Texas Rural Report Newsclips 10.14.24

#TXLEGE

Did Gov. Abbott’s primary meddling put a Northside House district in jeopardy for the GOP?

Texas Democrats had largely abandoned their long-held dream of flipping House District 121 — until Gov. Greg Abbott’s school voucher campaign thrust it back into the spotlight this year. Now an unlikely coalition of public education supporters, including House Democratic leaders, the state teachers’ union and even Rep. Steve Allison (R-Alamo Heights) — the ousted Republican incumbent — are working together to help little-known Democrat Laurel Jordan Swift in her uphill race against conservative Marc LaHood, a voucher supporter who emerged victorious from the Republican primary.

How a school voucher supporter won in a Texas House district with almost no private schools

Gov. Greg Abbott felt vindicated when nine Texas Republican lawmakers who helped block a school voucher program he championed last year lost their seats in the March primary. The governor portrayed their removal from office as clear evidence that Texans wanted a way to use public funds to send their children to private schools. “Republican primary voters have once again sent an unmistakable message that parents deserve the freedom to choose the best education pathway for their child,” Abbott said back then, before helping unseat six more lawmakers in the May runoff elections.

ELECTION 2024

Farmers Weigh Harris and Trump on Ag Policy as Candidates Vie for Rural Votes

Gov. Tim Walz was picked as Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate for many reasons—among them his rural roots, which Democrats hope will help erase a deficit the party has in farm country. That may or may not occur. The nation’s farmers, many hurt by floods or drought this year, as well as falling prices for their commodities, have steadily leaned toward the Republican Party. An April poll by the Rural Democracy Initiative showed that 46% of rural respondents said they were Republicans, 29% identified as independents and only 25% claimed they were Democrats.

EDUCATION

Education School choice goes before voters in 3 states, faces pushback in others

Supporters of school choice in Kentucky are hoping voters will do what the state courts wouldn’t — allow a new path for state-supported payments to private schools. Kentucky is one of three states, along with Colorado and Nebraska, with school choice questions on the ballot this fall. Voters will be asked to decide whether public money should go to support private education. Opponents say the measures would undermine public schools by shifting money from them, while backers maintain that state aid would give parents more control over their kids’ education.

A Pair of Billionaire Preachers Built the Most Powerful Political Machine in Texas. That’s Just the Start.

Last December, Sid Miller, the Texas commissioner of agriculture, posted a photo of himself brandishing a double-barrel shotgun on X and invited his followers to join him on a “RINO hunt.” Miller had taken to stumping in the March primary election against incumbents he deemed to be Republicans in Name Only. Not long after that, he received a text message from one of his targets, a state representative named Glenn Rogers. “You are a bought and paid for, pathetic narcissist,” it began. “If you had any honor, you would challenge me, or any of my Republican colleagues to a duel.”

HEALTHCARE

Charted: Uninsured population grows

Texas is home to the country's largest share of Americans under 65 without health insurance, according to new Census Bureau data, with 18.8% of residents uninsured as of 2022.

This mobile clinic is bringing birth control to rural South Texas

Twice a month, a 40-foot-long truck transformed into a mobile clinic travels the Rio Grande Valley to provide rural Texans with women’s health care, including birth control. The clinic, called the UniMóvil, is part of the Healthy Mujeres program at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley School of Medicine. The U.S. has about 3,000 mobile health programs. But Saul Rivas, an OB-GYN, said he wasn’t aware of any that shared the specific mission of Healthy Mujeres when he helped launch the initiative in 2017. “Mujeres” means “women” in Spanish.

Wildlife–Vehicle Collisions Peak During Full Moon

The moon’s influence on our planet, culture and society goes beyond the changing tides. New research from Texas A&M University found a 45.8% increase in vehicle collisions involving wildlife during a full moon. Kentaro Iio, a former Texas A&M student, and Dr. Dominique Lord, a professor in the Zachry Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, collected 10 years of collision data in Texas to compare full-moon nights with new-moon nights and their corresponding wildlife-vehicle collisions. Non-wildlife collisions in the same time periods showed no significant differences.

A Few Rural Towns Are Bucking the Trend and Building New Hospitals

There’s a new morning ritual in Pinedale, Wyoming, a town of about 2,000 nestled against the Wind River Mountains. Friends and neighbors in the oil- and gas-rich community “take their morning coffee and pull up” to watch workers building the county’s first hospital, said Kari DeWitt, the project’s public relations director.

Rural Hospitals Strengthen Care and Finances by Embracing Data-Driven Solutions

REDi Health Analytics, LLC ("REDi Health") partnered with a state health department to improve data capacity at six rural hospitals, aiming to enhance healthcare delivery and reduce disparities in rural communities. "This program laid the groundwork for identifying key opportunities, and now rural hospitals are investing in change management to capture savings by redesigning workflows based on data-informed best practices in partnership with REDi Health," said John Wadsworth, Co-founder.

BUSINESS

The best rural place in America to retire to, according to data. Plus, see the rest of the top 100

The retirement years are meant to be the golden years—a period in life when your time is truly your own to enjoy. For many retirees in the United States, that means finding the perfect location that meets at the intersection of low cost of living with a high quality of life. By the time people reach 65 years, they've started to consider where they want to live out the best years of their lives. Many factors come into consideration in addition to cost of living: health care facilities, weather, outdoor activities, cultural and entertainment opportunities, dining, and much more. While some retirees opt for a cosmopolitan setting, there are others who prefer to get back to nature, find a bit of space to call their own, and unplug.

Residents in rural Texas are suing their noisy neighbor: a humming bitcoin mining facility

Residents of Hood County in northern Texas have filed a lawsuit against a local bitcoin mining facility, alleging its "intolerably loud" noises and physical vibrations have caused mental and physical health problems. The crypto mine in question — located in Granbury, Texas — is operated by Marathon Digital Holdings, according to the suit, though construction began in 2022 and Marathon took over the lease in January 2024.

Fight over West Texas nuclear waste plan to hit U.S. Supreme Court

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take up a yearslong dispute over a plan to ship highly radioactive nuclear waste to rural West Texas, a case that could have sweeping implications for how the nation deals with a growing stockpile of waste generated by nuclear power plants. A company called Interim Storage Partners has long pursued the plan to move “high-level” nuclear waste from power plants across the nation to an existing nuclear waste storage facility in Andrews County, on the Texas-New Mexico border.