Texas Democrats Take Center Stage at DNC Summer Meeting Amid Redistricting Battles

Chase Smith, 08/25/2025,  Brandon Bell/Getty Images

State House Minority Leader Gene Wu detailed Texas Democrats’ quorum-busting in recent weeks as other states like California weigh counter redistricting.

Texas Democrats got a heroes’ welcome on opening day of the Democratic National Committee’s summer meeting in Minneapolis, with DNC Chair Ken Martin and Texas House Minority Leader Gene Wu outlining their response to Republicans’ redistricting plan.

“We’re fighting fire with fire in Texas with a massive mobilization effort, and working alongside brave Texas Democrats who are standing up and squaring up with [Gov.] Greg Abbott and [President] Donald Trump,” Martin said in his opening remarks on Aug. 25.

Texas Senate Panel Advances House-Passed Map, Setting Up Floor Vote

https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/texas-senate-panel-advances-house-passed-map-setting-up-floor-vote-5904187

By Jackson Richman, 08/21/25. https://www.theepochtimes.com/author/jackson-richman

A Texas Senate committee advanced a newly drawn congressional map on Aug. 21 that was passed by the state House, setting it up for a vote on the state Senate floor.

The vote tally in the Texas Senate Special Committee on Congressional Redistricting was 5–3.

The map would likely flip five U.S. congressional seats in the Lone Star State in favor of the GOP. If the state Senate passes the map, it will go to Gov. Greg Abbott for his signature. The state Senate is scheduled to meet on Thursday evening.

The committee advanced the map to the floor a day after the state House passed its map 88–52, following a several-hours-long session.

“I congratulate Speaker [Dustin] Burrows and the Republican members of the Texas House of Representatives for passing congressional districts that better reflect the actual votes of Texans,” Abbott said in an Aug. 20 statement. "While Democrats shirked their duty, in futility, and ran away to other states, Republicans stayed the course, stayed at work and stayed true to Texas. I will sign this bill once it passes the Senate and gets to my desk.”

Texas AG Sues Eli Lilly

by Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing Eli Lilly for allegedly “bribing” doctors to prescribe the company’s most profitable drugs, including its GLP-1 weight-loss medications Mounjaro and Zepbound. 

Many of the prescriptions were covered by Texas Medicaid, resulting in “millions of dollars” in claims made at taxpayers’ expense, the suit alleges.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing Eli Lilly for allegedly “bribing” doctors to prescribe the company’s most profitable drugs, including its GLP-1 weight-loss.  

IED Kills Texas Rancher. Cartels Expected to Be Responsible, Official Says

Virginia Allen | February 25, 2025

The Daily Signal

An improvised explosive device killed a Texas Rancher last month, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller says.

“This shocking act of violence highlights the growing threat posed by cartel activity along our southern border,” Miller said in a statement Tuesday. 

Antonio Céspedes Saldierna, 74, (pictured above)  was killed at the end of January when his vehicle detonated an IED on his ranch in San Fernando, Tamaulipas, Mexico, according to local Rio Grande Valley’s KGRV-TV Channel 5, the local ABC affiliate. Tamaulipas borders the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas.

Saldierna was a U.S. citizen and worked on both sides of the border.  

Fake History Alert: Because Whites Were Never Enslaved, DEI Must Continue

By Raymond Ibrahim  

[B]ecause the ancestors of white Americans have never been enslaved, whites can never know what true oppression is. So argued Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) at a recent hearing on DEI (“diversity, equity, and inclusion”).  At one point she yelled out:

You tell me which white man was dragged out of their homes! 

You tell me which one of them got dragged all the way across an ocean and told that you’re gunna go to work!  We’re gunna steal your wives—we’re gunna rape your wives. That didn’t happen—that is oppression!

Such statements reveal a staggering level of ignorance. Untold millions of white people have been enslaved, raped, and forced into labor since well before recorded history. And not a few of their enslavers were non-whites.

Texas Supreme Court Upholds Ban on Transition-Related Care for Minors

By William Melhado and Asad Jung, published 06/28/24

The Texas Supreme Court upheld a recent state law that prohibits doctors from prescribing gender-affirming care to transgender minors after parents and medical professionals challenged the constitutionality of the restriction.

Justice Rebeca Aizpuru Huddle, who delivered the opinion of the court, said “fit parents” have a right to raise their children without government interference, but also said that such a right is not absolute.

“When developments in our society raise new and previously unconsidered questions about the appropriate line between parental autonomy on the one hand and the Legislature’s authority to regulate the practice of medicine on the other, our Constitution does not render the Legislature powerless to provide answers,” she wrote.

Not Dead Yet Comment on Proposed Texas Futility Regulations

Dear Chief Counsel: 

Not Dead Yet [headed by Diane Coleman, pictured here] is a national disability rights organization focused on combatting disability- based healthcare discrimination, particularly in the context of advanced or terminal illness. Our comment concerns the regulations to implement the 2023 amendments to the Texas Advance Directives Act governing DNR orders and medical futility conflicts (H.B. 3162) proposed by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission.

Section 166.046 of the Texas Health and Safety Code now requires an ethics or medical committee that reviews a physician’s refusal to honor an advance directive or health care or treatment decision to consider the patient’s wellbeing and not make any judgment on the patient’s quality of life.