Huntington ISD trustees voted Monday to take no action on a Senate Bill 11 resolution that would have created a daily period of prayer and reading of the Bible or other religious texts on each campus, while also approving the 2026-27 school calendar and several state-required policy items. view article

A deluge of spending and attack ads are suddenly raining down on two San Antonio-area state legislative races that previously weren’t getting much attention.  Campaign finance reports covering Jan. 23 through Feb. 21 were due Monday, detailing money raised and spent by campaigns and outside groups in the month leading up to early voting.  They showed state and national PACs pouring money into a GOP primary on the South Side, where Republicans are choosing between a school voucher architect and a trial lawyer as their nominee to replace state Rep. John Lujan (R-San Antonio). view article

EASTLAND, Texas — On Monday, a group of four people spent more than an hour at a table inside a Realtor’s office, hand-counting the results of two races on 100 sample ballots. It was only a week before Tuesday’s primary election, and for this small group, it was their first time practicing to tally votes by hand.  They counted in batches of 25 and used different colored markers to keep track of where one counted batch ended and a new one began. They also used laminated tally sheets, which allowed them to erase and remark them if they made any errors. The group twice marked a vote for the wrong candidate, an error that meant they had to go back and start over and correct their laminated sheets. view article

The Texas Democratic primary race for U.S. Senate between Jasmine Crockett and James Talarico has been heavily shaped by social media influencers. Online creators on platforms like TikTok, X, and SubStack are driving viral moments and amplifying allegations against both candidates. The conversations are being framed as a broader debate over identity, electability, and the future of the Democratic party in Texas. Kayla Guo, reporter for The Texas Tribune, discusses the rising influence of these social media pundits and the changing landscape of political discourse. view article

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Last spring, the Texas Legislature passed a bill that allows school districts to add a period dedicated to prayer and reading the Bible or other religious texts in public schools. Now, school districts are nearly at the end of their deadline to vote on whether or not they’ll do so.  While Senate Bill 11 doesn’t require prayer in all public schools, it allows school districts to “adopt a policy requiring every campus of the district or school to provide students and employees with an opportunity to participate in a period of prayer and reading of the Bible or other religious text on each school day.” view article

A growing number of House Republicans have called for Gonzales’ ouster — though he has yet to explicitly lose the support of any members who endorsed him. view article

The Texas constitution generally prevents lawmakers from holding other paid public offices.  The Texas Attorney General’s Office is investigating State Rep. Stan Kitzman over questions surrounding his paid work for a local governmental entity while serving in the Legislature.  The inquiry follows a report by Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, which raised concerns about Kitzman’s role with the Brookshire-Katy Drainage District.  According to documents highlighted in that report, Kitzman—through a private firm—has been performing administrative and management services for the district under an agreement reportedly worth more than $11,000 per month. The responsibilities listed in the contract include overseeing district operations, supervising employees, preparing budgets, and recommending tax rates.  view article

Candidates Middleton and Reitz differentiate themselves in the field of four.    Republican candidates for Texas attorney general were asked in a recent debate whether the state GOP should be allowed to close its primaries to all but affiliated Republicans and what role the attorney general should play in the process.     U.S. Rep. Chip Roy gave the briefest remarks of the bunch, saying that the primaries should be closed and that the attorney general should enforce the law. view article

A federal judge temporarily banned Houston Independent School District (HISD), Katy Independent School District (Katy ISD), and Plano Independent School District (PISD) from enforcing sections 3,7,24, and 27 of Senate Bill 12 (SB 12). view article

More than 100,000 families have applied for the Texas private school voucher program as of this week, meaning the state will officially use a lottery process to determine which are first in line.  Republicans say hitting the milestone just two weeks after the application portal opened is a sign that their signature education policy, which sends state dollars to families for private tuition, books, therapy and more, is popular with the public   t also means the applicant pool likely exceeds the program’s available funding, set at $1 billion for the first year. The Texas comptroller’s office will need to run a complex lottery system to determine which applicants' families will ultimately receive the limited state dollars, and which families go on a waitlist.  view article

