The contest coincides with the state’s November uniform election, when voters across Texas will already be at the polls to decide local offices and ballot measures.  The contest coincides with the state’s November uniform election, when voters across Texas will already be at the polls to decide local offices and ballot measures. view article

The newly annexed 250-mile stretch at the border spans two counties and runs alongside cities including Brownsville and McAllen. view article

The lawsuit contests a state law that requires the biblical directives be displayed in classrooms, saying it violates First Amendment and parental rights. view article

Proposals in the federal budget bill would cut the maximum Pell Grant award amount by $1,500 and take away eligibility for students enrolled less than half-time.  Nearly half a million Texas students stand to get less help paying for college because of aggressive cuts federal lawmakers are considering to a critical financial aid program.  The country’s lowest-income students depend on the Pell Grant to get through college. It is the largest source of grant aid in Texas.  But a U.S. House proposal in the massive budget package President Donald Trump is dubbing the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” would take significant chunks out of Pell. The Senate is facing pressure from the White House to vote on the bill this weekend. view article

Gov. Greg Abbott vetoed more than two dozen bills this week, ranging from a teacher retention advisory committee to a slew of criminal justice-related changes. He sent state lawmakers back to the drawing board on six of the rejected proposals and completely scrapped the rest.  Most of the vetoed bills were bipartisan and the authors’ party affiliations were almost evenly split, though slightly more were authored by Republicans.  Abbott is calling state lawmakers back to Austin on July 21 for a special session to take up several of the vetoed measures. The big priority will be creating regulations for hemp products to replace the all-out ban that Abbott vetoed earlier this week. view article

Although Patrick and hemp industry leaders have quarreled over the risks and benefits of THC, cannabis researchers say it can be addictive but doesn’t usually cause widespread psychosis or brain damage.  Over the last six months, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has built his case against THC products, claiming in press conferences, podcast episodes and social media posts, that the drug is proliferating without safeguards, driving young people to suicide, creating lifelong addicts, and altering users’ brains completely. view article

STATEWIDE — Texas is growing older faster than the rest of the nation. While the number of young people in the U.S. has shrunk, the population of children in Texas has grown.  The population of Texans age 65 and older grew faster than any other age group since the start of the decade, growing by 3.8% from 2023 to 2024, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. They grew faster than working-age adults and children under the age of 18.  Their numbers show that people are living longer than in past generations. And, as they age, they'll increasingly rely on those of working age, a population that isn’t growing as quickly, said Holly Heard, vice president of data and analytics at Texas 2036.  In Texas, which has the highest levels of people without health insurance, elder Texans will likely face more ailments as they age.   view article

Gov. Greg Abbott on Sunday signed Senate Bill 3070, which will also criminalize the online sale of lottery tickets through couriers. view article

Here’s a look at House members, ranked from most conservative to most liberal, based on votes cast during the 2025 regular session. view article

To comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order, the commissioners voted to use ballot-on-demand printers for this year’s general election. view article

A federal court has vacated an injunction against Arkansas’ statewide ban on THC. It is significant because Gov. Greg Abbott had cited that situation as a reason for vetoing a proposed ban in Texas.  view article

Gov. Greg Abbott on Sunday signed Senate Bill 3070, which will also criminalize the online sale of lottery tickets through couriers. view article

The San Angelo Republican, at a Texas Tribune event, also weighed in on water and energy policy. view article

A federal judge has been asked to let groups intervene in the settlement that ended the Texas Dream Act view article

Gov. Greg Abbott has vetoed a bill that would have allowed public school teachers to serve on local appraisal review boards, siding with conservative lawmakers who argued the measure created a clear conflict of interest.  Senate Bill 974, authored by Democrat Sen. Sarah Eckhardt and carried in the House by Democrat Rep. Chris Turner, was narrowly passed by the legislature but drew significant opposition from Republicans. The bill would have made teachers the only class of government employees allowed to sit on the boards that hear taxpayer protests of property valuations—decisions that directly impact school funding. view article

For the first time since the program’s creation, Texas families were on track to start receiving federal dollars aimed at feeding school-aged children while they’re home over the summer. Though lawmakers from both parties found unusual agreement on the issue this legislative session, their plans were reversed this week as Gov. Greg Abbott vetoed the $60 million they’d budgeted to make it happen.  The Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) program would have provided low income families with $120 per child, distributed on debit cards like those used to access food stamp benefits. view article

The 86th Texas Legislature passed House Bill 3 to further protect the safety and welfare of Texas students by: view article

An army of advocates worked with lawmakers to protect students from sexual abuse and exploitation. view article

Their filing says the lawsuit that struck down in-state tuition for undocumented students was “contrived” to keep their voices out. view article

Gov. Abbott’s veto of legislation banning THC has created a rare public clash between two of the state’s top leaders. view article

The clash marks a rare break between two of the most powerful Republicans in Texas after a legislative session that ushered in a series of conservative victories.  Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the powerful head of the Texas Senate, sharply rebuked Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday for vetoing his top legislative priority — a ban on all THC products — and dug in his heels against the governor’s call for lawmakers to instead place firmer regulations on the hemp industry. view article

As debate over school choice dominated the Texas Capitol, one provision quietly made its way into the law. Parents with pre-K students are eligible to receive funds in the new education savings account program, marking an expansion of publicly funded early education. The public funds would be used to pay for pre-K tuition at private or community-based child care centers, if they qualify under Senate Bill 2. Parents of eligible 3- and 4-year-olds could receive over $10,000 annually to pay for tuition, textbooks and related costs at approved private providers. In Fort Worth, the funds could go a long way, according to Child Care Associates, Tarrant County’s largest early childhood provider.  view article

