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WASHINGTON D.C. – Texas would further cement its role in enforcing immigration laws under a bill the state Legislature sent to the governor Sunday that would require most sheriffs to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Gov. Greg Abbott has signaled support for such an idea, and President Donald Trump — whose administration could receive a big personnel boost for its mass deportation ambitions if Texas joins the effort — endorsed the proposed law Friday as state lawmakers worked on the latest compromise.

The version of Senate Bill 8 that lawmakers ultimately voted to send to the governor would require sheriffs who run or contract out operations of a jail to request and enter agreements with ICE under a federal law that lets ICE extend limited immigration authority to local law enforcement officers. The bill would cover approximately 234 of the state’s 254 counties, according to a bill author.

Over the weekend, SB 8 received strong condemnation from some Democrats, high praise from immigration hardliners who had pushed all legislative session for a more sweeping bill, and ultimately a final green light from the GOP-dominated Legislature: The Senate approved the bill 20-11 and the House 89-52.

“It’s not just about securing the border, it’s about public safety,” Rep. David Spiller, a Jacksboro Republican who carried the bill in the House, said Sunday after the House vote. “The focus previously before President Trump got back in office was mainly [to] secure the border. That’s being done, but we still have to deal with what’s happened over the past four years — and quite frankly the years before that — so the focus is still the same but it’s slightly directed more toward just a public safety concern.”

The federal government offers three kinds of partnerships, known as 287(g) agreements, that local authorities can enter with ICE. SB 8 previously required sheriffs only to enter into agreements involving serving administrative warrants in jails. The final version allows sheriffs to request any of the three agreements, including one that lets ICE authorize local officers to question people about their immigration status while doing their daily policing in the field. The Trump administration revived that program after it fell into disuse due to allegations that it led to racial profiling.

Seventy-three law enforcement agencies in the state already have 287(g) agreements with ICE — including the state National Guard and the Texas Attorney General’s office, according to statistics published by ICE. Most of the agreements are for the two jail programs.

Before the votes in each chamber, Democrats raised concerns that SB 8 will erode immigrant communities’ trust in law enforcement, result in racial profiling by law enforcement and place a financial burden on counties that have long complained that such agreements add new responsibilities for already-strapped law enforcement agencies.

Sen. Charles Schwertner, a Georgetown Republican who co-authored the bill with Houston Republican Sen. Joan Huffman, dismissed the worries during the upper chamber’s Saturday debate, arguing in part that voters asked for it.

He also highlighted a grant program under SB 8, expanded under the final version, that would help to offset costs not covered by the federal government and said sheriffs would have discretion to select which program to participate in.

“The people of the United States and of Texas spoke very clearly last November regarding their concerns of illegal immigration and the concerns of criminal illegal aliens doing great harm to communities to Texas cities and counties,” Schwertner told his colleagues. “That’s why I filed this bill.”

Sen. Roland Gutierrez, a San Antonio Democrat who is an immigration lawyer, brought up a racial profiling documentary about Texas police pulling over and harassing Black drivers, whose belongings — like cars and jewelry — they would confiscate through forfeiture cases that became a boon for a local government, he said.

“Are you not afraid of the potentiality for racial profiling by police if they see what presumably looks like Mexican or Hispanic people in a truck, that they will not be pulled over simply because of the color of their skin?” he asked Schwertner.

“Senator, our world is not racially blind, color blind,” Schwertner responded. “There are obviously inherent biases of individuals. That said, there are ways to properly train … there is training to address the concerns of racial profiling.”

“Well, I’m glad that you agree with me that racism is still alive and well in this country,” Gutierrez said.

The Trump administration is trying to shorten training for the program, according to Schwertner’s testimony during a Senate panel hearing on the bill in March.

During debate on the House floor, some lawmakers pointed to evidence of racial profiling, most notably by the sheriff of Arizona’s Maricopa County, Joe Arpaio, whose deputies regularly engaged in misconduct that violated the constitutional rights of Latinos stemming from the program, according to a federal probe.