Republican U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales of San Antonio on Thursday claimed he was being blackmailed by the husband of a former staffer who died by suicide. Earlier this week, the San Antonio Express-News reported that the staffer had confided in a colleague that she had an affair with the congressman while they were both married.  “I WILL NOT BE BLACKMAILED. Disgusting to see people profit politically and financially off a tragic death,” Gonzales wrote in a social media post on X. He shared a screenshot of half of an email, which seems to indicate a lawyer for the staffer’s husband is requesting a settlement of up to $300,000 from Gonzales in exchange for a non-disclosure agreement.   The email, which is not dated or timestamped, is signed by Robert Barrera, an attorney who is representing the staffer’s husband. view article

Katy ISD trustees indicated Monday that they plan to reject a state-authorized daily school prayer policy, saying the district already protects religious expression and does not want to impose restrictions that could limit when or how students pray.  PROPERTY TAXES: A homeowner’s guide to 2026 deadlines in Harris, Fort Bend and Montgomery counties  The board introduced a resolution affirming students’ right to voluntary, student-initiated religious expression while declining to create a district-run daily period for prayer allowed under Senate Bill 11. Trustees are expected to take a vote next wee  k ahead of the March 1 state deadline. view article

Trustees from a handful of Tarrant County districts recently voted not to create a daily period for voluntary prayer in public school classrooms stressing that students already have religious rights.  Lake Worth, Hurst-Euless-Bedford, Eagle Mountain-Saginaw, Mansfield and Castleberry join a growing list of Texas districts declining the option in a vote a new state law requires of every Texas public school board by March 1. So far two area districts — Keller and Aledo — adopted the prayer period. view article

Magnolia ISD has become one of the first school districts in the Houston area — and only the second known so far in Texas  —  to approve a daily period of prayer under a new state law.  Several other area districts, including Houston, Conroe, Cypress-Fairbanks and Katy ISDs, have declined to establish a new prayer period, citing logistical challenges and that students are already allowed to express their faith under state and federal law. Last year, state lawmakers passed Senate Bill 11, which tasks school boards with voting on whether to establish a district-wide period of prayer and “reading of the Bible or other religious text on each school day” for students and employees. view article

San Angelo ISD trustees unanimously voted against adopting a resolution that would have required every campus to provide a daily period for prayer and reading of the Bible or other religious text during the board’s regular meeting Monday. The meeting was held the evening of Feb. 16 at the SAISD Administration Building. Trustees took up an agenda item calling for a record vote on whether to adopt a statutory resolution outlined in Senate Bill 11 (SB11) from the 89th Texas Legislature. view article

    The former Texas governor chairs the Lone Star Freedom Project, a group that has already spent almost $18 million boosting Cornyn against Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Wesley Hunt. view article

Crenshaw, fighting to remain in his Houston-area congressional seat, has drawn criticism from right-wing media and a challenge from Toth, among the most conservative members of the Texas House.    Crenshaw, fighting to remain in his Houston-area congressional seat, has drawn criticism from right-wing media and a challenge from Toth, among the most conservative members of the Texas House. view article

All four candidates are vying to prove they are the heir apparent to Paxton, who has solidified the office as a juggernaut in the conservative legal movement.   At a debate that hit all the major GOP talking points, the four Republicans vying to be Texas’ next attorney general sought to differentiate themselves and their vision for running one of the state’s most powerful offices.    All four candidates are conservative, with little ideological daylight between each other and current Attorney General Ken Paxton. At the debate, they echoed calls to use the agency to go after the “Islamification” of Texas, wrest immigration enforcement authority from the federal government and stop the flow of abortion pills into the state.    As the apparent frontrunner, U.S. Rep. Chip Roy took the most arrows, as the other three candidates hope to keep him below 50% of the vote to force a runoff. Roy, a fourth-term congressman from Austin, previously served as chief of staff for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and the top deputy to Paxton when he was first elected attorney general.    view article

