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IRVING – KERA reports that Texas legislators have introduced a bill that could make zoning changes easier. That’s after Las Vegas Sands proposed rezoning a mixed-use development in Irving that would have included casino gaming in its destination resort, pending legalization in Texas. The proposal led to considerable blowback from Irving residents and others opposed to casino gambling. Senate Bill 844 was filed on Jan. 17 by Senator Bryan Hughes. During the Senate Committee on Local Government hearing on Monday, Hughes said the bill was about property rights, the democratic process, and would address obstacles that can come up when a city is making changes to an area’s zoning.

“Right now, changes in zoning can be quickly and significantly disrupted by a small number of property owners, even if some don’t even own the land that would be affected by the change,” Hughes said. The companion to Hughes’ senate bill, House Bill 24, was filed on March 4 by Rep. Angelia Orr and has four joint authors and eight co-authors. Many of the representatives, including Orr, have received campaign contributions from the Texas Sands PAC, which is connected to Las Vegas Sands Corp. Las Vegas Sands has lobbied to legalize gambling in Texas for years and formed the Texas Sands PAC in 2022. HB 24, backed by the Texas Conservative Coalition, would address a housing shortage in Texas, lower homeownership costs, and increase private property rights, Orr said in a statement. “Corporate entities were not consulted in the drafting of this bill, nor was this bill intended to help them,” Rep. Orr said in the statement. Sen. Hughes has also been supported by the Texas Sands PAC, according to campaign finance report filings.

HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday ordering federal agencies to terminate their contracts with Susman Godfrey LLP, a Houston-based law firm that represented Dominion Voting Systems in its defamation suit against Fox News. The order also revoked security clearances for the firm’s attorneys, barred them from accessing government buildings “when such access would threaten the national security” and directed agencies to refrain from hiring employees of Susman Godfrey. Trump levied several accusations against the firm, which secured a staggering $787.5 million settlement with Fox News after the network published conspiracy theories about Dominion’s voting machines, including degrading the quality of U.S. elections.

“I have determined that action is necessary to address the significant risks, egregious conduct, and conflicts of interest associated with Susman Godfrey LLP,” the order read. “Susman spearheads efforts to weaponize the American legal system and degrade the quality of American elections.” Susman Godfrey LLP could not be immediately reached for comment. Trump also accused the firm of discrimination and funding groups that undermine the integrity of the U.S. military. “Susman also funds groups that engage in dangerous efforts to undermine the effectiveness of the U.S. military through the injection of political and radical ideology, and it supports efforts to discriminate on the basis of race,” the order read. “For example, Susman administers a program where it offers financial awards and employment opportunities only to ‘students of color.'” According to Susman Godfrey LLP’s website, one of the firm’s “core values” is ensuring the diversity of its attorneys. The firm maintains a diversity committee that works to identify and recruit attorneys from underrepresented backgrounds. It also works with the Racial Justice Working Group, which was established following the killing of George Floyd, according to the firm’s website.

AUSTIN – Texas senators could vote this week on a bill that would drastically limit how the state’s public universities teach their students about history, race and inequality.

Senate Bill 37 would also create a way to file complaints about universities that higher ed experts say could threaten their funding and create a profound chilling effect.

“I really hope people are paying attention because there’s some pretty high-stakes gambles we’re taking,” said Neal Hutchens, a professor at the University of Kentucky’s College of Education, about the proposed legislation.

Hutchens reviewed SB 37 when it was first filed last month and after its author, Sen. Brandon Creighton, filed an extensive rewrite of the legislation last week that included significant differences from the original version of the bill. The public was not invited to comment on the revamped legislation, which was quickly voted out of the Texas Senate’s K-16 Education Committee last week.

Here are some of the most notable changes to the bill and what they might look like in practice.

An earlier version of the bill would have required each system’s board of regents to create committees to review curricula every year and ensure courses did “not endorse specific public policies, ideologies or legislation.” Texas professors criticized that provision as being too vague.

