Texas Tribune
Why GOP leaders snubbed Katrina Pierson in House primary
by By Jasper Scherer, The Texas Tribune – 2024-05-09 05:00:00
SUMMARY: Governor Greg Abbott, initially silent regarding Katrina Pierson's candidacy against Texas Representative Justin Holland, has now aligned himself with Pierson post-primary. Despite their past conflicts and her criticisms of him, Abbott seeks to unseat anti-voucher incumbent Holland. Abbott's endorsement consolidates after six anti-voucher Republicans were ousted in the primary, a number close to securing a pro-voucher majority in the House. Pierson, known for her tea party roots and former role as Trump's spokesperson, didn't receive primary support from key GOP figures like Trump or Cruz but did push Holland into a runoff. Her maverick reputation and history of clashing with GOP elites have complicated her standing within the party. Abbott has invested heavily in voucher-friendly candidates, spending $6 million on March contests, and Pierson's runoff has become a pivotal school voucher battle. Her campaign highlights her tea party activism and association with Trump, while Holland, criticized for his anti-Trump sentiments and critical votes on gun control and impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton, faces a tough reelection with substantial third-party spending against him.
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Ahead of the March primary, Gov. Greg Abbott was raining cash on conservative candidates attempting to oust House Republicans who helped defeat his school voucher push in the last legislative session.
But not Katrina Pierson.
The former North Texas tea party leader didn't get a dime from the governor, even though she was running against one of his would-be targets: state Rep. Justin Holland, R-Rockwall. Abbott stayed noticeably silent in that race, despite Pierson's vociferous backing of vouchers and her high-profile stint as Donald Trump's campaign spokesperson.
That quickly changed after the primary elections, which saw the defeat of six anti-voucher Republicans — just shy of the number needed to secure a pro-voucher majority in the House, according to Abbott's math. That night, Pierson pushed Holland into a primary runoff, after narrowly leading their three-person race.
Two days later, Abbott rallied to her side.
Pierson, a onetime Abbott critic who worked to drive him from office just two years ago, now counts the governor among her key allies as she vies to unseat Holland in the May 28 overtime round for House District 33. The governor kicked off his runoff campaign tour with a rally for Pierson, and he is expected to draw from his multimillion-dollar war chest to support her, having already dropped $6 million on an array of March contests.
Pierson was the only GOP primary challenger to make it past the first round against an anti-voucher incumbent without support from Abbott, Trump, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick or U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, each of whom backed pro-voucher challengers in a number of other House contests.
Like Abbott, Patrick endorsed Pierson after the March 5 primary. She has yet to draw support from Trump or Cruz, however, a snub made all the more notable by her ties to both Republicans: Pierson was an early backer of Cruz's 2012 Senate bid, stumping for the tea party upstart in her spare time before later establishing herself as the face of Trump's campaign.
The hesitation among GOP power brokers to embrace Pierson's campaign is a sign of her unsteady status within the party as her runoff emerges as one of the marquee battles over school vouchers. Pierson's long-standing grassroots ties have won her fervent support among some who fought alongside her during the tea party days, but her reputation for throwing sharp elbows and publicly trashing powerful Republicans, including Abbott, has led others to keep her at arm's length.
The governor's move to back Pierson, meanwhile, reinforces that he is willing to do whatever it takes to get his signature issue across the finish line, even if it means vigorously supporting a candidate who savaged his record — and going to war with former allies like Holland, once praised by Abbott as a “conservative stalwart.” It is also a sign that Holland's critics see him as more vulnerable than ever, after he failed to break 40% in the March primary. Pierson and her allies are hoping to seize on Holland's own outspoken criticism of Trump, along with a handful of key votes he took last year, including his support for a gun control measure and the impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Abbott, Cruz and Trump's campaigns did not respond to questions about their endorsement decisions.
Pierson brushed off concerns about her lack of support from Trump or Cruz, pointing to endorsements she has landed from Paxton and Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, along with the more recent backing of Abbott and Patrick.
“Everyone I have personally asked has endorsed my campaign,” Pierson said in an email. “Justin Holland is so desperate to hide his Never Trump actions that he is projecting them onto me.”
