A panel of three federal judges has ruled that Texas cannot use a new congressional map drawn by Republicans in hopes of securing the party additional U.S. House seats, blocking the map from taking effect ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said he plans on filing an appeal. The 2-1 ruling followed a nearly two-week trial in El Paso. The court's… Read more »

Fort Bend County resident Koretta Brown desperately wanted the federal government shutdown to end but she didn’t want it to come at the expense of affordable healthcare for her senior citizen parents and millions of other Americans.  Brown got good news and bad news last week.  The U.S. House voted 222-209 on the evening… Read more »

A federal judge ruled recently that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has to provide, at the very least, partial benefits to food stamp recipients in November, but single moms like Hillary Randall who are dependent on government assistance say the only notification they’ve received is that the Texas Health and Human Services Commission is monitoring the situation. Randall told the… Read more »

Employed single mothers who make less than $41,000 per year rely on about $400 a month in government assistance to feed their children. But as the federal government shutdown closes in on the one-month mark, hundreds of thousands of families in Harris County and the surrounding area won’t be able to get groceries through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Anticipating a… Read more »

The federal government shutdown has entered its fourth week with no deal in sight, and the effects are hitting home for millions of Texans who rely on SNAP benefits to buy groceries. If Congress doesn’t strike a funding agreement by the end of the day, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) could run out of money to load November benefits — a situation that would impact… Read more »

In the latest episode of This Week in Texas, ABC13 takes you to Conroe, where voters are considering a change to the way their local government works. Our political insiders, Court Koenning and Angel Carroll, weigh in with their thoughts. ABC13 also sits down for a conversation with the Harris County Voter Registrar Annette Ramirez. Plus, we discuss the government shutdown with… Read more »

Congressional Democrats are pressing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to restore funding to a program expanding the deployment of solar energy for working families. The move follows Harris County's lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s administration to restore the program. The EPA announced on Aug. 7 that it would terminate the Solar for All program and take back $7… Read more »

Governor Greg Abbott should keep the Texas National Guard where it belongs — in Texas. On October 6, Governor Abbott took 200 Texas guardsmen from their families and jobs and sent them to Chicago, Illinois. In doing so, the governor facilitated a power grab by President Donald Trump. Abbott’s peers, the governors of Oregon and Illinois, have both objected to the National Guard… Read more »

As several U.S. airports refuse to show a video of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem blaming Democrats for the government shutdown, Houston airport officials have not yet said whether they’ll play the partisan message at their security checkpoints. The video of Noem criticizing the Democratic Party has sparked pushback from Democratic leaders about whether her use… Read more »

Since Donald Trump took office in January, Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee has sued the federal government four times, saying Tuesday that it’s the only way to get the attention of an administration that has repeatedly, illegally, broken promises to low-income Texans.  Menefee announced this week that he filed the latest… Read more »