The Texan Podcast - Daily Rundown - February 6, 2025

Starting point is 00:00:00 Howdy folks, today is Thursday, February 6th, 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, the Texas Senate passed its school choice proposal after a lengthy debate among members, featuring arguments from across the political spectrum that highlighted both strong support and deep concerns over the bill's potential impact on public education. The vote at the end of the evening was 19 ayes to 12 nays to pass Senate Bill 2, the sole dissenting vote from the GOP being Senator Robert Nichols, only after hours of debate ensued on the green

Starting point is 00:00:45 carpet. SB2 would create a fully universal program using education savings accounts as the method for school choice. All students are eligible to apply, including those entering the school system for the first time, kindergartners and eligible preschoolers, those currently enrolled in public schools, and students in private schools or who are homeschooled. The bill allocates $1 billion from the budget surplus to create the ESAs, which could fund about 100,000 students and families. Next, a prosecutor with the Texas Office of the Attorney General agreed to dismiss felony charges of misuse of official information pending against Harris County Judge Lena Hidalgo's former

Starting point is 00:01:25 chief of staff, Alex Triantafalus, on Thursday. Triantafalus has also been given a pretrial intervention contract for the felony charge of tampering with a record that will likely leave him with an expunged record. Triantafalus, along with Hidalgo's former aide Aaron Dunn and former policy director Wallace Nader, were indicted in 2022 over an $11 million COVID-19 vaccine outreach contract the county awarded to a firm owned by highly connected Democratic Party strategist Felicity Pereira. OAG Prosecutor Brittany Cooper-Verdeja filed motions to dismiss charges against Dunn and Nader last week, but did not offer any explanation other than to write interest of justice on

Starting point is 00:02:25 documents filed with the Harris County Courts. In other news, the long road toward the legalization of gambling in Texas pits a legislative obstacle against a supportive populace, backdropped by what has been a blitz of millions of dollars and hundreds of lobbyists. For a couple of sessions now, offices within the Texas Capitol have been beset by lobbyists hired by Las Vegas Sands, Caesars Entertainment, BetMGM, Penn Entertainment, FanDuel, DraftKings, Boyd Gaming, and more, as well as their checkbooks. It's a long-game effort with a massive lobby push behind the scenes at a scale rarely seen before in the state. The heaviest hitter

Starting point is 00:03:05 in the mix is Miriam Adelson, Las Vegas Sands magnate and political donor extraordinaire, and now the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, too. Adelson hopes to tap into what's considered the largest unrealized betting market in the country, Texas. Also, if determined to be dangerous by an animal control authority, dogs in Texas would be registered under a statewide dangerous dog registry, alongside proof of the Department of Public Safety to, quote, maintain on the department's internet website a publicly accessible and searchable statewide registry for dogs an animal control authority determines are dangerous. In order for a dog to be declared dangerous, an individual may report an act of aggression from a dog, which would then allow animal control authorities to investigate it. Last but not least, at the Texans' 89th session kickoff event, Senator Charles Perry,

Starting point is 00:04:10 Representative Ellen Troxclair, and Senator Nathan Johnson joined senior reporter Brad Johnson for a discussion on Texas' rapid population growth and the mounting challenges in infrastructure, water, and energy. We have published the audio and video recordings of all of our panels and one-on-one conversations from our 89th session kickoff. So visit thetexan.news or wherever you get podcasts to listen or watch now. 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 - February 6, 2025

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