85th Legislature

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Wednesday afternoon that his office will assist the Dallas County District Attorney in the ongoing investigation into allegations of widespread voter fraud reported during the May 6 city council election in several precincts.

The standstill on Texas school choice funding and public school financing came to a head in Austin late Wednesday when House Education Committee Chair Dan Huberty (R-Kingwood) made good on his promise to kill school choice, also knocking off public school financing since both were packed into the same piece of legislation, House Bill 21.

A pared-down version of the transgender “bathroom bill” passed in the Texas House Sunday by a vote of 91-50.

The subject of school choice exploded last week in Austin when Texas House Education Committee Chairman Dan Huberty (R-Kingwood) declared it “dead” in the current legislative session.

Lady Gaga, Lena Dunham, George Takei, Gloria Steinem, and Whoopi Goldberg were among the 100-plus outspoken entertainers and personalities to send a Valentine’s Day card to Texas leaders, saying they love the Lone Star State and its people, but not the proposed “bathroom bill.”

One Texas lawmaker’s bill, if passed during the 2017 legislative session, stands to derail school choice options for failing campuses by taking them down a progressive community schools path and bypassing existing options that include re-purposing a campus as a public charter school.

A Texas state lawmaker has pre-filed a bill that would criminalize dismemberment abortions. If the law passes, it would be a crime for an abortion doctor to surgically dismember and extract a living baby while in the womb. The criminal penalty would be a state jail felony.

A Democrat senator from Austin, Texas, has pre-filed a bill that if passed, would add a college or university ID to the list of forms of identification that could be used for voting in Texas.

The Texas Association of Business has released a study that claims a transgender bathroom bills will be devastating for the local economy. They urge Texas lawmakers not to enact any “discriminatory” legislation. A Texas senator called the claim “wild speculation.”

Three Republican Texas state legislators pre-filed legislation on Tuesday that if passed, would make the Lone Star State the eighth state to call for an Article V convention of states.

The president of the Texas Farm Bureau warned ranchers and farmers at the 83rd annual meeting that the Environmental Protection Agency’s new rule for waters in the U.S., “if it’s allowed to happen, will hamstring many farmers and ranchers to the extent that it might not even be possible to farm.” Farmers and ranchers in Texas are struggling with government bureaucracy in many areas.

Texas farmers and ranchers will vote on resolutions to stand-up against taking more farm and ranch lands through eminent domain for high speed rail and other construction projects during a meeting in San Antonio December 3-5. The 83rd meeting of the Texas Farm Bureau will address the challenges in agriculture and rural Texas.

The Speaker of the Texas House is joining with Governor Greg Abbott and Lt. Governor Dan Patrick in calling for an end to Sanctuary Cities in the Lone Star State.

“Speaker Straus will work with fellow House Members, Governor Abbott and law enforcement to ensure that there are no sanctuary cities in Texas,” said Jason Embry, communications director for Speaker Straus, in an email to Breitbart Texas.

A Texas Senate bill has been filed to address the high license to carry fees in Texas.

A Texas state senator has filed a bill to “eliminate Sanctuary Cities in the State of Texas.” The bill will require local governments and law enforcement agencies uphold current immigration laws.

For the eighth consecutive year, Texas educator-student sexual misconduct cases soared, hitting an all time high of 222 investigations opened by the Texas Education Agency (TEA) in the 2015-16 school year. However, one education expert says this reflects deeper societal issues and he spoke with Breitbart Texas about some of the ways to curb the rampant problem.

Four people have been arrested in San Antonio for the alleged human trafficking of a sixteen-year-old teenage girl. Three of them have been charged with sexual assaulting her.