September 29, 2026: All Newsclips

Lead Stories

ICE operations are making it hard for vulnerable Republicans fighting for their political survival

Battleground Republicans across the country are on defense as ICE operations keep finding their way into local headlines. A flurry of ICE activity in four rural Kansas towns this week prompted businesses to shutter and public schools to urge families to identify who could pick up children from schools in case their parents were detained. Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) — a normally staunch MAGA defender who finds himself in a tougher-than-expected election — took to social media to say he was “closely following” the situation, signaled his displeasure that ICE wasn’t working more closely with local law enforcement, and said he had phoned Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. Battleground Republicans across the country are on defense as ICE operations keep finding their way into local headlines. A flurry of ICE activity in four rural Kansas towns this week prompted businesses to shutter and public schools to urge families to identify who could pick up children from schools in case their parents were detained. Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) — a normally staunch MAGA defender who finds himself in a tougher-than-expected election — took to social media to say he was “closely following” the situation, signaled his displeasure that ICE wasn’t working more closely with local law enforcement, and said he had phoned Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. Later, he complained that ICE’s failure to communicate with local law enforcement caused “mass disruptions to local communities and businesses.” “We must keep our communities safe, but it has to be done in a responsible and secure manner,” he said in a statement Thursday evening.

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Mullin took over DHS in March with a mandate to keep immigration enforcement out of the news following a public outcry over the killing of two Americans by immigration agents during enforcement operations in Minneapolis. No subsequent incidents have generated the same type of national attention — but ICE’s recent record-high arrest rate is still landing hard in some communities. “It does cause quite a disruption in the community,” said Scott Fischer, the GOP chair in Ford County, one of the counties where ICE activity was reported this week. “We don’t want our community disrupted.” In Florida, local officials are warning about the impact of ICE raids on businesses, and a Republican incumbent is on air with a Spanish-language ad denouncing Trump’s crackdown. In Michigan, Democrats are calling for an investigation after a man crashed his car and died while fleeing ICE. In Maine, the fallout from a fatal ICE shooting of a 25-year-old from Colombia continues to loom over GOP Sen. Susan Collins’ reelection race. In Texas, last week’s nonfatal shooting of a Venezuelan in Austin is just the latest of several highly publicized ICE operations that have fueled wall-to-wall media coverage. “There’s already been some blowback associated with what people feel is a little bit of a heavy hand when it comes to immigration enforcement,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). “Obviously, border security is critical, but I think the administration maybe has miscalculated a little bit. … It is going to be one of the factors people are weighing in the election.”

Gov. Greg Abbott declares statewide disaster proclamation over diesel shortages

Governor Greg Abbott announced a statewide disaster proclamation over diesel shortage on Monday, following recent record-high prices. The proclamation permits the use of dyed diesel on roads and lifts weight restrictions for agricultural, timber and fuel loads. It also suspends Texas Low Emission Diesel rules to the extent allowed by the Environmental Protection Agency. Dyed diesel — regular diesel with red pigment — is reserved for off road use only, usually by farm and construction equipment. Unlike regular diesel, it is untaxed. With the proclamation, the governor's office aims to alleviate skyrocketing prices at the gas pump. While it increases the supply of diesel, it does not affect the fuel tax, which is 20 cents per gallon.

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"Texas agriculture and freight run on diesel," Abbott said in a press release. "Record prices put both industries at risk and raise costs for every Texas family. Farmers and truckers can now use dyed diesel on Texas roads, and fuel, crop, and timber loads can move at a higher weight. These steps cut costs on the farm, on the road and at the store." Seven months into the U.S. and Israel's war with Iran, the U.S. continues to suffer from a major upset in exports of oil and gas from the Middle East, due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and damaged infrastructure. According to AAA, diesel prices reached a record high of $6.53 on average last week. This time last year, diesel average $3.69 a gallon. President Donald Trump recently vetoed a proposal by Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz, and talks to end the war have continuously deteriorated. Politicians across Texas have sought to capitalize on voters' affordability concerns, in response to continued inflation. Abbott, who is seeking re-election, will face Democratic State Rep. Gina Hinojosa in November. Hinojosa has asked the governor to waive the state gas tax.

State Stories

The Trump-loving Texas Republican sounding the alarm on data centers

By sheer numbers, Texas’ stock of existing and planned data centers is bigger than China’s. The state, under the auspices of three-term Republican Governor Greg Abbott, has become an incentive paradise for tech companies looking to capitalize on the AI boom. It might be backfiring. As lawmakers across the country throw the doors open to tech giants — including behemoths like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Alphabet, Oracle, and Meta — an enticement war is taking shape between states. Subsidized or discounted utility rates, easy environmental approvals, property tax abatements, and payroll credits are just some of the sweeteners local officials are offering to get data centers built in their backyards. As it turns out, Americans hate it. Enter Sid Miller, the outgoing Texas Commissioner of Agriculture, and one of the most vocal Republicans in the state — if not country — clamoring for increased data center regulation. His opposition to the datafication of Texas has placed him at odds with Abbott, currently caught in a closer-than-comfortable reelection campaign, and at times even Donald Trump, despite the president endorsing him multiple times.

