BG Reads 1.27.2025

🟪 BG Reads - January 27, 2025

January 27, 2025

Bingham Group Reads

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www.binghamgp.com

January 27, 2025

➡️ Today's BG Reads include:

🟪 The Week Ahead: Hearing time + agendas for City of Austin public meetings

🟪 ICE conducts 'targeted enforcement' in Austin over weekend (KUT)

🟪 Austin police chief: Feds say Austin ICE arrests were for 'wanted violent offenders' (Austin American-Statesman)

🟪 Watch top Texas business and political leaders discuss the state’s future under Donald Trump (Texas Tribune)

🟪 Senate confirms Kristi Noem as Trump's Secretary of Homeland Security (NPR)

Read On!

[CITY OF AUSTIN]

  • Texas Tribune CEO Sonal Shah sits down with Watson to discuss his plans to address issues from housing affordability and homelessness to workforce development and the expansion of I-35, and how the city will interact with state leaders known to relish a fight with local elected officials.

🏛️ Austin City Hall Executive Management Team Announcement

ℹ️ Helpful City Links:

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

➡️ ICE conducts 'targeted enforcement' in Austin over weekend (KUT)

Homebuyers and sellers in the Austin metro likely will see little change in prices and inventory in 2025. That's because median sales prices are likely to hover around the $450,000 mark reported in December 2024, and interest rates are expected to stay high, according to Clare Knapp, housing economist for the Austin Board of Realtors and Unlock MLS.

It's a combination that's considered unaffordable for many first-time homebuyers, which means the onus is on homebuilders to build more homes with lower price tags to help move the needle on affordability in the metro.

A first-time homebuyer can typically afford to pay three times their income for a home, putting many in the market for a home in the $300,000 to $400,000 range, Knapp said. “There’s just not a sufficient supply of those homes in the market,” she said. “In order to really get more on the market, it boils down to new construction.”… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

➡️ Austin police chief: Feds say Austin ICE arrests were for 'wanted violent offenders'm (Austin American-Statesman)

Federal officials, including the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, conducted what they said were "enhanced targeted operations" in Austin on Sunday — an effort that Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis said they told her was to arrest "wanted violent offenders."

She said that although Austin police played no role in the operations, "At the end of the day, these are people APD would be looking for as well. They were wanted for violent offenses.”

Davis did not know the number of warrants federal agents served or the immigration status of those involved. She said such operations have typically occurred as part of standard federal enforcement practices. Davis said she reached out to federal officials after seeing reports of the local operation... 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

➡️ Chip Roy and Donald Trump are on a collision course (Politico)

Afew weeks after the presidential election, Rep. Chip Roy headed to Mar-a-Lago to make peace. Roy was a rare House conservative who opposed efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Congress.

After the Jan. 6 attack, he argued that Donald Trump had engaged in “clearly impeachable conduct.” Then the fiery Texas conservative hitched his wagon to the wrong horse in the 2024 primaries, backing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. But now that Trump was president-elect, it was time to make nice. Over the course of an hour, Roy and Trump engaged in what one Trump insider described as a “reset.”

They talked about Trump’s agenda, Roy’s fight with cancer and their shared love of golf. Trump ribbed him over his poor political judgment in supporting DeSantis, and later, with the two standing in front of a crowd, Trump jokingly called Roy “a nasty son of a bitch.” He had no idea. Just a few weeks later, Roy unapologetically led the charge against a last-minute Trump proposal to raise the debt ceiling before he took office. This time, there was no humor intended when Trump, stung by the betrayal, called him “another ambitious guy with no talent” engaging in “some cheap publicity for himself.”

Now as Trump and his inner circle eye internal threats to passage of their legislative agenda, Roy’s name keeps coming up. More than any House conservative, the 52-year-old political veteran is seen as having the swagger to rev up the hard-right rabble-rousers who have repeatedly derailed GOP leaders’ plans. Previously a staffer for Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, Roy also knows the ins-and-outs of congressional procedure and federal policy. And he speaks in language that pulls at conservatives’ heart strings — and grates on those trying to keep the party in lockstep.

