The Standard’s news roundup gives you a quick hit of interesting, sometimes irreverent, and breaking news stories from all over the state.
The deadline for Gov. Greg Abbott to sign and veto bills passed during the 2019 Texas legislative session has come and gone. His last day to take action on legislation was Sunday, June 16.
While Abbott gave his stamp of approval to over 1,300 bills, only a handful received the pomp and circumstance of a ceremonial signing. One of those measures was House Bill 1545, which keeps the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission operating for the next decade.
But the governor said he knew the real reason there was excitement surrounding the bill.
“What we really care about is the fact that this bill allows beer-to-go in the state of Texas,” Abbot said as he signed the bill.
That’s right…starting September 1, craft breweries in Texas will be able to sell beer-to-go. Abbott signed the bill at Austin Beerworks Saturday.
“We could be making Texas history today – I am unaware of any governor ever signing a piece of legislation in a brewery in the state of Texas,” Abbott said.
That audio is courtesy of KVUE, the ABC-affiliate in Austin. The country’s 49 other states already allowed breweries to sell beer-to-go.
According to new data compiled by The Annie E. Casey Foundation, the teen birth rate in Texas is among the highest in the country.
Ashley Lopez with KUT News reports the good news is that the state’s teen birth rate is decreasing, albeit slowly.
Every year the foundation releases what it calls it’s Kids Count Data Book. It’s a state-by-state ranking of child well-being – when it comes to things like education, poverty and health. And according to this year’s report, Texas is in the bottom ten across all those categories. And the state’s worst ranking comes from family and community measures – that’s things like the number of single parent families… and teen pregnancy rates. Currently, Texas’ rate is 28 teen births per 100 thousand births. BUT — that rate has been cut in half in the last several years.
Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke released a new policy proposal over the weekend aimed at spurring small business growth.
Specifically, the former El Paso Congressman wants to see an increase in women and minority-owned businesses throughout the country.
The first part of O’Rourke’s three-part plan is to root out racism and sexism in the small business lending market.
He discussed the plan in more detail during a presidential candidate forum hosted by the Black Economic Alliance in Charleston, South Carolina and broadcast by BET Sunday.
“Our proposal calls for the doubling the size of money that’s deployed from community development finance institutions,” O’Rourke says. “It calls for shifting $100 billion in federal procurement from big corporations to small businesses and targeting half of that to women-owned and minority businesses.”
Fellow Texan and Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro is also releasing a new policy proposal today: The People First Housing plan.
I’m disappointed to miss today’s #PPCMoralCongress in DC—my flights were cancelled. I had looked forward to discussing my plans to reduce poverty & systemic racism in our country. However, today I’ll release a key component of that agenda—my People First Housing plan. Stay tuned!
— Julián Castro (@JulianCastro) June 17, 2019
Castro served as the Housing and Urban Development secretary under President Barack Obama.
