The House Select Committee on Community Safety is scheduled to hear testimony on bills that would change how people buy firearms and how authorities report those purchases. One of these bills would raise the minimum age to 21 years old to purchase certain semi-automatic rifles.

State Republicans say conservative wins in local school board elections on Saturday mean parents are taking a stand against “left-wing” ideologies.

Republican and Democratic state legislators joined Texas Tribune CEO Evan Smith in a panel at the University of Texas at San Antonio on Wednesday.

Three Texas House Democrats testified before a congressional committee on their efforts to thwart voting restrictions — and were met with heat from their Republican counterparts.

The legislative branch budget includes funding for House and Senate lawmakers, their staffers and those working in nonpartisan legislative agencies. In total, there was more than $410 million allocated in the 2022-23 fiscal budget.

“Absent the STAAR test, you’re not going to have a valid, reliable view of grade-level mastery of student skills,” he said. Last spring, Texas applied for and received a waiver from the federal government allowing it not to administer the STAAR. Texas has already committed to allowing elementary and middle school students who fail the exams this spring to move up to the next grade, with district permission. Usually, student scores on the test determine whether high school students can graduate, whether some elementary and middle school students can move on to the next grade, and whether schools can remain open. The Texas State Teachers Association, which has been calling for a suspension of STAAR testing since June, quickly came out in support of the legislators’ letter.

Advocates called the move by the Texas State Board of Social Work Examiners, which has not yet been finalized, an attempt to create “two classes of Texans” during a press conference organized by the Texas chapter of the National Association of Social Workers. There is currently no law in Texas that protects LGBTQ people from discrimination. The code will no longer prohibit social workers from discriminating on the basis of a disability, sexual orientation or gender identity. Greg Abbott’s office recommended the change, board members said, because the nondiscrimination protections went further than those laid out in state law. The change sparked national backlash, including from 11 members of Texas’ congressional delegation who called on Abbott and the board to reverse the decision.