The Blast - Mon, Jul. 20, 2026

106 days until the midterms

After creating buzz for criticizing James Talarico’s Black outreach, fellow state Rep. Jolanda Jones is putting on a listening session for Democratic candidates to hear from Black voters, and extended the invitation to the party’s Senate nominee.

The forum, scheduled for tomorrow evening in the Third Ward, comes two days after Talarico joined an event in Houston for Black voters to express their priorities and concerns that they’ve been taken for granted, concerns that have plagued the Talarico campaign for months. That event was, at times, testy.

The Talarico campaign did not say whether he would attend the Houston listening session. However, the campaign confirmed he was already scheduled to be in Fort Worth before receiving Jones’ invitation.

The Fort Worth events include a morning press conference and meeting with teachers and parents about childcare affordability.

Jones’ Houston event doesn’t call out Talarico by name, but addresses complaints that Black voters have made about the Democratic nominee, including Jones’ claim that Talarico has asked for her endorsement “without building relationships.”

Other speakers include cohosts Constable James “Smokie” Phillips and Houston Black American Democrats President Shamier Bouie; Obama, Biden, Harris and Pelosi veteran Ashley Etienne; and new Harris County Democratic Party Chair Traci Gibson.

A press release for the event says Democrats who attend will be there to “listen, not lecture.”

Yesterday, Talarico said he has spoken to Jones on the phone but that the campaign’s been swamped with incoming calls.

“We’ve been doing the best we can, but we’ve been getting feedback that there’s a delay,” Talarico said.

In response on social media, Jones called that misleading.

“While his staff has recently reached out, the longstanding protocol among elected officials is that we speak directly to one another,” she wrote.

State Rep. Barbara Gervin-Hawkins and Jones were among the seven Houston-area Lege members who signed a letter in June expressing concerns about Talarico’s level of engagement with Black voters. Gervin-Hawkins told the Tribune’s Kayla Guo that the letter prompted a 75-minute Zoom meeting, in which Talarico pledged to invest in Black media and hold more targeted meetings, possibly even monthly.

“He was committed to making sure he do a better job in outreach and participation,” Gervin-Hawkins said in the interview earlier this month. “After our conversation, I felt encouraged he would broaden that along with making sure when he appeared at different places that he’s reaching out to a broader group of people.”

Gervin-Hawkins told Guo that Jones was in attendance.

Since winning the nomination, Talarico has met with Black leaders in North Texas, Houston and Austin. Like Talarico’s event yesterday, he was in DeSoto today for another town hall focusing on Black voters.

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State Rep. Andy Hopper and 25 other Republican members of the Texas House have dismissed calls from a Mexican lawmaker to partner on border policy — and brought up the Texas Revolution in rejecting the senator’s appeal.

In an open letter last week to the GOP and the state legislatures and congressional delegations of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, Sen. Juan Carlos Loera De la Rosa, who represents the state of Chihuahua, condemned the killings and deaths of migrants at the border, calling for a bipartisan collaboration between Mexican and American partners. Lege Republicans didn’t take kindly to the suggestion.

In their démarche to Loera, the members said the state owes no apology for defending its border and the lives and rights of Texans. They also told Mexico to clean up its own border policy, repudiating “lectures” from a foreign nation from whom the territory once won its independence.

The Alamo may have been mentioned.

“That history is neither forgotten nor diminished,” the members wrote. “Accordingly, we will not accept border policy instruction from officials in Mexico City.”

Loera’s letter, sent July 13, did not list any demands other than preventing deaths in the border region.

“I recognize that your legislatures and the Congress you serve are rightly focused on order, security, and the rule of law at our shared border,” Loera wrote. “I submit, respectfully, that these objectives do not conflict with the protection of human life; they depend on it.”

However, Hopper and crew said the letter’s timing, substance and omissions about the cost of border enforcement on Texas betray what they said was Loera’s true purpose.

“During a critical election year in Texas, your correspondence reads less like an invitation to cooperation and more like an attempt to inject the political priorities of a foreign government into the domestic affairs of the State of Texas,” they wrote.

Loera, of Ciudad Juárez, is a member of Morena, the left-wing party that came to power in 2024. He is the president (read: chair) of the Senate’s Committee on Northern Border Affairs.

Hopper led the Lone Star rejoinder, signed mostly by members of the House’s rabble-rousing right flank. Five would-be freshmen also signed the letter, including Dennis Geesaman, who primaried Rep. Stan Kitzman, and Kristen Plaisance, who primaried Rep. Cecil Bell Jr.

The list included members who are more friendly with House leadership, such as Rep. Cody Vasut and House GOP Caucus Chair Tom Oliverson.

“Mexico has no business telling Texas how to manage its affairs,” Oliverson added in a social media post. “As true today as it was in 1836!”

In May, the Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission against Brandon Herrera for paying over 90% of his campaign expenditures to a single vendor. The complaint alleges that the vendor, Texas Strategy Group, seems to be an “integrated arm of the Herrera political operation.”

In his first filing since the complaint, Herrera’s spending pattern was much the same. Nearly 97% of his principal campaign committee’s spending in the second quarter went to Texas Strategy Group.

Herrera is running in Texas’ 23rd Congressional District, a Republican-leaning seat previously represented by Tony Gonzales, who resigned earlier this year.

In its complaint, CLC alleges that Texas Strategy Group has only received payments from Herrera-affiliated committees. And the addresses listed for the group in FEC filings are also associated with Thomas Datwyler, Herrera’s campaign treasurer.

CLC says this pattern is a violation of election law by obscuring the ultimate payees.

