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HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports that Houston residents are eager for more entertainment options, with a majority expressing enthusiasm for a major theme park and new professional sports teams, according to a new survey by the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs. The survey, conducted between March 29 and April 4, polled 1,400 registered voters in Houston about their preferences for entertainment and news sources. The results reveal a strong desire for attractions similar to those found in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, which boasts a range of sports teams and theme parks. A whopping 64% of Houstonians are either very or somewhat enthusiastic about the possibility of a major theme park, such as a Disney World or Universal Studios-style resort, coming to Houston. This comes as Houston has been without a major theme park since AstroWorld closed in 2005.

Enthusiasm is also high for new professional sports teams. Sixty percent of residents would welcome a WNBA team, while 57% are keen on the idea of an NHL team. A Major Arena Soccer League (MASL) team garnered 45% enthusiasm, and a Major League Cricket (MLC) team drew interest from 29% of those surveyed. Demographic differences play a role in these preferences. Women are more enthusiastic about a WNBA and MASL team. Black and Latino residents show more interest in a WNBA team, a MASL team, and a major theme park. Additionally, younger residents are more excited about an NHL team, while those with children are more enthusiastic about a major theme park. If Houston were to get a major theme park, 29% of Houstonians say they would visit it more than once a year. The report suggests that Houstonians are hungry for more entertainment options and that city leaders should consider these desires when planning for the future. Houstonians want more entertainment options, particularly a major theme park and new professional sports teams. The survey highlights the potential for these attractions to boost the city’s appeal and quality of life.

AUSTIN – The Austin American-Statesman reports the budget for the Texas Lottery Commission, which brings about $2 billion a year to the state treasury, has been reduced to zero in the 2026-27 spending plan the Texas House approved last week. And the chamber on Tuesday signaled it was serious about ending the 34-year-old agency. The decision to defund the lottery, which for the much of this year has been a magnet for criticism in the Legislature on multiple fronts, was seen as legislative gamesmanship when the House in the wee hours of Friday morning passed its version of the state budget. That’s because several amendments were filed by some House Republicans that would have tapped into the lottery’s budget to fund other projects. Rather than opening the door to potentially protracted debates on those projects, budget managers quietly cut the lottery’s funding and transferred it to a special fund that is managed by the governor’s office, which was also eyed as a funding source for some members.

Therefore, any amendments targeting the lottery funds were moot and not acted upon. State Rep. Mitch Little, R-Lewisville, who was among the House members who had sought to tap the lottery funds, told the American-Statesman on Tuesday that House budget leaders had acted with a heavy hand. “It was the uni-party,” said Little, who is among a cadre of conservative lawmakers who have said that the Democratic members, who are outnumbered in the House, have outsized influence in the GOP-dominated chamber. “Republicans and Democrats were working together to shut down conservative government.” But before Little’s comment, the House appeared to double-down on its decision to defund the lottery. Because the House’s budget differs from the one the Senate has passed, the competing versions will have to be reconciled by a conference committee. The House, by an 89-57 vote, largely along party lines, instructed its conference committee members to keep the lottery stripped of its funding. On Friday, state Rep. Andy Hopper, R-Decatur, asked the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Republican Gregg Bonnen of Angleton, if he would commit to keeping the lottery’s budget at zero during the upcoming House-Senate haggling. Bonnen, however, was noncommittal.

AUSTIN – Texas Monthly reports that the year is 1969, and revolution is in the air. Protests clog American campuses and streets. Richard Nixon enters the White House on behalf of his “silent majority.” NASA puts men on the moon. And the hippie counterculture threatens to remake the world in its image. It’s a kaleidoscopic time in which all things seem possible. Even the Texas Legislature—that citadel of chest-forward corruption and gleeful reactionaryism—is dreaming big. Lawmakers advance, with little debate or fanfare, an almost fantastical proposal. Problem: Texas is projected to run out of water by 1985 if something isn’t done, according to a state water plan developed in 1968. Solution: a modest proposal to divert an ocean of water from the Mississippi River below New Orleans, move it across Louisiana, and then harness nuclear energy to pump it more than three thousand feet uphill, in some cases, in open-air canals stretching as far away as Lubbock and the Rio Grande Valley. To store the bounty, vast reservoirs with as much watery acreage as Connecticut’s landmass would emerge from flooded river bottoms in East Texas. The price tag: about $90 billion in today’s dollars, just for capital costs. To help finance this grandiose vision, called the 1968 Texas Water Plan, the Legislature asks voters in 1969 to approve $3.5 billion in bonds, or about $30 billion adjusted for inflation.

