Progress Texas Podcasts

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Reaction to Trump's wide-ranging tariff announcement falls largely along party lines, with Democrats warning of a potential national recession: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2025/04/03/texas-lawmakers-in-washington-split-over-trump-tariffs-expected-to-impact-state/ ...San Antonio, in particular, is vulnerable to the impacts of tari...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Elon Musk's image as a supervillian appears to have contributed to a Democratic win in a Wisconsin Supreme Court race yesterday: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/01/us/politics/wisconsin-supreme-court-crawford-schimel.html ...Musk's expensive failure is a "jolt of momentum for Democrats": https://www.politico.com/news/202...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Acting Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee is threatening to sue Governor Greg Abbott if he continues to delay the replacement of the late Sylvester Turner in the U.S. House seat representing CD-18: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/houston/article/menefee-special-election-20246324.php ...Abbott's delay is only one part of a broa...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: The Texas Democratic Party has a new leader, as Kendall Scudder was elected its new Chairman this weekend by the State Democratic Executive Committee: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2025/03/29/texas-democrats-elect-dallas-kendall-scudder-as-new-state-chair-after-2024-losses/ Governor Greg Abbott is silent - and now missing important...

Kendall Scudder was elected to succeed Gilberto Hinojosa as the first new Chair of the Texas Democratic Party since the latter's election in 2012 on Saturday, winning an outright majority in the first round of voting from the members of the State Democratic Executive Committee in Austin. This pod features our first talk with Scudder, just minutes after his election was confirmed, and takes from a...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Concern about possible "Trojan horse" language in two bills ostensibly designed to provide clarity and legal protection to doctors who need to employ abortion procedures in caring for their patients continues: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/abortion-funds-bill-20243980.php ...All of which could be moot, as the additio...

Two bills are making their way through the Texas Legislature right now that are ostensibly designed to offer doctors legal protection against prosecution under our state's near-blanket ban on abortion, in cases where that procedure is medically necessary - the same clarification that was sought, unsuccessfully, in the Zurawski v Texas case. The bills, according to their Republican backers, hav...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Texan John Ratcliffe is at the center of what's becoming known as "Signalgate" - and also "the dumbest fascist timeline ever": https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/signalgate-fallout-hegseth-gabbard/ Amid the West Texas measles outbreak, kids are now showing up with Vitamin A poisoning as their parents opt for "alternative" measles prev...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Republican Texas U.S. Congressman Pat Fallon told a town hall crowd that today's young people won't have Social Security - he recommends they "get a second job": https://www.reddit.com/r/texas/comments/1jk1dxc/the_way_we_can_fix_social_security_is_to_tell/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_cont...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Senator John Cornyn was a big cheerleader for Trump Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who now finds himself at the center of the Yemen group chat scandal: https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5211309-cornyn-calls-war-plan-group-chat-a-huge-screw-up/ ...El Paso Congresswoman Veronica Escobar calls Donald Trump's claim yesterday that he didn't kno...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: The Texas Senate has approved SB-12, a bill that will expand its ban on DEI efforts to our K-12 public schools: https://www.texastribune.org/2025/02/24/texas-dei-public-schools-k12/ Also in the Senate, SB-37 would establish an additional layer of bureaucracy over state universities, for the purpose of ensuring that “courses do not endorse spe...

