Current Articles for May 29, 2025

The Legislative Reference Library produces a weekly list of current journal articles for members of the legislative community. Each week, librarians select and abstract articles of interest to the legislature from the latest issues of over 300 journals, newsletters, state documents, and trade publications. Electronic copies of the Current Articles list are distributed to legislative offices each Thursday.

The Legislative Reference Library is located on the second floor of the State Capitol building in Room 2N.3. For more information, please call the Library at 512-463-1252.

• Dying to stay: Short-term rentals and the complicated impact they have on Texas municipalities, property rights, and the tourist economy. By Christina Woodall. Baylor Law Review, Winter 2025, pp. 205-227.
  Evaluates the effects of short-term rentals on Texas municipalities, including increased municipal tax revenues and decreased access to affordable housing. Speculates on a seeming reluctance to provide guidance on short-term rental regulations on the part of Texas courts, possibly due to complexities surrounding property rights and potential effects on Texas’ tourism industry.
  See: https://law.baylor.edu/sites/g/files/ecbvkj1546/files/2025-04/10 Woodall.pdf
  
• Carnegie's makeover: A new definition of prestige. By Francie Diep. Chronicle of Higher Education, May 9, 2025, pp. 8, 10.
  Discusses the revised Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.
  Related information at: https://carnegieclassifications.acenet.edu/carnegie-classification/classification-methodology/
  
• The pressure to punish. By Kate Hidalgo Bellows. Chronicle of Higher Education, May 9, 2025, pp. 20-22, 24.
  Questions whether universities are equipped to handle Title VI-related investigations of individuals involved in recent Pro-Palestinian protests on campus. Notes various challenges universities are facing when handling these cases.
  Related information at: https://www.ed.gov/laws-and-policy/civil-rights-laws/race-color-and-national-origin-discrimination/e ...
  
• Uncharted territory. Classroom Teacher (Texas Classroom Teachers Association), Spring 2025, pp. 18-20.
  Highlights passed and ongoing legislative issues affecting teachers, including school vouchers; school finance; teacher pay; student discipline; and teacher certification. Discusses SB 2, SB 26, HB 2, HB 6, and SB 2253, 89th Legislature, R.S.
  See: https://issuu.com/texascta/docs/the_classroom_teacher_spring_2025/18
  
• Cryptocracy. Economist, May 17th-23rd, 2025, pp. 16-18.
  Discusses President Trump and his family’s involvement in the cryptocurrency industry. Points out concerns over various conflicts of interest that may affect how cryptocurrency is regulated.
  See: https://www.economist.com/briefing/2025/05/15/the-crypto-industry-is-suddenly-at-the-heart-of-americ ...
  
• Immigration: Primed for removals. Economist, April 26th-May 2nd, 2025, p. 23.
  Considers potential next steps for the Trump administration’s immigration policies. Refers to a presidential memorandum issued on April 11, 2025, regarding a military mission for sealing the U.S. southern border and repelling invasions.
  See: https://www.economist.com/united-states/2025/04/24/how-donald-trump-plans-to-ramp-up-deportations
  Related information at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/military-mission-for-sealing-the-southern-bo ...
  
• The big questions about Trump's K-12 budget proposal, answered. By Mark Lieberman. Education Week, May 21, 2025, pp. 14-15.
  Discusses topics relating to education funding in President Trump's federal budget proposal for federal fiscal 2026, including subjects like special education; Title I; Head Start; and the U.S. Department of Education.
  See: https://research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=4d0ab104-35e4-3886-bef8-0921a709c90f
  
• Advocates say 14 million children could lose food stamps and health benefits under proposed federal budget. By Sara Tiano. The Imprint: Youth & Family News, May 19, 2025, pp. 1-3.
  Discusses a recent report by children's advocacy groups UnidosUS, First Focus, and AFL-CIO regarding the proposed federal budget cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and their effect on children's health and wellbeing. Notes the proposed federal spending plan would place a greater burden on states to pay for safety net programs and would institute Medicaid work requirements.
  See: https://imprintnews.org/child-welfare-2/advocates-say-14-million-children-could-lose-food-stamps-and ...
  Report at: https://unidosus.org/publications/children-under-attack/
  
• A detailed window into state policies on psychotropic prescribing. By Michael Fitzgerald. The Imprint: Youth & Family News, May 15, 2025, pp. 1-4.
  Discusses how state child welfare agencies monitor use of psychotropic medications for youth in foster care. Notes The Imprint's recent five-part investigative series, Medicated in Foster Care: Who’s Looking Out?, which revealed ongoing class-action lawsuits and settlements in four states involving more than 18,000 youth, relating to inadequate medication protocols. Provides excerpts from state policies in Florida, Georgia, Illinois, and New Mexico.
  Related information at: https://imprintnews.org/special-series/medicated-in-foster-care-whos-looking-out
  See: https://imprintnews.org/top-stories/a-detailed-window-into-state-policies-on-psychotropic-prescribin ...
  