Ruffling feathers
Pierson, 47, has had a colorful run in state and national politics since she came onto the scene in the nascent days of the tea party, shortly after Barack Obama's 2008 presidential election win.
By the time Trump tapped Pierson as his top spokesperson in late 2015, she had already ruffled feathers in Texas GOP circles. Some of Cruz's allies accused her of inflating the role she played as a volunteer for his Senate campaign and sidling up to Cruz when cameras were around — charges she dismissed as “sour grapes.” Pierson inflamed tensions with Cruzworld when, echoing Trump, she suggested Cruz was ineligible to run for president because he was born in Canada, despite having previously defended him on the issue.
Pierson has leaned into her bomb-throwing reputation, calling herself a “battled-tested conservative fighter” in campaign ads.
She first sought elected office in 2014, waging an unsuccessful primary challenge to U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions in his then-Dallas district. The campaign shed light on Pierson's turbulent upbringing, after a report turned up her 1997 arrest for shoplifting from a J.C. Penney in Plano. Pierson, who was 21 at the time, told The Dallas Morning News she had needed the clothes for a job interview and said the episode turned her life around. Born to a 15-year-old mother who depended on drugs and government assistance, Pierson became pregnant at the age of 19 and raised her son as a single mother.
Her story of overcoming obstacles helped fuel her rise in a tea party movement whose ripples are still playing out today, as a record number of House incumbents face ouster from insurgent candidates in Pierson's mold. Her long-running grassroots ties have won her support from a number of leading hardline activist groups — though her candidacy has met a less-than-enthusiastic reception among others.
“Pierson is a nut case who has no business in elected office,” Austin-based GOP strategist Matt Mackowiak tweeted last year in response to a report that Pierson might run. When Pierson joined Trump's campaign in 2015, Mackowiak — who has known Pierson since she volunteered for Cruz's Senate campaign — also told Politico “there is no principle that she isn't willing to abandon for the right price.”
Pierson is hoping her detractors will be outweighed by high-profile backers like Miller, the agriculture commissioner who, in endorsing Pierson earlier this year, said Trump “saw the talent and capability of Katrina Pierson early and made her an important part of his campaign and presidency,” adding that Texas “is lucky to have her now.”
Pierson has also won Abbott's support despite having worked for the governor's 2022 primary challenger, Don Huffines, who enlisted her as a campaign surrogate. In late 2021, Pierson delivered a scathing rebuke of Abbott, accusing him of “catering to Democrats” on COVID-19 policies and belatedly shifting to the right at Huffines' behest.
“I, for one, am embarrassed that [Florida Gov.] Ron DeSantis is leading the fight for freedom in this country — it is embarrassing — while Greg Abbott does nothing,” Pierson told congregants at a church down the road from her native Forney, a boomtown of the Dallas suburbs.
Pierson, meanwhile, has had a mixed relationship with Trump and his orbit since the 2020 campaign. In the leadup to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Pierson reportedly worked behind the scenes to distance the president from prominent “Stop the Steal” figures such as Ali Alexander and Alex Jones who were initially expected to be a part of the preceding rally. In text messages from the day after the riot that were made public by congressional investigators in 2022, Pierson said she was glad to have worked to “keep the crazies off the stage” and “shield (Trump) from direct affiliation” with groups who led the march on the capitol.
She reiterated that stance this week. “I am President Trump's key witness for January 6th,” Pierson said in an email. ”The record shows that I protected the President and his family from the grifting troublemakers, which is why I remain on-call in the event that his legal team needs me to testify on the President's behalf again.”
At the same time, Pierson has not displayed the sort of unwavering fealty that Trump typically demands. She has said Trump did “generational damage with COVID and [his support for] the vaccine” and failed to follow through on his campaign promise of “draining the swamp” in Washington, D.C. She also criticized Trump's campaign for threatening to blackball GOP operatives who worked for DeSantis, Trump's onetime presidential rival, and said it should be possible to support both Republicans “simultaneously.”
Trump has played an especially active role in down-ballot Texas primaries this year, endorsing 18 GOP legislative candidates, including eight challengers running against anti-voucher incumbents.
