Here are the stories on Texas Standard for Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024:
Meet the longshot candidates in gerrymandered districts
In Texas’ 2024 elections, longshot candidates are facing uphill battles in heavily gerrymandered districts. Redistricting has made most state and federal races in Texas non-competitive, leaving few districts with close races.
Despite the odds, underdog candidates are still running. San Antonio Express-News reporter Edward McKinley has been following the races and joins the Standard with more.
Cheap Medicaid support is shuttering psych hospitals
Texas’ private psychiatric hospitals are struggling to stay open due to stagnant Medicaid reimbursement rates, which haven’t increased in 16 years.
These facilities, critical for mental health and substance abuse treatment, serve Medicaid patients at a financial loss, costing nearly double what the state reimburses. Texas Tribune reporter Terri Langford joins the show with her findings.
SAVE Act could prevent married women from voting
The Associated Press recently cited research that finds voting by non-citizens in federal elections is rare. But Texas Public Radio’s David Martin Davies reports a Republican-led effort to prevent non-citizen voting could keep eligible voters – especially married women – from casting ballots:
Abilene Christian University gets green light for nuclear reactor research
Abilene Christian University has received federal approval to build a small nuclear reactor for research – the first such project approved in over 40 years. The reactor will test a new design that seeks to change nuclear energy by making it cheaper and more accessible.
Rusty Towell, director of ACU’s nuclear energy experimental testing lab, joins with more on the school’s research plans.
Shifting political dynamics among Black voters ahead of the fall elections
Republicans continue to make inroads with Texas’ Latino voters, but Black voters are also becoming more politically diverse as well. New research suggests that declining religious affiliation may be a key factor in this shift.
Jason E. Shelton, director of the Center for African American Studies at UT-Arlington, researched these changing voting patterns. Today he joins Texas Standard with a look.
‘America First’ and Lindbergh’s World War II isolationism
Eighty years ago, Americans largely united behind the fight against fascism – but before the war began, the public was deeply split. President Franklin Roosevelt foresaw U.S. involvement was inevitable, but many Americans, worn down by the Great Depression and World War I, wanted little part.
One of the most prominent voices urging isolationism: famed aviator Charles Lindbergh. Pulitzer Prize finalist and UT-Austin historian H.W. Brands explores this tension in “America First: Roosevelt vs. Lindbergh in the Shadow of War.” He joins the show for an in-depth talk.
Maternal mortality rises sharply in Texas after abortion ban
According to a new study from the Gender Equity Policy Institute, the number of women who have died while pregnant or from labor complications has risen drastically in Texas since the state’s abortion ban went into effect in 2021.
NBC News published the study’s findings. Zinhle Essamuah, one of the reporters on the story, shares more on today’s show.
All this, plus Alexandra Hart with the Texas Newsroom’s state roundup and Wells Dunbar with the Talk of Texas.
