Presented By

December 8, 2025

✅ Today's BG Reads include:

🟪 Austin Rep. Lloyd Doggett will not run for reelection after Supreme Court upholds congressional map (KUT)

🟪 Austin EMS had plans to make calls more efficient. Prop Q's failure puts those plans on hold. (KUT)

🟪 Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in midst of multibillion-dollar expansion (Austin Business Journal)

🟪 Supreme Court’s map ruling sends Texas Democrats toward potential primaries, retirement or higher office bids (Texas Tribune)

🟪 Trump struggles to persuade Americans to ignore affordability issues (Washington Post)

🟪 How chiropractors became the backbone of MAHA (Politico)

READ ON!

[FIRM NEWS]

[Blog] Austin 2026: The New Rules of Economic Development at City Hall

Learn more about Bingham Group’s new practice — and review all of our services here: binghamgp.com/services

[CITY OF AUSTIN]

🏛️ City Manager Executives and Advisors Staff Visual Chart

🏛️ City of Austin Org Chart (as of July 2025)

ℹ️ 2025 Essential Resources for Navigating the City of Austin

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

✅ Austin Rep. Lloyd Doggett will not run for reelection after Supreme Court upholds congressional map (KUT)

Longtime Austin Congressman Lloyd Doggett will not run for reelection after the U.S. Supreme Court decided that Texas could move forward with its newly drawn congressional map in the 2026 midterm election. The new map eliminates one of Travis County's two Democrat-held seats. The redistricting would pit Doggett and Democratic Rep. Greg Casar against each other. Doggett previously said if that was the case, he would not run. “I will continue working with the same urgency and determination as if next year were my last, which in public office it will be,” Doggett said in a statement Friday. “After that, I will seek new ways to join my neighbors in making a difference in the only town I have ever called home.” Doggett's announcement comes after weeks of court battles.

In November, a Texas three-judge panel ruled the new maps were based on racial gerrymandering and ordered the state to use the maps drawn in 2021. Gov. Greg Abbott quickly appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court where Justice Samuel Alito allowed the state to temporarily reinstate the map while the court made its decision.

The Supreme Court released its decision on Thursday. Alito, writing for the majority, said the district court “had failed to honor the presumption of legislative good faith by construing ambiguous direct and circumstantial evidence against the legislature." The court also said the lower court “had improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, causing much confusion and upsetting the delicate federal balance in elections.” Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.

Kagan, in writing the dissent, said the court’s stay "ensures that many Texas citizens, for no good reason, will be placed in electoral districts because of their race. And that result, as this Court has pronounced year in and year out, is a violation of the Constitution." The Texas Legislature passed the new congressional map earlier this year in a special session after President Trump said he wanted five more Republican seats ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. This ruling increases the GOP’s chance of maintaining a majority in the House of Representatives, which could help further Trump's agenda… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin EMS had plans to make calls more efficient. Prop Q's failure puts those plans on hold. (KUT)

A six-person team of Austin-Travis County EMS medics and Austin firefighters counted to three before they hoisted a 78-year-old man onto a gurney outside his home in Southeast Travis County. The man had fallen outside his home three days earlier and was able to crawl inside. He said he called 911 for help after he realized his strength was not coming back enough to pick himself up off the ground. Medics treated him in the back of an ambulance, hanging IVs, taking his blood pressure and pulse. The medics also checked for additional injuries after seeing the man couldn't bend one of his knees. The ambulance then took him to a hospital.

But the emergency services department said this call could have been answered with a smaller team and vehicle — a model it wants to move toward. EMS Commander Selena Xie said these calls — when a patient needs medical attention but not necessarily an ambulance — are one of the most common types ATCEMS gets. Xie, who is running for a seat on the Austin City Council against District 8 incumbent Paige Ellis, said life-threatening situations like heart attacks, strokes and car crashes make up about 10% of calls to EMS. Regardless of the nature of the call, an ambulance staffed with medics responds, she said. ATCEMS Chief Robert Luckritz said that may not be the best use of resources. He said the department has other programs, including basic life support ambulances, mental health responders and single unit responders, that can provide care with less people and smaller vehicles.

Luckritz said expanding those programs could help reserve ambulances for potentially life-threatening calls. But those expansions are not going to happen anytime soon, after Austin voters rejected Proposition Q, a property tax increase that would have added $110 million to the city's budget. "We know that these programs would not be overnight programs," Luckritz said. "We still have to deal with the staffing issues that we are facing and we still have to deal with filling the seats in the new programs that we've expanded in our department. But Prop Q would've been a long-term transition to those programs."… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in midst of multibillion-dollar expansion (Austin Business Journal)

The final plan for the reimagined Austin-Bergstrom International Airport has been somewhat of a moving target as airport officials work with airlines to catch up with booming passenger growth in recent years.

