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HOUSTON – The Texas Tribune says that Texas Republicans are clashing again with the state’s most populous county over voting. This time, they’re criticizing Harris County’s plan for outreach to eligible but unregistered voters ahead of the registration deadline.

County commissioners were set to consider the proposed outreach effort at a meeting Tuesday, but took it off the agenda without explanation after Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a Harris County Republican, put out a statement describing the proposal as an “attempt to bypass” a law passed last year restructuring the county’s elections. Bettencourt’s statement claimed without evidence that the plan would “have a very high probability of registering non-citizens to vote.”

In an interview, Bettencourt said he objects to the county commissioners proposing the outreach after the Legislature passed a law last year eliminating the county’s election administrator position and assigning all election duties to the county clerk and tax assessor-collector.

“You should not have commissioners court instructing the voter registrar to do anything. That’s not their role,” Bettencourt told Votebeat, adding that under the new law, “they do not have any authority there.”

Texas law bars election officials from mailing out unsolicited mail-in ballot applications — which is not part of the Harris County proposal. Mailing out unsolicited voter registration applications, which is part of the Harris County plan, is not against the law, but Bettencourt told Votebeat he’s asking the Texas Attorney General’s Office whether it should also be prohibited.

The Harris County proposal – first discussed at a commissioners court meeting on Aug. 6 — had multiple parts.

Commissioner Rodney Ellis, who brought up the item for discussion, aimed to use county data to identify areas where eligible but unregistered potential voters live, then contact them by text message and also mail them voter registration applications.

According to the proposal initially on the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting, the county administrator, the county attorney, and the tax assessor-collector departments would have been responsible for working together to carry out the plan.

Ellis later told Votebeat he pulled the proposal to improve it, especially “in the effective use of county resources to increase voter registration.” Ellis added that his office will continue to work with the tax assessor’s office “to develop a successful plan for greater registration and participation.”

When the item was first brought up on Aug. 6, Tom Ramsey, the sole Republican commissioner, said he opposed what he described as “a last-minute attempt to do voter outreach.” He said the tax assessor’s office should be the only county agency handling anything to do with voter registration.

“We spent a lot of effort in the Legislature to return responsibilities of voter registration and elections back to the county clerk and the tax assessor collector,” Ramsey said. “It appears to me we’re trying to reinvent a revamped elections administrator through the county administrator’s office.”

Harris County elections have been under scrutiny
The 2023 law restructuring the way elections are administered in Harris County was the result of a long series of skirmishes between the Republican-dominated Legislature and the heavily Democratic county over its elections, which have a history of problems.

In addition to turning election duties over to the county clerk’s office and voter registration duties to the county tax assessor-collector, another bill authored by Bettencourt gave the secretary of state authority to investigate election “irregularities” after complaints are filed, but only in counties with more than 4 million people — that is, only Harris County.

Last week, the Secretary of State’s Office released an audit critical of the county’s failures to follow state-mandated rules and other procedures during its 2021 and 2022 elections, but noted that current officials, who didn’t oversee those elections, have worked to fix the problems. The state will send election inspectors to Harris County in November, the office said.

In a social media post Monday, Bettencourt said Harris County’s planned voter outreach would “result in very high probability of registering non-citizens to vote,” a claim he also made in his statement with Patrick. When asked if he had data to support the claim, Bettencourt directed Votebeat to recent numbers released by Gov. Greg Abbott, also a Republican.

Abbott’s numbers said 6,500 people identified as potential noncitizens were among the million people removed from the state’s voter rolls over a nearly three-year period. Voting rights groups are concerned, however, that the state incorrectly removed eligible voters. Bettencourt said sending out unsolicited voter registration applications creates more opportunities for people to make errors.

Bettencourt also said in an interview his evidence that noncitizens would be very likely to register to vote through the county’s mailing was based on his experience as Harris County’s tax assessor-collector and registrar in 1998-2008, when he found 35 noncitizens who had tried to register to vote or were already on the voter rolls, whose registration and applications he canceled and rejected.

If voter registrations are mailed out, he said, “there’s no way for the tax office to say, ‘Oh, look, you’re not a citizen. You shouldn’t be doing this.’ That’s part of the problem,” he said.