Our 200th Happy Hour! Elon Musk is everyone’s problem—from Brownsville, Texas, to the Caribbean, to the White House. As his SpaceX operations continue to fail upwards while wreaking havoc on nearby communities and ecosystems, Dr. Christopher Basaldú with the South Texas Environmental Justice Network shares his expertise and insights on the inter-connected fight for protecting Rio Grande Valley res...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Greg Abbott, Dan Patrick and Ken Paxton were all present and cheering yesterday at the White House as Donald Trump signed an executive order dismantling the federal Department of Education: https://www.texastribune.org/2025/03/20/texas-greg-abbott-trump-education-department/ ...Despite an intake of $12 billion in annual federal education fund...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: An anonymous tip in January led to a weeks-long investigation of the clinics in the Houston area, resulting in the arrests of midwife Maria Margarita Rojas and two of her colleagues: https://www.khou.com/article/news/local/texas/houston-texas-midwife-arrested-abortions-clinics/285-b028b728-0db8-4e4f-9255-7f6f11c77f47 Rare bipartisan cooperati...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: A third arrest, that of a nurse practitioner, has been reported in the case of Houston-area clinics run by midwife Maria Rojas, who has been accused by Ken Paxton of conducting abortions illegally: https://abc13.com/post/texas-attorney-general-announces-third-arrest-illegal-abortion-case-involving-houston-area-midwife/16044651/ ...A patient c...

Study of the McCarthy period during the Cold War provides essential historical perspective for those of us struggling to chart the path forward through Trump 2.0 - a time in which paranoia, threats to civil liberties, censorship and more are, once again, all too real. Author Clay Risen, whose new book "Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism and The Making of Modern America" joins us to discuss how it...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: In a first under Texas' abortion ban, and what's believed to be a first nationally since the overturning of Roe v Wade, two Houston-area maternity care professionals have been arrested under suspicion of performing illegal abortions: https://www.texastribune.org/2025/03/17/texas-abortion-midwife-arrested/ ...The two Houston defendants face li...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Governor Abbott backs that bill to ban "furries" from public schools in his push for private school vouchers, even though he knows it targets a fictitious problem: https://www.kut.org/politics/2025-03-14/furries-texas-school-choice-vouchers ...Meanwhile lobbyists for "voucher vendors" - private companies that profit handsomely from managing v...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: New reporting by the Texas Tribune shows that a severe shortage of cooking, cleaning and drinking water for Texas towns and cities could arrive as soon as 2030: https://www.texastribune.org/2025/03/13/texas-water-explained-supply-demand/ ...Of obvious equal importance, at least to Smithville GOP Rep. Stan Gerdes: keeping kids from being "furr...

Aside from the daily drama at the Capitol, the race to succeed Ron Nirenberg as the next mayor of San Antonio is one of the top political stories in Texas, as the leadership of the Lone Star State's second-biggest city for next four years hangs in the balance. Candidate Gina Ortiz Jones is well-known to followers of progressive politics in Texas - she has distinguished herself via an impressive mi...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Governor Abbott has announced a grant of over $17 million to SpaceX for semiconductor research and development in Bastrop: https://www.kxan.com/news/spacex-to-receive-17m-from-the-texas-semiconductor-innovation-fund-grant/ ...While Elon Musk's slashing of federal spending has resulted in billions in funding cut from food banks, including thos...

Urgent action is warranted TODAY, if you happen to be one of the over half of adult Texans who rent their home from a landlord or property owner: HB-32, promoted by the Texas Apartment Association, introduced by D/FW Republican Angie Chen Button, and curiously supported by El Paso Democrat Joe Moody, would greatly speed up the process by which your landlord might evict you from your home - and mos...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Discussion of HB3, the Texas House GOP's attempt to establish a billion-dollar private school voucher program was heated, and hundreds signed up for a long day of testimony: https://www.kut.org/2025-03-11/texas-house-republicans-get-an-earful-from-the-opposition-on-proposed-school-voucher-program ...Texas citizens called for this money to ins...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: A huge day at the Texas State Capitol today, as House Bill 3, which would establish a private school voucher program in Texas, goes before the House Public Education Committee: https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/texas-house-committee-to-hold-pivotal-hearing-on-school-voucher-bill ...New polling shows broad, bipartisan opposition to private...

The battle over private school vouchers sees a major milestone on Tuesday, as House Bill 3 - the GOP-controlled House's latest scheme to redirect money earmarked for public schools to private and parochial schools instead - comes before the Texas House Public Education Committee. This is a debate that has become partisan at the legislative level, though not as completely as some other issue areas...