🟪 City of Austin audit vote postponed, workers union weighs in (KXAN)

🟪 Austin delays vote on AI-powered surveillance cameras contract (Austin American-Statesman)

🟪 Texas Instruments to buy Austin's Silicon Labs in $7.5B deal (Austin Business Journal)

🟪 Texas’s biggest right-wing donor has abandoned Ken Paxton (Texas Monthly)

🟪 Texas families can now apply for private school vouchers. Here’s what to know. (Texas Tribune)

🟪 The Supreme Court lets California use its new, Democratic-friendly congressional map (NPR)

🟪 Americans are exceptionally anxious about their political system, new Gallup polling shows (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.

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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.

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🟪 [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

🏛️ Council Meeting

✅ City of Austin audit vote postponed, workers union weighs in (KXAN)

A letter sent to Austin city council members and the mayor from AFSCME Local 1624 — the city’s labor union — raises concerns about an item that was on Thursday’s Austin City Council agenda before being postponed.

The item comes from Austin Mayor Kirk Watson and would require the city to hire an outside group to take a look at whether the city is operating efficiently and spending taxpayer dollars well. In addition, the ordinance would require a supermajority of council members to undo the ordinance or make edits to it.

“I want to make sure that we’re providing effective and efficient government … I also want to make sure we’re doing it in a way where we’re living within our means,” Watson told KXAN last month.

The workers union listed several concerns in the letter, among them: How much this audit process may actually cost, how this ordinance would play out with a charter petition circulating that would also require an external city audit and whether city employees can weigh in on the audit process… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin delays vote on AI-powered surveillance cameras contract (Austin American-Statesman)

City officials have decided to delay a vote on a $2 million contract to install AI-powered security cameras at Austin parks, according to a staff memo posted late Tuesday.

The document did not explain why the contract was pulled from the Austin City Council's Thursday meeting agenda, but the move came after several council members raised concerns about privacy protections and oversight in the proposed agreement — and as concerned citizens protested the agreement outside City Hall.

During a Tuesday work session, council members pressed city staff about the five-year deal with LiveView Technologies to deploy up to 10 “mobile security trailers” in parking lots at parks that have seen frequent vehicle burglaries. The trailers would include cameras equipped with artificial intelligence tools.

City staff said a two-year pilot of similar cameras was associated with a decline in overall crime at parks where the surveillance was used. But some council members said key privacy and transparency safeguards had not yet been fully spelled out in the LiveView contract.

Council Member Mike Siegel questioned whether the agreement adequately restricts outside access to camera footage and prevents the company from using data to train its AI models.

"I'm still not sure what we would be voting on Thursday," Siegel said at the work session. "If I'm confused, I'm sure the public is, too."

Siegel told the American-Statesman early Wednesday that he asked staff to pull the contract after Tuesday's meeting.

Council is still set to vote Thursday on a separate proposal Siegel co-sponsored with Council member Chito Vela that would establish a formal process for reviewing and approving surveillance-related technology. The duo dubbed the measure the Transparent and Responsible Use of Surveillance Technology, or TRUST, Act.

In a late Tuesday post to the council's online message board, Council Member Marc Duchen asked his colleagues to also consider postponing a vote on the TRUST Act to give council members more time to review the proposal. It's unclear if Duchen's request has gained traction but Siegel  and Vela told the Statesman on Wednesday that they hoped council would proceed with the vote as planned… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Texas Instruments to buy Austin's Silicon Labs in $7.5B deal (Austin Business Journal)

Semiconductor giant Texas Instruments Inc. plans to acquire Austin-based wireless technology company Silicon Laboratories Inc., the companies announced Feb. 4.

Dallas-based Texas Instruments (Nasdaq: TXN) will acquire Silicon Labs (Nasdaq: SLAB) for $231 per share in an all-cash transaction. The deal gives Silicon Labs an enterprise value of about $7.5 billion.

