Tracking legislative interim hearings between sessions -- committee testimony, interim charges, witness statements, and the groundwork being laid for the next session.
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson told a House committee Sept. 30 that the city spends about $100 million a year on outside consultants and nonprofits and is auditing it.
Senators spent more than six hours Sept. 30 asking who should control the cost of Texas' transmission buildout, with witnesses urging competitive bidding, a lower guaranteed return for utilities and relief for ratepayers before the 765-kV Permian Basin lines are built.
On Sept. 30, a Texas House select committee will take testimony on a question no Texas Legislature has formally studied: whether the state can absorb counties that currently belong to New Mexico.
The Texas House Select Committee on Governmental Oversight will gavel in at 9 a.m. Sept. 30 in Capitol Extension room E2.026 to take invited and public testimony on whether Texas could absorb New Mexico counties, how outside groups shape the work of local prosecutors and how local governments spend public money on consultants and nonprofits.
The Texas Senate Committee on Business and Commerce will gavel in at 9 a.m. Sept. 30 in Capitol Extension room E1.012 to take invited and public testimony on the rising cost of building and paying for transmission lines, the rollout of the new Texas Cyber Command and how online platforms sell concert and event tickets.
Texas cannot yet tell whether this spring's college graduates found work, let alone whether artificial intelligence is shrinking the jobs they trained for, witnesses told the Senate Committee on Economic Development Sept. 22.
Texas cities are holding $633 million in local hotel tax money they have collected but not spent, a comptroller's official told the Senate Committee on Economic Development Sept. 22.
Texas lets a solar developer run a project for 20 years, and a wind developer for 10, before posting a dollar toward tearing it down.
A land developer told the House Committee on Environmental Regulation on Sept. 15 that his 75-unit housing project in Williamson County waited exactly two years for one wastewater permit.
Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D–Laredo, asked the two bank lobbyists in front of her a question nobody else on the dais had put that plainly: how widespread is politically motivated debanking in Texas?
Texas local governments owe $552 billion in debt service, and $330 billion of that is principal.
Texas took two runs at prediction markets on the same day.
Texas lawmakers have cut school property taxes in three straight sessions and committed roughly $51 billion of the current budget to keeping those cuts in place.
Texas has enrolled more than 368,000 women in its flagship no-cost women's health program.