Cornyn discusses broadband access with East Texas leaders

TYLER – U.S. Senator John Cornyn was in Tyler Tuesday for a roundtable to discuss broadband access. Local leaders, healthcare providers, educators and economic development officials gathered with Cornyn to “highlight the challenges of limited broadband access that many East Texas communities experience.” The roundtable took place Tuesday morning at CHRISTUS Trinity Mother Frances Louis and Peaches Owen Heart Hospital. Cornyn has worked on legislation that would allow local leaders to use unspent COVID-19 relief funds for regional projects like expanding broadband access and infrastructure. Participants came from a wide variety of backgrounds to discussed how broadband access impacts education, healthcare and economic development. Cornyn compared the lack of access to broadband in rural communities to the way that those same communities had little access to electricity in the 1950s, saying that “we overcame that deficit and that lack of connectivity back then, and we can do this now.”