The Texan Podcast - Daily Rundown - June 14, 2024

Starting point is 00:00:00 Howdy folks, today is Friday, June 14th, and you're listening to the Texans Daily Rundown. I'm the Texans reporter Cameron Abrams, and here's the rundown of today's news in Texas politics. First up, 43 current and expected members of the Texas House Republican Caucus signed on to a policy commitment for the next session that includes universal school choice and banning taxpayer-funded lobbying. Other items on the list include finding a pathway toward eliminating school district maintenance and operation rates, the single largest component of property tax bills, enacting stronger border security measures, prohibiting agents of hostile nations from purchasing Texas land, and reforming the way students are taught in higher education institutions. School choice died the famous death last November when an amendment stripped it from the Education Omnibus Bill, sparking a campaign crusade from Governor Greg Abbott that took out nine House Republicans. Abbott says he now has at least 78

Starting point is 00:01:05 votes to pass an item next year. Two of those members who voted to strip education savings accounts signed the new pledge, State Reps Ken King and Keith Bell. Neither were targeted by Abbott in their respective primaries. Next, the Supreme Court of the United States has rejected a case that would have had wide-ranging effects on how abortions are carried out across the nation. SCOTUS ruled today to keep certain restrictions in place on the abortion pill mifepristone, but not to take it off the market. Prescriptions will remain permissible throughout the initial 10 weeks of pregnancy, and medications can still be prescribed via telehealth consultations and delivered by mail were permitted by state regulations. The justices unanimously decided that the doctors and organizations behind the case

Starting point is 00:01:51 did not have standing to sue the Food and Drug Administration for its approval in subsequent regulations on the drug. Also, the Supreme Court sided with Texas gun owner Michael Cargill on Friday, delivering a 6-3 opinion that found a Trump administration role banning rifle bump stocks was unlawful, as the statutory definition of a machine gun does not allow for an expanded interpretation that includes the devices. Former President Donald Trump, who is presently seeking a second term in the White House, issued the ban in response to the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting, where a gunman used a bump stock to murder 58 people and injured around 500 more at a country

Starting point is 00:02:32 music concert. It remains the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. The ban was achieved by reversing a prior finding by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives that the bump stocks were not prohibited under existing laws, and instead declared the stocks fell under the statutory definition of a, quote, machine gun. In other news, federal courts in Texas dealt the Biden administration a series of legal blows on the firearms policy this week, with one rule that placed licensing restrictions on private firearm sales being blocked and another redefining pistol braces as highly regulated National Firearms Act weapons

Starting point is 00:03:11 being vacated entirely. The first ruling of the week arose in a challenge brought by Texas Attorney General Kim Paxton, along with gun owners of America, against a rule that expanded the requirements for holding a federal firearm license for most private firearm sales. The rule, which sought to expand and redefine statutory terms passed by Congress in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, was met with widespread opposition, including from the BSCA author, Senator John Cornyn. In addition to that, the Texas Supreme Court sided with the Public Utility Commission in two electricity pricing focus cases stemming from the 2021

Starting point is 00:03:53 blackouts and their aftermath. The pair of rulings are a boon to the agency's authority in electricity utility matters. The first ruling in PUC v. Luminant Energy Co. found that the Public Utility Commission did not exceed its authority in February 2021 when it ordered wholesale electricity prices to cap during the week-long blackouts. The court reversed the appellate ruling that sided with Luminant. Two February 2021 orders by the PUC, one informal and one formal, sparked the lawsuit. The first was issued on February 15th as an informal directive ordering the Electric Reliability Council of Texas wholesale electricity price to the $9,000 per megawatt hour cap. Last but not least, Harris County's Democratic and Republican parties

Starting point is 00:04:46 are hoping to improve turnout in a pair of runoff elections for new seats on the county's appraisal district board, but may be implying that the new directors will have much broader authority than what state code allows. Campaign materials paid for by the Harris County Democratic Party distributed during early voting last week urged voters to stop, quote, election deniers. They claim that Republican-backed candidates for the Harris County Appraisal District Board of Directors would defund public schools and cut county services while raising taxes on working families and expanding tax breaks for the wealthy. The HCAD Board has no taxing authority and may not intervene directly

Starting point is 00:05:26 in property valuations for tax purposes, but manages the district's operational budget and can set macro policies and adopt standards for appraisers and the 180-member appraisal review board. 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 - June 14, 2024

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