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Good morning,

The clock is counting down on the final month of the 89th Session of the Texas Legislature. You can keep track of the looming deadlines on our website.

This is the Texas Minute for Wednesday, April 30, 2025.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan

Republican Lawmakers Challenge Speaker Burrows Over Stalled Party Priorities

• Frustrations with Speaker Dustin Burrows’ handling of Republican priorities boiled over on the Texas House floor Tuesday morning, as two lawmakers attempted to force action on stalled legislation addressing immigration enforcement and taxpayer-funded lobbying. Brandon Waltens has the details.
      
• State Rep. Andy Hopper (R–Decatur) first sought recognition to make a motion requiring the House Committee on State Affairs to move House Bill 1308 to the floor. The bill, which would mandate employers to use E-Verify to prevent the hiring of illegal aliens, is a legislative priority of the Republican Party of Texas. Burrows refused to allow it.
      
• State Rep. Brent Money (R–Greenville) then sought recognition to send Senate Bill 19—legislation by State Sen. Mayes Middleton (R–Galveston) to ban taxpayer-funded lobbying—from State Affairs to a different committee. Burrows denied that motion, also.
       
• Under Speaker Burrows, the House State Affairs Committee has come to be known as the "conservative graveyard," where the priorities of activists and the GOP have been sent to die. With just over a month remaining in the legislative session, the clock is running out on the opportunity for priority legislation.

Salcedo Storm: Greg Abbott Discusses Educational Freedom

• "I made clear from the very beginning ... I'm going to support candidates who support school choice and work against those who don't support school choice. And so it wasn't like a surprise or anything like that." – Greg Abbott

TAMU President Promotes DEI-Defending Academic to Lead Civics Initiative

• The university official who “initiated” the failed 2023 hiring of a DEI advocate has now been tapped by Texas A&M to develop a program focused on cultivating future civic leaders. Adam Cahn has the story.
      
• TAMU President Mark Welsh recently announced the new program as a “faculty-driven” exercise focused on students' character development, knowledge acquisition, skill-building, and civic involvement. Leading it will be Hart Blanton, the professor at the epicenter of a disastrous 2023 effort to bring a far-left advocate to lead A&M's journalism program.
      
• According to Blanton, this new program’s aim is to help students “understand diverse perspectives,” and develop a proposal “to guide the educational mission of Texas A&M.”

Collin County Lawmaker Addresses EPIC City Development Scheme

• In response to a controversial Islamic community planned for an unincorporated part of Collin County, Erin Anderson reports that a lawmaker representing the area has proposed legislation that would protect home buyers from “creative” ownership arrangements and remove some religious exemptions in the Texas Fair Housing Act.
   
• State Rep. Candy Noble (R–Lucas) described the planned Muslim developments—known as EPIC City and EPIC Ranches—as “creatively structured.” Her legislation would address such development schemes by adding a new chapter to the state’s Property Code titled Business Entity-Owned Residential Arrangements.
      
• The developers' marketing has described the project as an “exclusive” Islamic enclave. Noble noted that in addition to hundreds of homes, the planned EPIC projects would include a mosque, K-12 schools, a community college, a clinic, and retail that would be “commonly paid for” by the investors.
      
• At present, EPIC is still in the early planning stages, but has already drawn multiple investigations launched by Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton.

ANALYSIS: To Protect Truckers, Will The Texas House Protect Sex Traffickers

• In an analysis of legislation pushed in the Texas House by State Rep. Jeff Leach (R-Plano) on behalf of a lobby group, Anthony Holm examines the lengths being taken to shield trucking companies from lawsuits.
      

• He finds that the big winners will be druggies, illegal aliens, and sex smugglers.

Lottery Commissioners Finalize Ban on Ticket Resellers

• Luca Cacciatore reports that commissioners overseeing the Texas Lottery have approved a ban on ticket resellers yesterday, just one month after voting to move forward with the proposal. Resellers, also known as courier services, allow online customers to purchase lottery tickets from brick-and-mortar stores without being physically present.
       
• Recently, resellers have been at the epicenter of scandals surrounding the lottery, including an $83.5 million winning ticket that Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick discovered was sold by a retailer owned by a reseller service.
   
• While Texas Lottery statutes have always explicitly prohibited the sale of lottery tickets by phone, commissioners had long claimed they lacked the authority to ban online ticket resellers... until mere hours before a February 24 hearing.
           
• The new rule will make it practically impossible for lottery ticket resellers to operate in Texas by revoking the licenses of retailers who are “knowingly selling tickets to, working with, or otherwise assisting couriers.”
      
• In late February, Gov. Greg Abbott ordered a Texas Rangers investigation into questionable winnings overseen by the lottery commission, including a recent report of potential child labor leading up to a jackpot win. The Texas attorney general’s office has also opened a separate investigation into the commission.

MD Anderson Freezes Hiring, Cuts Spending

• Houston’s MD Anderson Cancer Center is freezing hiring for non-clinical roles and cutting back on discretionary spending. As Michael Wilson reports, the announcement came as the center faces a $43 million budget shortfall through the first quarter of 2025.
     
• The shortfall was attributed to rising expenses, including more physician staffing and a decline in patient volume compared to 2024. MD Anderson officials have said the hiring freeze will not impact patient care.

OTHER HARRIS COUNTY NEWS

Harris County Sues Trump Administration Over Federal Workforce Cuts

Harris County officials and a coalition of Democrat-led governments, labor unions, and non-profits announced yesterday that they have sued the Trump administration over recent federal workforce reductions.

Quote-Unquote

"No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States."

– George Washington​

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