There are important checks in the system, though. When voter registrars receive voter registration applications, they send them to the Texas Secretary of State’s Office, where they are checked for eligibility against Department of Public Safety and Social Security Administration data. In addition, local voter registrars work with their county district attorney’s office to check citizenship status using responses from jury summons questionnaires.

Outreach effort approved in Travis County
For his part, Ramsey said on social media that the Harris County proposal was “a scheme to adversely affect voter outcome in the November election.” Ramsey did not respond to a request for comment on how the program would affect election outcomes.

In Travis County, another Democratic stronghold, officials have approved a program to identify new county residents who are eligible to vote but have not yet registered. Those voters will receive information on how to register and a voter registration application. The campaign does not include sending out text messages as the Harris County plan would. Bruce Elfant, the county’s tax assessor-collector told Votebeat that the program has not had any pushback from any state Republicans.

Bettencourt said he found out about the Travis County program only this week and does not know details of how it works.

Republican lawmakers have targeted Harris County efforts to promote voter registration and voter participation before. In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the county sent out absentee mail-in ballot applications to eligible voters and provided 24-hour drive-thru voting. The following year, Republicans passed an overhaul of election laws that banned both of those activities in the state.

A ruling by a federal judge is pending on whether those changes — enacted through Senate Bill 1 — discriminate against people of color in Texas by making it harder for them to vote.

TEXAS – The Texas Tribune reports that a federal district court judge on Aug. 30 temporarily blocked part of a new social media law designed to prevent Texas children from accessing certain content online through platforms such as Instagram and Facebook.

Judge Robert Pitman found the requirement unconstitutional that social media companies filter out harmful content, such as information that features self-harm or substance abuse, from a minor’s feed. But Pitman did not block other portions of the law, including a requirement that parents consent to their child creating an account.

The ruling is temporary, meaning it only applies until a final judgement is issued in the legal battle stemming from two tech industry groups, the Computer and Communications Industry Association and NetChoice, who sued in July to block the law. A separate lawsuit seeking to block the law was filed by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free speech advocacy group. A decision is still pending in that suit.

Here’s what you need to know.

The background: Texas lawmakers in 2023 passed House Bill 18, known as the Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment Act, to limit minors’ access to social media platforms and to protect them from seeing harmful content if they do gain access.

State Rep. Shelby Slawson, R-Stephenville, carried the bill and said its purpose was to give parents more control of how minors’ information is collected and used by digital service providers, which are companies that operate websites, applications, programs or software that collects or processes personal identifying information.

Lawmakers said children’s overexposure to digital platforms resulted in increased rates of self-harm, suicide, substance abuse, sexual exploitation, human trafficking and other mental health issues. “Texas parents have had enough,” Slawson said in a statement after the bill was voted out of a House committee.

Under the law, digital service providers would have to get a parent or guardian’s consent before allowing a minor to create an account. And it forces those companies to give parents the ability to supervise the minor’s use of the digital platform. The law also requires social media platforms to figure out ways to prevent children’s exposure to “harmful” material, such as content that promotes self-harm or substance abuse.

The portions of the law that have not been blocked go into effect on Sept. 1. The Texas Tribune reached out to Meta, TikTok and Snap Inc to ask if they would comply with the law. None of the companies responded to The Tribune’s inquiry, and it is unclear if the companies will comply with the portions of the law that are enforceable.

Why FIRE sued: FIRE is suing on behalf of four plaintiffs — a software engineer who uses Instagram to share content about mental health, a 16-year-old high school student who uses social media to obtain news, an Austin-based company that produces advertising directed at minors and a student-run organization engaged in policymaking. Each plaintiff relies on social media for communication and activism; they argue in their legal filing that the age-verification law could block them from accessing vital information.

“In a misguided attempt to make the internet ‘safe,’ Texas’ law treats adults like children,” FIRE Chief Counsel Bob Corn-Revere said in a statement. “But even minors have First Amendment rights. Whether they’re 16 or 65, this law infringes on the rights of all Texans.”

Why CCIA and NetChoice sued: CCIA and NetChoice represent the interests of the communications and tech industries. Their members include Meta, X, Google and eBay.

In their legal filing, the plaintiffs argue that HB 18 unconstitutionally violates First Amendment free speech rights by forcing websites to monitor and remove certain types of speech and by restricting minors’ access to lawful speech.