Even without Trump's support, Pierson has featured her former boss heavily in her campaign, running digital ads that picture the two posing side by side under a tagline Pierson has also used in TV ads: “When you go to the polls to vote for President Trump, vote for Katrina Pierson.”
Holland under fire
Holland, a 40-year-old real estate broker and former Heath City Council member, is seeking a fifth two-year term in the House. The challenge from Pierson marks his first truly competitive primary since his initial run for the seat in 2016.
The Rockwall Republican provided much of the ammunition for Pierson's campaign when he cast a handful of votes last year that angered the GOP's grassroots base. His reelection bid poses a test of whether Texas Republicans can survive such perceived transgressions in an era when even the most strident partisans can see their careers unravel over a single issue.
Holland has also been openly critical of Trump in recent years, including when the former president jabbed at Texas Republicans who backed out of the NRA's 2022 annual meeting in Houston, days after the Uvalde school shooting. Holland responded by tweeting that Trump “is out of touch and is not a true Statesman” and vowed not to support him again. He has also called for a new party leader “to restore the GOP to civility” and said Trump “is not welcome in Texas.”
Beyond Holland's opposition to school vouchers, Pierson has zeroed in on two other key votes he took near the tail end of the 2023 regular session. Among them is Holland's vote to impeach Paxton, which centered on allegations the attorney general accepted bribes and abused the power of his office to help a friend and campaign donor. Holland was one of 60 House Republicans — more than 70% of the chamber's GOP contingent — who moved to impeach Paxton and suspend him from office; Paxton was later acquitted by the Senate.
Holland has also faced backlash from some GOP voters over his vote to advance a bill that would have raised the minimum age to purchase certain semi-automatic rifles — specifically those with a caliber greater than .22 and capable of accepting a detachable magazine.
Supporters of the measure — which would have restricted access to such firearms for anyone younger than 21 — argued it might have thwarted the 2022 Uvalde school shooting, in which a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers using an AR-15-style rifle he bought shortly after turning 18. Critics said the measure ran afoul of the Constitution and would not have stopped criminals from accessing semi-automatic rifles.
In a surprise move, Holland and another Republican, state Rep. Sam Harless of Spring, joined with Democrats on a House committee to send the bill to the full chamber. It was an especially notable vote for Holland, who had authored a bill two years earlier that made Texas a “Second Amendment sanctuary state” — essentially making it harder for federal officials to enforce new gun control measures. Holland also voted that year for a law that allows Texans to carry handguns without a license or training — a measure that, he noted, only applies to people 21 and older.
Holland said he knew the gun vote would earn him some grief, but he felt obligated to support the bill after listening to hours of testimony that convinced him it was “a reasonable proposal.”
“I definitely think it has caused me some issues, in terms of people who maybe were supporters and couldn't get past it. And I respect them for that,” Holland said. “Ultimately, I'm the one that has to sleep at night whenever I take a vote, and I take all my votes on principle and not political expediency. And I think that that's what that came down to.”
Abbott criticized Holland over the gun vote this year, posting on social media that he had “voted against gun rights” and “voted to put Democrats in leadership positions” — a nod to Holland's support for House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont. Phelan, who faces a runoff of his own, has continued the tradition of appointing Democrats to chair some committees, despite pressure from the right to nix the practice.
Holland noted that Abbott's criticism came the day after he announced his endorsement of Harless, who also voted to advance the raise-the-age gun bill and supported Phelan for speaker. Unlike Holland, though, Harless voted against stripping a voucher proposal from a broader education funding bill last fall, the vote that effectively doomed Abbott's voucher bid.
Holland said he is “not mad” at Abbott, though he added, “there's just no consistency to the way that the man has behaved.” He said the governor's scorched-earth approach to the primaries has soured his relationship with any Republican members who survive the purge.
“He just doesn't seem to be behaving like somebody that expects to be the governor next session, because you have to work with members,” Holland said, noting that Abbott has been floated as a potential Trump running mate or Cabinet official. “After it's all said and done, and the dust settles, it's difficult to visualize how next session might work, with a lot of the members that do come back.”