The biggest change is the addition of a new terminal to connect to the main terminal through an underground tunnel. Other work includes adding a new arrivals and departures hall, redesigning the baggage systems, improving queuing for security lines and reconfiguring traffic and parking structures. Work on the current phase of ABIA expansion is expected to last until the early 2030s, though officials anticipate more work will be needed after that.

The precise number of gates for the new terminal should be finalized at the start of 2026 and is dependent on a new set of use and lease agreements that will run from Jan. 1, 2026, to Sept. 30, 2035 — with a two-year extension option — with commercial airlines and cargo airlines. Previously, ABIA said the terminal could be anywhere from 20 to 30 new gates, depending on demand from airlines. An ABIA spokesperson confirmed that airline officials want more than 20 gates at the new terminal, which will lead to higher construction costs.

Southwest Airlines Co. — already the dominant carrier at the airport — told the ABJ earlier this year that it wants up to 18 gates at the airport, and Delta Air Lines said it wants up to 15 gates. Those deals are close to being finalized, the spokesperson said, and they aim to provide an update in January that includes an updated cost of expansion, which is expected to be higher than the original $4 billion figure.

In the meantime, ABIA has moved forward with the construction of several other projects… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Major infrastructure projects in motion to keep up with region's growth (Austin Business Journal)

The push is on to address Austin's major infrastructure needs — stat.

More than $20 billion of infrastructure projects are underway, including efforts to expand the city’s airport, widen portions of I-35, redevelop the convention center and build a public light rail system.

Tens of thousands of construction jobs will be needed annually for almost two decades to support the work as Austin aims to catch up with its big city status. The improvements are critical to the region's economy, from attracting businesses and employees to improving the quality of life for residents.

The city's tourism industry is expected to reap the benefits of a larger airport and convention center, while residents stand to gain personally from additional transit options such as a light rail line through the heart of the city and wider highways.

“We simply have to do more when it comes to our infrastructure in order to continue and to maintain this economic success that we're enjoying,” Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said in 2024, when discussing starting the Austin Infrastructure Academy, which was created to help develop the workforce needed for the projects. “We cannot afford to fall behind.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

[TEXAS/US NEWS]

✅ Supreme Court’s map ruling sends Texas Democrats toward potential primaries, retirement or higher office bids (Texas Tribune)

U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett was in and then he was out. Then, he was back in. 

The Austin Democrat’s reelection plans have ping-ponged as the Legislature’s new congressional maps winded their way through the courts. Drawn at the behest of President Donald Trump, the new map is intended to yield more seats for the GOP in the coming midterm elections and would have pit Doggett against fellow Austin Democratic Rep. Greg Casar.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court said that the state can use the new map in 2026 — reversing a lower court ruling from last month that found the new boundaries be unconstitutional.

On Friday, Doggett said he’s once again planning to retire.

“I will continue working with the same urgency and determination as if next year were my last, which in public office it will be,” Doggett said in a statement Friday. “After that, I will seek new ways to join my neighbors in making a difference in the only town I have ever called home.”

Democratic campaign organizations, elected officials and candidates ripped the court decision as unfair. But with no further prospect of legal relief for this cycle, given that the filing deadline is Monday, Doggett and others are back to the reality they faced after the map’s passage: contemplating House retirement or primaries against fellow incumbents… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Texas launches cryptocurrency reserve with $5 million investment (Texas Tribune)

Texas has launched its new cryptocurrency reserve with a $5 million purchase of Bitcoin as the state continues to embrace the volatile and controversial digital currency.

The Texas Comptroller’s Office confirmed the purchase was made last month as a “placeholder investment” while the office works to contract with a cryptocurrency bank to manage its portfolio.

The purchase is one of the first of its kind by a state government, made during a year where the price of Bitcoin has exploded amid the embrace of the digital currency by President Donald Trump’s administration and the rapid expansion of crypto mines in Texas… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Trump struggles to persuade Americans to ignore affordability issues (Washington Post)

President Donald Trump has said drug prices are falling by as much as 1,500 percent, a mathematical impossibility. He has declared himself “the affordability president,” while dismissing the affordability issue as “a con job by the Democrats.” Trump also vows that good times are coming. He has predicted that gas prices, which now hover around $3 a gallon, will plummet to $2. He has promised Americans $2,000 refund checks from the revenue raised by tariffs. He has suggested that “in the not-too-distant future,” no one will have to pay income tax. This flurry of sometimes extravagant claims comes amid a growing Republican fear, fueled by recent election results, that high prices could set the stage for a Democratic sweep in next year’s midterms. So far, there is little evidence that Trump’s urgent attempt to shift the economic storyline is working.