“It is one of the most inhuman models,” state Rep. Barbara Gervin-Hawkins, D-San Antonio, said.

SB 8 would become the latest move state lawmakers take to carve out the state’s lane in immigration enforcement. Other states have followed suit by passing similar laws that together could recalibrate states’ role in what was long held by courts to be the federal government’s sole responsibility.

Texas is home to about 11% of immigrants in the United States and an estimated 1.6 million undocumented persons — the second-most in the country after California.

Two years ago the Legislature approved a bill to grant Texas police the authority to arrest people suspected of being in the country illegally. During the Biden administration, the U.S. Justice Department sued Texas to stop the measure from going into effect, as did civil rights and advocacy groups.

The incoming Trump administration swiftly dropped the lawsuit, and the state has argued for the dismissal of a related legal challenge, arguing that the Department of Homeland Security and Texas law enforcement are already cooperating to enforce federal immigration laws.

Before then, the state in 2017 prohibited local government policies that prevent a peace officer from asking about a person’s immigration status, targeting municipalities that declared themselves “sanctuary cities” and directed local police not to cooperate with federal immigration officials during Trump’s first term.

“SB 8 will not make our communities safer, but it will force sheriffs to do the work of ICE in support of the federal government’s shameful mass deportation efforts,” Sarah Cruz of the ACLU of Texas said in a statement Sunday. “The legislature should not strip local communities of their ability to make decisions about what keeps them safe.”

Article originally published by The Texas Tribune. To read originally published article, click here.

WASHINGTON D.C. – The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to consider a lawsuit from conservative Texas activist Michael Quinn Sullivan against the Texas Ethics Commission, serving another blow to his more than decade-long challenge against the state agency that implements and enforces Texas’ campaign finance and lobbying laws.

Since 2014, Sullivan, who used to lead a powerful conservative advocacy group called Empower Texans, has challenged an ethics commission decision to fine him $10,000 for failing to register as a lobbyist in 2010 and 2011, repeatedly appealing his case before petitioning the nation’s highest court earlier this year to consider it. Last year, the Texas Supreme Court declined his request to overrule two state appeals’ court decisions refusing to toss out the fines.

Sullivan argued in a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court that Texas’ ethics laws violate the First Amendment rights of “ordinary citizens,” who are looking to speak to their elected representatives, with burdensome registrations and fees.

“States in some parts of the country are able to curtail the freedoms of speech, petition, and assembly by branding ordinary citizens ‘lobbyists’ and threatening them with severe financial penalties,” Sullivan’s lawyers wrote. “This Court’s review is sorely needed to clarify the circumstances under which the government may require citizens to pay a fee and obtain a license to communicate with their government representatives. Unless and until this Court does so, States can continue—as Texas has done here—to use such requirements to harass or silence those whose speech is disfavored.”

The Ethics Commission responded that Sullivan’s actions went far beyond an “average citizen who happened to visit with a lawmaker or who spent a day or two at the Texas Capitol during a legislative session.”

The Ethics Commission declined to comment.

In a statement, Sullivan’s lawyer Tony McDonald said they were grateful for those who urged the Supreme Court to take the case, including Attorney General Ken Paxton and Texas Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz.

“More and more Texans are waking up to the threat posed by the Texas Ethics Commission to the fundamental freedoms enshrined in our constitution,” McDonald said. “No Texans should ever be dragged behind closed doors to be investigated over their political speech.”

The court’s decision means the appeals court decision siding with the ethics commission stands. Sullivan will go back to a district court for a jury trial to determine how much he has to pay.

The ethics commission started investigating Sullivan after two former state lawmakers filed a complaint against him asserting that he had acted as an unregistered lobbyist. Sullivan has long contended that his activities with the now-defunct Empower Texans constituted journalism, not lobbying. But the ethics commission rejected that argument. In their 2014 ruling, they pointed to dozens of communications that he routinely sent to Republican lawmakers to discuss legislation and amendments, and encouraged them to vote in alignment with his organization’s values.