Abbott has found a pair of deep-pocketed allies in his quest to unseat Holland and other anti-voucher lawmakers, including AFC Victory Fund, a super PAC affiliated with the pro-voucher American Federation for Children. The group has spent more than $280,000 on online ads and mailers attacking Holland and supporting Pierson. Another committee, Club for Growth Action, has reserved $4 million worth of TV ads to target Holland and four other Republicans, with half the money slotted for the Dallas-Fort Worth market.
The spending has prompted Holland to run his own ads swiping at Pierson for her support from “TikTok billionaire” Jeff Yass, the Pennsylvania-based GOP megadonor whose priority issues include school vouchers. Though Yass — who owns a stake in TikTok's parent company — has not donated directly to Pierson's campaign, he has given $5.7 million to the American Federation for Children-linked super PAC, more than half its funding this cycle. He also made a $6 million donation to Abbott last year and gave $16 million to Club for Growth Action.
Holland alleged that Pierson would be “a puppet for the people that are trying to buy her vote right now” and said her lack of experience in elected office casts uncertainty on how she would vote in Austin.
“Her best quality is that she's a talented communicator,” Holland said. “When she talks in front of a crowd, she doesn't really scratch the surface on anything, doesn't ever really directly answer questions about policy. She just kind of answers the way she was trained to talk on TV.”
Pierson noted that Yass “has not contributed a penny to my campaign” and said Holland's “puppet” attack was an attempt to deflect from his own donors, who include Charles Butt, the H-E-B grocery store chairman who backs Republicans opposed to school vouchers. She also bashed him for accepting support from a casino PAC pushing to legalize gambling in Texas.
“My opponent's campaign contributions are far more concerning,” Pierson said.
Robert Downen contributed to this report.
Disclosure: H-E-B and Politico have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
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Texas Tribune
Trump says Paxton would make good U.S. attorney general
by By Jasper Scherer, The Texas Tribune – 2024-05-20 08:47:03
SUMMARY: Former President Donald Trump is considering Ken Paxton, Texas' Attorney General, for the role of U.S. Attorney General if re-elected. Trump commended Paxton's abilities and loyalty, highlighting his legal challenge to the 2020 election results and his support during Trump's impeachment defense. Paxton was impeached for bribery allegations but acquitted, with Trump claiming credit for the outcome. Recent polls show Trump leading President Biden in key states. Paxton's legal issues have diminished following the dropping of securities fraud charges, although federal investigations continue. If nominated, Paxton's Senate confirmation faces partisan challenges and opposition from notable Republicans.
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Former President Donald Trump said he would consider tapping Ken Paxton for U.S. attorney general if he wins a second term in the White House, calling his longtime ally “a very talented guy” and praising his tenure as Texas' chief legal officer.
“I would, actually,” Trump said Saturday when asked by a KDFW-TV reporter if he would consider Paxton for the national post. “He's very, very talented. I mean, we have a lot of people that want that one and will be very good at it. But he's a very talented guy.”
Paxton has long been a close ally of Trump, famously waging an unsuccessful legal challenge to Trump's 2020 election loss in four battleground states. He also spoke at the pro-Trump rally that preceded the deadly U.S. Capitol riot in January 2021.
Paxton's loyalty was rewarded with an endorsement from Trump in the 2022 primary, which helped the attorney general fend off three prominent GOP challengers.
Trump also came to Paxton's defense when he was impeached last year for allegedly accepting bribes and abusing the power of his office to help a wealthy friend and campaign donor. After Paxton was acquitted in the Texas Senate, Trump claimed credit, citing his “intervention” on his Truth Social platform, where he denounced the proceedings and threatened political retribution for Republicans who backed the impeachment.
“I fought for him when he had the difficulty and we won,” he told KDFW. “He had some people really after him, and I thought it was really unfair.”
Trump's latest comments, delivered at the National Rifle Association's annual convention in Dallas, come after a series of recent polls have shown the presumptive Republican nominee leading President Joe Biden in a handful of key battleground states.
Paxton has also seen his political prospects rise in recent months, after prosecutors agreed in March to drop three felony counts of securities fraud that had loomed over Paxton for nearly his entire tenure as attorney general. The resolution of the nine-year-old case, along with Paxton's impeachment acquittal in the Senate last fall, has brought him closer than ever to a political career devoid of legal drama.
