🟪 Austin voters won’t get a May say on proposed city spending audit (Austin American-Statesman)

🟪 Austin’s long-delayed light rail is back in court. Will it clear the way or stall? (Austin American-Statesman)

🟪 City considers future of Riverside (Austin Chronicle)

🟪 Mark IV Capital secures $86M funding for Phase 1 of The District (Community Impact)

🟪 El Paso airspace reopened after FAA quickly rescinds 10-day flight restrictions (Texas Tribune)

🟪 Pentagon-FAA dispute over lasers to thwart cartel drones led to airspace closure, AP sources say (Associated Press)

🟪 Pam Bondi clashes with House Democrats over Epstein files at DOJ oversight hearing (NPR)

🟪 Immigrant surge helped boost GOP states’ population, and they may gain US House seats as a result (Stateline)

🟪 Instagram chief says he does not believe people can get clinically addicted to social media (Associated Press)

READ ON!

🟪 [Team]: Bingham Group is pleased to welcome Annick Beaudet, MPA, FAICP as a Senior Consultant focused on Mobility and Public Infrastructure.

Based in Austin, Annick brings nearly 30 years of experience working at the intersection of transportation systems, land use, and public-sector capital programs, with a reputation for helping public agencies turn ambitious visions into executable, results-driven initiatives.

Before entering consulting, Annick spent 18 years in senior leadership roles with the City of Austin, including Assistant Director of the Austin Transportation Department and Mobility Officer for Project Connect, where she helped coordinate and advance Central Texas’s landmark transit expansion efforts.

For organizations exploring strategic partners to advance mobility or public infrastructure priorities, Annick’s addition further expands Bingham Group’s ability to support complex, high-impact initiatives. Contact us here.

🟪 [Podcast] Also, check out my recent feature on the Austin Eras Podcast. Host Adam Flagg and I discuss my path into community leadership and the lobbying profession, growing up in Austin, and what’s shaping the future of Central Texas.

🟪 Book Review - The Austin–San Antonio Megaregion: Opportunity and Experience

🏛️ Memos:

✅ Austin voters won’t get a May say on proposed city spending audit (Austin American-Statesman)

A local political action committee pushing to enshrine a mandatory city spending audit in the Austin City Charter didn't file its petition in time to ensure the measure appears on the May ballot, according to a city spokesperson.

Save Austin Now, the group that previously led a successful campaign against Proposition Q, has been working overtime to ensure a spring vote on its proposed amendment. Co-Chair Matt Mackowiak said the group planned to deliver more than 20,000 valid signatures — the minimum required from registered Austin voters — to the city clerk at some point this week and that it was confident it would qualify. 

However, city spokesman Erik Johnson said the city clerk requires 30 days to validate petitions to ensure a sufficient number of signatures are from qualified voters — and the deadline for Austin City Council to call a May election is on Friday.

On Wednesday, Mackowiak told the American-Statesman his group would aim to get the item on the November ballot instead.

"We will be on the November ballot," he said in a statement… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin’s long-delayed light rail is back in court. Will it clear the way or stall? (Austin American-Statesman)

The Texas Supreme Court on Tuesday heard oral arguments in a case that could determine whether Austin’s long-delayed light-rail project can move forward.

The underlying dispute centers on the funding mechanism for the more than $7 billion project, which Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and other plaintiffs argue is unconstitutional.

The case stems from two lawsuits filed in 2023 that were later consolidated. The first was brought by a group of residents that included business owners, current and former elected officials and social justice advocates who argued that the light-rail project has been scaled back so significantly that it no longer reflects what Austin voters approved.

Voters overwhelmingly endorsed the light-rail plan in 2020 as part of Project Connect. Early proposals envisioned as many as 28 miles of track across the city. Local officials later reduced the plan to fewer than 10 miles, citing rising construction costs.

The 2020 ballot measure authorized a 20% increase in Austin’s property tax rate dedicated to transit improvements. Under the plan, the city would transfer that revenue to Austin Transit Partnership, which would use the funds to repay bonds issued to finance construction… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ City considers future of Riverside (Austin Chronicle)

With Project Connect and city rezoning to accommodate it on the horizon, the city of Austin has $300 million in the project’s voter-approved “anti-displacement” funds to spend on land acquisition and affordable housing around the project area, which includes Southeast Austin’s Riverside neighborhood, over a 13-year period. 

On Jan. 31, the city held an open house to ask Riverside residents what new housing, amenities, and commercial services they want to see in their neighborhood, their first community outreach effort toward their goal to adopt a long-range plan for the area by the end of 2026.

“Our planning efforts focus on equitable, transit-oriented, and walkable development,” reads the East Riverside Corridor Planning Initiative public input page, with development projects focused around the five planned Austin light rail transit stations in Riverside.