“Could teaching about the existence of LGBTQ people in the American past be considered promoting an ‘ideology’ of gender and sexual non-discrimination? There is no end to the topics that could be censored because political leaders consider them to be ideological in nature,” said Lauren Gutterman, who teaches history at the University of Texas at Austin, in written testimony the American Association of University Professors submitted to the committee last month. Gutterman said she was writing in her capacity as a private citizen.

If the current version of SB 37 passes both the Senate and House, the boards would instead screen courses every five years to ensure they “do not distort significant historical events”; they do not teach that one race is superior or bears personal or collective responsibility for the actions committed by other individuals of the same race; and they are not based “on a theory that racism, sexism, oppression, or privilege is inherent in the institutions of the United States or this state or was created to maintain social, political or economic inequalities.”

Hutchens said this language could have been inspired by Florida’s Stop the Woke Act or model legislation provided by conservative nonprofit policy groups that focus on higher education, like the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal in North Carolina.

“I certainly didn’t see this as necessarily addressing the concerns that faculty had raised regarding the original bill,” Hutchens said.

SB 37 would also create a statewide committee that would evaluate which core curricula at public universities are “foundational” and which could be cut. The committee would be formed by three appointees from the governor, two from the lieutenant governor and two from the speaker of the House of Representatives. The bill doesn’t require that any members be students, faculty or university administrators. The commissioner of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board would serve as an ex-officio member.

This committee would share its findings with the universities’ boards of regents by Dec. 1, 2026, and the boards would have to adopt and implement rules based on those findings by 2027.
The original bill would have created a nine-person office to investigate claims that universities have broken state law.

The new version gives that responsibility to an ombudsman within the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. They would investigate compliance with SB 37 as well as laws that put restrictions on free speech activities on campuses and that prohibit university police departments from limiting the enforcement of immigration laws, among others. Notably, it adds that any person can file a report as long as they provide sufficient information to follow up on the claim.

Hutchens worried this could lead to a “tsunami of meritless complaints” or the targeting of individual faculty members.

“It could undercut academic freedom and it could be another reason that you see Texas colleges, universities, the public ones, become not as desirable for people, for that really, really top talent to pursue positions,” he said.

If the ombudsman determines a university is not complying with the law and it does not resolve the issue within 30 days, they could refer it to the Attorney General’s Office, which could sue the university to compel it to comply with the law or recommend to the Legislature that the institution’s state funds be withheld.

The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board does not currently have an ombudsman position. Right now, the agency is responsible for reviewing complaints from students related to tuition and fees.

Creighton and other Republicans have previously criticized what they see as faculty’s excessive influence in university decisions that they say should rest with the board of regents.

SB 37 initially proposed only allowing tenured professors to join the faculty bodies that advise university administrators on some curricular and academic issues — known as faculty councils and senates. Creighton struck out that requirement, but added that members who use their position for “personal political advocacy” could be immediately removed.

This comes after Angie Hill Price, the speaker of the faculty senate at Texas A&M University, testified in opposition to SB 37 last month.

“I am very concerned how this bill will impact us because we’re not broken,” she said during her testimony last month.

She added that there is a lot of evidence to show that the faculty senate at the flagship university has contributed to its successes, including being one of the first institutions to top more than $1 billion in research expenditures.

“All this has happened with the faculty senate directly involved with enhancing the curriculum and working with our students to improve their experience both inside and outside the classroom,” Hill Price said.

SB 37 also initially proposed the board of regents should be responsible for hiring anyone in a leadership position. The new version of the bill would allow presidents to hire these individuals, but they must not delegate the responsibility to anyone else and the board can overrule their decisions.

Typically, leadership positions like deans are hired by their universities’ presidents after a search committee composed of faculty, staff and students vets the candidates.

The new version of SB 37 also borrows ideas from other pending legislation that aims to phase out degree programs that don’t clearly provide a return on investment for students, who sometimes take on large amounts of debt to complete them.

It would give the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board the power to review and rate programs every five years, and universities would not be able to continue using state money in programs that receive unfavorable ratings or enroll students in them.

The value of a degree has been under renewed scrutiny in recent years as loan debts increase and enrollment decreases at universities across the nation.