Plaintiffs argue that parents already have tools to regulate if and how their minor children use the internet and that the companies they represent effectively moderate their content.

The legal filing pulled heavily from CCIA and NetChoice’s recent complaint against House Bill 20, a 2021 Texas law prohibiting large social media companies from banning users’ posts based on their political viewpoints.

“Just like its last attempt, Texas has enacted a law targeting disfavored online publishers and their dissemination of protected, valuable expression online,” the filing states.

What the state says: Attorney General Ken Paxton, named as the defendant in both lawsuits, did not respond to The Texas Tribune’s request for comment.

Broader impact: HB 18 is part of a growing number of state laws that attempt to regulate how social media companies moderate their content. The outcome of this case could affect ongoing cases in Texas and other states. Other states, including Mississippi, Ohio and California, that have tried to pass similar pieces of legislation have so far been blocked by the courts.

TEXAS – ABC News reports Communities In Schools, the nation’s leading provider of K-12 school-based integrated student supports with a large Texas presence, launched the “Being Present Matters” public service campaign highlighting the nationwide epidemic of chronic absenteeism.

The campaign features a six-foot-tall paper attendance roll, imprinted with 15 million names – one name to represent every chronically absent student in the U.S. “Being present for our students is more than just showing up—it’s about sending a powerful message that they matter and that we believe in their potential,” said Rey Saldaña, president and CEO, Communities In Schools. “When we show up for them, we empower them to show up for themselves.” Research shows there are many reasons that limit students from regularly attending school, including transportation issues, childcare needs for siblings, housing insecurity, or lack of mental health and anti-bullying supports for students. The powerful public service campaign underscores the importance of individual and school-wide support that can address the wide range of challenges affecting students and families. During the 2022-2023 school year, 99 percent of students enrolled in Communities In Schools programs remained in school through the end of the school year; 97 percent of K-11 students were promoted to the next grade; and 96 percent of seniors graduated or received a GED.

AUSTIN – The Texas General Land Office (GLO) posted amendments to six state action plans. Each of the amendments include the new Disaster Recovery Reallocation Program (DRRP), which will allow the GLO to utilize de-obligated and unutilized funds within each action plan. The posting period and additional action plan amendment specific details, if applicable, for each action plan amendment are as follows:

Hurricanes Ike and Dolly Amendment 7
Federally required public comment period of 7 days will end at 5:00 PM on September 11, 2024.
2015 Floods and Storms Amendment 6
Federally required public comment period of 14 days will end at 5:00 PM on September 18, 2024.
2016 Floods and Storms Amendment 8
Federally required public comment period of 14 days will end at 5:00 PM on September 18, 2024.
Hurricane Harvey $5.6 Billion Amendment 16
Federally required public comment period of 30 days will end at 5:00 PM on October 4, 2024.
Includes updates to the Harris County Homeowner Assistance, Residential Buyout, Affordable Rental and Single Family New Construction Programs.
Includes updates to the City of Houston Single Family Development and Buyout Programs.
2018 South Texas Floods Amendment 2
Federally required public comment period of 30 days will end at 5:00 PM on October 4, 2024.
Includes updates to the Specific Conditions Report in Appendix H.
2019 Disasters Amendment 3
Federally required public comment period of 30 days will end at 5:00 PM on October 4, 2024.
Includes updates to the Specific Conditions Report in Appendix G.
The amendment is available for review at https://recovery.texas.gov/public-notices. All comments should be submitted to cdr@recovery.texas.gov by 5:00 p.m. on their respective ending dates to be considered. Please include action plan amendment for comment in the subject line.

Per federal requirements, the GLO must respond to public comments before the amendment can be sent to HUD for final approval.

FORT WORTH – The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that the Fort Worth school district’s “unacceptable” student achievement has the attention of state lawmakers, who say action needs to be taken for improvement. Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker and other leaders sent a letter to district leadership on Tuesday, demanding better academic performance. The letter follows the release of state test scores that show the district lags other large urban districts. The “unacceptable” results on state tests narrow students’ opportunities and have long-term workforce, economic development, poverty and public health consequences, Parker wrote. State Rep. Craig Goldman, a Fort Worth Republican whose district includes part of the school district, said he hopes the letter serves as a wake-up call. “It’s everyone’s role to pitch in and make sure that happens,” he said. Goldman is running for Congress and will not return to the Texas Legislature when it meets in January.