Sullivan also published a Fiscal Responsibility Index ranking lawmakers’ conservative bonafides based on their voting record each session. The commission found Sullivan used that scorecard to influence members’ votes as part of his job for Empower Texans, another example of lobbying.

In court, Sullivan repeatedly tried to argue the ethics commission didn’t have the constitutional authority to enforce the state’s ethics laws. Initially, Sullivan was able to get the case tried in a Denton County district court instead of Travis County, claiming he moved there.

A judge there ruled in Sullivan’s favor, but the ruling didn’t stick because the case got sent back to Travis County after an appeals court ruled Sullivan didn’t actually meet the residency requirements to have the case heard in Denton County from the start. The Travis County judge sided with the TEC, which Sullivan appealed and lost again. Meanwhile, Sullivan filed multiple other cases against the commission, all of which have been denied or dismissed in federal or state district court.

In recent months, Sullivan’s bid to the nation’s high court has drawn support from multiple high profile conservative officials and groups who wrote briefs in support of the activist, including the Cato Institute, the Manhattan Institute and Paxton. Cornyn and Cruz wrote a joint brief.

Paxton declined to have his office represent the ethics commission in the case, forcing the agency to hire outside counsel. Since 2014, the commission has put more than $1 million in taxpayer dollars toward outside legal help. In his brief, Paxton backed Sullivan’s argument that Texas’ lobby laws violate his first amendment rights.

“It is antithetical to the First Amendment that a private citizen working for a nonprofit organization dedicated to fiscal responsibility that does not provide gifts to lawmakers nonetheless must register with the government, make disclosures to the government, and even pay a fee to the government to simply email elected officials about matters of significant public concern,” Paxton wrote.

Cruz and Cornyn did not take a position on the fines imposed on Sullivan, but instead argued that the courts have not set a solid precedent about how courts should review lobbying statutes against free speech concerns.

“Applying the appropriate tier of scrutiny when evaluating lobbyist disclosure requirements is crucial to ensuring protected political speech is not unlawfully restricted or silenced,” they wrote.

In their response to the petition, the ethics commission said many of the authors of these friend-of-the-court briefs, including ones written by Paxton, and Cruz and Cornyn, “appear to assume, without any real analysis of the record — that Sullivan did nothing more than write a newsletter and work on a website that ‘rated’ legislators. Such characterizations belie the actual record that led to a Texas court granting summary judgements in the Commission’s favor on the merits of the claims that Sullivan violated Texas law.”

Article originally published by The Texas Tribune. To read originally published article, click here.

TEXAS – The nation’s average price of gasoline has returned to a decline, falling 3.8 cents compared to a week ago and stands at $3.09 per gallon, according to GasBuddy® data compiled from more than 12 million individual price reports covering over 150,000 gas stations across the country. The national average is down 6.9 cents from a month ago and is 41.0 cents per gallon lower than a year ago. The national average price of diesel has decreased 2.4 cents in the last week and stands at $3.465 per gallon.

“The national average price of gasoline has continued its gentle descent over the last week, with the most notable declines seen in the Great Lakes region, where a minor refinery issue was resolved, sending wholesale gas prices lower,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. “We’re also beginning to see prices retreat in California, a trend that should soon extend across much of the West Coast as additional gasoline shipments from Asia help offset recent refinery disruptions. While gasoline inventories remain somewhat tight heading into the summer, I’m optimistic that increased refinery output could pave the way for further price declines. That said, any unexpected outages could still cause short-term price bumps.”

AUSTIN – Months ago, when Texas Senate Health and Human Services Committee Chair Lois Kolkhorst first held a hearing on Senate Bill 25 — requiring among other things, warning labels on foods containing certain additives — the first person to speak was Calley Means, a top adviser to U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy.

