Buoy battle resumes
Gov. Greg Abbott's buoy barrier is headed back to court for another round of hearings tomorrow.
A month after a lower court ordered him to remove the barriers from the Rio Grande while the larger case is heard, a federal appeals court on Thursday will look at that ruling to see if it should stand.
Abbott deployed the 1,000-foot barrier near Eagle Pass in July in response to a surge of border crossings near that stretch of the river. But the U.S. Justice Department sued arguing that Abbott has violated the federal Rivers and Harbors Act, which requires federal approval to put barriers in any U.S. waterway.
In August, Judge David A. Ezra agreed with the federal government and ordered the barriers repositioned on the banks until the fuller case could be heard. But Abbott immediately appealed.
In new filings before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton leans heavily on the argument that the surge of border crossings has created an "invasion" and Texas has the right to respond to protect its people with the barriers regardless of that federal law. They argue the Rivers and Harbors Act can't invalidate the "State's right to defend itself from violent threats."
"The Court must take the existence of an invasion as a given," Paxton's attorneys argue in the filing.
Critics have blasted politicians for using the term invasion, a term the El Paso shooter in 2019 used to explain why he was targeting Hispanics at a shopping center there.
 | Jeremy Wallace, Texas politics reporter |
Who's up, who's down
The state's large GOP delegation in Congress is fast becoming critical in deciding who will be the next Speaker of the House after Kevin McCarthy's ouster yesterday. Several candidates who want to be the next leader showed up at a regularly scheduled Texas GOP lunch in the Capitol basement to make their pitch to the state's 25 GOP members.
Down: Donald Trump.
It's probably not great when your attorneys make a judge so angry that he pounds his fist and warns that they are not following his instructions. But that's exactly what happened in New York today where Judge Arthur Engoron scolded Trump's attorneys and said, "This is ridiculous."
What do you think? Hit reply and let me know.
What else is going on in Texas
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Pick of the day
Photo by: Jeremy Wallace
That's the number of megawatts of extra power the state's energy grid monitor, ERCOT, is trying to find as Texas prepares for another winter. They are asking power companies to potentially reopen shuttered gas and coal plants in case the state gets in a pinch for more power, as happened during the 2021 winter storms.
What else I'm reading
After complaints from parents and politicians, an Austin-area school district is defending its plan to buy Teslas for its police department. KVUE-TV in Austin reports the Eanes ISD Superintendent Jeff Arnett said cars represented the best value for the district and stressed they are not luxury models.
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