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🟪 Austin staff urge delaying bond election amid backlog of approved projects (Austin American-Statesman)

🟪 City moving toward 2.6K-acre annexation to support decades of mixed-use development in East Austin (Community Impact)

🟪 WilCo commissioners approve land purchase, funding for proposed justice center (Community Impact)

🟪 Michelle Gutierrez Cohen and Ruben Becerra face off in the Hays County judge runoff (KUT)

🟪 Austin Energy races to build new generation to meet power demand (Austin Business Journal)

🟪 Trump endorses Ken Paxton in Senate GOP runoff (Texas Tribune)

🟪 Rain gives Corpus Christi a small break, delaying projected water crisis by 3 months (Texas Tribune)

✅ Austin staff urge delaying bond election amid backlog of approved projects (Austin American-Statesman)

City staff are recommending that Austin wait until 2028 to ask voters to approve a new bond package, according to an internal memo sent Friday to the mayor and City Council and obtained by the American-Statesman.

For months, City Manager T.C. Broadnax and his staff have been weighing the need to ask voters this November to approve borrowing for a slew of major projects — a process that resulted in several preliminary proposals with price tags ranging from $436 million to $766 million.

But in Friday’s memo, Capital Delivery Services Director Adriana Castaneda said staff recommend postponing the bond election for two years so the city can stay within its current financial policies. 

The recommendation comes amid a major budget crunch—and as the city finds itself already carrying a large backlog of bond money that voters have approved but the city has not yet borrowed or spent. The Statesman recently reported that the city has more than $1 billion in voter-approved but unissued bond funds, tied to projects dating as far back as 2006… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ City moving toward 2.6K-acre annexation to support decades of mixed-use development in East Austin (Community Impact)

City officials appear likely to annex more than 4 square miles of land in East Austin along the Colorado River and support decades of mixed-use development there. Assistant City Manager Eric Johnson called the "mega-site" proposal a generational economic opportunity with the city at a "fiscal crossroads."

Dogs Head Land JV Ltd., an entity registered to Austin's Endeavor Real Estate Group, owns the land along the Colorado north of the airport between US 183 and SH 130. That area known as the Dog's Head is valued at tens of millions of dollars and covers more than 2,600 acres—more than twice the size of downtown.

The Dog's Head is currently outside city limits in Austin's unincorporated extraterritorial jurisdiction, or ETJ. The full site would be annexed this spring under a 45-year development agreement between the city and Endeavor that came together given the project's expansive scope and timeline.

That agreement calls for the creation of a Dog's Head tax increment reinvestment zone, or TIRZ, to set aside a portion of city tax collections for future improvements there. It also sets standards from land use and drainage to public benefits like affordable housing and parkland… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ WilCo commissioners approve land purchase, funding for proposed justice center (Community Impact)

Williamson County commissioners formally authorized a land purchase and funding mechanism May 19 for a 255-acre tract in southwest Georgetown intended for the justice center.

Located on SE Inner Loop adjacent to the new county administration building, commissioners said the location will allow for efficient government operations, and meet the needs of the growing population.

The vote to close on the land sale passed 4-0, with County Judge Steve Snell absent. Commissioners also authorized up to $150 million in tax anticipation notes, a short-term funding strategy to minimize interest, that will cover the $76 million land cost… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Michelle Gutierrez Cohen and Ruben Becerra face off in the Hays County judge runoff (KUT)

Hays County Democrats will decide between incumbent Judge Ruben Becerra and Precinct 2 County Commissioner Michelle Gutierrez Cohen for who should be the party's pick in the county judge race.

Texas primary runoffs occur when no candidate wins more than 50% of the vote. Becerra was just shy of that threshold in March receiving 49.1% of the vote. Gutierrez Cohen received 45.4%.

The winner of the runoff will face Republican challenger Geoffrey Tahuahua in November.

The county judge is the top administrative officer in the county. The judge runs Hays County Commissioners Court meetings, oversees the county budget and directs emergency management.

Hays County’s rapid population growth over the past decade has increased pressure on county infrastructure and services, including roads, animal shelters and jails.

Gutierrez Cohen and Becerra currently serve together on the Commissioners Court and have shaped policy alongside one another since Gutierrez Cohen won her seat in 2022. They share visions for reforming criminal justice in Hays County and working to improve infrastructure in the region… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin Energy races to build new generation to meet power demand (Austin Business Journal)

Austin Energy wants to ramp up how much energy is generated in its territory as it prepares for demand to rise drastically in the years ahead.

The utility needs to produce more power in its service area to serve its customers and to upgrade its transmission infrastructure, Austin Energy Chief Operating Officer Lisa Martin said. Austin Energy has been running a power deficit where the utility has relied on importing energy for high-demand periods from the open energy market that’s regulated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.

“We know that we need to add local utility scale resources,” Martin said. “We also need to increase our transmission import capacity, and essentially we need to continue to do that in such a way that the sum of those things outpaces the expected growth that we are having, else we run the risk of having local outages.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

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✅ Trump endorses Ken Paxton in Senate GOP runoff (Texas Tribune)

President Donald Trump on Tuesday endorsed Ken Paxton in the Republican runoff for U.S. Senate in Texas, ending over a year of furious lobbying and giving the attorney general a significant boost in his campaign against Sen. John Cornyn.

