Good morning, 

This is the Texas Minute for Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Patrick Offers New Plan to Reduce Property Taxes

• Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick announced a property tax reform plan aimed at increasing the homestead exemption for millions of Texas homeowners. Sydnie Henry and Addie Hovland have the details.
     
• At a Tuesday press conference, Patrick outlined reforms that build on past efforts to raise homestead exemptions. The centerpiece of Patrick’s latest plan is to extend senior citizen property tax benefits to Texas homeowners beginning at age 55, a full decade earlier than the current law. He also wants to further increase the homestead exemption by an additional $40,000 for all eligible homeowners.
       
• As part of his proposal, Patrick wants to curb local government spending by instituting a 3.5 percent cap on annual increases in city and county budgets.
         
• Gov. Greg Abbott introduced his own plan last month that included a push to eliminate school district property taxes for all homeowners through a constitutional amendment. Patrick told reporters that he had not "really looked at" the governor's proposal.

RELATED TAX NEWS

• This comes just months after previously ordering four municipalities to pause their newly adopted tax rates amid allegations of audit violations. According to Paxton, what began as targeted inquiries has revealed a broader pattern of cities “routinely failing” to comply with financial transparency laws.
      

• “Local officials will not be allowed to ignore the law, cover up their finances, and burden Texans with never-ending tax increases.” – Ken Paxton

As Illegal Crossings Drop, DOJ Continues Crackdown on Criminal Aliens

• More than 775 immigration cases have been filed in Texas over the past two weeks by the U.S. Department of Justice as part of Operation Take Back America.
      
• Many of the individuals in the cases have been convicted of various crimes, including "human trafficking, sexual assault and violence against children." Some had previously been removed from the country.
     
• According to data from U.S. Customs and Border Enforcement, illegal border crossings have decreased significantly since Donald Trump took office in January.

Research Security Failure Alleged at Texas A&M

• Robert Montoya examines the case of Texas A&M’s associate head of graduate studies in chemistry, who resigned and returned to China to work at a government-funded laboratory. An American research specialist is calling this a security failure on the university's part.
      
• In October, the Yongjiang Laboratory in Ningbo, China, announced that Dr. Lei Fang had assumed a leadership role at the lab. Fang had been at A&M since 2013 before resigning this spring. 
     
• Research security specialist Allen Phelps of IPTalons identified Yongjiang as part of China’s network of government-backed labs. Despite studying and working at multiple American universities since 2006, Phelps’ research found that Dr. Fang “extensively traveled” to China to attend conferences and give lectures between 2014 and 2020.
      
• Phelps’ analysis of open source information found a “clear, documented pattern of foreign engagement” that he believes should have alarmed Texas A&M. According to Phelps, Fang had “privileged, non-public access to the cutting-edge research” of competing scientists in America. Among other things, Fang also licensed a Texas A&M-owned U.S. patent to a Chinese company the scientist co-founded in 2017. Texas A&M did not respond to a request for comment.

Feds Reveal Operation Moving Advanced AI Technology to China

• Federal officials say a Houston-based smuggling ring funneled some of the world’s most advanced artificial intelligence technology to China, marking one of the largest known violations of U.S. export-control laws in recent years. Michael Wilson has the story.
   
• The case centers on Hao Global LLC and its owner, 43-year-old Missouri City resident Alan Hao Hsu. According to prosecutors, Hsu and a network of partners moved tens of thousands of restricted Nvidia H100 and H200 GPUs out of the country between late 2024 and early 2025. These are the same high-end chips that drive large-scale AI development.
     
• Hsu pleaded guilty earlier this fall, but the case is not over. Two others now face federal charges: a Chinese national living in New York and a Canadian living in Ontario.
      
• Federal officials framed the case as a direct threat to national security. The smuggling network undermined the country’s technological edge at a time when AI capability is tightly linked to military strength.

Election Conflict in State House Race

• A prominent election law attorney is asking Texas’ chief election officer to decide if a county GOP chair can fairly run a primary in which his own wife is on the ballot. The question concerns House District 13, where Republican incumbent Angelia Orr's husband is a GOP county chairman. 
     
• Attorney Trey Trainor filed the request for an advisory opinion from the secretary of state on behalf of Orr's primary challenger, Kathaleen Wall, and the chair of the Leon County GOP. House District 13 encompasses Bosque, Falls, Freestone, Hill, Leon, Limestone, and part of McLennan counties.
      
• Trainor argues that Will Orr’s oversight of a primary in which his spouse is a candidate creates both a real and apparent conflict of interest with statewide implications for how elections are conducted.

Failed Redistricting Suits Prompt Democrat Run for Tarrant Judge

• In the wake of failed attempts to block Tarrant County’s new redistricting map, Democrat Commissioner Alisa Simmons intends to challenge Republican County Judge Tim O’Hare in the 2026 General Election. But as Erin Anderson reports, Simmons must first face Lydia Bean and U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey in the DEM primary.
     
• Tarrant County's commissioner precincts had not been redrawn in more than a decade. O'Hare oversaw a redistricting effort earlier this year that Simmons called "racist." Courts, though, disagreed and allowed the maps to take effect. As such, the gerrymandered Democrat precinct Simmons held shifted into a GOP pickup.
      
• O'Hare faces Trevor Buker in the GOP primary.

Harper ISD Teacher Re-Arrested for Recording Girls at School

• A Central Texas band director and music teacher arrested last week for recording a teen girl in an off-campus bathroom has now been re-arrested on six new charges involving videos of female students he recorded at the school where he taught.
      
• When Pedro DeLuna was first arrested, Harper ISD's superintendent assured families that "there is no evidence to suggest that any inappropriate conduct occurred on school grounds." 
     
• Gillespie County Sheriff Chris Ayala announced this week that further investigation revealed DeLuna had several video recordings of “young females from a Theater dressing/changing room located at Harper High School.”

Quote-Unquote

"Above all things let our national pride be to improve the worth and virtue of our people—our national ambition to excel like the heroic Spartacus, not in artificial splendor, luxury and show, but in the sterling qualities of men and free men."

– Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar​

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* The new congressional boundaries for representational purposes will not take effect until January 2027.