Texas Tribune
Texas Supreme Court rejects abortion challenge
by By Eleanor Klibanoff, The Texas Tribune – 2024-05-31 09:26:34
SUMMARY: The Texas Supreme Court unanimously rejected a significant challenge to the state's new abortion laws, affirming that the medical exceptions in the law were broad enough to resist constitutional challenges. The case, Zurawski v. Texas, involved women arguing that Texas' abortion restrictions prevented necessary medical care for complicated pregnancies. Initially, a judge allowed abortions if doctors determined it was necessary, but the Supreme Court overturned this, reaffirming the law's allowance for abortions based on a doctor's “reasonable medical judgment.” The court acknowledged the suffering of plaintiffs but maintained that doctors misinterpreted the law rather than the law being unconstitutional.
—————-
FULL ARTICLE:
Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune's daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.
The Texas Supreme Court has unanimously rejected the most significant challenge to Texas' new abortion laws yet, ruling Friday that the medical exceptions in the law were broad enough to withstand constitutional challenge.
The case, Zurawski v. Texas, started with five women arguing the state's near-total abortion laws stopped them from getting medical care for their complicated pregnancies. In the year plus it took to move through the court system, the case has grown to include 20 women and two doctors.
In August, a Travis County judge issued a temporary injunction that allowed Texans with complicated pregnancies to get an abortion if their doctor made a “good faith judgment” that it was necessary. The Texas Office of the Attorney General appealed.
The Texas Supreme Court overturned that ruling Friday, saying it “departed from the law as written without constitutional justification.” While the opinion was unanimous, Justice Brett Busby issued a concurring opinion that left the door open to a broader challenge to the law.
Zurawski v. Texas was a pioneering case in post-Roe America, the first challenge to a state's abortion bans on behalf of women with complicated pregnancies. At least three other states have followed suit, and it led to a related case, in which Kate Cox, an actively pregnant woman in Dallas sued to be allowed to terminate her pregnancy.
The Texas Supreme Court rejected Cox's plea in December, which many saw as a likely foreshadow of how the court might rule in Zurawski v. Texas. On Friday, those suspicions were confirmed when the court offered a ruling very similar in nature to the Cox case.
“A physician who tells a patient, ‘Your life is threatened by a complication that has arisen during your pregnancy, and you may die, or there is a serious risk you will suffer substantial physical impairment unless an abortion is performed,' and in the same breath states ‘but the law won't allow me to provide an abortion in these circumstances' is simply wrong in that legal assessment,” the court wrote.
How the case unfolded
The initial lawsuit was filed in March 2023, and unlike previous wholesale, pre-enforcement challenges to abortion bans, this case focused on a very narrow argument — women with complicated pregnancies were being denied medically necessary abortions because doctors were unclear on how and when they could act.
After the overturn of Roe v. Wade in summer 2022, Texas banned all abortions except to save the life of the pregnant patient. Almost immediately, women began to come forward with stories of difficult pregnancies worsened by doctors' hesitations and uncertainty.
Amanda Zurawski, the named plaintiff in the suit, was 18 weeks pregnant with a daughter they'd named Willow when she experienced preterm prelabor rupture of membranes. Despite the condition being fatal to the fetus and posing significant risks to the pregnant patient, her doctors refused to terminate the pregnancy because there was still fetal cardiac activity. Eventually, Zurawski went into sepsis and spent three days in the intensive care unit. While she survived, the infection has made it difficult for her and her husband to conceive again.
At a press conference outside the state capitol announcing the lawsuit, Zurawski said she was fighting for all Texans who are “scared and outraged at the thought of being pregnant.”
“The people in the building behind me have the power to fix this, yet they've done nothing,” Zurawski said. “So it's not just for me, and for our Willow, that I stand here before you today — it's for every pregnant person, and for everyone who knows and loves a pregnant person.”
Soon after the laws went into effect, Lauren Hall, a 27-year-old North Texas woman, told The Texas Tribune about learning her first, much desired pregnancy was developing without a skull or brain, and would not survive after childbirth. Unlike some other states, Texas' law does not allow for abortions in cases of lethal fetal anomalies, unless they threaten the mother's life.
But when Hall considered carrying this high-risk, no-reward pregnancy through to the end, she felt like she was “losing my mind. I would consider what I experienced that weekend a medical emergency.”
Denied an abortion in Texas, Hall and her husband ended up scrambling to travel to a clinic in Seattle that specializes in these cases, where she was greeted by angry protesters who had also traveled from Texas.
She returned home a few days later mired in a confusing mix of grief and anger, and a few months later, signed onto the lawsuit with the hope that no one would ever have to undergo that experience again.