“Texas can really lead here…These bills represent a Texas way that prioritizes transparency, prioritizes good education and prioritizes incentive change,” said Means, a former food and pharmaceutical consultant, who spearheaded the federal Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission. He’s also the brother of Casey Means, President Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. Surgeon General.

It was a powerful opening to Kolkhorst’s first Senate health committee meeting of the year and also signaled immediately that Kolkhorst’s SB 25 — also called the Make Texas Healthy Again bill — and other efforts of fellow Republicans dovetailed perfectly with those on the federal level by echoing Kennedy’s interests.

For a relatively quiet Texas legislative session for health, the RFK effect stands out. Republican-backed bills on everything from putting more regulation on doctors who administer COVID-19 vaccines and letting parents opt out of childhood immunizations more easily, to halting the use of food stamps to purchase sugary drinks and SB 25 have either passed or are about to before the end of session today.

It begs the question, though, of exactly who is calling the shots in the Texas Capitol. Is Kennedy directing Texas, using the state as perhaps a test kitchen for his larger initiatives, or is Texas out-MAHA-ing Washington?

“I think it’s both,” said James Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. “Long before Robert F. Kennedy gained some kind of surprising legitimacy by being named to the cabinet, these currents were already flowing in Texas, but they just get a lot more momentum from these national figures.”

In a way, Washington and Austin have moved in on what was once the Democrats’ exclusive turf: consumer health. It’s become an easy pivot for Republicans as they incorporate healthy eating and exercise, traditionally left-leaning priorities, into typical GOP talking points such as national security, individual choice and reduction of health care costs.

The result has been a seamless state-federal party alliance on an issue that can attract both the left and the right. Ten Democrats signed on in the Senate, and three Democrats in the House sponsored or co-sponsored SB 25.

“This is about the MAHA parents and the crunchy granola parents coming together to say, ‘We are sick and tired of being sick and tired,’“ Rep. Lacey Hull, R-Houston, said, before SB 25 passed the House on May 25. “I have personally spoken to the White House who said they are looking to us, to Texas, to get this done to stand for our children and our future.”

Alarmed food company executives from across the country flew into Austin when word spread that the Texas Legislature was prioritizing a bill requiring food labeling.

A coalition of about 60 industry groups and producers, including Walmart, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Frito-Lay and General Mills, implored in a letter to Texas lawmakers to strip any requirement to label foods, saying the state “could destabilize local and regional economies at a time when businesses are already fighting to keep prices down, maintain inventory and avoid layoffs.”

As initially filed, SB 25 was wide-ranging, asking producers to put a warning label on any product containing artificial coloring, a food additive or other chemical ingredient banned by Canada, the European Union, or the United Kingdom. Sweeteners, including high fructose corn syrup and aspartame, were then later added to the proposed label list.

After pushback from the food industry and from several House members during a 4-hour floor debate a week ago, Hull amended the bill to remove the sweeteners, but kept a list of 40-plus additives that would trigger a warning label. House Democrats still worried that the warning label requirement would push up food costs.

“What we don’t want to do is destroy anyone’s business and or create such a burden or financial cost that the cost of food will continue to rise,” said state Rep. Barbara Gervin-Hawkins, D-San Antonio.

Kolkhorst back in February proclaimed that “the market will adjust.”

The bill was eventually weakened further when state Rep. Gary Van Deaver, a supporter of the bill, successfully proposed a change that invalidates SB 25’s state labeling requirements for ingredients if the federal government moves forward with similar or a more far-reaching measure.

The state labeling requirements would take effect on Jan. 1, 2027 but a loophole exists that if on Dec. 31, 2026 a snack food producer wants to stick with its existing packaging for another decade, no warning label is needed because the new law only “applies only to a food product label developed or copyrighted on or after January 1, 2027.”

Even so, the bill takes a step forward that states across the U.S. are still mulling. For Kolkhorst, the bill boils down to a national conversation about the health of Americans, especially American children.