Across 10 stations, city of Austin and CapMetro representatives spoke with local residents about transit, affordable housing, desired story height of development, and a big question mark: what to do with the Grove-Riverside site, 125 acres that include a large corporate office, purchased by the city in 2024.

One of the options on the table for the Grove site is a mixed-use development that incorporates affordable housing, “neighborhood-serving” commercial services, and the city’s transportation and emergency services offices, according to Nicole Joslin, housing and community development officer at the city of Austin… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Mark IV Capital secures $86M funding for Phase 1 of The District (Community Impact)

Developer Mark IV Capital is taking the next step to make plans for its multiuse development in Round Rock, The District, a reality.

Mark IV secured financing from BDT & MSD Partners and a financial affiliate of Apollo, according to a Feb. 2 news release.

The construction loan in the amount of $86 million will fund build-out of the first phase of The District.

Plans for Phase 1 of The District include a 316-unit luxury multifamily housing development, with 23,042 square feet of ground-level retail.

The multifamily development will have amenities that include... 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Silicon Labs signs, an Austin downtown skyline fixture for 20 years, to be replaced (Austin American-Statesman)

The Silicon Labs name, a fixture on Austin’s downtown skyline for two decades, will soon be replaced.

Dallas-based Texas Instruments said it plans to retain the company’s two 200,000-square-foot office towers along West Cesar Chavez Street and keep many of its roughly 500 employees in place after its $7.5 billion acquisition of the Austin chipmaker closes next year. The downtown headquarters will be rebranded as a Texas Instruments corporate office.

Plans for Silicon Labs’ buildings and workforce were not detailed when the deal was announced a week ago. But Texas Instruments said a big part of the appeal was Silicon Labs’ engineering team. It reiterated that this week.

“We value Silicon Labs’ engineering expertise and look forward to welcoming their team to TI,” a Texas Instruments spokesperson said in statement. “There are no plans to relocate Austin employees following the close of the transaction and we look forward to expanding our presence in Austin.” 

The companies' announcement of the deal did not make clear the future of Silicon Labs CEO Matt Johnson, either, though he appeared at the company’s investor meeting last week, calling the acquisition a “great opportunity.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin American-Statesman Editorial: In Senate bid, Talarico models the leadership this moment demands (Austin American-Statesman)

These are not normal times. Masked immigration enforcement agents are confronting people in the streets. Artificial intelligence is poised to disrupt the economy and the workforce in ways we barely understand, and social media platforms have become so effective at sustaining our attention through outrage that we struggle to talk across our differences. Confidence in political institutions is cratering. That makes the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate more than simply a contest between two compelling candidates.

The race for the seat held by Republican Sen. John Cornyn, locked in his own bruising primary battle, is a test of what kind of leadership Texans need in a moment defined by instability, uncertainty and a widening trust gap between the public and those who govern. In our view, the best Democratic contender to meet this moment is state Rep. James Talarico.

He and his primary opponent, U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, both offer serious choices to voters, but Talarico’s approach reflects a conviction that political leaders should focus on building trust in a deeply divided moment. The Austin-area lawmaker and former public school teacher practices a form of leadership grounded in persuasion and moral clarity. He speaks forcefully about feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger and protecting the vulnerable — not as slogans, but as ethical obligations that should guide public policy.

“Politics is just another word for how we treat our neighbors, and we should treat each other a lot better than this,” Talarico told our Editorial Board. “So I do think we can take on this broken system and chart a new kind of politics that's not rooted in division, not rooted in fear and hate, but something that's rooted in hope and service and in love.” A Presbyterian seminarian, Talarico is animated by his faith but also firm in his commitment to the separation of church and state. He recognizes that an erosion of that wall undermines the fairness of government and the integrity of religion alike… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ El Paso airspace reopened after FAA quickly rescinds 10-day flight restrictions (Texas Tribune)

The Federal Aviation Administration reopened airspace over El Paso and part of southern New Mexico on Wednesday morning after shutting it down for a few hours overnight amid an announcement there would be no flights for 10 days. The White House now says the unusual closure was triggered by Mexican cartel drones breaching U.S. airspace — contradicting an industry source who said it was because of an impasse with the Department of Defense over the use of unmanned military aircraft.

“The temporary closure of airspace over El Paso has been lifted. There is no threat to commercial aviation. All flights will resume as normal,” the FAA shared on X.

