Data centers, minimum wage and Medicaid legislation open bill filing for a divided Texas Legislature By Joshua Fechter and Paul Cobler, The Texas Tribune November 9, 2026 Expanding Medicaid. Boosting the minimum wage for Texas workers. Ending tax breaks for data centers. Those ideas and more were among the first bills filed by Texas Democratic lawmakers as a new era of lawmaking under a Democratic governor and divided Texas Legislature kicked off Monday morning. Among the other ideas: undoing a state law that requires sheriffs to partner with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and forbidding border wall construction at state parks. First…
Author: Texas Tribune
State-mandated financial disclosures filed in February require candidates and elected officials to detail all of the executive roles in businesses they hold.
From the Texas Tribune: In recent weeks, Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton have adopted increasingly tough rhetoric against data centers, promising to crack down on hundreds of facilities that failed to disclose required information about their water use over the past five years.
But the law that Texas political leaders are invoking carries a maximum fine of just $500 — a potentially negligible penalty that’s just a blip for large companies.
After many inmates, who were not sentenced to death, died from heat stroke while imprisoned in Texas, a Federal Court ordered Texas to begin air conditioning the blocks. The state is appealing the ruling.
The proposed elimination of the program, aimed at serving lower-income families, comes as Texas leadership has called on agencies to reduce budgets by 3%.
TRIBUNE: State Rep. Drew Darby, R-San Angelo, on Tuesday berated Texas Railroad Commissioner Wayne Christian for failing to appear before a legislative panel scheduled to discuss, among other things, the agency’s decision to eliminate public comment during its meetings.
The former Tarrant County GOP chair, who has called for the deportation of 100 million people which would include U.S. citizens, said the scene shows “how many Americans have been displaced by foreigners. I heard UT graduation this year looked like this,” French said in a post with a photo of the students. “I didn’t believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.”