“Providers are scared to treat cases like ours without guidelines from the state, and more people will suffer (and lose their lives) if a change is not made,” Hall said at a press conference announcing the lawsuit. “I love Texas, and it kills me that my own state does not seem to care if I live or die.”
In July 2023, almost a year after the laws went into effect, three of the plaintiffs testified at a historic hearing, the first time individual women have testified about the impact of abortion laws on their pregnancies since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973.
As they told their stories of much wanted pregnancies gone awry, and the way their doctors' inability to act worsened their pain, the women were overcome — one sobbed, unable to get her words out; another fled the courtroom immediately after; another threw up in her hands.
An Austin judge sided with the plaintiffs and granted an injunction, ruling that the attorney general should not be able to prosecute doctors who, in their “good faith judgment” terminate a pregnancy that presents a risk of infection; if the fetus will not survive after child birth; or when the pregnant patient has a condition that requires regular, invasive treatment.
Immediately, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton appealed to the state Supreme Court, temporarily blocking the order from going into effect. The Supreme Court heard arguments in November.
At that hearing, assistant attorney general Beth Klusmann said the Texas Legislature had set a high bar for when a patient might qualify for an abortion, “but there is nothing unconstitutional in their decision to do so.” Justice Jimmy Blacklock, former general counsel for Gov. Greg Abbott, said he believed the injunction the plaintiffs were requesting “could open the door far more widely” for people seeking abortions.
Molly Duane, senior staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is representing the plaintiffs, acknowledged that the district court ruling is “doing more work than normal,” but said it was because “legislators don't usually write laws that people who are regulated by those laws simply do not understand.”
The Cox case
In that hearing, Klusmann argued that the women who filed this lawsuit didn't have a right to sue because they were not currently seeking abortions. A week later, the Center for Reproductive Rights filed a lawsuit on behalf of Kate Cox, a 31-year-old Dallas mother who was actively pregnant and seeking an abortion.
Cox's pregnancy was nonviable and, her lawyers said, she had been to the emergency room repeatedly for complications. Her case made many of the same arguments as the Zurawski case, but asked for an immediate ruling.
For the first time since before Roe v. Wade, a judge intervened to allow a competent adult woman to terminate her pregnancy.
“The idea that Ms. Cox wants desperately to be a parent, and this law might actually cause her to lose that ability is shocking and would be a genuine miscarriage of justice,” state District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble.
Paxton appealed that ruling to the Texas Supreme Court, which put it on hold. He also sent letters to Houston area hospitals threatening them with legal action if they allowed Dr. Damla Karsan, Cox's OB/GYN, to perform an abortion at their facility.
While the court deliberated, Cox's condition deteriorated to the point that she needed to travel out-of-state to get an abortion, her lawyers said.
The court ultimately rejected Cox's request for an abortion, ruling that while “any parents would be devastated to learn” of a fetal diagnosis like this, “some difficulties in pregnancy…even serious ones, do not pose the heightened risks to the mother the exception encompasses.”
The court did call on the Texas Medical Board to issue guidance to help doctors better understand when they can perform an abortion in the eyes of the law. That guidance, which has not yet been finalized, has been criticized for offering little reassurance and, in some cases, confusing the issue further.
Friday's ruling
In Friday's ruling, the court ruled that only one of the 22 plaintiffs in the Zurawski suit had standing to sue — Karsan, the Houston OB/GYN who had agreed to perform Cox's abortion.
“We conclude that the Attorney General directly threatened enforcement against Dr. Karsan in response to her stated intent to engage in what she contends is constitutionally protected activity,” the justices wrote. “A state official's letter threatening enforcement of a specific law against a plaintiff seeking relief from such enforcement is a sufficient showing of a threat of enforcement to establish standing to sue.”
The trial court ruled in the injunction that a doctor should be allowed to perform an abortion when they deemed it necessary in their “good faith judgment.” Friday's ruling found the trial judge overstepped, and said the way the law is written — allowing abortions based on a doctor's “reasonable medical judgment” — is clear enough.
While the Center for Reproductive Rights raised concerns in the lawsuit that a doctor would have to defend their reasonable judgment against a panel of other doctors who might have decided differently, the court said it was actually the opposite — to bring a case against a doctor, the state would first have to “prove that no reasonable physician would have concluded” that the abortion was the right call.
In the ruling, the justices acknowledged the tragedy of these cases, but agreed with the state that the laws are clear — and it was doctors who were misinterpreting them.
“With a diagnosis based on reasonable medical judgment and the woman's informed consent, a physician can provide an abortion confident that the law permits it,” they ruled. “Ms. Zurawski's agonizing wait to be ill ‘enough' for induction, her development of sepsis, and her permanent physical injury are not the results the law commands.”