Although Texas is not experiencing the latter, lawmakers are right to criticize colleges for not doing more to connect students to careers after graduation, said Josh Wyner, vice president of the Aspen Institute.

But Wyner said Texas should be cautious when making decisions about what programs to target. Students who are pursuing philosophy undergraduate degrees don’t typically become philosophers — they become lawyers and social workers after getting advanced degrees, he said.

“We have to be careful that we don’t legislate out credentials that actually will have labor market value or value to society,” he said.

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

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — The Connecticut Supreme Court has declined to hear conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ appeal in a defamation case that resulted in a $1.4 billion verdict against him for calling the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting a hoax.

Jones asked the justices to review both the 2022 trial court verdict and a lower appeals court ruling in December that upheld most of the verdict. The Supreme Court turned down his request without explanation Tuesday.

A Connecticut jury and judge awarded relatives of some of the victims of the 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, more than $1.4 billion in damages for defamation and emotional distress, over Jones’ repeated claims that the massacre never happened. Jones has since acknowledged that the shooting was “100% real.”

Twenty first graders and six educators were killed. Victims’ relatives testified during the defamation trial that they were traumatized by Jones’ conspiracies and threats from his followers.

In December, the state Appellate Court upheld $965 million of the damages. Two other parents who lost a child in the shooting were awarded nearly $50 million in a similar lawsuit in Texas that Jones is appealing.

Jones raised free speech rights, other constitutional questions and procedural issues in the Connecticut appeal.

“We had a very strong appeal in Connecticut,” he said, expressing frustration on his Infowars show Wednesday.

The Associated Press sent emails seeking comment to Jones’ lawyers Wednesday. A U.S Supreme Court appeal is possible.

Alinor Sterling, a lawyer for the Sandy Hook families, said in a statement that the state Supreme Court’s decision “brings the Connecticut families another step closer to their goal of holding Alex Jones accountable for the harms he caused and will enable them to press forward with collections proceedings against him.”

Jones filed for personal bankruptcy protection in late 2022 after the Connecticut and Texas verdicts. The case remains pending and legal wrangling continues over the proposed liquidation of many of Jones’ and Infowars’ assets.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A new executive order from President Donald Trump that’s part of his effort to invigorate energy production raises the possibility that his Department of Justice will go to court against state climate change laws aimed at slashing planet-warming greenhouse gas pollution from fossil fuels.

Trump’s order, signed Tuesday, comes as U.S. electricity demand ramps up to meet the growth of artificial intelligence and cloud computing applications, as well as federal efforts to expand high-tech manufacturing. It also coincides with “climate superfund” legislation gaining traction in various states.

Trump has declared a “ national energy emergency ” and ordered his attorney general to take action against states that may be illegally overreaching their authority in how they regulate energy development.

“American energy dominance is threatened when State and local governments seek to regulate energy beyond their constitutional or statutory authorities,” Trump said in the order.

He said the attorney general should focus on state laws targeting climate change, a broad order that unmistakably puts liberal states in the crosshairs of Trump’s Department of Justice.

Michael Gerrard, director of the Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, said it would be an “extraordinarily bold move” for the federal government to go to court to try to overturn a state climate law.

Gerrard said the quickest path for Trump’s Department of Justice is to try to join ongoing lawsuits where courts are deciding whether states or cities are exceeding their authority by trying to force the fossil fuel industry to pay for the cost of damages from climate change.
Democrats say they won’t back down

Democratic governors vowed to keep fighting climate change.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom accused Trump of “turning back the clock” on the climate and said his state’s efforts to reduce pollution “won’t be derailed by a glorified press release masquerading as an executive order.”

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, cochairs of the U.S. Climate Alliance, which includes 22 governors, said they “will keep advancing solutions to the climate crisis.”
Climate superfund laws are gaining traction

Vermont and New York are currently fighting challenges in federal courts to climate superfund laws passed last year. Trump suggested the laws “extort” payments from energy companies and “threaten American energy dominance and our economic and national security.”