Still, Paxton's critics say he is far from vindicated. He remains under federal investigation for the same allegations that formed the basis of his impeachment, and he continues to face a whistleblower lawsuit from former deputies who said they were illegally fired for reporting Paxton to law enforcement. A separate lawsuit from the state bar seeks to penalize Paxton for his 2020 election challenge, which relied on discredited claims of election fraud.
If nominated, Paxton would need to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. The chamber is narrowly divided along party lines, with Democrats holding a 51-49 majority. One of the most prominent Republican members, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, has been an outspoken critic of Paxton, while Paxton has openly entertained the idea of challenging Cornyn in 2026.
Paxton is not the only Texan Trump has floated for a high-profile spot in his potential administration. In February, he said Gov. Greg Abbott is “absolutely” on his short list of potential vice presidential candidates. Abbott has since downplayed his interest in the job.
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Texas Tribune
These Texans aren’t taking buyouts despite repeated floods
by By Emily Foxhall, The Texas Tribune – 2024-05-20 05:00:00
SUMMARY: Recent floods in Harris County, Texas, have devastated homes along the San Jacinto River. Tom Madigan, who owns multiple properties, quickly started repairs without knowing the Harris County Flood Control District aims to buy out such flood-prone properties. The region has a longstanding buyout program to remove homes from high-risk flood areas, with about 800 out of 2,400 targeted properties purchased. However, buyouts are voluntary and often insufficient for low-income residents. Despite the program, many choose to stay due to affordability and community ties, while others like Madigan remain skeptical of receiving a fair offer.
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HARRIS COUNTY — After the floodwaters earlier this month just about swallowed two of the six homes that 60-year-old Tom Madigan owns on the San Jacinto River, he didn't think twice about whether to fix them. He hired people to help, and they got to work stripping the walls, pulling up flooring and throwing out water-logged furniture.
What Madigan didn't know: The Harris County Flood Control District wants to buy his properties as part of an effort to get people out of dangerously flood-prone areas.
Back-to-back storms drenched southeast Texas in late April and early May, causing flash flooding and pushing rivers out of their banks and into low-lying neighborhoods. Officials across the region urged people in vulnerable areas to evacuate.
Like Madigan's, some places that were inundated along the San Jacinto in Harris County have flooded repeatedly. And for nearly 30 years, the flood control district has been trying to clear out homes around the river by paying property owners to move, then returning the lots to nature.
The recent floods show why buyout programs can be important. These spots typically flood first and worse. Gov. Greg Abbott reported that hundreds of rescues took place in the state while the floods destroyed homes. A man drowned and a child was swept away into the floods. One Harris County resident described climbing on top of his motor home as the water rose before first responders rescued him.
But the disaster and its aftermath also illustrate why buyouts are complicated to carry out even in Harris County, home to Houston, which has one of the most robust buyout programs in the country. The flood control district has identified roughly 2,400 properties as current buyout candidates around the San Jacinto; the district and county have bought about 800 of them.
Nearly all of the district's buyouts are voluntary. If an owner doesn't want to sell, the district can't force them out.
Buyouts make sense for some people who can't be protected from floods, said Alessandra Jerolleman, director of research for the Center on Environment, Land and Law at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law.
But buyouts might not provide lower-income people enough money to get somewhere safer, she said, and they could lose important support like child care from nearby family or neighbors.
“It's not as though it's a guarantee of reducing risks to that family,” Jerolleman said.
People who live near the river and who have endured repeated floods explained that they've stayed because it's affordable and, most of the time, peaceful. Where else would they be able to buy anything like it? Some said they didn't think the government would offer them what they consider a fair price to sell their land. Some didn't know the buyout program existed.
Madigan started buying homes more than 15 years ago in the unincorporated River Terrace neighborhood because they were cheap. On Tuesday, the Houston firefighter drank a Heineken and grilled hamburgers for his work crew outside his most damaged house, which he rents to his brother. Sodden rugs baked in the sun on the driveway.
Madigan said he might have taken a buyout if it was a reasonable offer — but he doubted it would be. He said he needed to get the properties ready again for his renters. “I can't wait,” he said.