"Texas Instruments and Silicon Labs share a strong Texas heritage and a long-term commitment to building technology companies the right way," Silicon Labs President and CEO Matt Johnson stated. "Over the last decade, Silicon Labs has delivered double-digit growth, driven by the accelerating demand for more connected devices. The opportunity ahead is significant for both Texas Instruments and Silicon Labs."… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Texas’s biggest right-wing donor has abandoned Ken Paxton (Texas Monthly)

Since the beginning of his lengthy and oft-scandaled political career, Attorney General Ken Paxton has held one of the most valuable get-out-of-jail-free cards in Texas politics: the seemingly limitless support of Midland oil tycoon Tim Dunn. Whenever Paxton got into trouble, which was frequently, Dunn would be there to bail him out. In turn, when Dunn’s political operation went to war against the Texas Ethics Commission, Paxton, in his capacity as attorney general, refused to defend the agency. For nearly two decades, the Dunn–Paxton partnership seemed unshakeable. But a funny thing has happened in Ken Paxton’s run for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate. Tim Dunn has disappeared. Dunn and Paxton both made their first big splashes in Texas politics in the same year, 2002, with similar objectives.

Dunn, who would soon become the most influential and ruthless political donor in the state, wrote his first substantial political check that year—a $10,000 donation to Free Enterprise PAC, a group that sought to advocate right-wing causes at the Texas Legislature, among them prohibiting “homosexual marriages and adoptions” and requiring “a super majority to increase taxes.” Paxton, a first-time candidate for state representative who closely aligned himself with the religious right, was Free Enterprise PAC’s biggest single beneficiary in that year’s legislative elections.

From that point on, Dunn went from being merely a Paxton backer to his most vigorous defender. In 2015, after a Collin County grand jury indicted Paxton for securities fraud, Dunn wrote a heated op-ed in the Midland Reporter-Telegram claiming the attorney general was a victim of a witch hunt against strong conservatives. In 2023, when the Texas House impeached Paxton on articles of bribery and abuse of public trust among other charges, Dunn not only contributed to his defense but helped orchestrate a multi-pronged counteroffensive. Defend Texas Liberty PAC, which Dunn backed, threatened to primary any Republican state senator who voted to remove Paxton from office, and the group gave $3 million in loans and contributions to Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who was presiding over the trial. After he was acquitted, Paxton campaigned against some of the key House members who impeached him. Dunn pitched in to fund their primary opponents.

But according to multiple sources I spoke with while reporting my recent Texas Monthly feature on the primary battle between Paxton and incumbent U.S. Senator John Cornyn, when Paxton approached Dunn about backing his Senate challenge, Dunn told him to stay out of the race. One source who is familiar with Dunn’s thinking told me, “Tim sat down and told Ken, ‘I don’t want you to be a senator; I want you to be a good attorney general.’” Dunn apparently saw Paxton’s challenge as a costly and unnecessary drain on resources that would weaken the party for the general election. (The billionaire, who seems to relish conservative internecine feuds and a good Republican primary throwdown, apparently likes Cornyn enough that, so far at least, he hasn’t seen a reason to spend heavily to oust him.)… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Texas families can now apply for private school vouchers. Here’s what to know. (Texas Tribune)

Texas families can begin applying for private school vouchers Wednesday, the most significant step yet in a state program set to launch next school year.

Texans have until March 17 to apply for the program, which allows families to receive taxpayer dollars to send children to private school or educate them at home.

If the number of applicants exceeds the $1 billion lawmakers set aside for the program, the state will prioritize students based on family income and whether they have a disability — though neither guarantee access.

The program, overseen by the comptroller, Texas’ chief financial officer, will launch at the beginning of the 2026-27 school year.

As of Wednesday night, more than 35,000 families submitted applications, according to the comptroller’s office.

The state can spend no more than $1 billion on the program during the current two-year budget cycle, which ends Aug. 31, 2027. It is unclear how much the program’s costs could rise — lawmakers will make that determination in future legislative sessions — but state budget experts predict the tab could escalate to roughly $4.8 billion by 2030… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Trump signs $1.2 trillion funding bill to end shutdown and fund DHS for 2 weeks (Politico)

President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed into law a massive funding package to end the brief government shutdown that began Saturday. The bill passed the House earlier Tuesday on a vote of 217-214. It passed the Senate last week. The legislation will ensure full-year funding for the federal government through the end of September, with the lone exception of the Department of Homeland Security, which is put on a two-week leash as Democrats insist on changes after federal agents fatally shot two Americans in Minneapolis.

The measure tees up a frantic 10-day window for Congress to negotiate a DHS funding agreement as Democrats demand reforms to rein in Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. The new deadline when DHS funding will expire is Feb. 13. Earlier in the day, House Republicans voted 217-215 to advance the legislation, a procedural motion for which Democrats provided no help. A vote on the bill was delayed by one day after Democrats privately indicated they wouldn't provide the large number of votes needed to fast-track it on Monday.