Critics blast the proposal as costly, destructive, and unnecessary. The Sierra Club describes the plan, with only a little hyperbole, as “the largest altering of the face of the earth ever yet proposed by man.” There’s also the small matter that, apparently, no one has asked the Mississippi River states whether they’re willing to part with their water. The bond proposal narrowly fails, by about 6,300 votes out of 625,000 cast. And Texas manages to escape calamity. But the idea doesn’t die. It has been kicking around, zombielike, ever since. The year 2025 is too young to call it revolutionary yet. But the Texas Water Plan—or at least a modern facsimile of it—is back. Pointing to looming water shortages, one state senator has made it his mission to scare up vast new supplies, including quantities from neighboring states, and feed the bounty into a state-owned, state-run grid of pipelines. The idea is to move water from where it is to where it ain’t, generally from wet East Texas to the drier west. Instead of a mostly local patchwork of water systems—the reservoirs, treatment plants, and distribution networks that dot Texas—state Senator Charles Perry, a Lubbock Republican, envisions a multibillion-dollar statewide “water grid” to make sure Texas never worries about the resource again. He is proposing investing in desalinating salty Gulf water, cleaning up the chemical-laden fracking water used to coax oil from the ground in the Permian Basin, and injecting fresh water underground for later use. Meanwhile, he is involved in mysterious dealmaking with other states for their reserves. During debate over his legislation in early April, Perry alluded to talks with “one or two” neighbors—probably Louisiana and Arkansas—to contract for water. Perry, who did not respond to an interview request, brings a crusading spirit to his cause.

AUSTIN (AP) – The Texas House gave initial approval early Thursday to a bill that would create a $1 billion private school voucher program, crossing a historic milestone and bringing Gov. Greg Abbott ’s top legislative priority closer than ever to reaching his desk.

The lower chamber signed off on its voucher proposal, Senate Bill 2, on an 85-63 vote. Every present Democrat voted against the bill. They were joined by two Republicans — far short of the bipartisan coalitions that in previous legislative sessions consistently blocked proposals to let Texans use taxpayer money to pay for their children’s private schooling.

“This is an extraordinary victory for the thousands of parents who have advocated for more choices when it comes to the education of their children,” Abbott said in a statement, vowing that he would “swiftly sign this bill into law” when it reached his desk.

The vote came more than 10 hours after the chamber gave preliminary approval to its sweeping $7.7 billion school funding package, which would give local districts more money per student and raise teacher salaries. House Bill 2, which passed on a 144-4 vote, also aims to improve the quality of special education services by allocating funding based on the individual needs of children with disabilities.

Democrats argued the funding boost barely scratches the surface of what districts need to come back from budget deficits or to cover growing costs after years of inflation, but they ultimately supported the bill after a few hours of debate.

The more dramatic showdown came over the voucher bill, which Democrats tried to thwart with an amendment that would have put school vouchers up for a statewide vote in November. But the last-ditch maneuver attracted support from only one Republican — Rep. Dade Phelan of Beaumont, the former House speaker — spelling the demise of Democrats’ one major play to derail the bill.

The landmark voucher vote marks the first time since 1957 that the Texas House has approved legislation making state money available for families to use on their children’s private schooling. The outcome validated Abbott’s crusade to build a pro-voucher House majority during last year’s primary by targeting Republicans who tanked his previous proposal in 2023. Now, all that is left is for Republicans in both chambers to iron out the differences between their voucher plans, leaving Abbott and his allies on the brink of victory.

The House’s plan would put $1 billion to create education savings accounts, a form of vouchers that families could use to pay for private school tuition and other school-related expenses, like textbooks, transportation and therapy. The bill would tie the voucher program’s per-student dollars to public education funding so the amount available to each participating student would increase when public schools receive more money and dip when public education funding declines.

If public demand exceeds the program’s capacity, students with disabilities and families defined by House lawmakers as low income would be prioritized — though they would not be guaranteed admission to any private school.

Democrats expressed disappointment over the House’s approval of vouchers, saying the outcome represented big money interests prevailing over those of everyday Texans.

“This bill is everything that is wrong with politics,” said Rep. Gina Hinojosa, D-Austin.

After Thursday’s vote, the House will still need to cast a final vote to approve both the voucher and school spending bills, largely a formality. The measures would then head to the Senate. At that point, members from both chambers would work to reconcile the differences in their voucher proposals in a closed-door conference committee. The biggest differences center on how much money participating students should receive, which applicants should take priority and how the program should accommodate students with disabilities.

The House debate on vouchers started Wednesday afternoon and ended early Thursday. Lawmakers changed a provision in the bill that would have limited funding for people without disabilities or from wealthier households — defined as a family of four making about $156,000 or greater — to only 20% of the program’s total budget until after the 2026-27 school year. The 20% cap would now apply to each year of the potential voucher program.

The bill now also requires private schools to have existed for at least two years before joining the program; grants the state auditor more power to review the activities of organizations contracted to administer the program; and requires the state’s annual report on the program to include dropout, expulsion and graduation data on participating students with disabilities — broken down by grade, age, sex and race or ethnicity.

