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🟪 Austin creates new office to oversee 911 calls, despite reservations from public safety officials (KUT)

🟪 Austin ISD delays first phase boundary recommendations to September (Community Impact)

🟪 Feds pausing Big Bend border construction while CBP commissioner visits the park (Texas Tribune)

🟪 Texas has now surpassed Virginia for data center construction (Austin Business Journal)

🟪 The real estate kernel of Texas Republicans’ mounting legislative attack on Muslims (The Real Deal)

🟪 Texas AG Paxton claims widespread noncitizen voting. Three people have been charged. (NBC News)

🟪 Democrats face a potential Tea Party moment (New York Times)

READ ON!

Events we’re watching:

✅ Austin creates new office to oversee 911 calls, despite reservations from public safety officials (KUT)

The Austin City Council approved a plan last week to move its 911 call-taking system from the Austin Police Department to a standalone office in an effort to improve response times.

The plan, laid out as part of the city’s $6.6 billion budget, comes after years of debate over how to improve emergency response times in Austin.

Supporters, including Council Member Krista Laine, say the new office will ensure that people who call 911 get the help that they need — and that it arrives more quickly. She voted along with five other council members to set aside more than $1 million for the office and hire four people to get it started.

But Austin’s police, fire, and emergency medical services chiefs all said they opposed the measure. Austin Mayor Kirk Watson also voted against it, arguing that response times have already improved as the city has addressed staffing shortages across its various public safety departments.

“911 response times at our call center have improved significantly since 2023,” Watson said in a written statement. “In fact, we now meet the national average. That’s thanks to the good work of our APD recruiting efforts, which cut long time vacancies and improved employee morale.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin ISD delays first phase boundary recommendations to September (Community Impact)

Austin ISD further delayed its first round of boundary recommendations to September as district officials await more up-to-date enrollment information.

AISD had planned to share draft recommendations for the first phase by Aug. 7, but officials announced Aug. 11 that the district needs more time to assess its priorities amid complications, such as the Paredes Middle School closure and a new transportation model.

In the update shared with families, AISD said it wants to use actual enrollment data rather than summer estimates before finalizing proposals… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Pflugerville ISD voters to decide on Austin Community College annexation in November (KVUE)

Pflugerville ISD voters will decide in the Nov. 3 election whether to join the Austin Community College (ACC) taxing district.

The ACC Board of Trustees unanimously approved an annexation election for the Pflugerville ISD territory during a special meeting Monday, Aug. 17.

If approved, the annexation would make Pflugerville ISD residents part of ACC’s taxing district, giving them access to in-district tuition, expanded programs and services, and workforce and educational partnerships with the college… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Feds pausing Big Bend border construction while CBP commissioner visits the park (Texas Tribune)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott announced that his agency is pausing construction work in Big Bend National Park while he conducts an “on-the-ground evaluation,” reversing course after heavy machinery had begun moving dirt.

In a video posted to X on Monday, Scott announced that he was en route to the park and had ordered a construction pause Sunday night.

“I put a pause on all activity in that park, as far as construction goes, until I can get down there and do a personal evaluation, talk to some stakeholders, talk to some local law enforcement in that area,” Scott said. “More to follow this week.”

Scott’s announcement comes amid massive outcry from local residents, businesses and law enforcement officials. Many have derided plans to build border infrastructure in the parklands and called for CBP officials to engage with their concerns… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Texas has now surpassed Virginia for data center construction (Austin Business Journal)

Texas has surpassed Virginia as the No. 1 state for data center growth, and the Austin-San Antonio market continues to be a large reason for it, according to newly released data from Jones Lang LaSalle Inc.

It comes as local communities in the area, as well as state leadership, are hearing some constituents' concerns and imposing more stringent requirements on developers, including the implementation of new reporting rules, pausing tax abatements and denying some projects.

The U.S. artificial intelligence race resulted in 25 gigawatts of absorption in the data center market during the first half of 2026. That number – which measures how much space was leased or absorbed – was double last year's amount, and more than five times the mark it was two years ago, according to JLL data… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ The real estate kernel of Texas Republicans’ mounting legislative attack on Muslims (The Real Deal)

The Texas Legislature is convening in January, and a slice of the state’s Republican majority has settled on a new target: Muslim Texans. The far-right True Texas Project hosted a conference earlier this month in which lawmakers proposed legislative responses to what they’re calling a “Muslim invasion,”which seems to an echo of the white supremacist “great replacement theory.”

The Dallas Morning News reported on the conference and detailed the proposals, including regulations specifically intended for Muslim organizations, banning hijabs and halal foods and denying professional licenses to Muslims. It’ll be the first legislative session for the new “Sharia Free Texas” caucus, launched by state Rep. Brent Money of Greenville in March. There’s a national version, the “Sharia Free America” caucus, started by U.S. Reps. Keith Self and Chip Roy, both Republicans from Texas.