“This sweeping legislation is not just another bill. It’s a call to action — one that so many Texans and Americans are realizing — that something is wrong and that something needs to change in our food industry and in our sedentary lifestyle,” Kolkhorst told The Texas Tribune.

While most of the attention has been on the food labeling language, the bill contains a major education plank.

SB 25 will require elementary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions to re-prioritize health and exercise. It also forces health professionals to take continuing education courses regarding nutrition and metabolic health. And it will require recess or physical activity for kids in charter schools – physical activity is already required in public schools.

Supporters of the bill, such as the Episcopal Health Foundation and the Meadow’s Mental Health Policy Institute, see some big benefits for Texans.

“The amount of money and time we’re spending treating diabetes as opposed to preventing it is huge, especially in Texas, especially in certain areas like East Texas,” said Brian Sasser, the foundation’s chief communications officer. “This is an important first step in changing that focus to prevention.”

Diabetes care costs Texas Medicaid up to $8 billion annually.

In a world that pretends the brain is not part of the body, this bill will put tools in the hands of children, parents and teachers to begin truly addressing emotional health and wellbeing, said Andy Keller, the president and CEO of Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute.

“I am proud of the work we have done with the encouragement of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. who personally called me and urged the passage of Senate Bill 25,” Kolkhorst said.

In the summer of 2024, Kennedy was running for president on a campaign focused on rising chronic health concerns for many Americans, as well as vaccine hesitancy.

At that time Means, who became Kennedy’s right hand in the MAHA movement, was leading a coalition of health and fitness CEOs in pitching policies designed to rein in additives and promote healthier food choices. The end goal was to force “Big Food” to offer healthier versions of food, like those found in Europe and Canada, through similar regulations.

It’s not surprising that Texas lawmakers, who are always on the lookout for the public’s next policy fixation jumped on this opportunity, said Henson, of the Texas Politics Project. Lawmakers have to take advantage of openings to pursue agendas that come with some federal support.

“Without that national influence [some bills] might not have gone anywhere,” he said.

And, the Trump administration knows how important Texas can be to its causes. As the nation’s second largest state, both in size and population, any change in food regulation no matter how small, is expected to have a ripple effect elsewhere.

Thirty years ago, regulations on food, the environment and land use, crafted by California’s State Assembly, became policy standards for the rest of the country. In recent years, that title has shifted to Texas. The aim of Kolkhorst’s bill is to change food formulas or perhaps offer Americans the same formulas sold to countries with stricter additive and coloring standards.

Kolkhorst has maintained that no group had a role in crafting her bill, that it was unique to her and her staff based on the concerns of constituents.

“No outside groups provided any language for the filed version of SB 25,” she told the Tribune.

Nutrition advocates, who often fear legislative cuts to their programs, welcome the plug for more nutrition-backed measures.

Celia Cole, CEO of Feeding Texas, which represents 20 food banks statewide, praised Kolkhorst and Hull for also spearheading the passage of House Bill 26, which creates a pilot program within Medicaid to offer pregnant moms with nutritional counseling and medically-tailored meals.

“We share the Legislature’s goal of improving the health of low-income Texans and were very encouraged to see a focus this session on the link between good nutrition and health,” Cole said in a statement to the Tribune.

Keller found the prospect of state and federal collaboration exciting. Texas ought to lead the nation in the fight for children’s health, he said.

“Nothing actually, really happens at a national level,” Keller said. “Ultimately, all decisions about the well-being of children happen locally.”

Sen. Bryan Hughes agrees. Texas waits for no one, he said. His Senate Bill 314 bars certain food additives in free- and reduced-cost school lunches.

“As in so many cases we’re not waiting on Washington. We’re thankful for what’s happening about health in Washington, but we’re not going to wait on them. Texas will act,” Hughes said in February.

Article originally published by The Texas Tribune. To read the originally published article, click here.