The Texan Podcast - Daily Rundown - December 11, 2025

Episode Date: December 11, 2025

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Howdy, folks, today is Thursday, December 11th, and you're listening to The Texans Daily Rundown. I'm the Texans Assistant Editor Rob Lauchess, and here is the rundown of today's news in Texas politics. First up, the Texas Education Agency announced the state takeover of Connolly and Lakeworth Independent School districts on Thursday afternoon. These districts met requirements for a state takeover after the release of the most recent TEA accountability ratings in August, with at least one campus in all three districts earning a fifth consecutive unacceptable rating. Under the Texas Education Code, quote, if a campus is considered to have an unacceptable performance rating for five consecutive school years, the commissioner shall order one, appointment of a board of managers to govern the school

district, or two, closure of the campus. The TEA announced it will be replacing the same, superintendents and boards of trustees of these districts with new boards of managers selected by TEA Commissioner Mike Marath. Next, Granbury resident Colton Crottinger, who was arrested for a felony charge of online impersonation on social media in November, has been formally discharged by a Hood County judge. Croddinger has officially filed a federal lawsuit against Linda Beatty, the current judge serving a special prosecutor. On December 5th, a Hood County judge issued an order of discharge for Crottinger, saying that, quote, the state did not establish probable cause to hold

defendant for the instant offense. According to a November 3rd criminal complaint, Granbury resident Tina Brown, who actively posts political content on social media, reported to the Hood County Sheriff's Office that someone was impersonating her on Facebook. Investigators traced the disputed image to Hood County sheepdogs, a page run by Crottinger, which describes itself as satire. Crottinger was charged with using the name and persona of Tina Brown without obtaining her consent to post one or more messages on social media, quote, with the intent to defraud the general public. In other news, although Texas courts refused to declare innocent a man convicted of a 1991 Austin murder, instead calling for a new trial, Travis County District Attorney Jose

Garza declined to prosecute the case and instead directed the state to pay $2.5 million. in compensation to the defendant. Alan Andre Cousy confessed to two Austin police officers that he and Bobby Harold Jr. had killed Anita Byington on August 11, 1991, by choking her and beating her with a belt buckle and a concrete rain diverter. During the trial, his defense attorney argued

that the officers who took the confession had worked for Sergeant Hector Polanco, who was accused of using intimidation tactics to extract false confessions. After Kazi was paroled in 2022, the Texas Innocence Project began working to have him exonerated due to Polanco's involvement and purported new evidence. Both a trial court and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals agreed that Kauzy was entitled to a new trial, but both specifically declined to find him innocent. Also, Congressman Troy Nell's filed legislation intended to curtail the storage of spent nuclear fuel across the country away from the reactor, called the Consolidated. Interim Storage Facility Restriction Act, the proposal would prohibit the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

from issuing licenses to storage facilities for the purpose of harboring high-level radioactive waste, which encompasses the spent fuel rods involved in the nuclear fission process. The bill is in response to a situation that has unfolded over the last few years in West Texas, Andrews County specifically, where the NRC approved an interim storage permit to an existing facility. It already was, and still is storing low-level radioactive waste, but the permit would have allowed it to store spent fuel rods as well. Last but not least, Texas is suing the electronic medical records conglomerate that owns the MyCharts system, Epic Systems, alleging that it both has a monopoly on the industry and makes it difficult for parents to access their children's medical records.

The antitrust lawsuit was filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on December 10th in Tarrant County District Court. It accused Epic of inserting itself as the gatekeeper of patient data by locking up hospitals into its electronic health record systems, then dictating when and which individuals could access said data. As described on the Epic Systems website, the company has more than 325 million patients with electronic records. Both major Texas medical networks and hospitals, such as Texas Children's Hospital and Memorial Hermon, and smaller clinics use Epic's various services, including my chart. Thanks for listening.

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