“There is reason to believe TSG exists only on paper and serves as a mere payment clearinghouse for Herrera’s committees to conceal the identities of their vendors,” the complaint says.

The Herrera campaign and Texas Strategy Group have rejected CLC’s argument that this pattern is a violation of campaign law.

“Texas Strategy Group is an exceptionally talented and broadly capable consulting firm that provides strategic, operational, media, fundraising, compliance, and vendor management services,” Herrera campaign manager Kimmie Gonzalez said in a statement to the Tribune. “Like many successful political consulting firms, it coordinates a wide range of specialized campaign activities on behalf of its clients. The campaign’s reporting has been conducted in accordance with federal law and longstanding FEC guidance.”

Gonzalez said the FEC has upheld that campaigns can retain consulting firms that provide “comprehensive campaign services and manage specialized vendors as part of delivering those services” and that Texas Strategy Group provides that wide range of services. She also said CLC’s legal theory has been dismissed by the FEC and in court previously.

“We are confident that the facts and the law are on our side, and we look forward to continuing to rely on Texas Strategy Group’s expertise as we work to send Brandon Herrera to Congress,” Gonzalez said, calling the complaint “meritless.”

Matt Braynard, who runs Texas Strategy Group, said the organization is a full-service firm and dismissed the complaint.

“It’s donor theatre for CLC, and it’s frankly embarrassing,” Braynard said.

— Gabby Birenbaum

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Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller is continuing to pressure Gov. Greg Abbott over data centers.

Miller, whom Abbott successfully ousted in the GOP primary with his preferred candidate, Nate Sheets, this month demanded that the governor call a special session to regulate large-scale data centers. In a Facebook post on Saturday, Miller pledged to defend farmers and ranchers from the effects of data centers on the grid, water supply and rural land.

“The warning signs weren’t hidden. They were plain to see,” Miller wrote. “Yet instead of acting to protect Texans, state leadership opened the door wide to an industry that now threatens our natural resources and infrastructure.”

In a graphic attached to the post, Miller went after Abbott by name.

“He didn’t care,” the graphic begins, overlaid on the governor’s photo. “When Greg Abbott put out the welcome mat for big data centers, he knew the problems it would cause, but he took their money anyway.”

After years of courting tech investment in Texas, Abbott called for regulating data centers in a letter last month. Later, he made a campaign pitch to ban data center development in rural communities.

That put Abbott partially at odds with President Donald Trump, who has encouraged data center growth by cutting red tape. However, both want data centers to cover their own power consumption.

In a Truth Social post on Wednesday, Trump criticized New York Gov. Kathy Hochul for signing a one-year moratorium on new hyperscale data centers, saying she signed the executive order for “political reasons.” Trump added that data center companies “are being sought in” Alabama, Arizona, Florida and Texas.

The Republican governors of Montana, Missouri and Wyoming reportedly signed Trump’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge last week. Asked whether Abbott had signed or would be signing the pledge, spokesperson Andrew Mahaleris said it was “the White House’s announcement to make. Don’t want to get ahead of them.”

The governor’s campaign did not respond to Miller’s attacks when prodded by The Blast. Miller didn’t return The Blast’s call or text, either.

Last month, Miller spoke at an anti-data center event including Clayton Tucker, the Democrat running to succeed him. Miller told the Tribune he wasn’t speaking “in conjunction” with Tucker.

The data center topic isn’t going away anytime soon. Following up on an interim charge from Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Chair Joan Huffman, R-Houston, and the Senate Finance Committee will meet a week from today to discuss the “cost and consequences” of the sales tax exemption for data centers.

The interim charge pegs the amount of exempted tax revenue at $3.3 billion for the upcoming biennium, up from $14.6 million for the 2014-15 biennium. It’s in that context that the charge asks the Finance Committee to recommend “safeguards to ensure that Texans benefit from data center investment.”

Former state Rep. Jason Isaac, CEO of the American Energy Institute and the husband of current Rep. Carrie Isaac, R-Wimberley, took to social media to mock nationwide data center protests that took place on Saturday.

“If you’re opposed to data centers, make a pledge to stop using everything they power,” he wrote. “Go ahead... we’ll wait.”

There are at least 248 data center projects planned across the state. While industry leaders promise economic gains, some residents fear the pressure data centers could put on Texas’ already strained resources.

We’re bringing together experts from across the state for a conversation on the ways data centers are reshaping Texas communities. We’ll look at the ways local and state officials are responding to the development boom, what power they really have to regulate, or incentivize, data center projects, and how Texans can stay informed.

The panel, moderated by Tribune environmental reporter Alejandra Martinez, includes:

The one-hour virtual event begins at noon Wednesday, July 22.

This event is done in partnership with the Pulitzer Center.

RSVP today

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View the full list of upcoming committee notices here and here.

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“Tracking the money raised and spent in the U.S. Senate race between James Talarico and Ken Paxton,” by Hien An Ngo of The Texas Tribune

“The question at the heart of the Texas Senate race: Who is ‘Texas’ enough?,” by Allegra Hobbs of Texas Monthly

Op-ed: “Closing Texas’ GOP primary would be a costly mistake that would hurt voters” by U.S. Sen. John Cornyn in the Austin American-Statesman (Gift link)

“BlackRock leads $12 billion financing for new Meta data centers in Texas,” by Jack Pitcher, Justin Baer and Peter Rudegeair of The Wall Street Journal

“San Antonio council members’ fundraising has dried up — now some want to change the rules,” by Andrea Drusch of the San Antonio Report

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(July 20) State Rep. Katrina Pierson, R-Rockwall
(July 21) State Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola

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