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TEXAS LEGISLATURE
RIO GRANDE VALLEY
‘Campus carry’ a go
After rains, fewer aphids
Lawmakers lift ban, Abbott poised to sign By PAUL J. WEBER AND WILL WEISSERT ASSOCIATED PRESS
Photo by Eric Gay | AP file
In this Jan. 13 file photo, a gun-rights advocate carries a rifle on his back and a cardboard cutout of a pistol on his waist as a group protests outside the Texas Capitol, in Austin, Texas.
AUSTIN — The Texas Legislature wound down Sunday by lifting a ban on firearms on college campuses after years of thwarted attempts, putting a final conservative stamp on new Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s debut that included tax cuts and a dramatic rise in border security spending. The official last day for the Legislature was Monday, and that day was mostly ceremonial; unlike the
previous 14 years under Rick Perry, lawmakers went home instead of being marched into a special summer session to finish business. The last major bill sent to Abbott was both a symbol of the Republican dominance flaunted over the last 140 days of the session and the most emotionallycharged issue when he took office — expanding gun rights. Allowing concealed handguns in college classrooms — known as “cam-
See CAMPUS CARRY PAGE 9A
HOUSE BILL 40
DENTON SAYS FIGHT ISN’T OVER Fracking starts up again By JIM MALEWITZ TEXAS TRIBUNE
DENTON – Seven months after a rag-tag group of local activists scored a surprising victory over the state’s powerful oil and gas industry by convincing voters in this North Texas city to ban hydraulic fracturing, heavy trucks bearing piping, perforating guns and other high-powered equipment waited at well site early Monday. After police arrested three protesters trying to block the path of workers, Colorado-based Vantage Energy, a natural gas driller, officially revved up its fracking operations on a pad site on the western outskirts of town. That effectively ended the brief but intense life of an ordinance that Denton officials say they can no longer enforce due to a new Texas law — House Bill 40 — passed in response that pre-empts local control over a wide range of oil and gas activities. “Since the ban on hydraulic fracturing took effect in 2014, we have maintained regular dialogue with Denton City officials, presented path forward alternatives and last week followed the city’s
See FRACKING PAGE 9A
Cooper Neill | Texas Tribune
Vantage Energy on June 1 resumed hydraulic operations on a pad site on the western outskirts of Denton. It was the first company to frack within city limits after the Texas Legislature overturned the Denton’s ban on the process.
Infestations down in sorghum crops ASSOCIATED PRESS
HARLINGEN — Researchers suspect steady rains and other factors may be responsible for a drop in a tiny bug’s infestation of a grain crop so far this year. Farmers in the Rio Grande Valley had feared the sugarcane aphid would again invade their sorghum crop following experts’ predictions they would come back in full force after an increase in population across the region last year, the Valley Morning Star reported. The pests had swarmed the Valley’s sorghum fields, gnawing away at the plants in 2014. The bugs also infested crops from Mississippi to southern Oklahoma while devastating Mexico’s sorghum crop, according to researchers. They had warned that sorghum growers in the Valley who didn’t take preventive measures by spraying their fields with insecticide would face heavy crop losses. But they think rains and humidity may have helped stop the insect in attacking the crops. “We have an enigma as to what’s happening,” said Raul Villanueva, an entomologist at Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service in Weslaco. “We were predicting them to be very abundant this year.” Farmer Ricardo Lopez, who has around 2,200 acres of sorghum in San Manuel, said he had worried that aphids would infest his fields this year. But he said he and other workers haven’t seen signs of the bug ruining their grain harvest. In Santa Rosa, Sam Sparks III said he’ll continue to spray insecticide in fields where he has found the pests. “We’ve had to spray some areas but others are clean,” said Sparks, who farms about 2,000 acres of sorghum. “They’re a problem but not at the severity that they were last year. We’re not out of the woods yet.”
TEXAS LEGISLATURE
Despite push, immigration bills fall flat By JULIÁN AGUILAR TEXAS TRIBUNE
As the sun begins to set on the 84th Texas Legislature, promises to enact tough immigration legislation remain unfulfilled. State Sen. Donna Campbell says she’s not giving up just because the last gavel is about to drop. Campbell, a New Braunfels Republican, tried unsuccessfully to pass Senate Bill 1819, which would have elimi-
nated a 14-year-old policy that allows non-citizens, including some undocumented immigrants, to pay in-state tuition rates at public colleges and universities. “Unfortunately, it takes a [three-fifths] vote to bring a bill to the floor, and I was unable to find those final two to three affirmative votes once the bill passed out of committee,” she said in an email Saturday. “I am disappointed that we were un-
able to get this bill passed under the current body, but I have two years to change a couple members’ minds and try again next session." Republican lawmakers could take a similar conciliatory tone on another contentious issue, Senate Bill 185, by state Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock. That bill sought to ban socalled “sanctuary cities” – the common term for local governments whose peace officers don’t en-
force immigration laws. The proposals seemed likely to pass, at minimum, the upper chamber in the early months of the session. The crush of unauthorized migration last summer in the Rio Grande Valley kept the issues at the forefront, and some GOP senators said during their campaigns that passing immigration legislation was a priority. But two Republican senators, Kevin Eltife, RTyler, and Craig Estes, R-
Wichita Falls, opposed the measures. Eltife said the issues were about local control; Estes said he feared both could have dire unintended consequences. Their opposition blocked both from going before the full chamber for a vote. State Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, said a coalition opposing the bills formed early, and it held “regardless of a great deal of pressure that was put on some people.”
“We spent time talking to individual members and talking to people outside the Capitol who in turn talked to members, so that we could be sure we weren’t making any assumptions about where someone might be on these bills, simply because of their party,” said Watson, chairman of the Senate Democratic Caucus. When then-Gov. Rick Perry declared eliminat-
See BILLS PAGE 9A