Roy insists the tensions between him and Trump are badly overblown. “I’m telling you, there is this much daylight between what the president wants to achieve or what I want to achieve,” he said amid an hour-long interview in his office, holding up his thumb and his pointer finger a half-inch apart. But inside that gap are multitudes of potential conflicts — starting with their radically different views on the role and size of government. Like the movement conservative he is — his bona fides forged in the tea party era — Roy sees the shrinkage of the federal footprint as his political lodestar, and most of his policy views go back to that… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[TEXAS NEWS]

➡️ Watch top Texas business and political leaders discuss the state’s future under Donald Trump (Texas Tribune)

Two days before President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Texas State Society convened a group of the state’s political and business leaders to discuss what to expect in Trump’s second go-round as president.

The event included incoming members of the Trump administration like Brooke Rollins, nominee for agriculture secretary, and John Ratcliffe, the pick to lead the CIA. Gov. Greg Abbott made an appearance; you can watch his speech above. And multiple Republican members of the Texas congressional delegation, including Sen. Ted Cruz and Reps. August Pfluger, John Cornyn, Nathaniel Moran, Beth Van Duyne and Ronny Jackson also spoke.

The Texas Tribune was a partner in the event, and is making the videos available free to the public. You can watch them below. Sonal Shah, CEO of the Texas Tribune, served as emcee for the conference, and Tribune Editor-in-Chief Matthew Watkins moderated an afternoon panel on geopolitical impacts on global supply chains… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

➡️ San Antonio Is Booming. Why Is It Still So Poor? (Texas Monthly)

If experts are to be believed, San Antonio is finally closing in on its moment. Henry Cisneros, who has written not one but two books about his hometown’s potential, told me so, celebrating the immense changes he has seen since he left the mayor’s office in 1989.

“The city is booming,” he said, in the silky pitchman’s tone that he honed during decades as a public servant. “It’s a fundamentally different place.” Fundamentally different, that is, from the San Antonio where I grew up, with its chasmic social, racial, and economic divisions.

A city where people would allude to the local “mañana mentality,” a nod to the town’s leisurely pace as well as a euphemism some use to implicitly blame Latinos for its failure to thrive. A city whose measures of income and social mobility continually branded it as one of the country’s most economically stratified, and one of the poorest.

A city of “sides,” rooted in its history of profound segregation, with each part of town delineated by race and class: the North Side prosperous and mostly white, the West Side poor and Latino, the East Side underserved and Black, and the South Side a mixture of blue-collar Latino and white residents who were mostly tied to the military bases... đźźŞ (LINK TO FULL STORY)

 

➡️ Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller rehires top aide who pleaded guilty to bribery (Austin American-Statesman)

Todd Smith — who last year pleaded guilty to felony bribery charges — is now the chief of staff for Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller after the commissioner rehired his longtime aide last week, Miller confirmed. Smith started his job Jan. 14 in the Texas Department of Agriculture.

In October, he pleaded guilty to one count of commercial bribery, a state jail felony, stemming from accusations he took tens of thousands of dollars in exchange for hemp licenses issued by Miller’s agency, court records show. As part of the deal, Smith was granted two years of deferred adjudication, meaning the case can be dismissed after two years of probation. He also was ordered to pay $10,000 restitution.

On Wednesday, Miller told the American-Statesman he had no hesitations about rehiring Smith. “One of the best hires I’ve made,” Miller said. Smith was arrested in April 2021 after a Texas Rangers investigation suggested he sought thousands of dollars from Texas farmers and entrepreneurs in exchange for “guaranteed” hemp licenses, according to a warrant. He reportedly solicited $150,000 from several applicants.