The trial court also ruled that Texans should be allowed to terminate their pregnancies if the doctor has determined the fetus would not survive after birth. The supreme court rejected that argument.
“As painful as such circumstances are, that the law does not authorize abortions for diagnosed fetal conditions absent a life-threatening complication to the mother does not render it unconstitutional,” they wrote.
Justice Busby, joined by Justice Debra Lehrmann, issued a concurring opinion raising the potential for future challenges on the grounds of vagueness, writing that “at first glance, respondents' expressed confusion about this exception is understandable.”
“We must keep in mind the Legislature's obligation—and our own—to speak clearly and specifically lest we unintentionally resolve an ambiguity in the statutory language or contribute to confusion where no ambiguity exists.”
We've added new speakers to the stellar lineup of leaders, lawmakers and newsmakers hitting the stage at The Texas Tribune Festival, happening Sept. 5–7 in downtown Austin. Get an up-close look at today's biggest issues at Texas' breakout politics and policy event!
The post Texas Supreme Court rejects abortion challenge appeared first on TexasTribune.org.
The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
Texas Tribune
How Houston ISD’s takeover could change U.S. schools
by By Asher Lehrer-Small and Danya Pérez, Houston Landing, The Texas Tribune – 2024-07-03 16:43:08
SUMMARY: Houston ISD saw major changes this school year under state-appointed superintendent Mike Miles. New policies included rapid teaching methods, daily student quizzes, and hallway silence. These transformations resulted from a historic state takeover aimed at reshaping the district. The overhaul focused on tying teacher pay to test scores and resulted in notable test score improvements and higher teacher salaries but also sparked controversy and high teacher turnover. The long-term success of these measures remains debated, with some seeing potential for broader implementation and others viewing them as unsustainable. Miles' approach has faced mixed reactions, with ongoing observations and concerns about its future impact.
—————-
FULL ARTICLE:
Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune's daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.
Todo cambió. Everything changed.
That's how Arturo Monsiváis described life this year for his fifth-grade son, who attends Houston ISD's Raul Martinez Elementary School. Teachers raced through rapid-fire lessons. Students plugged away at daily quizzes. Administrators banned children from chatting in the hallways.
Sitting in the parent pickup line on the last day of school, Monsiváis said his son often complained that the new assignments were too difficult. But Monsiváis, a construction worker, wouldn't accept any excuses: Study hard, he advised.
“I tell my son, ‘Look, do you want to be working out here in the sun like me, or do you want to be in an office one day? Think about it,'” Monsiváis said.
The seismic changes seen by Monsiváis' son and the 180,000-plus students throughout HISD this school year are the result of the most dramatic state takeover of a school district in American history, a grand experiment that could reshape public education across Texas and the nation.
In stunningly swift fashion, HISD's state-appointed superintendent and school board have redesigned teaching and learning across the district, sought to tie teacher pay more closely to student test scores, boosted some teacher salaries by tens of thousands of dollars and slashed spending on many non-classroom expenses.
First: Demonstrators rally in front of Hattie Mae White Educational Support Center in opposition to a possible takeover of the HISD's elected board by the TEA. Last: From left, Jaelauryn Brown, 8, Jaedis Brown, 13, and Jaeson Brown, 4, walk through the front rotunda of Houston ISD's Wheatley High School in Houston's Greater Fifth Ward on June 1, 2023.
Credit:
Houston Landing file photo / Marie D. De Jesús | Houston Landing file photo / Antranik Tavitian
The changes in HISD rival some of the most significant shakeups to a public school system ever, yet they've received minimal national media attention to date.
Still, district leaders, citing private conversations with researchers and superintendents, said education leaders throughout the U.S. are following the HISD efforts to see whether they may be worth replicating. Adding to the intrigue: Texas lawmakers have looked in recent years to policies used by HISD's new superintendent, former Dallas Independent School District chief Mike Miles, as inspiration for statewide legislation.
“I think people are watching and waiting,” HISD Board Secretary Angela Lemond Flowers said. “We're stepping out there big, and it's important because we are a big district and we have lots of students that we need to make sure we're serving better. Not in the next generation. Not in five years. Like, immediately.”
Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles.
Credit:
Antranik Tavitian/Houston Landing
Miles, the chief architect of HISD's new blueprint, has pointed to early successes — including strong improvement in state test scores this year — as evidence that his model works where others have failed. For decades, Black and Latino children in urban school districts like Houston have trailed well behind wealthier and white students in school.
Miles' critics, however, have blasted his approach as an unproven, unwanted siege on the district orchestrated by Texas Republicans. They cite high teacher turnover headed into the next school year and long-term questions about the affordability of Miles' plans as indicators the effort may be doomed.
Regardless of whether the HISD intervention becomes a shining success, a historic failure or something in between, it could help answer one of the most pressing questions in education: Can a large, urban public school district dramatically raise student achievement and shrink decades-old performance gaps, ultimately helping to close America's class divide?
“Back to the future”
The HISD intervention represents “by far the most bizarre state takeover that we've ever seen,” said Jonathan Collins, a Columbia University Teachers College associate professor who has worked with another takeover district, Providence Public Schools.
Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath.
Credit:
Houston Landing file photo/Sergio Flores
Typically, states take the reins of districts following major academic or financial scandals. HISD, by comparison, has scored at a “B” level in recent years under Texas' A-through-F rating system and kept its financial house in order.
But in 2019, HISD allowed one campus, Wheatley High School in Greater Fifth Ward, to receive a seventh straight failing grade from the state. Wheatley's scores triggered a Texas law — authored in 2015 by a Houston-area Democrat fed up with years of poor outcomes at some HISD schools — that gave Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath the right to replace the district's school board.
After three years of legal battles with HISD trustees, who tried to halt the takeover, Morath emerged victorious. He appointed Miles and nine local residents to run the district in June 2023.
Rather than focusing on the handful of HISD schools with the most flagrant academic underperformance, Miles overhauled a huge swath of the district — 85 out of roughly 270 schools — in his first year.
In doing so, Miles relied heavily on practices pioneered in the 2000s and 2010s by the so-called “education reform” movement, a loose collection of politicians, charter school organizers and district chiefs.
The group argued that instilling a “no-excuses” attitude toward student achievement and partially tying teacher pay to test score growth could dramatically improve American education. Miles implemented a similar playbook during his three-year stint leading Dallas ISD, an approach that helped improve student test scores but contributed to a near-doubling of the district's teacher turnover rate.
In recent years, the reform movement that inspired Miles' policies has largely fallen out of favor. The changes haven't consistently moved the needle on exam results nationwide, while high-stakes testing has become less popular.
But to Miles, the movement fell short for one main reason: It didn't go big enough.
So Miles required over 1,000 HISD teachers at over two dozen campuses to reapply for their jobs, ultimately replacing about half of them. He rearranged how educators teach students, requiring them to use an approach that mandates students must participate in class roughly every four minutes. And he rolled out new lesson plans for about a third of the district's schools that included short, daily quizzes in nearly all subjects.
Thomas Toch, the director of Georgetown University's FutureEd think tank, said Miles' approach “feels like sort of a ‘back to the future' moment.” The HISD overhaul currently represents “the largest effort to implement school improvement at scale,” Toch said.
While major public school reforms aren't new, the scope and speed of HISD's overhaul stand out.
Former District of Columbia Public Schools chancellor Michelle Rhee famously fought in the late 2000s to partially tie pay to exam score growth, but she didn't dictate classroom instruction techniques and school staffing models. New Orleans turned its 45,000-student district into an all-charter school system post-Hurricane Katrina, but fewer children saw big changes than in HISD. Even Miles' most ambitious reforms in Dallas targeted a fraction of the students as HISD.
“This is an effort, the largest in the country, to turn around a traditional, urban district,” Miles said. “That's what we're engaged in.”
First: A student works at a team center, Aug. 31, 2023, at Houston ISD's Sugar Grove Academy in Houston. Last: David Espinoza, at right, looks over his students' work during an Art of Thinking class at Houston Math, Science, and Technology Center High School in Houston on Jan. 25, 2024.
Credit:
Houston Landing file photo/Antranik Tavitian
A teacher helps a student in one of the team centers at Sugar Grove Academy in Houston on Aug. 31, 2023.
Credit:
Antranik Tavitian/Houston Landing
Wider model?
One year in, Miles' administration has scored some key victories.
The elementary and middle schools Miles targeted for changes saw, on average, a 7 percentage point increase in the share of students scoring at or above grade level on statewide reading and math tests, commonly known as the STAAR exams. Other HISD schools saw a 1 percentage point increase, while state averages slid in math and remained flat in reading.
“I think you can say pretty clearly that [the transformation model] has been working well,” Miles said when the scores came out.
HISD also has made some progress in meeting legal requirements for serving students with disabilities, an area in which the district has struggled for more than a decade, according to state-appointed conservators monitoring the district.
But other indicators could spell trouble for Miles' administration in year two and beyond.
As of early June, four weeks before educators' deadline to resign without penalty, roughly one-quarter of HISD's 11,000-plus teachers had left their positions ahead of the upcoming school year, district administrators said. Historically, HISD's teacher turnover rate has hovered around 15% to 20%.