The procedural "rule" vote provided some drama as the House GOP's one-vote margin showed its challenges. It was held open for an extended period when Rep. John Rose, R-Tenn., unexpectedly joined Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., in voting against it. Massie has held his ground against spending bills and was seen as all but impossible to flip. Rose, who complained that the Senate wasn't doing enough to pass the SAVE Act, which mandates proof of citizenship to vote, eventually flipped to "yes."… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ The Supreme Court lets California use its new, Democratic-friendly congressional map (NPR)

The Supreme Court is allowing California to use its new congressional map for this year's midterm election, clearing the way for the state's gerrymandered districts as Democrats and Republicans continue their fight for control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The state's voters approved the redistricting plan last year as a Democratic counterresponse to Texas' new GOP-friendly map, which President Trump pushed for to help Republicans hold on to their narrow majority in the House.

And in a brief, unsigned order released Wednesday, the high court denied an emergency request by the California's Republican Party to block the redistricting plan. The state's GOP argued that the map violated the U.S. Constitution because its creation was mainly driven by race, not partisan politics. A lower federal court rejected that claim.

The ruling on California's redistricting plan comes two months after the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Texas map that kicked off a nationwide gerrymandering fight by boosting the GOP's chances of winning five additional House seats… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Americans are exceptionally anxious about their political system, new Gallup polling shows (Associated Press)

Americans are exceptionally anxious about their political system, according to new international polling from Gallup, a situation that sets the country apart from other rich and powerful nations.

About one-third of Americans rated politics and government as the top issue facing their nation, behind only Taiwan — which faces the prospect of an invasion from China — and on par with Slovenia, Spain and South Korea.

The United States also stands out for the anxiety its younger residents have over economic issues, with younger Americans more likely than young adults in many of the other 107 surveyed countries to say affordability and other pocketbook issues are worrying them

Wealthier countries are more likely to list politics and government as a top issue, as are democracies. But the U.S. stands out as a country that’s particularly concerned about the stability of its democratic system and whether it’s still possible to get ahead economically, said Benedict Vigers of Gallup… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Flirty emails and chummy photos show how far Epstein reached into business world (Wall Street Journal)

Casey Wasserman was in Italy for the Winter Olympics, scheduled to make a presentation to the International Olympic Committee on the progress of the 2028 Los Angeles Games. Peter Attia, the longevity doctor with cult followers and a bestselling book, was days into a new role as a CBS News contributor. And Brett Ratner was promoting “Melania,” his documentary about the first lady—his first film since 2017, when six women accused him of sexual misconduct. All three men had reached—or returned to—the pinnacle of their industries in February 2026.

And all three, it turned out, had secrets in the Epstein files. Flirtatious email exchanges between Wasserman and Ghislaine Maxwell from 2003 were among the files released by the Department of Justice on Friday. Attia’s name appeared more than 1,700 times in the documents, with correspondence showing he maintained a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein through 2019.

Twenty undated photos showed Ratner hanging around with Epstein at his Manhattan townhouse, the two men with their arms wrapped around women whose identities are redacted. These interactions have largely escaped scrutiny. The Epstein saga has generated headlines about people such as former President Bill Clinton and Andrew Mountbatten Windsor whose fame have ensured maximum attention. Clinton, who has been called to testify before Congress, has said he had no knowledge of Epstein’s criminal activity. Mountbatten Windsor, who was stripped of his royal title, has denied that he participated in sexual abuse. But the files contain millions of pages, and many of the people in them aren’t former royals or former presidents.

They are executives, doctors, lawyers, and dealmakers at the tops of their fields. Their now-public messages and photographs reveal just how intricately Epstein spun his web of influence and how he traded on his connections to amass wealth and powerful friends. The files also show that some people sought the counsel and companionship of Epstein—sometimes even after he pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution in 2008— associations that some had previously denied and were until now largely hidden. This week, they have had to discuss their secrets. Wasserman and Attia said they regretted their email exchanges and didn’t know about Epstein’s crimes. Ratner said the photos were from 20 years ago, the woman in the photos was his then-fiancé and he didn’t really know Epstein… 🟪 (READ MORE)