Both are modeled on the 45-year-old federal superfund law, which taxed petroleum and chemical companies to pay to clean up of sites polluted by toxic waste. In similar fashion, the state climate laws are designed to force major fossil fuel companies to pay into state-based funds based on their past greenhouse gas emissions.

Several other Democratic-controlled states, including New Jersey, Massachusetts, Oregon and California, are considering similar measures.

The American Petroleum Institute, which represents the oil and natural gas industries, applauded Trump’s order that it said would “protect American energy from so-called ‘climate superfunds.’”

“Directing the Department of Justice to address this state overreach will help restore the rule of law and ensure activist-driven campaigns do not stand in the way of ensuring the nation has access to an affordable and reliable energy supply,” it said.
Court battles are already ongoing

The American Petroleum Institute, along with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, filed the lawsuit against Vermont. The lawsuit against New York was filed by West Virginia, along with several coal, gas and oil interests and 21 other mostly Republican-led states, including Texas, Ohio and Georgia.

Make Polluters Pay, a coalition of consumer and anti-fossil fuel groups, vowed to fight Trump’s order and accused fossil fuel billionaires of convincing Trump to launch an assault on states.

The order, it said, demonstrates the “corporate capture of government” and “weaponizes the Justice Department against states that dare to make polluters pay for climate damage.”

Separately, the Department of Justice could join lawsuits in defense of fossil fuel industries being sued, Gerrard said.

Those lawsuits include ones filed by Honolulu, Hawaii, and dozens of cities and states seeking billions of dollars in damages from things like wildfires, rising sea levels and severe storms.

In the last three months, the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to get involved in a couple climate-themed lawsuits.

One was brought by oil and gas companies asking it to block Honolulu’s lawsuit. Another was brought by Alabama and Republican attorneys general in 18 other states aimed at blocking lawsuits against the oil and gas industry from Democratic-led states, including California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Jersey and Rhode Island.

Trump’s order set off talk in state Capitols around the U.S.

That includes Pennsylvania, where the governor is contesting a court challenge to a regulation that would make it the first major fossil fuel-producing state to force power plant owners pay for greenhouse gas emissions.

John Quigley, a former Pennsylvania environmental protection secretary and a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, wondered if the Department of Justice would begin challenging all sorts of state water and air pollution laws.

“This kind of an order knows no bounds,” Quigley said. “It’s hard to say where this could end up.”

___

Associated Press reporter Sophie Austin in Sacramento, California, contributed to this report. Follow Marc Levy on X at: https://x.com/timelywriter

AUSTIN – Texas Supreme Court Justice Jeff Boyd will retire this summer, leaving yet another vacancy for Gov. Greg Abbott to fill.

Boyd was appointed to the court by Gov. Rick Perry in 2012, after serving as the governor’s chief of staff and general counsel. He won reelection in 2014 and 2020, and would be up for reelection in 2026. Boyd said in a statement Wednesday that he would leave the court near the end of the term this summer.

Chief Justice Jimmy Blacklock said Boyd is a “model of integrity, impartiality and diligence.”

“His sharp insights and thorough analysis have shaped and strengthened the opinions of the Court, and his abundant good humor around the office have made him a beloved friend and mentor to Justices and staff alike,” Blacklock said. “Justice Boyd leaves the Supreme Court, and the law of our great State, better than he found it.”

Boyd did not share his next steps, except to say it was “time to let another take the helm.”

By retiring before the end of his term, Boyd gifts Abbott the power to decide who will fill that seat on the bench. Abbott, a former Supreme Court justice himself, has appointed six of the nine justices on the bench, including Blacklock and, recently, James Sullivan, both of whom served as his general counsel before ascending.

Abbott’s next appointment will undoubtedly be a Republican attorney or judge cut from the same cloth. Speaking to a gathering of the conservative Federalist Society last week, Abbott said he looks to appoint judges based on “certain core principles,” like originalism and strict constructionism.

“I’m looking for … people who will apply conservative applications of the law, not expanding it, but deciding on the basis of what legislators or Congress or the Constitution itself decides,” he said. “And there’s an abundance of those types of either lawyers or judges already that I have the opportunity to choose from.”

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