The departures follow widespread complaints that, under Miles' leadership, district administrators micromanage teachers by frequently observing classroom instruction and providing feedback. David Berry, a former journalism teacher at Wisdom High School, recalled a fall meeting where district administrators scolded teachers for using student engagement strategies too infrequently.
“They proceeded to rip us apart,” said Berry, who plans to teach in a neighboring district next year. “I've never been talked to like that as a teacher, really, as a grownup.”
The financial viability of Miles' plans also remains in question. HISD ran a nearly $200 million deficit on a roughly $2.2 billion budget in Miles' first year, with much of the shortfall tied to dramatic increases in staffing and pay at overhauled schools. The district is budgeting a similar deficit next year, though it plans to use $80 million in unspecified property sales to lessen the blow.
Still, if HISD can continue to post strong test scores, history suggests Miles' model could soon spread beyond Houston.
Texas lawmakers, inspired by Miles' work, passed legislation in 2019 that allocated money to school districts that adopted teacher evaluation systems like the one he used in Dallas. Texas districts received nearly $140 million in 2022-23 under the law.
They also passed a law that allowed long-struggling campuses to skirt closure by replicating a turnaround plan Miles implemented in Dallas. Participating schools have to provide high levels of feedback on instruction, extend school hours and offer incentives for top-rated teachers and principals.
Miles last fall said his Houston work is “not a test case” for statewide policy. More recently, however, he alluded to the possibility of his model being implemented more widely.
“There's a lot of interest across the country, mostly from people who are educators, of what's happening here,” Miles said in a May interview. “This actually could be a proof point for others if it can be done.”
Harvard Graduate School of Education economist Thomas Kane, who has researched students struggling to rebound from the pandemic nationwide, said he believes HISD's overhaul could interest many district leaders.
“If there have been substantial improvements in student achievement gains simultaneously with improvements in student attendance, I think that will grab a lot of attention nationally and will make people curious about the Houston reforms,” Kane said.
Kourtney Revels, at center, the mother of a third-grade student at Houston ISD's Elmore Elementary School, confronts district staff limiting public access to a June 2023 school board meeting at HISD headquarters in northwest Houston.
Credit:
Annie Mulligan for Houston Landi
Community appetite
Even if HISD produces remarkable gains in the coming years, many elected school boards — which answer directly to local voters, unlike Miles and the state-appointed board — might not stomach upheaval on the level of Houston.
Miles' policies, coupled with his bulldozer style of leadership, have prompted family protests and student walkouts throughout his first year. Typically, more than 100 community members criticize his administration during school board meetings. In one particularly heated exchange from June, a district administrator repeatedly yelled “scoreboard” at a group of jeering audience members while pointing to a screen displaying student test scores.
Even some families that approached Miles' arrival with hopefulness have turned against the district's leadership. Tish Ochoa, the mother of an HISD middle schooler, said she began the school year “cautiously optimistic” but soured on Miles' plans as she heard reports of stressed-out teachers and changes to high-performing schools.
“I wouldn't say that I was like, ‘Rah-rah takeover,' but I was also like, ‘I hope this works.' I was supportive of the new administration coming in,” Ochoa said. “I don't feel that way anymore.”
Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles observes a classroom on Aug. 11, 2023, at Sugar Grove Academy in Houston's Sharpstown neighborhood.
Credit:
Houston Landing file photo/Antranik Tavitian
Miles has argued that many families quietly back his administration. However, few community members have spoken out in support of his efforts, save for a handful of nonprofits and civic groups largely backed by big-dollar philanthropy or business organizations.
At HISD's overhauled schools, many parents said they're open to timers ticking in classroom corners and rapid-fire quizzes — so long as their children aren't left behind.
“I don't care about the changes,” McReynolds Middle School mother Christina Balderas said. “The only thing I care about is when my daughter gets home and she tells me, ‘This is what I learned today, mom.' They can have all the changes in the world that they need.”
In the next few years, Morath likely will begin gradually bringing some of HISD's elected trustees back onto the school board, as outlined in state law. From there, they will decide which Miles policies to keep or dismantle.
Three of HISD's nine elected trustees responded to interview requests for this story: Sue Deigaard, Plácido Gómez and Dani Hernandez. They said they want to see multiple years of data on the impact of Miles' approach before solidifying their impressions.
Most said they would reverse unpopular details of Miles' plan, such as requiring some children to carry a traffic cone to the bathroom as a hall pass, but they found early evidence of the academic impact promising.
“If I had to make a decision right now of whether to continue [the overhaul model], I would,” said Gómez, who represents parts of eastern and central HISD. “There isn't enough data to say, ‘This definitely works,' but there's enough for me to want to continue on this path.”