Mark Zuckerberg is set to take the stand Wednesday to testify for the first time before a jury about claims that his social media platforms harmed children and teens.   Zuckerberg’s witness testimony in a landmark social media addiction trial will give the Meta chief executive a chance to defend the efforts the company says it has taken to protect young users.   Parents who say their children were harmed or died as a result of social media are traveling from around the country to attend. They say the hearing marks a crucial moment of accountability for Meta following years of concerns about youth safety on its platforms Facebook and Instagram.   Meta, as well as YouTube, are accused of intentionally designing addictive features that hooked a now-20-year-old woman as a child and harmed her mental health. The lawsuit brought by the young woman, identified by her lawyer as “Kaley,” and her mother is the first of more than 1,500 similar lawsuits to go to trial. view article

AUSTIN, Texas - Governor Greg Abbott celebrated a historic response to the Texas Education Freedom Account (TEFA) program on Monday, as more than 100,000 Texas families submitted applications in less than two weeks.   The program, the largest school choice initiative launch in U.S. history, allows eligible students to direct funding to preapproved educational providers of their choice.  Texas families can now apply for private school vouchers. Here’s what to know.  The TEFA program, overseen by Acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock and the Texas Comptroller’s office, lets parents use funds to choose the schools that best meet their children’s needs, covering expenses like tuition, transportation, and other educational costs. view article

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Commissioners voted down the proposal after a public letter from state lawmakers. view article

Huffman is running on her criminal prosecution experience and allegiance to the rule of law, cutting a contrast with her opponents who are emphasizing a continuation of Paxton’s culture war battles. view article

Polling also shows Ken Paxton leading the U.S. Senate race and Railroad Commissioner Jim Wright heading to a runoff. view article

Ten Republicans, including Trump-endorsed attorney Chris Gober, are competing for the red-leaning 10th Congressional District in Central Texas.  In the race to replace Rep. Michael McCaul in Congress, Republicans in Texas and Washington are consolidating behind prominent GOP attorney Chris Gober, who served as chief lawyer of Elon Musk’s super PAC and has raised more than $1 million for his campaign  McCaul, an Austin Republican who has represented Central Texas’ 10th Congressional District for more than two decades, announced in September he wouldn’t seek reelection. Gober is one of 10 Republicans competing to succeed him in the red-leaning district, which covers all or parts of 13 counties spanning from Austin to East Texas.   While the district added more residents of liberal Travis County under Republicans’ redrawn congressional map, it also now stretches farther into bright-red East Texas. Nearly one-third of the seat’s population remains situated in Brazos County, home to Texas A&M University and College Station. The district would have given Donald Trump about 60% of the vote had it existed during the 2024 presidential election. view article

U.S. Rep. Chip Roy of Texas warned that the Sharia system of law derived from Islam is everything that the U.S. has fought against for over 250 years.   During a Tuesday hearing before the U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government, Roy emphasized Sharia’s incompatibility with state and federal laws.   “Sharia encourages violence, silences dissent, rejects religious freedom, and subjugates women and children,” said Roy. “Let’s be clear, this is not about having the freedom of worshiping a religion of one’s choosing, such as Islam, but forcing a foreign legal code that is incompatible with our laws and legal system that provides unwanted consequences to the American people.”   Roy discussed the growing population of Muslims in the U.S., specifically highlighting the growth seen in Texas and proposed Islamic enclaves like The Meadow, formerly called EPIC City. view article

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

The state House Public Education Committee on Tuesday considered more than 30 bills aimed at making Texas public schools safer, including measures that would put more armed personnel on campuses and give districts money for sweeping security changes. The Legislature has made improving school safety a priority this session after 10 people, mostly students, were shot and killed at Santa Fe High School 10 months ago. The shooting spurred roundtable discussions and studies among policymakers, lawmakers and Gov. Greg Abbott in the immediate aftermath. “Out of that loss, we have an opportunity to devote ourselves and commit ourselves to seeing that their loss was not in vain and that future students, future teachers, future families in this state will, if at all possible, not have to experience what these individuals experienced,” said Rep. Greg Bonnen, R-Friendswood, during Tuesday’s hearing. view article

