House Kills School Choice Plan

The Texas House on Friday defeated a proposed voucher plan, also leaving in doubt a comprehensive public school funding plan that became tied to it, The Dallas Morning News reported. A coalition of rural Republicans and Democrats joined together to take education savings accounts out of the bill by an 84-63 margin.

It’s unclear whether proposed record funding increases for schools and teacher raises will survive this fourth special session. Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick made vouchers a priority. Versions of their priority have passed the Senate but continue to be stymied in the House. This special session ends the first week of December.

Bill Passes to Allow Undocumented Migrants Arrests

A sweeping border security bill that allows state and local police to arrest undocumented migrants is headed to Gov. Greg Abbot’s desk, The Dallas Morning News reported. The bill also allows state district judges to order those migrants be returned to Mexico.

In addition, a separate bill that provides billions in funding for expansion of a border wall is headed back to the Senate for final approval.

Abbott has indicated he will sign both bills. Legal experts and Democratic legislators say the bill allowing law enforcement to arrest undocumented migrants is unconstitutional.

“Texas Republicans proudly passed legislation that will allow Greg Abbott’s Department of Public Safety to imprison Black and Brown migrants for simply existing in our state,” Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa said.

The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. David Spiller, R-Jacksboro, defended the measure.

“We still know that the Biden administration has failed and refused to enforce federal immigration laws and secure the border,” Spiller said.

60th Anniversary Of JFK’s Assassination

The 60th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy is Nov. 22, with a number of events taking place in Dallas, where Kennedy was killed in 1963. The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas is marking the event with a “Two Days in Texas” exhibition that revisits Kennedy’s visit to Texas through eyewitness accounts of his time in Texas before the assassination.

The sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, now a museum, was the primary crime scene. An all-day remembrance is also taking place at the Texas Theatre in Oak Cliff, which is where Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested after killing Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit.