The Texas Railroad Commission no longer regulates railroads but has the critical role of providing oversight of the Texas oil and gas industry and related industries like pipelines. Unfortunately, it has many issues, least of which is commissioners receiving 60% of their campaign funding from the industry they regulate.
Although a majority of Texans oppose construction of data centers in their communities, data centers, with Governor Abbott's full support, are taking advantage of Texas’ weak regulatory structure to vastly expand their plans. Call your reps to demand that data center construction ceases until more guidelines are put in place.
Susan Dollar, a local Democrat, refutes Scott Kramer's assertions about Republican Party accomplishments in a May 31 column in The Boerne Star.
With the primary runoff complete, we now have our full slate of Democratic candidates for the November mid-term election. It’s a strong slate, filled with candidates with rich and varied backgrounds and a passion to work to improve the lives of all Texans.
Partisan and racial gerrymandering are major contributors to the current polarization in our nation. This polarization has led to a dysfunctional government dominated by extreme views. Moderate conservative and moderate progressive voters are often left out of the discussion, letting extreme views dominate.
Under Jane Nelson's leadership, the TxSoS Elections Division, previously a very efficient and responsive agency, has become much more difficult to work with. Issues run from inaccurate and late voter file updates and voter history files to not sending out voter registration cards. It’s clear that our Republican leadership wants the Texas election system to fail. It’s long past time to elect statewide leadership that works in the interests of voters, not against them. Time to elect Democratic leadership.
Our judicial system appears to be the only entity protecting us from a totalitarian regime bent on taking complete control of our nation. The huge number of losses in court by this administration is thanks to organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and closer to home, the Texas Freedom Network.
CEOs are now being paid 280 times that of a typical worker. This happens because the system is rigged for the wealthy. The richest 1% of our population own 34% of the nation’s wealth--more than 10 times that of the bottom 50%. The top 100 richest families gave $2.6 billion to federal elections in 2024. There are numerous things we can do to address the issues, such as enact laws that make all political contributions public with full disclosure of the donors and antitrust laws.
Early voting begins on Tuesday and runs through February 27. Early voting is held at the KCEO office on Fawn Valley. (Unfortunately, due to changes passed by the Texas Legislature, Comfort will not have an early voting location.) Election Day is Tuesday, March 3. Kendall County will have eleven polling locations, and you can vote at any one of them.
Texas ranks 46th in “ease of voting,” according to a 2022 study in the “Election Law Journal.” The study states, “voting still is not easy in Texas [as compared to 2020]. Implement these 4 steps to make voting easier in Texas: implement online voter registration, allow anyone to cast an absentee ballot, simplify the process for a mail-in ballot, and broaden the range of acceptable photo IDs.