“Ken is a true MAGA Warrior who has ALWAYS delivered for Texas, and will continue to do so in the United States Senate,” Trump wrote on social media, praising Paxton’s support for ending the Senate filibuster and the GOP’s signature voting restrictions bill, and dinging Cornyn for being late to support his 2024 presidential bid.

“John Cornyn is a good man, and I worked well with him, but he was not supportive of me when times were tough,” Trump said. “John was very late in backing me in what turned out to be a Historic Run for the Republican Nomination, and then, the Presidency, itself, both of which were Landslide Victories and, more importantly, gave us the Country that we have today.”

In a statement, Paxton said he was honored by the endorsement and looked forward to “championing his America First agenda in the Senate.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Why Trump bucked Republicans with a risky bet on Texas’ Ken Paxton (Wall Street Journal)

Sen. Tim Scott called President Trump on Tuesday with a last-ditch plea. The president was on the verge of publicly endorsing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the state’s tightly contested Republican primary. Scott, a South Carolina Republican who leads the Senate’s campaign arm, urged him to reconsider, according to people familiar with the conversation.

Thirty minutes later, Trump backed Paxton anyway, breaking with Scott and other senior Republicans in Washington, who have long believed that Paxton’s GOP opponent, four-term incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, was a safer bet.

The decision, which came after months of waffling, reflected the president’s renewed conviction that he maintains an iron grip on the party following recent electoral victories, according to people familiar with his thinking. It was also a warning shot to Republicans in Congress that Trump won’t tolerate dissent.

The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment. Trump’s decision comes with political risks. Though Republicans still have a good shot at winning in deep-red Texas, many GOP strategists worry that Paxton is a flawed candidate.

He has been accused by his top lieutenants of abusing his office (he has denied wrongdoing), impeached by his own party (he was later acquitted), charged with securities fraud (he resolved the charges with a pretrial deal) and is currently in the middle of a divorce initiated by his wife “on biblical grounds.” Paxton has consistently denied wrongdoing and characterized accusations of illegal or immoral behavior as attacks by left-wing enemies.

The winner of next week’s Republican runoff will face Democrat James Talarico, who some national GOP groups view as a formidable opponent.

Trump has told advisers in recent weeks that he views Talarico as a weak candidate. Though both Paxton and Cornyn have vied for Trump’s coveted endorsement, the president had long resisted picking a favorite in the race. The competition between the two men has been ugly, with Cornyn attacking Paxton for infidelity in marriage, and Paxton calling Cornyn old, weak and too bipartisan for Texas… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Rain gives Corpus Christi a small break, delaying projected water crisis by 3 months (Texas Tribune)

A projection for when Corpus Christi expects to reach a water crisis was pushed back by three months after a wet April brought enough rain to delay an emergency but too little to quench a brutal drought.

The city was initially bracing for a Level 1 emergency — the point when water demand is projected to be six months from exceeding supplies — to hit by September.

Rain that the community has long prayed for fell last month, delaying the Level 1 projection to December and buying the city a few more months to plan for the expected emergency.

Still, the delay provided “some very encouraging news,” Nick Winkelmann, chief operating officer of Corpus Christ’s water department, told the City Council on Tuesday.

The new projection came largely because Lake Texana, one of three reservoirs the city depends on, jumped from 55% capacity last month to 76%. The two other reservoirs the city depends on have shrunk to historic lows: Lake Corpus Christi is a little above 10% capacity, and Choke Canon is at 7% capacity… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ South Carolina House passes new map aimed at forcing out Clyburn (New York Times)

The South Carolina House of Representatives passed a new congressional map early Wednesday morning aimed at eliminating the state’s only Democratic seat at the urging of President Trump. Among the proposed changes is a significant, Republican-leaning shift of the Sixth Congressional District, which is currently represented by James E. Clyburn, a powerful Black Democrat. The map now heads to the State Senate, where some conservative members have been more hesitant to jump into the nation’s redistricting battles.

Republicans already hold six of the state’s seven congressional seats, and some lawmakers have expressed skepticism about possibly unseating Mr. Clyburn, a power broker who has funneled vast resources into South Carolina over the years. Indeed, there initially appeared to be little appetite for redistricting from Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, who did not immediately call for a special session on the issue.

And some conservative state senators voiced opposition to the idea, saying it could backfire and create more competitive districts for Democrats by spreading out liberal voters — known as a dummymander. But then Mr. McMaster, who has faced pressure from much of the conservative base to heed Mr. Trump’s demands, announced that he would call for a special session focused on redistricting and the state budget. The governor has said that it is up to the General Assembly to examine the congressional map and determine necessary changes.

The State House voted on the map around 12:30 a.m. because a Democratic lawmaker requested the text of the bill be read aloud, in an effort to slow the process. It took more than three hours. As James L. Mann “Bubba” Cromer Jr., the reading clerk, began his marathon, he uttered: “Let’s get it done.”

In the State House, Republican members are up for re-election this year and are considered more vulnerable to pressure from the president. It did not go unnoticed in Columbia, the capital, that many of the Republican state senators in Indiana who voted down Mr. Trump’s plan on redistricting lost their primaries this month to challengers he had endorsed… 🟪 (READ MORE)