This particular wave of anti-Muslim sentiment in Texas coalesced around the kernel of a proposed Muslim-centric master-planned community, originally pitched as EPIC City, now known as the Meadow. The 400-acre project proposed by developer Community Capital Partners sparked the ire of Texas’ top Republicans, namely Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General and U.S. Senate candidate Ken Paxton, when plans became public in the spring of 2025. Since then, Abbott and Paxton have unleashed state investigations, lawsuits and new legislation targeting the project’s ownership structure, prompting the Texas chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations to call the actions of state officials “Islamophic witch hunts and politically driven regulatory harassment.”

Multiple lawsuits are ongoing, even after the U.S. Department of Justice dropped its inquiry into the development in June 2025 and a Travis County judge recently sided with the developer in its legal battle with the Texas Workforce Commission. Community Capital Partners continues to move forward with the development, which is set to include a mosque, school, single-family homes, apartments and senior living facilities. The community will be located in Collin and Hunt counties near Josephine… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Texas counties sue feds for trying to tie election security policies to anti-terrorism funding (Texas Tribune)

El Paso County and Harris County on Monday sued the Department of Homeland Security alongside communities in Tennessee and Ohio over new requirements for federal grants that they argue undermine election security and public safety.

In June, the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced it would withhold 20% of DHS’ Homeland Security Grant Program funds unless grantees complied with five requirements that would shift how local officials conduct their elections. The new requirements include a mandatory transition from voting machines that accept QR and bar codes to ones that take paper ballots, conducting manual ballot audits and running voter registration through DHS’ Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system, better known as the SAVE system.

The SAVE system has repeatedly been flagged for misidentifying voters as noncitizens, however the Trump administration has nevertheless pushed for its use amid false claims that millions of noncitizens are registered to vote. In late July, Texas’ Secretary of State’s Office directed county officials to reinstate some of the 2,724 registered voters who were flagged as potential noncitizens by the SAVE system.

The counties and cities suing argued in their petition that implementing the requirements would cost millions and make their elections less secure, while placing roughly $200 million in grant funds at stake nationally… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Texas AG Paxton claims widespread noncitizen voting. Three people have been charged. (NBC News)

For more than a year, Texas attorney general and GOP Senate nominee Ken Paxton has been probing what he says is the large number of noncitizens who illegally voted in his state. So far, three people have been prosecuted, according to an NBC News review of court documents, public records and statements. And among 53 cases that were referred for investigation, at least five people were listed as American citizens in previous court records.

Paxton, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump who beat out incumbent John Cornyn for the nomination, alleged in 2019 that 58,000 noncitizens had voted in Texas — it was a claim Trump amplified, but one that was quickly refuted in court. Since then, Paxton has continued to claim widespread voter fraud. He’s a vocal supporter of the president’s SAVE America Act, which would require all Americans to show proof of citizenship when they register to vote and a photo ID when voting. Trump cited Paxton’s support for the bill as one of the top reasons he chose to endorse him in May.

But the attorney general’s effort to put prosecutorial teeth behind his allegations, using up manpower on accusations that take time to investigate and vet, has not yielded many cases of noncitizen voting, NBC News found, even in a state with the second-highest number of undocumented people. Paxton’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment, and his campaign referred questions to the attorney general’s office. The lack of prosecutions isn’t surprising, said Joshua Blank, the research director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. “The idea that fraud is a common occurrence in the electorate is a position that’s political but not backed up by any fact whatsoever.”

“The real challenge is that no solution is really going to solve a problem that doesn’t exist,” Blank said. Noncitizen voting is rare and often accidental. For example, New Jersey accidentally registered thousands of noncitizens, leading to around 400 improperly cast votes. The revelation has prompted some states to review their voter registration systems. The conservative Heritage Foundation tracks noncitizen voting and recorded 100 cases since 2000, or fewer than four per year… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Whitmire defends IAH from Abbott threat over Muslim accommodations (Houston Chronicle)

Houston Mayor John Whitmire defended religious accommodations for Muslim travelers at George Bush Intercontinental Airport on Monday, saying public footwashing stations are not discriminatory, as Gov. Greg Abbott has alleged. Islamic foot wash stations inside restrooms for the airport’s international terminal serve a “practical need” for travelers, Whitmire said in a statement. Abbott, meanwhile, has criticized such facilities as “special treatment” for Muslims, threatening to revoke state funds from airports in Houston and Dallas over the issue. “The ablution room and adjoining prayer room are open to all travelers, employees and stakeholders with access to Terminal D, regardless of faith,” Whitmire said. “Nobody receives preferential access, and nobody is excluded.”