“Any Republican who refuses to admit we have an affordability problem is not listening to the American people,” former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Georgia) said. “It’s real because the American people think it’s real. I cannot overstate that — in a free country it’s the people who define what is real, not the politicians.” Gingrich said Republicans need to quickly adopt an “affordability agenda” and argued that Trump should dedicate his next State of the Union address to the subject. “Psychologically, he hates to admit being in a hole,” Gingrich said.

“His whole career is built around forcing the positive.” Trump’s plight is a striking turnabout. In last year’s campaign, Trump scored political points by highlighting Americans’ inflation concerns, and President Joe Biden faced the almost impossible task of convincing voters they were not as bad off as they thought. Strategists of both parties note that Trump — who has often seemed to defy the laws of politics — is struggling with the affordability issue as he has with few others.

The president shrugged off criticism after he accepted a luxury plane from a foreign country, pardoned unsavory figures and demolished a third of the White House, for example — episodes that might be devastating to another politician. This seems different. Alarm bells have gone off for Republicans since Democrats swept last month’s off-year elections, then performed better than usual in Tuesday’s House race in a bright-red Tennessee district. A Democrat could capture the Miami mayor’s office next Tuesday in heavily Republican Florida… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ How chiropractors became the backbone of MAHA (Politico)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has the crowd in thrall when he declares, “Chiropractors are my kind of people.” It’s September 2023, and Kennedy is a long-shot presidential contender at the moment, not yet the most powerful health official in the United States. And here at the Mile High conference in Denver, an annual gathering for chiropractors across the world, he is speaking to a receptive audience. “The people who are drawn to this field are people who do critical thinking, who are willing to question orthodoxies and have the courage to stand up against these orthodoxies,” he says.

“This profession has long been an embattled profession that has been standing up to the medical cartel for over a century.” At the end of his hour-long speech, which jumps from his candidacy to chronic illness to vaccines, the crowd whistles, cheers and gives a standing ovation. The message is clear: Kennedy is their kind of people, too. Indeed, RFK Jr. and the chiropractor industry have had a close and fruitful relationship for years, and now it’s growing more important for both sides.

The deepening alliance underscores how Washington is changing in President Donald Trump’s second term, with an empowered Kennedy and his movement helping to bring once-fringe ideas into the mainstream. And for alternative health practitioners like chiropractors, it’s a chance to win the kind of legitimacy they’ve long struggled to claim among the medical establishment. When Kennedy ran an anti-vaccine non-profit before running for president, chiropractors were hefty donors.

In 2019, for instance, they donated nearly half a million dollars to the cause — about a sixth of the organization’s revenue that year. When Kennedy created the MAHA Alliance super PAC for his presidential candidacy, more than half of its initial donors were chiropractors. And when Kennedy’s nomination to lead HHS seemed like it was on the rocks, a raft of chiropractors signed a letter of support for him. Many of Kennedy’s most ardent chiropractic supporters are now at the forefront of his Make America Healthy Again movement, posting on social media and finding TikTok virality in a bid to spread his agenda to a larger audience and recruit more disciples. Their passion for Kennedy is palpable… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Violent threats pile up as Indiana Republicans confront pressure from Trump on redistricting)

Spencer Deery’s son was getting ready for school when someone tried to provoke police into swarming his home by reporting a fake emergency. Linda Rogers said there were threats at her home and the golf course that her family has run for generations. Jean Leising faced a pipe bomb scare that was emailed to local law enforcement. The three are among roughly a dozen Republicans in the Indiana Senate who have seen their lives turned upside down while President Donald Trump pushes to redraw the state’s congressional map to expand the party’s power in the 2026 midterm elections.

It’s a bewildering and frightening experience for lawmakers who consider themselves loyal party members and never imagined they would be doing their jobs under the same shadow of violence that has darkened American political life in recent years. Leising described it as “a very dangerous and intimidating process.” Redistricting is normally done once a decade after a new national census. Trump wants to accelerate the process in hopes of protecting the Republicans’ thin majority in the U.S. House next year. His allies in Texas, Missouri, Ohio and North Carolina have already gone along with his plans for new political lines. Now Trump’s campaign faces its greatest test yet in a stubborn pocket of Midwestern conservatism.

Although Indiana Gov. Mike Braun and the House of Representatives are on board, the proposal may fall short with senators who value their civic traditions and independence over what they fear would be short-term partisan gain. “When you have the president of the United States and your governor sending signals, you want to listen to them,” said Rogers, who has not declared her position on the redistricting push. “But it doesn’t mean you’ll compromise your values.”

On Friday, Trump posted a list of senators who “need encouragement to make the right decision,” and he took to social media Saturday to say that if legislators “stupidly say no, vote them out of Office – They are not worthy – And I will be there to help!” Meanwhile, the conservative campaign organization Turning Point Action said it would spend heavily to unseat anyone who voted “no.” Senators are scheduled to convene Monday to consider the proposal after months of turmoil… 🟪 (READ MORE)

Have comments or questions? 📩 Contact me