QUOTE OF THE DAY
“It’s the state of Texas, if you’re going to go into someone’s home, you’re going to get shot. That’s really how we are. That’s just Texas.”
—Cathy Hanks, of Harris County, to KHOU. Hanks is the neighbor of a sixty-year-old grandmother who fatally shot two suspected burglars on Monday after they entered her home through an open garage door.
BIG NEWS
Money Pit
Texas’s law banning immigrant sanctuary cities is set to go into effect on September 1, and if that happens, the state could stand to lose billions of dollars, according the Houston Chronicle. The estimate comes from an economic analysis conducted by a group of Houston business leaders, city officials, and immigration advocates. The Reform Immigration for Texas Alliance presented its findings at a press conference on Tuesday, after looking at data from the U.S. Census, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The report says that should 10 percent of the state’s undocumented immigrants leave, Texas would lose about $190.7 million in federal tax revenue and $223.5 million more in state and local taxes. With the loss of those 95,000 undocumented workers, Texas would also see about $2.9 billion in wage earnings disappear, plus a loss of about 70,000 jobs that depend on undocumented consumers, which would cost an additional $2.4 billion in lost wages. In total, the analysis shows Texas could lose between $9.2 billion and $13.8 billion. The law, Senate Bill 4, would require local governments and law enforcement agencies to cooperate with federal immigration authorities, a measure supporters like Governor Greg Abbott says will make Texas safer. Critics of the law say it allows for racially biased immigration policing.
MEANWHILE, IN TEXAS
Bey Ball
The Houston Rockets are on the market, and a big name celebrity might be interested in putting a ring on the NBA team: Beyoncé. The newly-minted mother of twins is reportedly thinking about investing in the franchise, according to Bloomberg. Now, Beyoncé obviously has a lot of other things on her plate right now, like making music and raising three kids and generally running the world—could she actually add owning an NBA team to her busy life? Well, probably. She is Beyoncé. Still, she may not be able to take full control of the team—Houston’s sale is estimated to exceed $2 billion—but it’s actually pretty common for celebs to own a part of a sports team. Beyoncé’s husband, Jay-Z, for example, used to own some of the Brooklyn Nets. If Beyoncé did dump some money into the Rockets, it would only make sense for the team to change its name to the Houston Bey Hive.
No Deal
Embattled Texas State Representative Dawnna Dukes turned down a plea deal from the Travis County District Attorney’s Office, which offered the Austin Democrat a chance to have all corruption charges against her dropped if she’d just resign from office, according to the Austin American-Statesman. Dukes was given until the end of the day on Tuesday to accept the offer, and by five in the evening, Travis County District Attorney Margaret Moore said her office hadn’t heard anything from Dukes’s camp, so they rescinded the offer. If she had taken the deal, all fifteen criminal corruption charges against Dukes would have been dropped so long as she resigned, submitted to drug and alcohol testing and treatment, and paid $3,500 in fines and restitution. “The offer to resolve this matter has expired and is no longer available,” Moore told the Statesman. “We will be ready for trial.” Dukes’s trial is set for October. She cracked Texas Monthly‘s annual list of Worst Legislators earlier this year.
No Problem
U.S. Representative Roger Williams, a Republican representing Austin, was cleared by the House Committee on Ethics Tuesday after allegations that he had a conflict of interest on a piece of legislation he supported, according to the Dallas Morning News. Williams was under review for his 2015 vote to add an amendment benefiting auto dealers to a transportation bill. He is the owner of Roger Williams Auto Mall, an auto dealership that also offers car rentals for customers while their cars are repaired. According to the committee’s report, the business made about $63 million in 2015. Williams’s amendment was later removed from the bill, but it would have exempted companies not “primarily” in the car rental business from a proposal that would bar rental car companies from offering vehicles subject to safety recalls. “The Committee concluded that the evidence is insufficient to warrant further action against Representative Williams,” according to the committee report, which was released Tuesday. “While the Williams Amendment could have affected Representative Williams’s personal financial interests, the totality of the circumstances surrounding Representative Williams’s actions did not create a reasonable inference of improper conduct in this matter.”
WHAT WE’RE READING
Some links are paywalled or subscription-only.
A mysterious Dallas financier is allegedly behind a fake news story meant to distract the public from Trump’s ties to Russia Dallas Morning News
A conversation between Ted Cruz and his college mentor The Atlantic
Hey, this calf looks like Gene Simmons from the band KISS Associated Press
A nine-year-old Amarillo boy who Odell Beckham visited in the hospital died on Monday Amarillo Globe-News
Someone please help this La Feria man get justice for the damage done to his car by a rogue pizza delivery sign KRGV