Before it was reversed, the unexplained notices late Tuesday closed airspace over El Paso and a large patch of southern New Mexico west of Santa Teresa for 10 days. El Paso International Airport was set to be closed to all flights, the city had said. The orders closed off all air travel in the affected area, which could cause massive disruption in the nation’s 23rd-largest city… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Pentagon-FAA dispute over lasers to thwart cartel drones led to airspace closure, AP sources say (Associated Press)

The sudden and surprising airspace closure over El Paso, Texas, stemmed from the Pentagon’s plans to test a laser for use in shooting down drones used by Mexican drug cartels, according to three people familiar with the situation who were granted anonymity to share sensitive details.

That caused friction with the Federal Aviation Administration, which wanted to ensure commercial air safety and the two agencies sought to coordinate, according to two of the people. Despite a meeting scheduled later this month to discuss the issue, the Pentagon wanted to go ahead and test it, prompting the FAA to shutter the airspace. It was not clear whether the laser was ultimately deployed.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said earlier that the response by the Defense Department and the FAA to neutralize an incursion by Mexican cartel drones had led to the airspace closure. Drone incursions are not uncommon along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Officials at the White House, FAA and Department of Transportation did not respond immediately to a request to comment on the dispute. The Pentagon said it had nothing to add to its statement that largely mirrored Duffy’s comment… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Immigrant surge helped boost GOP states’ population, and they may gain US House seats as a result (Stateline)

The millions of immigrants who have crossed the border with Mexico since 2020 could change the balance of political power in Congress — but in a way likely to boost Republican states that emphasize border security, at the expense of more welcoming Democratic states. That’s because many of the new immigrants joined state-to-state movers gravitating to the fast-growing conservative strongholds of Florida and Texas, boosting those states’ populations. California and New York also had large influxes from the border but ended up losing population anyway. The vastly different population changes threaten to scramble the Electoral College map. California and other Democratic states lost immigration-related population gains when residents moved away during the COVID-19 pandemic or while seeking jobs and housing. Where did those state-to-state movers go? Florida and Texas, in large measure.

Republicans have long accused Democrats of encouraging immigration for their electoral benefit. But the shift is likely to help Republican-leaning states in the next decade: The Constitution allocates congressional representation by population — including noncitizens. Every 10 years, the country counts its people and then shuffles the number of U.S. House seats given to each state. In presidential elections, each state has the same number of electoral votes as it does congressional representatives. Several experts contacted by Stateline agreed that after the next decennial census in 2030, California is likely to lose four seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Texas is likely to gain four. Adam Kincaid, president and executive director of the GOP-founded American Redistricting Project, said the changes could dramatically alter the Electoral College map, with the Midwest no longer a “blue wall” against Republican presidential victories if the region loses three seats, by his calculation.

On the plus side for Democrats, he said, immigration helped stem population losses in many blue states. Three forecasts for 2030 — one provided to Stateline by Jonathan Cervas, an assistant teaching professor at Carnegie Mellon University; one from Kincaid’s American Redistricting Project; and one from William Frey, a demographer at The Brookings Institution — all show Democratic states in the Northeast and West losing House seats while fast-growing, mostly Republican states in the South and West gain seats. In addition to the representation changes in California and Texas, Florida would gain either three or four seats in the U.S. House, depending on the forecast, while Illinois and New York each would lose either one or two seats… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Instagram chief says he does not believe people can get clinically addicted to social media (Associated Press)

Adam Mosseri, the head of Meta’s Instagram, testified Wednesday during a landmark social media trial in Los Angeles that he disagrees with the idea that people can be clinically addicted to social media platforms.

The question of addiction is a key pillar of the case, where plaintiffs seek to hold social media companies responsible for harms to children who use their platforms. Meta Platforms and Google’s YouTube are the two remaining defendants in the case, which TikTok and Snap have settled.

At the core of the Los Angeles case is a 20-year-old identified only by the initials “KGM,” whose lawsuit could determine how thousands of similar lawsuits against social media companies would play out. She and two other plaintiffs have been selected for bellwether trials — essentially test cases for both sides to see how their arguments play out before a jury… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Pam Bondi clashes with House Democrats over Epstein files at DOJ oversight hearing (NPR)

Attorney General Pam Bondi sparred with Democrats about her tenure at the Department of Justice, in a combative, hours-long hearing before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. 

While Republicans on the panel largely defended Bondi and avoided tough lines of questioning, Democrats zeroed in on the agency's targeting of President Trump's political foes and its oversight surrounding files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

In a blistering opening statement, ranking member Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., criticized the DOJ's handling of the Epstein files and the agency's treatment of survivors, highlighting that several were present in the hearing room. Raskin and Democrats on the panel have called for increased transparency, highlighting examples where they say redacted information in the documents benefits powerful individuals who may be implicated in Epstein's crimes, instead of omitting information that protects survivors… 🟪 (READ MORE)