A hemp license is capped at $100 under state law. Miller said he has known Smith for 25 years, dating back to the commissioner’s first political campaign. “He's a man of integrity, a true believer, a true conservative Christian,” Miller said. Miller said the charges were politically motivated and that the charges were an attack on his office by a “weaponized” judicial system… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

➡️ Dallas has a new city manager in Kimberly Bizor Tolbert after a year of turmoil. Now what? (Dallas Morning News)

No longer in an interim role, Dallas City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert’s work has only just begun. Days after the City Council appointed her for the permanent role — the first Black woman hired into that position in the city’s history — Tolbert hasn’t had a chance to breathe. Council member Jaynie Schultz told The Dallas Morning News on the night of the appointment that Tolbert’s phone had more than 800 unread messages, and “not all of them were junk.”

Two days later, Tolbert publicly released a new 100-day plan. “As I shared with each of you during the City Manager selection process, my vision for Dallas is that it is a model for global excellence that supports a thriving, vibrant, and inclusive community — through innovation, efficient government, and targeted economic growth,” Tolbert said in a Friday memo.

Among her priorities will be finalizing a leadership team. She has yet to announce a plan for hiring the new police chief and a deputy in the city manager’s office, but it is expected to be one of her first moves. She outlined using a cross-departmental strike team for grant acquisitions and procuring services from vendors. The strike team will also craft the budget on a priority basis.

Two city projects, the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center district and the new police academy in southern Dallas, have been characterized as “catalytic projects.” Last year’s 100-day plan from Tolbert, a playbook to move the city forward in the absence of a permanent city manager, also focused on the budget, the uniformed and civilian pension systems, homelessness, community engagement, recruitment and retention, and city permitting. It was widely seen as Tolbert’s audition for the top job... 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[US and World News]

➡️ Hegseth confirmed as Trump's defense secretary in tie-breaking vote despite turmoil over his conduct (Associated Press)

The Senate confirmed Pete Hegseth as the nation’s defense secretary late Friday in a dramatic tie-breaking vote, swatting back questions about his qualifications to lead the Pentagon amid allegations of heavy drinking and aggressive behavior toward women. Rarely has a Cabinet nominee faced such wide-ranging concerns about his experience and behavior as Hegseth, particularly for such a high-profile role atop the U.S. military.

But the Republican-led Senate was determined to confirm Hegseth, a former Fox News host and combat veteran who has vowed to bring a “warrior culture,” rounding out President Donald Trump’s top national security Cabinet officials. Vice President JD Vance arrived to break the 50-50 tie, highly unusual for Cabinet nominees and particularly defense secretaries, who typically win wider bipartisan support. Hegseth himself was at the Capitol with his family. “We have a great secretary of defense and we’re very happy,” Trump said as he boarded Air Force One after surveying fire devastation in California.

Trump said he didn’t care about the dissent from Sen. Mitch McConnell, the influential former Republican leader — who joined two other Republicans, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, in voting against Hegseth — because the “important thing is winning.” The Senate’s ability to confirm Hegseth despite a grave series of allegations against him provides a measure of Trump’s political power and ability to get what he wants from the GOP-led Congress, and of the potency of the culture wars to fuel his agenda at the White House. Only once before has the vice president had to break a tie on a Cabinet nominee — during Trump’s first term, when Vice President Mike Pence cast the vote to confirm Betsy DeVos as education secretary… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

➡️ Senate confirms Kristi Noem as Trump's Secretary of Homeland Security (NPR)

The Senate confirmed South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem on Saturday to serve as the Secretary of Homeland Security, putting her in charge of executing one of President Trump's biggest priorities in his second term: cracking down on immigration.

Noem, a Republican, won confirmation in a 59-34 vote. She becomes the fourth person confirmed in Trump's cabinet, following Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and Pete Hegseth, who was narrowly appointed Secretary of Defense on Friday night after Vice President J.D. Vance cast a tie-breaking vote.

Noem is set to lead the department poised to be at the center of President Trump's plans to crack down on immigration, including the various deportation efforts, visa changes and border security measures kicked off by the slew of executive actions signed by Trump since his return to office… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

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