State Sen. Kelly Hancock said he was thrilled to see the letter. He said he’s known for years that Fort Worth schools were under performing. “Until you acknowledge you have a problem, you typically don’t have a chance of correcting or addressing those problems,” said Hancock, a North Richland Hills Republican who represents part of the district. It’s also something Parker has known. “This is not a finger-pointing,” Parker said. “It’s not one person’s problem. It’s not anyone’s fault, but let’s just put it aside and fix it. And I don’t know how else to do that without ripping the Band-Aid off, which is why I spoke on Tuesday.” In a statement, board President Roxanne Martinez said the district would work with the city to address its challenges. “Together, we can rise to the challenges before us and strengthen our public education system for the betterment of our students, families, and community,” Martinez said. Superintendent Angélica Ramsey acknowledged in a statement that the district is “not where we want to be with student achievement” and that she’s committed to making Fort Worth an “outstanding” district.

Only U.S. citizens are eligible to vote in this fall’s election for president and other top offices. While that is nothing new, the potential for noncitizens to register or vote has been receiving a lot of attention lately.

Citing an influx of immigrants in recent years at the U.S.-Mexico border, Republicans have raised concerns about the possibility that noncitizens will be voting and they have taken steps in numerous states to address that prospect, even though cases of noncitizens actually voting are rare.

GOP officials have undertaken reviews of voter rolls, issued executive orders and placed constitutional amendments on state ballots as part of an emphasis on thwarting noncitizen voting. Some Democrats contend the measures could create hurdles for legal voters, are unnecessary and lead people to believe the problem of noncitizens voting is bigger than it really is.
What does the law say?

A 1996 U.S. law makes it illegal for noncitizens to vote in elections for president or members of Congress. Violators can be fined and imprisoned for up to a year. They can also be deported.

When people register to vote, they confirm under penalty of perjury that they are U.S. citizens. Federal law requires states to regularly maintain their voter rolls and remove anyone who is ineligible, a process that could identify immigrants living in the country illegally.

No state constitutions explicitly allow noncitizens to vote, and many states have laws that prohibit noncitizens from voting for state offices such as governor or attorney general. But some municipalities in California, Maryland and Vermont, as well as the District of Columbia, do allow voting by noncitizens in some local elections such as for school board and city council.
What does the data say?

Voting by noncitizens is rare. Yet Republican officials have highlighted voter registration reviews that turned up potential noncitizens.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, said this past week that more than 6,500 potential noncitizens have been removed from Texas voter rolls since 2021, including 1,930 with “a voter history” who have been referred for investigation by the attorney general’s office. Texas has almost 18 million registered voters.

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, said in August that he referred for potential prosecution 138 apparent noncitizens found to have voted in a recent election and 459 more who registered but did not vote. Those figures were higher than reviews from previous years but a small fraction of the more than 8 million registered voters in Ohio.

Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen, a Republican, recently announced that 3,251 people previously identified as noncitizens by the federal government are being switched to inactive status on the state’s voter registration rolls. They will be required to provide proof of citizenship and fill out a form to vote in November. Alabama has more than 3 million registered voters.

In Georgia, Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger found that 1,634 potential noncitizens tried to register to vote between 1997 and 2022, though election officials flagged them and none was registered. Georgia registered millions of other voters during that time.

Some election administration experts have said the voter roll reviews show that current tools to flag noncitizen voters are working.
What do the courts say?

Arizona provides a case study for the long-running attempts by Republicans to prohibit noncitizen voting.

Under a 2004 voter-approved initiative, Arizona required a driver’s license, birth certificate, passport or other similar document to approve a federal voter registration application. But the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that Arizona cannot require documentary proof of citizenship for people to vote in federal elections.

The state responded by creating two classes of voters. For state and local elections, voters must provide proof of citizenship when they register or have it on file with the state. But because that cannot be required in presidential and congressional elections, tens of thousands of voters who have not provided proof of citizenship are registered only for federal elections.

An August order by a divided U.S. Supreme Court will allow voter registration forms submitted without “documentary proof of citizenship” to be rejected by Arizona counties while litigation over the law continues. People will be able to register to vote in presidential and congressional elections using a different federal form that requires people to swear they are citizens under penalty of perjury, without requiring proof.
What’s on the ballot?

