Texas Legislature

The Texas Department of State Health Services is requesting $230 million in additional funding from state lawmakers to support local health departments, maintain critical programs and handle new responsibilities. On Friday, the agency presented its budget request ahead of the 2027 legislative session.

Texas Health and Human Services is asking the state Legislature for the funding to make more than 600 temporary eligibility worker positions into permanent jobs. The ask comes as Texas' backlog of Medicaid and Supplement Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, applications continues to grow.

Texas is trying to expand access to preschool by encouraging school districts to partner with private child care centers. But some longtime Dallas providers say the school district that’s supposed to be their partner is also becoming their competition.

Islamic scholars and Muslim Texans say fear and political opportunism distort the meaning of sharia.

Texas laws taking effect Sept. 1 will change how consumers repair electronic devices, strengthen oversight of residential solar sales and allow certain forms of gold and silver to be used as legal tender.

The Texas Water Development Board presented the state's water plan at a Texas House natural resources committee hearing yesterday, which does not currently include projections for water usage from data centers.

The longtime state legislator, who announced in June 2025 he wasn’t seeking reelection, vacated the seat to serve as a U.S. assistant secretary of defense.

As more and more data center developers submit proposals to build in Texas, questions about how they will impact Texas' grid and contribute to drought conditions across the state are widespread.

Critics say the governor must call legislators to Austin to pass state laws regulating data centers.

Data centers are no longer an emerging industry. Driven by cloud computing, crypto mining and artificial intelligence, they are spreading rapidly across Texas, and the projected cost of the tax break has climbed into the billions. On Monday, the state senate finance committee asked if it was time to end the sales tax break for data centers.

ERCOT and the PUCT said they've already taken steps to regulate large energy consumers and called for the state legislature to expand their authority.

Thirteen years ago, when Texas created the tax deal for data centers, state lawmakers expected to lose — at most — $14 million in tax revenue in Texas' next 2-year budget cycle. Now, state projections show it could lead to Texas forgoing more than $3 billion in the 2028-29 biennium.