Just in: Former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming; U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pennsylvania; and Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt will take the stage at The Texas Tribune Festival, Sept. 5–7 in downtown Austin. Buy tickets today!
The post How Houston ISD's takeover could change U.S. schools appeared first on TexasTribune.org.
The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
Texas Tribune
Gov. Abbott’s border wall will take around 30 years, $20B
by By Jasper Scherer, The Texas Tribune – 2024-07-03 05:00:00
SUMMARY: Governor Greg Abbott announced a state-funded border wall along Texas' Mexico border three years ago, resulting in 34 miles of steel bollards so far, at a cost of $25 million per mile. The fragmented wall faces challenges like securing land rights, with plans to cover 100 miles by 2026. Critics, including Democrats and some Republicans, argue the wall is costly and ineffective, while Abbott claims it helps combat illegal immigration. The project is part of Abbott's $11 billion border security initiative, but acquiring private land remains a significant hurdle. The wall's projected full completion could take 30 years and $20 billion.
—————-
FULL ARTICLE:
Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune's daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.
Three years after Gov. Greg Abbott announced Texas would take the extraordinary step of building a state-funded wall along the Mexico border, he has 34 miles of steel bollards to show for it.
That infrastructure — which has so far run up a price tag of some $25 million per mile — isn't yet a contiguous wall. It has gone up in bits and pieces spread across at least six counties on Texas' 1,254-mile southern border. Progress has been hampered by the state's struggles to secure land access, one of myriad challenges signaling a long and enormously expensive slog ahead for Abbott.
Nonetheless, state contractors have already propped up more wall mileage than former President Donald Trump's administration managed to build in Texas, and Abbott's wall project is plowing ahead at a quickened pace. State officials hope to erect a total of 100 miles by the end of 2026, at a rate of about half a mile per week. The governor frequently shares video of wall construction on social media and has credited the project with helping combat immigration flows. To date, though, steel barriers cover just 4% of the more than 800 miles identified by state officials as “in need of some kind of a barrier.” And at its current rate — assuming officials somehow persuade all private landowners along the way to turn their property over to the state — construction would take around 30 years and upwards of $20 billion to finish.
Under Abbott's direction, state lawmakers have approved more than $3 billion for the wall since 2021, making it one of the biggest items under the GOP governor's $11 billion border crackdown known as Operation Lone Star. The rest of the money is being used for items like flooding the border with state police and National Guard soldiers and transporting migrants to Democrat-controlled cities outside Texas, all of which Abbott and other Republicans say is needed to stem the historic number of migrants trying to enter the country.
Democrats and immigration advocates have cast the wall project as a taxpayer-funded pipe dream that will do nothing to address the root causes driving the immigration crisis. And they say the governor, in reviving what was once a hallmark of Trump's agenda, is using public money to boost his political stock.
Even some immigration-hawk Republicans are showing unease about the mounting costs of the wall.
“I am, too, concerned that we're spending a whole lot of money to give the appearance of doing something rather than taking the problem on to actually solve it, and until we do that, I don't expect to see much happen,” state Sen. Bob Hall, R-Edgewood, said last fall before voting in committee to spend another $1.5 billion in wall funding.
Abbott's office did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Acquiring land
The construction pace has largely hinged on the state's success securing rights to build the wall through privately owned borderland. Early on, the project showed little signs of life as state contractors struggled to obtain the needed easements. But things picked up last year as the state began working out more agreements covering larger tracts. Through mid-June, officials had secured 79 easements covering about 59 miles of the border, according to Mike Novak, executive director of the Texas Facilities Commission, which is overseeing the effort.
At a facilities commission meeting last month, Novak said state officials were in various stages of negotiation with landowners over another 113 miles.
“We knew from the beginning that this was going to be the choke point, you know, one of the most challenging parts of this program,” Novak said of land acquisition. “And it proved true. But we've remained steadfast.”
Officials had built 33.5 miles of wall through June 14, a facilities commission spokesperson said.
The state's ability to secure land rights has also dictated the wall's location, though officials say they have focused on areas pinpointed by the Department of Public Safety as the “highest priority.” TFC officials have declined to share exactly where the wall is being built, citing security concerns, though Novak recently said construction was underway on wall segments in Cameron, Maverick, Starr, Val Verde, Webb and Zapata counties.
Though the Texas-Mexico border spans more than 1,200 miles, Abbott's budget director, Sarah Hicks, told a Senate panel in 2022 that DPS had identified 805 miles “as vulnerable, or [that] is in need of some kind of a barrier.” Another 180 miles are covered by natural barriers, mostly in the Big Bend region of West Texas, while existing barriers already cover another 140 miles, according to state officials.