The move infuriated Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the powerful head of the Senate, who had called the ban among his top five bills over 17 years in the Legislature. view article

Lawmakers added $100 million to a child care scholarship program but failed to expand access to free preschool for children with disabilities. LUFKIN — Texas lawmakers this year added $100 million to a scholarship fund to help families across the state pay for early child care, an extraordinary investment that may ease a waitlist to help thousands of children.  However, advocates say legislators fell short in creating more opportunities for the state’s youngest living with disabilities. “Most families with children with disabilities are really struggling in one area, if not multiple,” said Bethany Edwards, director for research and evaluation at the Center for Transforming Lives, a North Texas nonprofit that helps single mothers. Edwards is also a parent of a child with disabilities.  “And there's a lot that can happen from a policy standpoint to change these systems, but change seems to happen very slowly,” she said. view article

Abbott will call lawmakers back to Austin to tackle Senate Bill 3, a proposed ban on THC products that he vetoed, as well as five others from his veto list. view article

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill into law that would require all public school classrooms in his state to display the biblical Ten Commandments.  The law, which goes into effect on Sept. 1, requires classrooms to display a poster or framed English translation of the commandments that is at least 16-by-20 inches and is able to be read from anywhere in the classroom.  Texas has more than 5.5 million students throughout its more than 9,000 public schools. view article

AUSTIN — Sitting in an Austin high-rise with a spectacular view of the Texas Capitol just behind him, former state Sen. Kelly Hancock left no doubt that his two announced opponents in the Texas comptroller’s race will have a fight on their hands.  “A lot of elected officials don’t like campaigning,” he told the Fort Worth Report during an interview at his downtown campaign headquarters. “I love campaigning. I won’t see all 31 million Texans but I’ll see a lot of them. We’ll go all over the state.”  In a top-level job swap June 19, Hancock was positioned to replace departing state Comptroller Glenn Hegar as acting comptroller after submitting his Senate resignation to Gov. Greg Abbott two days earlier. Now, the 61-year-old Tarrant County Republican is plunging into a 2026 election fight against two previously announced candidates — Railroad Commissioner Christi Craddick and former state Sen. Don Huffines. view article

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday restarted plans to temporarily store nuclear waste at sites in rural Texas and New Mexico, even as the nation is at an impasse over a permanent solution.  The ruling does not mean nuclear waste will end up in West Texas. Texas legislators have sent a bill to Gov. Greg Abbott that reiterates the state's stance that nuclear waste may only be stored at the location where a reactor is operating. And Interim Storage Partners, which applied for a federal license to build a spent nuclear fuel storage site in West Texas, said in a statement that it does not plan to continue developing the project "without the consent of the State of Texas." view article

Republican state Sen. Kelly Hancock launched his campaign for state comptroller Thursday shortly after taking a senior position at the comptroller’s office.  His appointment as chief clerk to Comptroller Glenn Hegar paves the way for Hanock, a North Richland Hills Republican, to become interim comptroller after Hegar leaves his office in June. And it gives Hancock an edge in a growing Republican primary race next year.  “Kelly is a great fit to serve as the chief financial officer of Texas,” Hegar said in a statement, who is stepping down to become chancellor of the Texas A&M University System. “As a long-serving member of the Texas Legislature, he helped shape sound financial policy and authored the state’s conservative spending cap legislation”  Hegar added that Hancock is honest, trustworthy, and an “all-around good guy.” view article

Successful measures include a new early-voting schedule, revised mail-voting procedures and limits on curbside voting. view article

This coverage is made possible through Votebeat, a nonpartisan news organization covering local election administration and voting access. Sign up for Votebeat Texas’ free newsletters here.  After considering a number of bills that would significantly reshape election administration and voting access in the state, Texas lawmakers ultimately approved only a few, including legislation that would alter the schedule of the 12-day early-voting period to increase access.  They also passed measures aimed at reducing rejections of mail-voting applications and ballots, and added new restrictions on curbside voting, but held off on some more controversial proposals.  Among the bills that didn’t advance were Senate Bill 16, one of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s priority bills, which would have imposed a strict requirement for voters to provide documentary proof of citizenship, and a measure that would have given state Attorney General Ken Paxton more authority to prosecute election crimes. Bills that would have permitted online voter registration, audits of hand-count results, and guns in polling sites also stalled. view article

With border crossings at record lows, state authorities are being sent to arrest people accused of committing crimes in Texas after entering the country illegally.For four years, Texas’ Republican leaders argued President Joe Biden's immigration policies were so lax that they had no choice but to spend an unprecedented $11 billion in state money to secure the border.  Now with President Donald Trump in office, illegal border crossings have sunk to historic lows — and the state is continuing to spend another $3.4 billion on border security over the next two years, more than four times what lawmakers ever budgeted before the Biden-era buildup. view article

While some legislation to better secure Texas elections passed, activists were disappointed to see several key bills fail. view article

The Texas Railroad Commission voted Tuesday to immediately suspend a permit that allowed a defiant Houston operator to inject oil field wastewater deep underground in an area of West Texas plagued by earthquakes.  The vote is the latest milestone in a yearlong legal battle over whether Blackbuck Resources could be causing a string of earthquakes, including one of record strength last month that triggered the commission to issue an emergency order.  The earlier order compelled Blackbuck to stop operating for at least 15 days. Blackbuck has not resumed operations, the commission said in a statement.  view article

State Rep. Brent Money says State Affairs Committee Chair Ken King won’t give the legislation a hearing. view article