The Texan Podcast - Daily Rundown - August 29, 2024

Starting point is 00:00:00 Howdy, folks. Today is Thursday, August 29th, and you're listening to the Texans Daily Rundown. I'm the Texans Assistant Editor Rob Lausches, and here is the rundown of today's news in Texas politics. First up, House Speaker Dade Phelan has now made school choice a policy priority going into the 2025 legislative session, his office announced on Wednesday. Phelan's office released a readout of a staff meeting in tandem with the hiring of lobbyist and former state representative Mike Toomey to the team and a directive to staff to begin developing policy ideas heading into the next session that begins in January. But the biggest news came within the outlined policy priorities. According to the email, the priorities include, quote, a strong focus on school choice and education funding with close collaboration planned between Governor Abbott, the Texas Senate,

Starting point is 00:01:06 House members, and Chairman Brad Buckley of the House Public Education Committee. This is the first time Thielen has outwardly backed school choice. During last year's legislative fight over the policy, the Speaker maintained a neutral, hands-off posture within his chamber, knowing the policy's chances to reach a majority vote were tenuous at best. Next, the Texas Department of Public Safety has finalized an acquisition plan for a five-year contract worth nearly $5.3 million to obtain a surveillance tool named Tangles from the software company Penlink, according to the Texas Observer. Penlink's Cobwebs Technologies developed Tangles, an AI-powered open-source intelligence platform that integrates data from various online

Starting point is 00:01:52 sources to provide comprehensive analysis for law enforcement, public safety, and government entities. The Tangles platform states it is able to, quote, quickly identify and analyze potential criminal activity, such as drug trafficking, cybercrimes, and gang activity. The Texas Observer noted that Tangles users do not need a search warrant or subpoena to utilize the software. In other news, Senator Ted Cruz, the ranking member on the Senate Commerce Committee, sent a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas to request information regarding the, quote, ineffective management of airport security and vetting of illegal aliens, raising serious concerns about whether DHS and the Transportation

Starting point is 00:02:36 Security Administration have adequately protected against rising security threats caused by the Biden-Harris administration's open border policies. The committee launched an investigation on Wednesday amid reports that the Biden-Harris administration's Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans parole program has flown hundreds of thousands of individuals into the interior of the U.S. Moreover, Cruz's letter highlights how, quote, at least 300 people bypassed the TSA and gained access to secure airport areas, in addition to warnings that, quote, FBI Director Wray warns of a potential coordinated terrorist attack in the U.S., similar to the ISIS-K attacks

Starting point is 00:03:20 in Russia. Also, the American Sustainable Business Council filed a lawsuit on Thursday against the state of Texas over its law prohibiting state dollars from being invested in or through companies deemed to be boycotting the oil and gas industry. Senate Bill 13, passed in 2021, prohibits the state from contracting with or investing in businesses found to be boycotting energy companies. The bill tasked the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts with maintaining a list of offenders and coordinating the divestment of state money from them. ASBC's suit alleges a violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments because it, quote, impermissibly infringes on rights of free speech and association

Starting point is 00:04:03 under a scheme of politicized viewpoint discrimination based on no legitimate state interest. ASBC alleges its members have faced injury from the law because they cannot access state contracts and investments while enacting its vision. Last but not least, in response to a letter by Fort Worth Mayor Maddie Parker and all city council members calling for the city's ad valorem tax rate to remain the same or be lowered, city manager David Cook presented options for reducing the budget at a work session on Tuesday, August 27th. $7.25 per $100 valuation for fiscal year 2025 and adjusting the minimum wage for city employees to $18 per hour required the city staff to look for budget savings of $6.2 million out of a budget of $2.79 billion. The savings which will allow the same tax rate include four areas, eliminating 10

Starting point is 00:05:03 to 15 vacant positions, reducing the amount allocated to the vehicle equipment and replacement fund, reducing the hedge for salary savings, and reducing the pay-as-you-go tax rate by a quarter cent from 7.5 cents to 7.25 cents. Thanks for listening. To support The Texan, please be sure to visit thetexan.news and subscribe to get full access to all of our articles, newsletters, and podcasts.

The Texan Podcast - Daily Rundown - August 29, 2024

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.