Property tax reform has been a top priority for Texas lawmakers from the start of the 86th legislative session. The early filing of identical, wide-reaching bills in the House and Senate in January—Senate Bill 2 and House Bill 2—sparked debate on the topic and earned pushback from many local entities that could be affected by the proposals. The twin bills propose to lower the cap for local entities’ annual tax revenue growth from 8 percent to 2.5 percent and to improve efficiency and transparency in the tax system. The proposals were fast-tracked for debate in both chambers after Gov. Greg Abbott declared property tax an emergency item in February, and dozens of related bills have been filed in their wake. view article

Hillary Clinton and Helen Keller are back on the lesson plan after a vote by the Texas State Board of Education. The committee voted 12-2, with one abstention, on Tuesday to continue teaching students about Clinton in high school history classes, according to State Board of Education Director Debbie Ratcliffe. The board also voted to keep Keller on the curriculum. The vote reverses a September preliminary decision to cut the women, along with 1964 Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater and several other historical figures, from the required curriculum. The board said then that the change was intended to streamline the curriculum for its 5.4 million students at the recommendation of volunteer work groups. view article

School finance was the big-ticket item this legislative session, said Emett Alvarez, Victoria Democrats Club president. "Education should be important to everyone," Alvarez said. "We are all taxpayers and are affected by it one way or the other." The Victoria County Democratic Party will host its club meeting Tuesday at VeraCruz Restaurant, 3110 N. Navarro St. Guest speakers will be Dwight Harris, former president of the Victoria chapter of the Texas American Federation of Teachers, and Ray Thomas, who is running for chief justice of the 13th Court of Appeals. view article

Will there ever come a day when our state leaders and lawmakers want to make Texas as good a place for children as it is for business? The 85th legislative session didn't seem often inclined in that direction, particularly in matters related to educating the state's schoolchildren. A massive funding failure for prekindergarten students. The state Senate's defeatist response to a solid House attempt at school finance reform. Out-of-proportion talk about vouchers for those attending private schools. But let's not overlook a couple of bright spots. Thanks to skillful work by three North Texas lawmakers, the state's youngest learners should eventually get the gift of better-prepared teachers. view article

Back in March, James Dickey, then the chairman of the Travis County Republican Party, showed up at the state Capitol to testify in support of House Bill 1911 — a proposal known as constitutional carry, or the ability to carry firearms without a license. It was a top legislative priority for the state GOP, and Dickey brought a message tailored for the Republicans on the House panel considering it: Don't forget the platform. "The plank which said we should have constitutional carry scored a 95 percent approval rate, outscoring over 80 percent of the other planks in the option," Dickey said, referring to the party platform — a 26-page document outlining the party's positions that is approved by delegates to its biennial conventions. Constitutional carry, Dickey added, "is something very clearly wanted by the most active members of the Republican Party in Texas." view article

Contention over where transgender people use the restroom has clouded much of the 2017 legislative session and has expanded to cover other issues such as property tax policy and school finance as lawmakers push to complete their work by Monday. After Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick served notice that the scaled-back version of the so-called bathroom bill recently approved by the Texas House was a non-starter in the Senate, the upper chamber in the predawn hours Wednesday made an end-run effort to save the stronger measure that fell victim to legislative deadlines. But by the time the sun rose over the Capitol, it was clear that the House would kill the measure again. view article

An effort to overhaul the state’s beleaguered school finance system has been declared dead after the Texas Senate Education Committee’s chairman said Wednesday that he would not appoint conferees to negotiate with the House. “That deal is dead,” Larry Taylor, R-Friendswood, said. Taylor’s remarks come after his counterpart in the House, Dan Huberty, R-Houston, gave a passionate speech in which he said he would not accept the Senate’s changes to House Bill 21 and would seek a conference committee with the Senate. view article