• The future of research on vaccine uptake at the National Institutes of Health. By Douglas J. Opel, Sean T. O'Leary, and Melissa S. Stockwell. JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association), May 20, 2025, pp. 1661-1662.
  Considers the defunding of research into vaccine hesitancy. Discusses results of the research that began in the 1990s and early 2000s and continued up until funding from the National Institutes of Health ceased earlier this year.
  See: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2832225
  
• Does policy uncertainty boost vaccine hesitancy? Political controversy, the FDA, and COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in Fall 2020. By Daniel Carpenter, et al. Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law, June 2025, pp. 397-437.
  Considers the levels of vaccine hesitancy just prior to the presidential election of November 2020. Examines the relationship between vaccine hesitancy and electoral politics.
  See: https://read.dukeupress.edu/jhppl/article/50/3/397/392358/Does-Policy-Uncertainty-Boost-Vaccine-Hesi ...
  
• They’re facing deportation with severe mental illness—and now without a lawyer. By Christie Thompson. Marshall Project, May 19, 2025, pp. 1-4.
  Chronicles how in April 2025, the Trump administration cut funding for a program that provided legal aid to immigrants with serious mental health conditions who were detained and facing deportation. Describes how the move has left attorneys scrambling to keep serving clients for whom they say legal representation can be a matter of life or death.
  See: https://www.themarshallproject.org/2025/05/19/lawyers-immigrants-mental-health-detention
  
• Assessing our assessments: Paper vs. computer. By Kristen Panzarella and Angela Walmsley. Phi Delta Kappan, Summer 2025, pp. 17-21.
  Questions if the format of a state assessment influences student performance. Compares and contrasts paper-based testing (PBT) and computer-based testing (CBT). Uses the transition from PBT to CBT in New York’s statewide assessment as a case study.
  See: https://kappanonline.org/assessing-our-assessments-paper-vs-computer/
  
• The importance of early literacy screening. By Robin Irey, et al. Phi Delta Kappan, Summer 2025, pp. 28-33.
  Discusses the use of universal reading screeners to identify literacy challenges.
  See: https://kappanonline.org/the-importance-of-early-literacy-screening/
  
• AI boom turns to nuclear for power. By Jeff Luse. Reason, June 2025, p. 15.
  Discusses the amount of energy needed to power data centers. Highlights one company’s plans to build microreactors in Texas to provide power for data centers across the state.
  See: https://reason.com/2025/05/15/ai-boom-turns-to-nuclear-for-power/
  
• $2.5 billion water infrastructure deal, additional 20-year annual $1 billion struck in Texas Legislature. By Brad Johnson. Texan, May 26, 2025, pp. 1-2.
  Explains the latest developments in water infrastructure legislation, SB 7 and HJR 7, 89th Legislature, including funding in the supplemental appropriations bill, HB 500. Discusses appropriations to the Texas Water Fund and the 50/50 split in SB 7 between construction of new water supply and repair of existing systems. Quotes Senator Charles Perry and Representative Cody Harris.
  See: https://thetexan.news/issues/texas-taxes-spending/2-5-billion-water-infrastructure-deal-additional-2 ...
  
• House DOGE committee votes down agency safety net as conservatives look to end lottery, taxpayer-funded lobbying. By Brad Johnson. Texan, May 24, 2025, pp. 1-3.
  Discusses the committee debate and vote on the "Sunset safety net" bill, SB 2401, 89th Legislature, in the House Committee on Delivery of Government Efficiency (DOGE) on Saturday, May 24. Highlights the potential effect on the Texas Lottery Commission and Texas Ethics Commission, the only two agencies whose individual Sunset extensions have not passed, and the separate legislation by Senator Bob Hall proposing to abolish the Lottery Commission and move the Texas Lottery under the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. Quotes Representatives Briscoe Cain and Giovanni Capriglione.
  See: https://thetexan.news/state/legislature/texas-state-house-news/house-doge-committee-votes-down-agenc ...
  
• Texas Legislature strikes $8.5 billion deal on school finance and teacher pay raises. By Cameron Abrams and Brad Johnson. Texan, May 21, 2025, pp. 1-3.
  Describes the recent compromise on school finance and teacher salaries in HB 2, 89th Legislature. Addresses the role of the THC ban, SB 3, 89th Legislature, in public school funding negotiations.
  See: https://thetexan.news/issues/education/texas-legislature-strikes-8-5-billion-deal-on-school-finance- ...
  
• Veterans, parents, liquor, and beer: The complicated lobby fight over Texas' proposed THC ban. By Brad Johnson. Texan, May 20, 2025, pp. 1-4.
  Looks at the various stakeholders in the debate over the THC ban in SB 3, 89th Legislature, including beer distributors, grassroots conservative groups, law enforcement, veterans, cake shop entrepreneurs, progressives, and Libertarians. Mentions the 2019 hemp law, HB 1325, 86th Legislature.
  See: https://thetexan.news/issues/social-issues-life-family/veterans-parents-liquor-and-beer-the-complica ...