Two blocks away, water had swept through a yellow house Madigan rents to a family with a teenage son. One of the workers fixing the property, 21-year-old Omar Reyna, watched the family throw out pretty much everything they had. Piecing together new laminate flooring with his dad, Reyna kept thinking about a trash bag of Teddy bears and stuffed toys he tossed out for them.
He wondered if the parents had been saving the toys for another kid they might have in the future.
“The faster we get it done, the faster they can come back in here,” Reyna said.
Some people choose to live with the risk of flooding
The San Jacinto is the largest river in the state's most populous county. For years before Harris County's first floodplain maps were drawn up in the mid-1980s, people built homes near its banks. Even today, people can still build in the vast floodplain if the houses are high enough and have enough stormwater detention.
The flood control district tries to buy out homes in pockets of the floodplain that are deepest, said James Wade, manager for the district's property acquisition department. Those are places where engineers can't easily fix flooding problems.
Buyouts are meant to get people out of flood zones before their property floods again, not to help in the immediate aftermath of a disaster. The process is slow: In some cases, it can take 18 months or longer to approve a buyout application, Wade said. The district pays owners the market value or pre-flood value for their house, determined by a third-party appraiser, plus moving expenses and a supplement to help them get into a house out of the floodplain, Wade said.
“It's a very equitable, fair program,” Wade said — but still some people don't want to leave.
Those who stay learn to adapt. They build homes on stilts. They monitor the river level and watch for releases of water from the Lake Conroe dam upstream. Some know intimately the routine of rebuilding: gut the house, clean it, put it back together.
The floor of 49-year-old Sean Vincent's house in the Forest Cove neighborhood in northeast Houston is 15 feet above the ground. Three feet of water flooded it when Hurricane Harvey hit in 2017. This month, the floods reached five feet high on Vincent's property. He cleaned out his waterlogged ground-level shed with help from church members. On Tuesday, he was building new shelves for it.
But most of the time Vincent, who works in railroad traffic control, said he enjoys the space surrounded by tall trees with room for his three kids.
“It's just really not a major part of our life,” Vincent said of the flooding. “Yes, it's inconvenient. Yes, it's now happened to us twice in seven years … It's sort of a trade-off for us. And it is lovely out here.”
“Where are you going to go?”
Then there are those who stay because they don't see anywhere else to go.
Jack St. John, 67, a retired long-haul truck driver, moved to Northshore 43 years ago and has had to clean up after two floods. He worries any time flooding threatens, but the neighborhood's advantages keep him there: He has no water bill because he has a well. His taxes are reasonable. The neighborhood has a fish fry in the spring and a barbecue in the fall.
“You know, when you leave, where are you going to go?” he said. “What's it going to cost to buy into another place?”
Farther northeast, in the Idle Wild and Idle Glen neighborhoods, the floods forced some residents to sleep under tarps. On one largely forested street, boats were turned sideways or flipped upside down. A small building was lodged in the trees. A car was in the ditch.
For several years, Elvia Bethea, 68, has driven from her home in Humble to check on people and pets here, and pick up stray animals. On Tuesday, she and other volunteers gave John Gray, 50, bamboo yard torches to fight the many mosquitoes, plus two trays of chocolate-covered strawberries.
Gray said he couldn't afford to fix up his destroyed house. He earns a living printing labor law posters for businesses. His printers at home were destroyed.
Gray said he had never heard of the buyout program but would consider taking one.
“Who do I call?” Gray asked. “I don't have a clue.”
From the back of a white SUV, Bethea handed some hot dogs to Jose Tabores, 68, who lives on Gray's land in a trailer now filled with mud.
“I'm coming for dinner, remember!” Bethea teased him.
Nearby, 51-year-old Veronika Scheid had been sleeping in a wet tent. The flood washed the shipping crate she lived in down the road and into the trees — along with her and her neighbors' belongings.
At a low point, when Scheid was crying over all she lost, she found a pink-and-white beaded necklace with stitching in the shape of a “V,” like her name. At the end was a charm shaped like a house.
She was grateful the person who owned the land where she stayed hadn't taken a buyout. Otherwise she would have nowhere to go.
“At least we have this,” Scheid said.
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Texas Tribune
Trump, Abbott speak at Dallas NRA convention
by By Annie Xia, The Texas Tribune – 2024-05-18 19:24:41
SUMMARY:
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DALLAS— At the National Rifle Association's annual convention on Saturday, Donald Trump and Gov. Greg Abbott encouraged the thousands gathered to vote for Trump in the 2024 presidential election as a way to ensure their Second Amendment rights.
“The NRA has stood with me from the very beginning, and with your vote, I will stand strong for your rights and liberties,” Trump said. “I heard it a few weeks ago that if gun owners voted, we would swamp them at levels that nobody's ever seen before. I think you're a rebellious bunch, but let's be rebellious and vote this time.”
Trump and Abbott spoke to a room packed with NRA members, some of which sported supportive attire from the standard-fare red caps to a dress covered with photos of the former president.
During the convention, the NRA released its endorsement for the 45th president, and the Trump political campaign announced the launch for the “Gun Owners for Trump” coalition.
Abbott touted his track record on gun rights by pointing to Texas laws passed last year, such as House Bill 3137 which prohibits local governments from requiring firearm owners to buy liability insurance. To energetic applause, he said the law ensured people would not be forced to pay to exercise their Second Amendment rights.
Abbott also described the state's successful crackdown on the recent pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses, in which protesters are demanding the schools divest from from companies tied to Israel or weapons manufacturing amid the Israel-Hamas War.
“When they tried to pull that stunt in Texas, our Department of Public Safety cleared the area, arrested the protesters and put them in jail,” Abbott said. “Unlike some of these radical leftist universities like Columbia, UCLA and far too many others, in Texas we don't tolerate paid protesters who tried to hijack our college campuses.”
Almost to the day, the NRA convention takes place two years after the Uvalde school shooting, where an 18-year-old gunned down an elementary school with a legally purchased assault rifle. The shooter killed 19 fourth-graders and two teachers with an AR-15 style rifle.
During the 2023 legislative session, Uvalde families unsuccessfully pressed Texas policymakers to pass a raise-the-age law, which would have upped the minimum age for buying semi-automatic weapons from 18 to 21.
“Donald Trump and Texas Republicans made the gun violence epidemic worse, especially in our state, where we have seen nine mass shootings just in the last 15 years,” said a statement by Gilberto Hinojosa, the Texas Democratic Party Chair, on Friday. “Even after Uvalde parents pleaded with Greg Abbott and Ted Cruz for commonsense gun safety laws, they decided, like Trump “ that the NRA and gun lobby was more important.”
Instead the legislature approved a school safety bill that established preventative measures toward school shootings. The law included a mandate that every school must hire an armed security officer and the creation of a department within the Texas Education Agency that can compel districts to adhere to active-shooter protocols.
During his speech, Trump endorsed four Republican candidates who are fighting in late May runoffs to be their party's nominee: Alan Schoolcraft, David Covey, Helen Kerwin and Brett Hagenbuch. Each of them has already received endorsements by Abbott, Attorney General Ken Paxton or both. Schoolcraft, Covey and Kerwin are running against Republican incumbents in the Texas House who impeded Abbott's signature school voucher bill or voted for Paxton's impeachment based on accusations of corruption.
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The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
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Local News5 days ago
Barge Hits Texas Bridge Causing Oil Spill: Everything We Know
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Texas News5 days ago
Galveston bridge closure: Gulf Intracoastal Waterway closed after barge slammed into Pelican Island bridge, causing oil spill
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Texas Tribune4 days ago
Hundreds visit South Texas town for annual vegan festival
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Texas News3 days ago
Cypress tornado damage: Residents in Towne Lake neighborhood react to overnight tornado damage to community
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Texas News2 days ago
Texas restaurant named one of the most beautiful in the US, according to OpenTable
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Texas News4 days ago
Daniel Perry case: Gov. Greg Abbott pardons former US Army sergeant convicted of killing veteran Garrett Foster at BLM protest
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Texas News4 days ago
METRO PD Lt. Tarlesha James charged in incident involving church pastor, her attorney responds
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Texas News5 days ago
The Mirage casino in Las Vegas is closing – NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth