This is TPR's roundup of the latest headlines and news developments. It provides a succinct and clear summary of the stories TPR is following.
Today's weather: Expect a high today of 80 and a low of 50.
The tropics: The National Hurricane Center expects Hurricane Rafael, currently south of Cuba, to move into the Gulf of Mexico sometime on Wednesday and then weakening before striking Louisiana by this weekend. The Atlantic hurricane season ends on Nov. 30.
San Antonio voters approve all six charter amendments
San Antonio voters approved all six charter amendments on the November ballot, including raises for the city council, longer council and mayoral term lengths, and a removal of salary and tenure caps on the city manager.
Proposition A will revise the city’s ethics code to include a definition of conflicts of interest and ensure the Ethics Review Board has adequate funding to carry out its duties. Proposition B will revise the city charter to remove or update outdated language, including the introduction of gender-neutral language.
Proposition C will remove the salary and tenure caps for the city manager position voters approved in 2018. Those caps limited the role to an eight-year term and to a salary no greater than ten times the lowest-paid salaried city worker. Proposition D will remove a 72-year ban on city workers engaging in city politics even while off the job.
Proposition E will give the mayor and city council positions roughly $25,000 raises starting next May. Those salaries will then be indexed to a U.S. Housing and Urban Development measure of the average median income for a family of four in San Antonio. Proposition F will extend council and mayoral terms from two years to four years. Council members and the mayor will still be limited to a maximum of eight years in office.
Republican Marc LaHood will represent north central San Antonio in the Texas House
Texas House District 121 in north central San Antonio will be represented by Republican Marc LaHood in the next legislative session.
House District 121 has long been held by Republicans, but this will be LaHood’s first time representing the district. He defeated current State Rep. Steve Allison in the Republican primary after receiving Gov. Greg Abbott’s endorsement.
LaHood said his top priorities in the next legislative session will be securing the border and private school choice.
Democrat Laurel Jordan Swift lost her race against LaHood by about 5 percentage points.
This was her first time running for office, but she said it won’t be her last.
John Lujan keeps seat in HD 118
Incumbent State Rep. John Lujan won re-election for Texas House District 118 during an election night that heavily favored Republicans in close races.
Lujan defeated Democratic challenger Kristian Carranza with 51.7% of the vote.
Lujan is a previous Bexar County Sheriff’s deputy and a former San Antonio firefighter. He now owns a small IT firm.
In the upcoming legislative session, Lujan said he plans to pre-file bills on several issues including vaping, fentanyl and juvenile justice.
Former Uvalde mayor wins Texas House District 80
The Texas House District 80 seat has flipped red after decades being blue. Republican candidate Don Mclaughlin Jr. declared victory over Democratic opponent Cecilia Castellano on Tuesday.
The race caught the eyes of the voters, especially after incumbent Democrat Tracy King announced he wouldn't run for reelection.
Texas House District 80 is a rural South Texas district, running through Pleasanton, Pearsall, Uvalde and parts of Laredo. The district is majority Latino and covers some border counties.
McLaughlin gained attention after serving as the Uvalde mayor in the wake of the Robb Elementary School shooting that claimed the lives of 19 students and two teachers.
He supports school vouchers and said he encourages parental involvement in schools. He said he will fight to expand opportunities for kids to get involved in vocational and trade schools and ensure all students have the chance to get not just a good education, but a good-paying job.
Texas Democrats regroup
Texas House Democratic Caucus leader Trey Martinez Fischer said last night was not the success he had hoped for in close house races in the San Antonio area. He said it was disappointing that Democrats lost a couple of chances to increase their numbers.
"That's just how the cookie crumbles, right?" Martinez Fischer told TPR. "You get back up and we'll dust ourselves off, and tomorrow's another day and we'll go back up to work in Austin and do the people's business."
Martinez Fischer, who easily won re-election last night to San Antonio's 116th district, said state Democrats are still letting the dust settle in this election before they figure out their next moves.
Incumbents triumphant in Bexar County commissioners races
Rebeca Clay-Flores and Grant Moody both secured another term on the Commissioners Court.
It is the second term for Democrat Clay-Flores, who represents Precinct 1, which spans the city’s Southwest Side. For her next term, she wants to continue her fight to increase health care access to the South Side.
University Health System continues to build its Palo Alto Hospital campus in the area. Ensuring it is completed on time in 2027 is a priority for Clay-Flores, as well as increasing capacity for in-patient treatment for mental health emergencies through increased mental health beds.
The sole Republican on the court, Moody was elected to his first full term. He was first elected to represent the North Side in a 2022 special election after Trish DeBerry resigned to run for Bexar County judge. He said his work the past two years gave him victories to run on like more law enforcement for the area and cuts to property taxes.
Moody said he wants a study to establish how to address the Bexar County Jail, which is regularly near capacity and struggling to keep staff. He also said he wanted to focus on reviewing how the county spends on capital projects — preferring to pay down debt.
Sheriff Salazar defeats challenger for third term
Democratic Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar handily defeated Republican challenger Nate Buchanan to win a third term in office on Tuesday.
Salazar successfully lobbied county commissioners for funding to boost deputy patrols in booming areas of unincorporated Bexar County. He also created a number of specialized units within his department, handling organized crime, public integrity, mental health issues at the adult detention center, a mounted patrol, a boat patrol, a drone team, and a special victims unit.
Salazar has faced long term issues with the county's adult detention center, much like the sheriffs before him, including inmate crowding and chronic understaffing among jail deputies that leads to tens of millions of dollars in overtime costs to county taxpayers.
Buchanan, a Texas peace officer since 2008, signed a pledge of support for the Texas Secession movement.
Ted Cruz returns to the U.S. Senate for a third term
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz declared victory over U.S. Rep. Colin Allred on Tuesday, defying another spirited and well-funded effort to turn Texas blue and preserving his status as a leading conservative voice in American politics.
Cruz’s victory once again dashed Democrats’ dream of breaking their decades-long drought in Texas statewide elections. But it was not without a serious challenge: Both candidates raised north of $80 million and attracted millions more from outside groups eager to sway a contest that carried potential to decide control of the U.S. Senate.
Allred, a former NFL linebacker and civil rights lawyer from Dallas, repeatedly broke fundraising records in his campaign, raising more than $80 million by mid-October. He blanketed the state with ads introducing himself as a more bipartisan alternative to Cruz.
Meanwhile, it was Cruz’s first election since the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade and Cruz’s effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, giving Democrats hope that he would be vulnerable this year.
Also fueling Cruz’s win was his standing as one of the most popular Republicans among conservative voters in a state where GOP voters still outnumber Democrats. He ran on a message of experience, having racked up a legislative record after 12 years in the Senate and as the top Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee.
Henry Cuellar keeps seat for 28th Congressional District
Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar defeated Republican Jay Furman to win Texas’ 28th Congressional District. District 28 encompasses nine counties across South Texas including Bexar County.
Cuellar has served the district since 2005. This will be his 11th term.
Earlier this year, Cuellar and his wife were indicted on charges of money laundering, bribery and conspiracy. The Department of Justice’s indictment said that the congressman accepted money from Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil company and a Mexican bank that influenced his role as a lawmaker. The couple maintains their innocence, and their next court date is scheduled for March 2025.
Cuellar is prioritizing border security, agricultural issues affecting his district, and education. Furman ran against COVID-19 vaccine mandates and abortion.
U.S. Rep. Chip Roy keeps seat in 21st Congressional District
Central Texas Republican Congressman Chip Roy will serve a third term in Congress after a decisive victory over Democrat Kristin Hook.
The 21st Congressional District includes a piece of San Antonio’s North Side, follows I-35 up to Austin where it grabs a small slice of Travis County before spreading out across the Hill Country, to include places like Fredericksburg, Kerrville, New Braunfels and San Marcos. The whole district voted in favor of Roy, except for that piece in Austin, which voted in favor of Hook by 13 points.
Roy is a former chief of staff for Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, and in a victory tweet he said that the Hill Country had spoken. He added that the district brought “record numbers to Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.”
Hook is a native of Corpus Christi and a scientist whose campaign was focused on access to health care, noting that one in five Texans don’t have access to affordable health care. She said, despite her loss, that she’s not going anywhere.
The Texas Tribune's Matthew Choi and Jasper Scherer contributed to this report.
