CAPITAL HIGHLIGHTS HLIGHTS
GARY BORDERS
Early voting in the March 3 primary ends on Friday, Feb. 27. Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson announced the state has 18.7 million registered voters for the primary.
“Nearly 19 million Texans are registered to vote, and my office and election officials across the state are working to make sure all Texas voters who want to participate in the primary election are confident in the process and ready to cast a ballot,” Nelson said.
When casting a ballot in person, voters are required to show identification. Cellphones are prohibited in a room in which voting is taking place. However, voters can bring written notes and printed sample ballots into the polling location for reference.
During the primary elections, voters must indicate which party’s primary they wish to vote in, though Texas law does not require voters to register with a party before casting a ballot.
Crossing over during primary season is not allowed. For example, if a voter casts a ballot in the Democratic primary, that person cannot vote in a runoff election in the Republican primary, and vice versa.
Talarico gets boost from Colbert drama
Both Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico and his primary opponent, U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, agree that Talarico got a boost from the brouhaha stemming from legal advice not to air an interview with CBS talkshow host Stephen Colbert unless other candidates also were featured.
The interview was instead posted on YouTube, where it has, to date, garnered more than 7 million views. Talarico reported raising more than $2.5 million in fundraising off what he called an attempt to censor him, the Houston Chronicle reported.
Talarico trailed Crockett by eight points in a University of Houston poll released earlier. No polling has been released since the video went viral.
The legal team for parent company Paramount told CBS the interview with the Austin-based Talarico could be subject to the “equal time” fairness doctrine for elections.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr said in January that he was considering requiring TV talk-show hosts to offer equal airtime, but that has not been made official. Talk shows have long been exempted from that rule.
Crockett said last week the attempt to ban the interview only amplified it. “It probably gave my opponent the boost he was looking for,” Crockett said.
The winner of the Democratic primary will face the winner of the GOP primary in November. The Republican contest next month pits incumbent U.S. Sen. John Cornyn against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt.
Report: Many ICE detainees in Texas have no convictions
The Trump administration’s deportation campaign promised to target gang members, murderers and other criminal offenders. However, a review of federal data by the Houston Chronicle indicates a lower percentage of people targeted had criminal convictions than in former President Joe Biden’s final year in office.
Federal agents arrested about 54,000 people in Texas during Trump’s first nine months of office, more than double the number during a similar period under Biden. But the share of those with criminal convictions fell from about 60% under Biden to under 40% under Trump, according to the newspaper’s report. Over a third of the arrests made by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents under Trump involved people with no criminal convictions and no pending criminal charges, compared to 13% under Biden, the Chronicle story said.
“The statistics show the indiscriminate nature of the Trump administration’s policies around trying to meet its self-defined quotas of 3,000 arrests per day,” said Adriel Orozco, senior policy counsel at the American Immigration Council.
Texas’ weekly ICE arrests increased by 135% during that same time frame.
Texas sues Dow, claiming ‘habitual’ pollution violations
The Texas Attorney General’s office has sued Dow Chemical Co., alleging hundreds of water-pollution violations at its industrial complex at Seadrift, across from the Aransas Wildlife Refuge.
The Texas Tribune reported that Dow, North America’s largest chemical manufacturer, has been in “habitual non-compliance” with pollution permits.
A spokesman for Union Carbide Corp., which operates the Seadrift complex for Dow, said the company “works closely with state and federal regulators to ensure compliance with all existing laws and regulations.”
The state’s lawsuit follows a 60-day notice of intent to sue filed in December by a local environmental activist. The state’s suit could supersede that pending litigation, according to The Tribune.
Drought deepens: January drier, warmer than normal
Two-thirds of Texas is now in drought, according to hydrologist Mark Wentzel with the Texas Water Development Board. That is up 13 percentage points from late December.
“The small improvements in temperature and precipitation we saw in January weren’t enough to end drought expansion in our state,” Wentzel wrote.
Meanwhile, both the 2026 Old Farmer’s Almanac and the Farmers’ Almanac’s long-range spring outlooks for Texas are calling for warmer and wetter weather in Texas, the Austin American-Statesman reported.
“April will bring warm temperatures (5 degrees above average), while May will cool off slightly (1 degree above average),” meteorologists Bob Smerbeck and Brian Thompson wrote in their forecast explanation. “Rainfall will be above normal and watch for a tropical storm in late May.”
Texas wildfire season upon us
Texas A&M Forest Service has put the current wildfire preparedness gauge at Level 3, which means, “wildfire activity is impacting several regions of the state as the result of drought, dry vegetation or frequent fire-weather events.”
Several wildfires broke out last week across the Panhandle as humidity levels dropped and winds gusts rose up to 65 mph.
Last week, the service responded to nine wildfires affecting more than 18,000 acres. As of Sunday, burn bans were in place in 151 Texas counties, covering the Panhandle and most of Central and West Texas. The wildfire potential is expected to increase this week as dry, windy conditions continue.
Borders is a veteran award-winning Texas journalist. He published community newspapers in Texas during a 30-year span, including in Longview, Fort Stockton, Nacogdoches, Lufkin and Cedar Park. Email: [email protected].
Comment
Comments