Novak has said the pace of building about half a mile of wall per week is expected to continue for the “foreseeable future.” At that rate, about 100 miles would go up every four years, with the full 805 miles covered sometime after 2050, when Abbott would be in his 90s.
The earliest wall construction has cost roughly $25 million to $30 million per mile, according to TFC officials. That would amount to $20 billion to $24 billion for the entire 805-mile span, or about three times the cost of paying every Texas public university student's tuition last year. The estimate does not account for the cost of maintaining the wall once it is built, which TFC estimates will cost around $500,000 per mile each year.
Lubbock state Sen. Charles Perry, who last year carried Texas' new immigration law that allows state police to arrest people for illegally crossing the Mexico border, is another Republican who has expressed concern about the wall's cost.
“I am for border security. I am not against a wall. But to me, at least from what I can tell, it is a perpetual circle. We're on the hamster wheel,” Perry said last fall as he prepared to vote for the $1.5 billion wall funding bill. “[At some point] the response has not to be more money for infrastructure. At some point this state must draw the line in the sand.”
Still, no Texas Republican has voted against border wall funding. Lawmakers approved nearly $2.5 billion for the effort in the state's current two-year budget — more than was allotted in state funds to all but a handful of state agencies, and more than twice what Texas spends on its court and juvenile justice systems.
State Rep. Christina Morales, D-Houston, said she doesn't think Texas' GOP leadership “really understands why people are crossing in the first place.”
“Spending billions of dollars on a wall really does not address the root causes of the migration that's happening,” said Morales, who is vice chair of the House's Mexican American Legislative Caucus. “What we should be investing in is our education, our health care, real solutions for problems that are happening right now in Texas.”
Since 2021, federal officials have recorded an average of about 2 million illegal border crossings a year, a record that Abbott has attributed to President Joe Biden for rolling back some of Trump's border policies. The governor has touted the wall construction as a way for Texas to “address the border crisis while President Biden has sat idly by.” Biden and other Democrats have blamed Republicans for shooting down a sweeping bipartisan border deal earlier this year.
The scope of Texas' wall construction — and Abbott's broader border security efforts — are unprecedented in nature, as the federal government is generally responsible for immigration enforcement and the costs associated with it.
Even with the state's improved pace securing easements, Novak has said land access remains the biggest challenge for the project, and “it'll probably remain that way through most of the program.” The Trump administration encountered the same issue after the former president famously said he would build the wall and make Mexico pay for it. Even using the federal government's power to seize some borderland, Trump's administration built just 21 miles of new wall along the Texas-Mexico border.
The painstaking negotiations are required for Texas' wall because lawmakers barred the use of eminent domain to gain land access.
Last year, state Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, filed legislation to change that, arguing TFC officials could only build a complete wall if they were authorized to use eminent domain powers. The proposal failed to make it through the Senate, though Creighton said he plans to file it again for the session that starts next January.
“Of course, we can continue to negotiate with ranchers, but that is a very slow process,” Creighton said. “And it's an incomplete process, because there will always be holdouts for different reasons.”
Creighton, one of the upper chamber's more conservative members, said he still supports using state funds to build a border wall, even as some of his GOP colleagues have raised objections.
“I say no to waste, inefficiencies, potential fraud and unreasonable spending as much as any member,” Creighton said. “But … there are times, with all of that fiscal conservatism, that we have to use the money that we save efficiently to protect Texans and Texas.”
“A difficult and complex task”
Most border wall advocates acknowledge barriers alone will not deter people from trying to enter the country illegally. But they say a wall would work if paired with more law enforcement officers and technology, arguing it would slow down attempted crossers to give border agents more time to apprehend them and encourage migrants to seek asylum via ports of entry.
But smuggling gangs have used ordinary power tools to saw through parts of Trump's wall and scaled it using disposable ladders. Some immigration experts say border walls fail to solve the underlying factors driving people to migrate, such as the poverty, violence and political upheaval in Central America, Haiti and Venezuela that is driving millions to flee and straining U.S. resources at the border.
“Walls do not achieve the objectives for which they are said to be erected; they have limited effects in stemming insurgencies and do not block unwanted [migrant] flows, but rather lead to a re-routing of migrants to other paths,” wrote Élisabeth Vallet of the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute in a 2022 report.
Those sorts of objections have done nothing to deter Abbott and GOP lawmakers, who are armed with a huge budget surplus and polling that shows a majority of Texas voters support the state's wall effort and overall border spending. More than 90% of Republican voters support the wall, with 74% voicing “strong” support, according to an April poll by the Texas Politics Project.
With construction plunging ahead, Novak has projected confidence about the wall's status, pointing to the recent progress after an initial slow start, which saw officials build less than 2 miles in the 12 months after Abbott announced the effort.
