All from the Texas Tribune:
- Texas proposal would keep cities from restricting short-term home rentals.
A legislative proposal that would limit local government control of short-term home rentals in Texas has reawakened a fight over regulations that has already played out in cities across the state. Senate Bill 451 by state Sen. Kelly Hancock, R- North Richland Hills, would prevent Texas cities from banning or restricting short-term rentals. Austin, San Antonio and Fort Worth are among the cities that have enacted such restrictions. Critics of the bill said it would lower property values and allow Texans to rent houses to people who might host disruptive parties and increase traffic in their neighborhoods.
- Unlikely allies: some homeschoolers fighting to kill school choice bill.
Nicki Truesdell is a product of homeschooling and would never enroll her four younger children in a public or private school. Corrine French has spent the last five years serving on the board of a rural public school district in North Texas. Both are terrified a "private school choice" bill will pass this legislative session. The longtime friends say they were surprised to find themselves on the same side of an education policy fight as state senators consider a bill to give parents debit cards to pay for private school and homeschooling, using taxpayer money. The polarizing issue has brought together unlikely allies, with some homeschoolers, rural conservatives and public education advocates fighting what they see as an encroachment on their schools.
- Analysis: In bathroom bill, politics disguised as policy.
The proposed bathroom bill percolating in the Texas Legislature doesn’t do what its supporters say it is supposed to do. Here’s the caption — the legal description at the top of Senate Bill 6: “relating to regulations and policies for entering or using a bathroom or changing facility; authorizing a civil penalty; increasing criminal penalties.”
That’s pretty straightforward, because it has to be, but the rhetoric around the bill is more florid — and misleading. It purports to protect Texans answering nature’s calls from people of the opposite sex. It has a logical flaw, however, because it doesn’t protect them in most of the public restrooms in the state — only the public restrooms in public buildings.
- The Brief: Bill banning wrongful birth lawsuits heads to Senate committee.
