texas-Mexico border, where the Texas GOP’s yearslong efforts to make inroads with Latino voters helped Trump claim 14 of the 18 counties within 20 miles of the border, including some that had not voted for a Republican presidential candidate in more than a century. view article

Middleton helped fund the Legislature’s swing to the right, and an internecine challenge to Ken Paxton. But that’s nothing next to the money he’s spent on himself.  WASHINGTON — When Michael Burgess first ran for Congress in 2002, his name was sandwiched between two now-familiar politicians on the Republican ballot.  Above him was John Cornyn, making his first bid for U.S. Senate. Further down was Ken Paxton, a then first-time candidate running for the state House in Collin County.  All three won those initial races in a landmark year for the Texas GOP, when the party established the trifecta control of Austin it’s maintained ever since. Twenty-four years later, Cornyn and Paxton are on a collision course, battling in an ugly runoff to be the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate seat Cornyn has occupied for over two decades.  Burgess, a Lewisville Republican and affable policy wonk, retired at the end of 2024. Having observed both for decades, he’s backing Cornyn. view article

Some party leaders are also also alleging GOP interference on behalf of Galindo, who said she would “turn Karnes ICE Detention Center into a prison for American Zionists” if elected.  Democratic leaders are condemning Texas congressional candidate Maureen Galindo over her latest round of antisemitic comments.  Galindo finished first in the Democratic primary for Texas’ 35th Congressional District and is in a runoff election against Bexar County Sheriff’s Deputy Johnny Garcia. Democratic leaders in Washington and Texas have backed Garcia amidst a mysterious six-figure advertising campaign to boost Galindo, a sex therapist and housing advocate.  Last weekend, Galindo said in an Instagram post that she intends to write legislation to “turn Karnes ICE Detention Center into a prison for American Zionists and former ICE officers for human trafficking.” view article

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The Wylie ISD Republican Student Club founder testified before Congress on the infiltration of Sharia into Texas schools. view article

Republicans and Democrats are picking party nominees in a slate of other races, from attorney general to congressional seats that could help determine partisan control in Washington. If no single candidate won at least 50% of the vote in the March 3 primary, the top two finishers head to a runoff.  view article

Campaigns are racing to turn out small slice of voters expected to decide contests for the U.S. Senate, House and statewide offices. view article

Six of Texas’ largest cities lost residents in 2025: Dallas, El Paso, Arlington, Plano, Irving and Garland.  Fewer people are moving to Texas cities amid the country’s broader immigration slowdown, but the state remains home to some of the fastest growing cities in the country, new U.S. Census Bureau data show.  Celina, a city about an hour north from downtown Dallas, was the fastest growing city in the country last year, according to census data released Thursday. The city grew by 24.6%, adding more than 12,710 residents between July 2024 and July 2025.  Eight of the 15 fastest-growing cities in the U.S. are in Texas — primarily suburbs in the Dallas-Fort Worth region, the state’s largest urban area. Meanwhile, some of the state’s biggest cities like Houston, San Antonio and Fort Worth are still adding tens of thousands of residents — despite a slowdown in international migration to the United States and lower birth rates. view article

Julie Johnson labels her opponent a “flip-flopper.” Colin Allred said previous votes reflected Rio Grande Valley frustration with Biden-era border policies. view article

Data center construction is unpopular among locals, and a majority of the facilities are being proposed in red, rural counties. That puts Texas Republicans in a tough spot, as the White House has encouraged states to let the centers flourish. view article

Texas can enforce the state's law requiring Ten Commandments posters in public schools. Here's what to know about the latest legal challenges.  Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton launched an investigation into whether public schools are displaying posters of the Ten Commandments, following a recent federal court ruling that the state can enforce a law requiring them to do so.  More than two dozen Texas school districts must provide documentation to Paxton’s office “regarding the display or lack thereof of the Ten Commandments and their policies,” Paxton said in a statement Thursday.   The districts must also show that their school boards voted on whether view article

Last year’s redistricting upended the makeup of Texas’ 35th Congressional District, prompting the Democratic incumbent, Rep. Greg Casar, to run for a different seat. The open race for the new TX-35 spurred competitive primaries on both sides, with two Democrats and two Republicans advancing to runoffs in their respective races after no one received 50% of the vote in either March primary.  view article

The president says he likes both Cornyn and Paxton as early voting nears in a closely watched GOP runoff.  The day after John Cornyn and Ken Paxton were forced into a runoff for U.S. Senate, President Donald Trump indicated he planned to endorse in the race.  Now, with early voting less than two weeks away, Trump says that endorsement decision could come “relatively soon.”  Asked Thursday whether he still planned to endorse in the runoff between John Cornyn and Ken Paxton, Trump replied, “I’ll make a decision.”  When asked when that decision could come, Trump answered: “Maybe relatively soon. I like them both actually.” view article

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is investigating Fort Worth ISD and dozens of other school districts over whether they are complying with new state laws requiring Ten Commandments displays and board votes on prayer time in schools. Paxton announced the statewide probe Thursday, weeks ahead of a May 26 runoff election where the attorney general is challenging U.S. Sen. John Cornyn for his seat. Paxton directed districts to send documents related to two religion-related laws passed by Texas lawmakers in 2025.  “I will always fight for students’ fundamental right to pray in our schools and work to ensure that Texas kids are able to learn from the Ten Commandments daily,” Paxton said in a news release.  One law requires public schools to display donated copies of the Ten Commandments that meet certain specifications. Another requires school boards to take a record vote on whether to adopt a policy allowing designated time for voluntary prayer and reading of the Bible or other religious texts. view article

Thousands of families in Texas’ largest public school districts are seeking to leave or supplement their local campuses through the state’s new school choice program, according to newly released data from the Texas Education Freedom Accounts rollout.   Acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock announced that more than 42,600 students will receive award notices in the first round of the Texas Education Freedom Accounts (TEFA) program, with priority given to students with disabilities and their siblings.   A closer look at the data shows where demand is most concentrated: the state’s biggest school districts.   Houston ISD leads the state with 1,558 student applications in the program’s top priority tier, followed by Dallas ISD with 1,313 and Northside ISD in San Antonio with 1,139. Other large districts—including Fort Bend ISD (1,048), Cypress-Fairbanks ISD (914), and Fort Worth ISD (808)—also saw hundreds of families apply.  view article

The investigation comes after the 2022 Uvalde mass shooting incident was used as a game mode in the popular online game. view article

Like their larger neighbor, small South Texas cities are drilling new water wells amid a stubborn drought. But experts say that could deplete local aquifers. view article

Government watchdogs raised conflict-of-interests concerns, but Christian said his involvement in the venture is “separate” from his elected position on the Railroad Commission. view article

Here’s some basic arithmetic for you: The proposed school voucher bill approved tonight in the Texas Senate is cruel in at least five fundamental ways. First, it stacks the deck against public education, the bedrock of our democratic society. This has been the goal of Gov. Greg Abbott and his billionaire backers all along. They seek to undermine public education by starving it of funding. view article