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Backlash to the data center bonanza has become an electoral fissure in the run up to November’s midterm elections. A survey published by Gallup earlier this month found that 7 in 10 Americans would oppose the construction of a data center in their communities. State-level polling conducted in August by the Texas Politics Project found that roughly 57 percent of respondents opposed or strongly opposed the construction of data centers in their communities, with the proportion of opposition being much higher in rural areas. They suck up water and energy resources, take up land, disrupt the peace and quiet of the intentional distance you take from the city slickers, and they’re popping up like weeds. In a white cowboy hat and a matching Texas drawl, Miller has been sounding the alarm about the looming voter backlash to the industrial AI boom, even going so far as to warn that it could cost Abbott his chance at reelection. Miller lost his own bid for reelection in the Republican primary earlier this year, and with nothing left to lose, he gave Rolling Stone his perspective on the potential make-or-break issue of the midterms. "I started this way before the primary election, way back probably a year, a little over a year ago. My first concern was all the good farmland that was disappearing. Data centers, crypto mines, solar farms — they want to locate them on our very best, most fertile farmland. The reason they do is that it’s cleared, it’s flat, it’s got electricity. Most of the time, it’s got water, irrigation, everything. They can just rev up and go. It’s in the county, most of the time, so there’s no oversight or regulation or guardrails, no permits needed. Once they pave that [land] over, we’re not getting it back — it’s gone," he said.

Why Fort Worth ISD couldn’t stop a state takeover

One day last spring, Laura Craig’s elementary-aged child came home distressed. Everything at their Fort Worth ISD school was changing, they said. The desks had been moved out of the pod formation they liked. Pajama day, a prize for students meeting their reading goals, was canceled. “There were a lot of things they were looking forward to,” Craig said, “and they were not allowed to do them.” Soon she would hear about a canceled field day at another elementary school in the district. Another parent reported that practice time for sports at their school had been cut short. These were seemingly small losses, but for Craig, they were confirmation of what she’d been dreading for almost a year. Things were changing for the worse, and her kids’ schools would not be exempt. In March, the state completed its takeover of the 67,000-student district on the western side of the Metroplex, replacing the elected board with an appointed board of managers, replacing the superintendent with a recruit from out of state, placing them under the guidance of a conservator to oversee reforms. Craig knew the district had challenges—one school had received an F letter grade from the Texas Education Agency for five straight years before closing in 2023, 77 had received some mix of D’s and F’s, and eight had not met state passing standards since 2018.

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But she’d been hoping that, whatever remedy the newly appointed leadership chose, her kids’ schools—all A- and B-rated campuses—would be left to carry on as usual. But what’s best—for students, their schools, and the entire Texas education system—is more complicated than it sounds. It’s easy to agree that students should learn to read, write, and work with numbers in a safe, supportive, joyful environment. “I know of no school system leader, be it a school board member or a superintendent, who doesn’t possess a desire for our students to thrive,” TEA commissioner Mike Morath wrote in a May 2025 letter announcing his agency’s intent to consider the possibility of interventions into Fort Worth ISD. The disagreement arises when someone tries to figure out how to make that happen for every child in a district with dramatically variable income levels, adult educational attainment, and neighborhood cultures. In a state that is loath to spend more money and increasingly ready to institute top-down reforms, the reins of change have landed in one pair of hands: Morath’s. “But if that desire does not translate into student learning, the only moral response is to change practices,” his letter continued. He said he planned to evaluate the district over the coming months and then, if forced to by the district’s underperformance, intervene. Public school advocates and parent organizations fearing state intervention often point to Houston ISD, the state’s largest district, where a TEA takeover has led to the departure of 21,000 students. In 2023, Morath installed Mike Miles, a former Dallas superintendent, to lead the district and gave him broad authority to remake it using his philosophy of reform. Miles quickly rolled out his New Education System, or NES, a highly centralized instruction model built around scripted curriculum, tightly timed lessons, frequent testing, and intensive teacher evaluation. It started on a few targeted campuses, but by the 2024–25 school year, NES was in operation on 130 of the district’s 274 campuses. Teachers and parents fiercely resisted the changes, citing staff turnover, library closures, and the fact that the reforms were imposed by an unelected, state-appointed administration; Houston Public Media reported that 633 HISD teachers had resigned by early 2024, nearly twice the number the previous year, while a standing petition demanding Miles’s removal gathered more than 21,000 signatures.

Harris County Treasurer cited after allegedly causing 4-vehicle crash on I-45

Harris County Treasurer Carla Wyatt was cited Sept. 18 after she caused a four-vehicle crash on Interstate 45, according to a Texas Department of Transportation crash report. The incident marks Wyatt’s fourth run-in with the law since she took office at the start of 2023. The embattled Democrat was twice arrested for drunken driving, and in December was charged with burglary of a vehicle, though a grand jury later declined to indict her on that charge. Commissioners are actively seeking to abolish Wyatt’s position, which critics consider antiquated, and voted earlier this year to strip her office of a key oversight role after an attempted fraud went undetected. One state lawmaker said commissioners may get their wish if voters reelect Wyatt in November. “This will come down to what happens in the election,” said state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston. “If she stays in the job, it will be effectively a signal for removal.”

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Wyatt’s office did not respond to a request for comment Monday. In a Sept. 25 screening with the Houston Chronicle editorial board, Wyatt said her legal troubles have no impact on her professional ability. “Car accidents happen every day,” Wyatt said. “As far as my personal life is concerned, it has nothing to do with my ability to do my job.” After the I-45 wreck, Houston Police Department officers cited Wyatt for failing to control her speed, but officers found no indication she was intoxicated, according to the report. Footage of the incident first shared by KPRC 2 showed a Black Nissan Xterra aggressively changing lanes before rear ending another vehicle. A diagram of the crash included in the crash report alleged Wyatt rear ended two additional vehicles before coming to a stop. No one was badly injured in the crash, according to the report. Wyatt was first charged with driving while intoxicated in December 2023. That charge was later dismissed after she completed a pretrial diversion program, despite twice violating the conditions of her bond. Wyatt was charged again with drunken driving in May after she was found asleep at the wheel in Galveston County. That case is pending.

Copyright September 29, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved