The latest state government news from The Texas Tribune.
Republican members of the Texas House endorsed Speaker Dade Phelan’s bid for reelection in a nonbinding vote on Saturday. An official vote from the entire Texas House will take place in January. Full Story
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Texas policies targeting access to health care for transgender youth forced one family to leave the state. Full Story
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The announcement signals a shift in Abbott’s approach to fighting the opioid epidemic. He had previously pushed back against bills calling for the decriminalization of fentanyl testing strips. Full Story
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The latest county to make a disaster declaration is an eight-hour drive away from the Texas-Mexico border, but local officials there say they’re under “invasion.” Full Story
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Texas homeowners have some of the highest property tax bills in the nation, a byproduct of the state’s reliance on such taxes to help pay for public schools and the state’s lack of an income tax. Full Story
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Adam Hinojosa finished 659 votes behind Democrat Morgan LaMantia in a race that garnered 175,415 total votes. Full Story
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Changes to Texas’ power grid have improved ERCOT’s ability to keep power flowing during major winter storms, but in an extreme scenario, the grid could still face rolling blackouts, a seasonal assessment shows. Full Story
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For more than 24 hours, nearly everyone in the nation’s fourth-most-populous city had been asked to boil water after a power outage at a water treatment plant Sunday. Full Story
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Former DFPS commissioner Anne Heiligenstein was tapped by Abbott in June to serve as the agency’s executive deputy commissioner. Last month, she was out. Now she’s back. Full Story
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Many residents in the nation’s fourth-most-populous city heard that they couldn’t drink tap water from friends or neighbors, not from City Hall. Full Story
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Extremism experts and historians sound alarms as politicians, media personalities and celebrities amplify antisemitic conspiracies that have historically led to the killing of Jews. Full Story
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DPS is asking lawmakers to approve a $467 million active-shooter facility as a “down payment” for the training academy. “You play like you practice,” Director Steve McCraw said. Full Story
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This probe is part of the state’s wider investigation into FTX’s multibillion-dollar bankruptcy. Full Story
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A document obtained by The Texas Tribune and Army Times shows that the Vietnam-era M113 armored personnel carriers will be sent to 10 locations along the Texas-Mexico border. Full Story
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The state’s biggest county has no central system for tracking problems, so it still can’t say how many polling places opened late, ran out of paper or worked just fine. Full Story
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In the wake of the deadly 2021 winter storm, the Texas Legislature ordered an overhaul of the state’s power market to prevent future widespread blackouts. But some senators aren’t fans of the main option on the table. Full Story
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The quake was the third largest in Texas history, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. An increase in seismic activity in Texas has been linked to injecting fracking wastewater underground. Full Story
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As the state’s environmental agency weighs new pollution limits on the plants, several lawmakers have filed bills that would put new restrictions on the facilities, which spew pollutants into mostly low-income neighborhoods. Full Story
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After defeating O’Rourke — Texas’ most promising Democrat in recent history — Abbott begins his third term in a strong position, with a rising national profile and a governing mandate in the eyes of fellow Republicans. Full Story
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Migrants began disembarking into the cold Philadelphia morning Wednesday as Pennsylvania leaders criticized Abbott. Full Story
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