Republican-led legislatures in eight states have proposed constitutional amendments on their November ballots declaring that only citizens can vote.

Proposals in Iowa, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Wisconsin would replace existing constitutional provisions stating that “every” citizen or “all” citizens can vote with new wording saying “only” citizens can vote. Supporters contend the current wording does not necessarily bar noncitizens from voting.

In Idaho and Kentucky, the proposed amendments would explicitly state: “No person who is not a citizen of the United States” can vote. Similar wording won approval from Louisiana voters two years ago.

Voters in North Dakota, Colorado, Alabama, Florida and Ohio passed amendments between 2018 and 2022 restricting voting to “only” citizens.
What else are states doing?

Although noncitizen voting already is prohibited in the state constitution, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry of Louisiana is continuing to draw attention to the issue. He recently signed an executive order requiring state agencies that provide voter registration forms to include a written disclaimer that noncitizens are prohibited from voting.

In Georgia, Raffensperger last week required every polling place to post a sign in English and Spanish warning noncitizens that it is illegal to vote.

Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas, citing “significant growth of the noncitizen population” in the state, set up a special email account Wednesday to report suspected violations of election laws.

In Wisconsin, Republicans have filed a pair of similar lawsuits in recent weeks that challenge the state’s process for verifying whether a registered voter is a citizen. The lawsuits seek court orders requiring the elections commission to perform checks to ensure there are no registered voters who are noncitizens.

North Carolina Republicans have sued the state election board, alleging it is not enforcing a new law aimed at removing people from voter rolls who seek jury duty exclusions because they are not citizens.

Tennessee’s top election office sent letters in June asking for proof of citizenship from more than 14,000 registered voters, though those who failed to respond will not be barred from voting. The list was based on data from the state Department of Safety and Homeland Security, which has information about whether residents were U.S. citizens when they first interacted with that department.
What has Congress done?

Republicans in Congress are pushing a bill, known as the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote. During a news conference about the legislation this year, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., did not provide specific examples of noncitizens voting but insisted it is a concern.

“We all know, intuitively, that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections,” he said, “but it’s not been something that is easily provable.”

The legislation passed the Republican-led House in July largely along partisan lines but has not come to a vote in the Democratic-led Senate. The Biden administration said it is strongly opposed and that laws against noncitizen voting are working.

“This bill would do nothing to safeguard our elections, but it would make it much harder for all eligible Americans to register to vote and increase the risk that eligible voters are purged from voter rolls,” the White House said in a statement.

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Associated Press writers Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, and Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report.

BOERNE (AP) – Authorities are investigating the weekend collapse of a portion of bleachers at a rodeo arena in Texas, injuring 12 people near San Antonio.

Emergency responders arrived at the rodeo arena shortly after 9 p.m. Saturday in Boerne, about 30 miles north of San Antonio, said Boerne assistant fire chief Walter Ball.

Four people were treated at the scene of Saturday night’s collapse at the Kendall County Fairgrounds while eight others were taken to hospitals with six of those since released, according to Ball.

An initial inspection by the Boerne Fire Marshal and the city code compliance office Sunday morning found that a more thorough investigation by a structural engineer is needed to determine the cause of the collapse before the arena can be reopened.

According to a social media post by the Kendall County Fair Association, Sunday night’s rodeo performance was canceled, but attendees could still enjoy the final day of the fair to eat, shop, and see live entertainment.

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Lathan is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

Four people were injured after a bus carrying the Abilene Christian University football team was involved in a crash with another vehicle in Lubbock, Texas, on Saturday night.

One player, two coaches, and the bus driver were taken to University Center in Lubbock for minor injuries, according to a statement by the ACU athletics department.

Lubbock Police Department did not immediately provide an update on Sunday.

The team was returning home to Abilene after a close game against the Texas Tech Red Raiders at the Jones AT&T Stadium when the collision occurred. Video posted to social media show a white truck with extensive front-end damage at the scene.

“We are grateful to Texas Tech Director of Athletics Kirby Hocutt, their team physician, Dr. Michael Phy, and all of the first responders for their assistance and care,” the ACU statement said.

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Lathan is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.