The Texan Podcast - Daily Rundown - November 22, 2024

Starting point is 00:00:00 Howdy folks, today is Friday, November 22nd, 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 depositions of Attorney General Ken Paxton and three of his top aides have been halted by the Texas Supreme Court, which sided with the agency's argument that its January concession of the case concluded the dispute. In 2020, four employees of the Office of the Attorney General alleged they were fired for bringing allegations of abuse of office and misconduct against Paxton to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The case weaved its way through the courts for years, and the allegations

Starting point is 00:00:45 served as the basis for an unsuccessful impeachment attempt against Paxton last year. Depositions of Paxton and three top aides, First Assistant Attorney General Brent Webster, Chief of Staff Leslie French-Henneke, and Senior Advisor Michelle Smith, were ordered by Travis County Judge Jan Seufer for February. Around the same time, the OAG filed a petition conceding the facts of the case, hoping to stop the proceedings then and there. But before the depositions were held in February, the Supreme Court of Texas put that on hold to consider whether proceedings on a conceded case could even be held. Next, the Supreme Court of Texas ruled against a lower court's dismissal of Texas' right-to-life

Starting point is 00:01:25 appeal against Planned Parenthood. The Court of Appeals must first establish whether the multiple abortion organizations suing Texas' right-to-life for allegedly orchestrating lawsuits against violators of the state's abortion laws have legal standing before the case proceeds. Various Planned Parenthood locations and other pro-choice advocacy groups and providers filed 14 lawsuits in 2021 against the nonprofit pro-life organization Texas Right to Life and its president, John Segoe, after they allegedly published a website that, quote, of 2021's Senate Bill 8, also known as the Texas Heartbeat Act, and described provisions of the law. Planned Parenthood and fellow plaintiffs then sought an anti-suit injunction to, quote, prevent Texas Right to Life and Mr. Segoe from suing them under the Texas Heartbeat Act. Section 3 of SB 8 outlaws abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detectable and authorizes private citizens to sue anyone who performs or assists a post-heartbeat abortion. In other news, the Texas State Board of Education

Starting point is 00:02:32 has given final approval to adopt a new state-created curriculum that faced criticism for its inclusion of religious references in lessons for elementary schoolers. In a vote of 8-7, three Republican members of the board joined the four Democrats in voting against the adoption. The Blue Bonnet Learning curriculum has faced both support and opposition in the lead-up to the vote. At SBOE hearings earlier this year, some said that the more rigorous reading materials would be inaccessible to younger children, but SBOE member Julie Pickren told the Texan that the materials were designed to be appropriately challenging to help students meet grade-level expectations. Last but not least, twice this

Starting point is 00:03:11 summer, Jennifer Teleff took her son to the emergency room in Bowie because he was struggling to breathe while suffering an anaphylactic reaction. If the emergency room hadn't been there, she would have had to drive another 35 to 40 minutes for him to receive emergency care. But the emergency room she used, Faith Community Health Center, closed its Bowie operations on October 6th. It was an emergency room affiliated with the health system in Jacksboro and operated for only a year. Before Faith Community Health Center opened, Bowie residents had access to Central Hospital from 2017 to 2020. Bowie Memorial Hospital operated from 1966 to 2015, but as health care costs rose and reimbursements declined, the hospital struggled to stay afloat, Teleth said. Bowie is a city of about 5,500 residents

Starting point is 00:03:58 in Montague County, which has a population of about 22,000. Teleth and other residents of Bowie and the surrounding area are organizing an effort through community meetings to explore avenues for getting a hospital with emergency services to open in the city. 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 - November 22, 2024

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