The Houston Airport System, which runs Bush and Hobby Airport and is overseen by officials appointed by Whitmire, paid for the ablution facilities with fees charged to the international airlines rather than public funds from the city or state, the mayor said. Whitmire’s statement also notes that roughly one-fifth of all passengers in the airport’s international terminal departed on Emirates Airlines, Qatar Airways and Turkish Airlines, airlines that serve Muslim-majority countries. Ablution facilities are preferable to having residents resort to using sinks for washing needs, Whitmire added. The governor took aim at Houston’s largest airport on Friday, referring IAH as well as Dallas Fort-Worth International Airport to the U.S. Department of Transportation for investigation, the latest in state Republicans’ efforts to target what they cast as Sharia law and an “Islamic takeover” of Texas. The stations amount to religious discrimination because the airports do not offer standalone facilities for other faiths, Abbott alleged. Officials at DFW said they were scrapping plans for new footwashing stations amid “elevated public interest” this week. Meanwhile, Houston’s airport has had an ablution station connected to its Interfaith Chapel since 2024, installed under former Mayor Sylvester Turner. The facilities are used by Muslims who wash their bodies before prayer five times a day… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Democrats face a potential Tea Party moment (New York Times)

A movement of young, progressive outsiders has stormed Democratic politics this year, sparking a wave of contentious primary contests across the country and fueling a fraught debate over whether these new, left-wing candidates are remaking the party in their image. But as primary season winds to a close, the results reveal not only the strength but also the potential limitations of this insurgent movement. In Minnesota last week, Peggy Flanagan, the lieutenant governor, won a Senate primary by a double-digit margin, pressing a fiercely progressive message to defeat a more moderate opponent. Just a week earlier, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a left-leaning Democrat, won a Senate primary in Michigan despite being vastly outspent. And Francesca Hong, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, came close to winning a primary for governor in Wisconsin, falling short by less than one percentage point.

The results marked a new level of political strength for candidates affiliated with a resurgent, activist left, showing that their movement can be competitive in statewide primaries, well beyond deep-blue House districts. Yet while a vocal group of strategists, activists and college-educated voters have raced to embrace these pugnacious, boldly liberal — and in some cases untested — candidates, some of the voters who have historically been most crucial to the party’s fortunes remain skeptical. In Michigan and Wisconsin, both pivotal battleground states, the progressive candidates appeared to have struggled to sway voters who have long been the backbone of the party — including Black, more moderate and older Americans who vote reliably. As left-wing candidates have notched victories in primary after primary, many progressives hope they will be able to move the Democratic Party further to the left — mirroring, in some ways, how the rise of the Tea Party movement nearly two decades ago pushed the Republican Party much further to the right. But the results raise questions about whether these candidates can piece together a broad enough coalition of Democrats, independents and moderates to win general elections in swing states that could determine whether Democrats are able to regain power in Congress and, eventually, the White House… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Trump says White House needs ‘military complex’ as courts block his ballroom (Washington Post)

President Donald Trump initially insisted that he needed to build a White House ballroom to entertain VIP guests. The president and his deputies have lately focused on a different argument: It’s crucial for national security. The “desperately needed National Security structure” must be completed, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform Friday night, hours after administration officials asked the Supreme Court to let them finish the controversial project.

The lengthy post never mentioned the word “ballroom.” Instead, it focused on the military complex being constructed underneath and called the preservation group that brought the suit that blocked construction “‘TREASONISTS’ who revealed Top Military Secrets!” On Sunday, Trump followed up with an AI-generated video depicting himself walking with the nation’s first president, George Washington, through the planned ballroom, stocked with dining tables. “Thank you, George, for some of your brilliant ideas on this great Military Complex/Ballroom!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, again conflating the two parts of the project.

An appeals court ordered administration officials to halt construction on the ballroom by Aug. 21 unless the project is authorized by Congress — which will not happen, given that lawmakers are on recess with no plans to return before the end of the month. Congressional leaders have also shown little interest in prioritizing the project ahead of the midterms, and the White House has not pushed the issue on Capitol Hill. Instead, Trump has sought to press his case in court, arguing that the ballroom is necessary to protect him and future presidents. He and his lawyers have contended that the ballroom is inseparable from the underground military complex, which the appeals court said Trump is allowed to continue building.

“The lower section does not work without the upper section and, likewise, the upper section does not work without the lower,” Trump wrote Friday night, reversing the administration’s argument from last year that the ballroom and the military complex could be constructed separately. “It is all one highly integrated unit.” Trump’s deputies have sought to help him bolster that case. The leaders of the FBI, CIA, Secret Service and other agencies told the Supreme Court on Friday that the ballroom was needed to provide a secure meeting space for the president and other leaders, referencing threats from Iran, potential drone attacks and other risks. They said the ballroom was part of a broader push to fortify the White House grounds… 🟪 (READ MORE)