Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton made it official last week, announcing he will challenge U.S. Sen. John Cornyn in next March’s Republican primary. The fireworks already have begun, the Austin American-Statesman reported, with Cornyn calling his rival “a con man and a fraud.”
Paxton, for his part, said he is running to “fight for President Trump’s agenda and take a sledgehammer to the D.C. establishment.” He accused Cornyn of being insufficiently loyal to Trump.
Paxton’s decision to run for the Senate leaves the attorney general’s seat open in 2026. Former U.S. Attorney John Bash, a lawyer for Elon Musk, has announced plans to run, The Dallas Morning News reported. He will almost certainly have company in the GOP primary. Longtime lobbyist and political consultant Bill Miller said the job’s high profile makes it attractive to potential candidates.
“It’s the most attractive job below being senator or governor. You have this enormous machinery to put yourself in almost every issue, state or federal,” he said. “You can make news and be news almost at will.”
The News named several possible GOP candidates, including state Sens. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, and Mayes Middleton, R-Galveston; state Rep. Mitch Little, R-Lewisville; and former Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman, who ran for the job in 2022.
Texas version of DOGE heads to Abbott’s desk If signed, the first bill headed to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk would create the “Texas Regulatory Efficiency Office,” the Statesman reported. A supermajority of the House passed Senate Bill 14 last week, following its approval in the Senate in late March.
The measure is expected to save taxpayers $25 million for five years by identifying rules that are “unnecessary, duplicative, expensive or prohibitive.” It would also look for ways that state agencies could cut costs.
House sponsor state Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, R-Keller, noted the state of Texas has more than 274,000 rules and regulations.
“The purpose of the office is to have technical professionals, people skilled in those regulations, review those regulations and to come up with recommendations to the agency on how they can make things better for the constituents of Texas,” Capriglione said.
Visas revoked for international students in state At least 110 international students at Texas universities have had their visas revoked or their immigration status marked as terminated in a federal database, The Texas Tribune reported. As of last week, these universities confirmed the number of international students affected: University of North Texas: 27 University of Texas at Dallas: 19 University of Texas at Arlington: 27 Texas A&M University: 19 University of Texas Rio Grande Valley: 9 Texas Women’s University: 4 Texas Tech University: 3 The University of Texas at Austin and the University of Houston said that some of its students had a change in their immigration status but declined to say how many.
On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security said it would begin screening the social media feeds of international students for “antisemitic” content. Pro-Palestine protests were held at several Texas campuses after Israel retaliated in Gaza after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas.
Measles cases surpass 500
The number of measles cases in West Texas and the Panhandle has surpassed 500, the Texas Department of State Health Services reported. Health experts say the outbreak likely will continue to grow and could last for months.
Measles was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, The News reported. The World Health Organization defines that as the “absence of endemic measles transmission” for at least 12 months. If the current measles outbreak lasts longer than a year, which seems likely, the U.S. would lose its elimination status.
“We are almost certainly going to lose that,” Dr. Greg Poland, a vaccinologist, said. “In that sense from a public health view, we are going backwards. And that will hurt people.”
House passes $337.4 billion budget
The Texas House on Friday overwhelmingly passed a $337.4 billion budget that includes funding for school vouchers, teacher pay raises, and property tax cuts, The Dallas Morning News reported. The General Appropriations Act passed by a 118-26 margin after 14 hours of debate on the House floor.
“[The bill] stays well under all spending limits and grows less than population and inflation—ensuring we protect taxpayers while meeting the needs of a growing Texas,” said House Appropriations Chairman Greg Bonnen, R-Friendswood.
Senate Bill 1 now goes into negotiation with the Texas Senate, which passed its version of the budget in March. House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, said that chamber can now turn its attention to other priorities. Before passing the budget, only a handful of bills had made it out of the House, in contrast with the Senate, which has passed nearly 200 bills thus far.
“Now that we’ve established a strong fiscal framework, the House will soon act on key legislation— starting first with school finance and school choice—knowing exactly the resources we have in place to deliver real results for Texans,” Burrows said.
The House budget bill contains $6.5 billion to continue Operation Lone Star, Abbott’s border security initiative, as well as $3 billion to create a Dementia Prevention and Research Institute.
March brought higher temps, less rain Warmer-than-usual temperatures in March, combined with less rain for most of the state, meant 70% of the state was in drought by the end of last month. That’s a rise of 21 percentage points since late February, according to hydrologist Dr. Mark Wentzel, with the Texas Water Development Board.
“In the next few months, drought conditions are expected to improve somewhat in South Texas but expand across the Panhandle and North Central Texas,” Wentzel wrote.
He added he expected some easing of drought severity in South Texas, which was hit with torrential rain last month, and no drought areas in East Texas.
Gary Borders is a veteran award-winning Texas journalist. He published a number of community newspapers in Texas during a 30-year span, including in Longview, Fort Stockton, Nacogdoches, Lufkin and Cedar Park. Email: gborders@ texaspress.com.