Wednesday’s debate over SB 2 covered many of the talking points for and against vouchers echoed throughout the legislative session.

Republicans sought to assure their colleagues that the bill would prioritize low-income children and students with disabilities. Democrats noted that the legislation imposes no admission requirements on private schools, meaning they can deny any student, even those the state wants first in line for the program.

Higher-income families whose children were already attending private schools have primarily benefited from the large-scale voucher programs enacted in other states.

Democrats filed dozens of amendments they believed would make the Texas legislation more equitable for underserved students, but they were all dismissed. One of the rejected proposals came from Rep. Harold V. Dutton Jr., D-Houston, who sought to offer higher voucher amounts to students on the lower rungs of the income ladder. He argued that some families could not afford to send their children to a private school even with $10,000 in state support.

The average Texas private school costs more than $11,000, according to Private School Review.

“If you’re in a 12-foot hole and somebody sends you a 10-foot rope,” Dutton said, “that’s not much of an option.”

Rep. Brad Buckley, the Republican chair of the House Public Education Committee, also received questions Wednesday over a provision recently added to SB 2 that would bar undocumented Texans from participating in the proposed voucher program.

SB 2 would prevent any student whose parent cannot prove that the child is a U.S. citizen or that the child lawfully resides in the country from participating in the program. Several lawmakers raised questions about what state entity would be responsible for checking the children’s citizenship, how the legislation would protect the privacy of applicants and whether it would accommodate students who may find it difficult to access certain documents.

Buckley clarified that organizations helping the state administer the voucher program would oversee applications and that the process would include protections “for all personal information.” If applicants are unable to provide proper documentation, Buckley said, they would not participate in the program. The legislation does not specify exactly which documents families would need to provide.

The Texas Senate also previously considered barring undocumented Texans from participating in the voucher program if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns those students’ constitutional right to a public education, but the change never made it into that chamber’s legislation.

Legal questions remain about the citizenship restriction in SB 2. Every student in the U.S. is entitled to a public education regardless of their immigration status, and the potential voucher program would rely on public dollars.

The House also gave initial approval to its priority school funding legislation. Two years ago, public schools missed out on nearly $8 billion, which Abbott had made conditional on the approval of vouchers.

This year’s public education spending bill would increase schools’ base funding by $395 — from $6,160 to $6,555. That amount, known as the basic allotment, would automatically go up every two years by tying it to property value growth. Forty percent of the allotment would go to non-administrative staff salaries, with higher pay increases reserved for teachers with more than a decade of classroom experience.

In addition, the bill would limit schools’ use of educators who lack formal classroom training, barring uncertified teachers from instructing core classes. It would change the current settings-based model for special education funding by providing schools money based on the individual needs of students with disabilities. Two students placed in the same classroom but who require different levels of support receive the same dollars under the current settings-based model.

Republicans, during hours of debate, celebrated the bill as a worthwhile investment in public education. Democrats also voiced support for the legislation but argued that it barely scratches the surface of what districts need. Many school districts are currently grappling with challenges ranging from budget deficits and teacher shortages to campus closures.

Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, pressed Buckley, the bill’s author, on whether the measure’s $8 billion would be enough to solve Texas schools’ struggles, which have been fueled by stagnant funding and inflation.

Buckley did not directly acknowledge that his bill would fall short of addressing all the financial pressures facing districts. He instead focused on the multibillion-dollar funding boost the Legislature hopes to provide this session, which includes money through HB 2 and other legislation under consideration.

“I just want to emphasize, members, you have an opportunity today to cast a vote for the largest investment in public education in the history of our state, and so we will continue this process as this body returns session after session to make sure the resources are there for our schools,” Buckley said.

Members of the public viewing the debate from the House gallery erupted in laughter and applause in support of Talarico’s questioning. Talarico and those in the gallery did not appear content with Buckley’s answers.

“I’m going to take that as a no until I get a yes,” Talarico said.

The House eliminated an earlier provision of the bill that would have gotten rid of a 2023 “hold harmless” provision, which provides financial relief to school districts that lose funding due to cuts to state property taxes, a major source of revenue for public schools.

Lawmakers sparred over other aspects of the legislation — from whether the Legislature should continue to invest heavily in compensatory education, which offers support to underserved students at risk of dropping out of school, to how the state should hold charter schools accountable for mismanagement.

Upon final passage, HB 2 will go to the Senate for further consideration. That chamber has already passed a number of similar school funding proposals — though top lawmakers there have expressed opposition to increasing schools’ base funding this session.

The basic allotment offers districts flexibility to address their campuses’ unique needs, including staff salaries, utilities and maintenance. The Senate has instead advocated for more targeted funding in areas like teacher pay, school security and special education.