The Texan Podcast - Daily Rundown - January 17, 2025

Starting point is 00:00:00 Howdy folks, today is Friday, January 17th, 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 89th legislative session is now underway in Austin, and both chambers of the legislature are beginning to make committee appointments. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick recently released the full list of members who will sit on committees in the upper chamber. Patrick wrote in his press release, quote, When it comes to legislative bodies, the Texas Senate is clearly the best in the world. What the Texas Senate does matters. We impact public policy across the country and around the world. As Texas goes, so goes the nation. As the nation goes, so goes the world. End quote.

Starting point is 00:00:52 With former Senator and now Houston Mayor John Whitmire leaving the upper chamber this past year, the new 89th session committee appointments in the Senate feature no Democratic chairs, a contentious topic for members in the lower chamber. Next, the illegal drug trade along the U.S.-Mexico border is a persistent problem, but in recent years, Texas has taken aggressive measures to quell the smuggling. Governor Greg Abbott made the announcement on Friday that over 622 million lethal doses of fentanyl have been stopped from entering the U.S. since the start of Operation Lone Star. Enough fentanyl, quote, to kill every man, woman, and child in the United States, Mexico, and Canada combined during this border mission. The creation of the border security-focused Operation Lone Star was due in part to growing concern over the illegal drug

Starting point is 00:01:41 trade. Abbott announced the program in 2021 to deploy the Texas National Guard and Texas Department of Public Safety to high-risk areas along the border. In other news, Rene Ramirez enjoys the peaceful atmosphere of the 1,600-acre El Milagro Ranch that his family has owned and operated for nearly two centuries. But that peace and enjoyment are in jeopardy if the Texas Department of Transportation has its way. The agency is threatening to expand U.S. Highway 83, which runs in front of the ranch in Zapata County, to the point that it would destroy the ranch house Ramirez just restored in 2020 and the ranch outbuildings. It would be the fifth time that the ranch has had land taken by eminent domain in the last 52 years.

Starting point is 00:02:26 Ramirez first learned about the planned highway expansion in April 2024 when he received a letter from TxDOT concerning the purchase of about 10.5 acres of the ranch land. The initial communication from TxDOT in 2019 went to the wrong person. Also, a marathon meeting of the Keller Independent School District Board of Trustees ended with them planning to publish a webpage to share information with the public about a proposed concept to detach a portion of the district and form a new Alliance ISD. After over three hours of public comments, many of which opposed the idea, expressed their concerns about the detrimental effects on the students of Keller ISD, and complained about the lack of transparency in the way the idea was introduced, the board held a public discussion about the proposal. When asked by trustee Joni Shaw-Smith about the impact the rumors have had on the district staff,

Starting point is 00:03:17 Superintendent Tracy Johnson said that it was a, quote, huge distraction and had many staff worried about their job safety. Last but not least, a Dallas County school district has recently been alleged to allow biological males to room with girls on overnight trips on a case-by-case basis. A Richardson ISD employee is seen in a video published by Accuracy and Media stating that decisions about whether boys can room with girls during an overnight stay somewhere are made on a case-by-case basis. Angie Lee, Executive Director of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at Richardson ISD, says in the video,

Starting point is 00:03:57 I think there have been times when that has worked out, but the student, and I'm just going on what I know, the student and the other students in the room, they were all friends, and the parents were okay with it." 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 - January 17, 2025

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