It's not just land access that complicates wall construction, Novak said at the June TFC meeting, where he ticked off a list of other factors: changing soil conditions that require “complicated engineering solutions”; steering clear of irrigation systems when building on agricultural land; weather; and “sensitivity” to cattle, oil and gas and hunting operations.
“It's a difficult and complex task, at best,” Novak said. “But with that said, we're whipping it. The latest stats reflect what I like to call just steadfast progress.”
Just in: Former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming; U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pennsylvania; and Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt will take the stage at The Texas Tribune Festival, Sept. 5–7 in downtown Austin. Buy tickets today!
The post Gov. Abbott's border wall will take around 30 years, $20B appeared first on TexasTribune.org.
The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
Texas Tribune
Biden administration proposes rule to prevent heat injuries
by By Asad Jung, The Texas Tribune – 2024-07-02 17:27:33
SUMMARY: The Biden-Harris administration proposed a rule to protect workers from extreme heat, following increased heat-related hazards for Texas employees like construction workers and cooks. The rule mandates employers to create plans preventing heat injuries, ensuring water access, rest breaks, and controlling indoor heat. Rep. Greg Casar, advocating for a federal heat standard, supports the proposal, anticipating its finalization by next summer. This rule follows Texas' HB 2127, which eliminated local ordinances for mandatory water breaks. Climate change has intensified heat in Texas, leading to record temperatures and deadly outcomes. At least 300 people died from heat in Texas last year, highlighting the need for protective measures.
—————-
FULL ARTICLE:
Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune's daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.
Above-normal high temperatures in recent summers have been outright dangerous for construction workers, kitchen cooks and other Texas employees who may be at risk for hazardous heat exposure.
But some relief may be on the way after the Biden-Harris administration announced a proposed rule Tuesday that aims to protect millions of workers from the risks of extreme heat.
The rule would require employers to develop a plan to prevent heat injuries and illnesses in workplaces and make sure their employees can access drinking water, get rest breaks and control indoor heat. It would apply to all employers conducting indoor or outdoor work in construction, agriculture and other sectors where the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has jurisdiction.
Before going into effect, OSHA must publish the proposal publicly and establish a period to collect public input.
“In many ways, this decades-long fight in Texas is helping expand workers' rights nationwide,” said U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, D-Austin, who has advocated for a federal workplace heat standard and rest and water breaks in Texas.
Casar led a thirst strike at the U.S. Capitol a year ago to draw attention to the issue. Casar hopes the Biden administration's proposed rule will be finalized by next summer.
The proposed federal requirements come a year after Texas legislators passed House Bill 2127, which barred cities and counties from passing local ordinances that go further than state law in several areas — from labor and finance to agriculture and natural resources.
HB 2127 eliminated ordinances in Austin and Dallas that established mandatory water breaks for construction workers. Supporters of the law said those kinds of ordinances bogged down businesses and created inconsistent standards across the state.
Climate change driven by humans burning fossil fuels is pushing temperatures higher in Texas. Last year was the hottest on record in the state. The state climatologist expects average temperatures and the number of triple-digit days will continue to rise.
Heat is deadly. It's known as a silent killer because its impacts are more nuanced than a tornado or a fire. But heat kills more people than any other type of weather, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. At least 300 people died in Texas last year from the heat, more than in any other year on record. Most of the deaths happened in populous metro regions, like Houston and Dallas Fort-Worth, as well as in border regions.
“We know that temperatures will continue to go up. So these protections need to be in place,” said Ana Gonzalez, deputy director of policy and politics at the Texas AFL-CIO.
Emily Foxhall contributed to this story.
Just in: Former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming; U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pennsylvania; and Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt will take the stage at The Texas Tribune Festival, Sept. 5–7 in downtown Austin. Buy tickets today!
The post Biden administration proposes rule to prevent heat injuries appeared first on TexasTribune.org.
The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
-
Texas News1 day ago
I-10 westbound from Beaumont to Houston reopens day after large crack prompted closure at Washington Boulevard
-
Videos7 days ago
Criminal trespass charges against 79 UT Austin protesters dismissed: attorney
-
Videos6 days ago
Supreme Court sides with Biden in Idaho abortion case
-
Videos6 days ago
Austin police used excessive force during arrest, couple says | FOX 7 Austin
-
Videos6 days ago
Joe Biden & Donald Trump to face each other in debate
-
Texas News7 days ago
Jamal Shead’s parents proud of son’s University of Houston basketball career to 2024 NBA Draft
-
Texas News7 days ago
HPD’s pursuit policy could benefit from tweaks after series of incidents involving other agencies, councilwoman says
-
Videos7 days ago
UT Austin protest: Charges dropped for nearly 80 protesters | FOX 7 Austin