Current Articles for May 08, 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.

• Experts: Don't expect a return to normal. By Justin Sayers. Austin Business Journal, April 18-24, 2025, p. 10.
  Posits that recent shifts in global trade patterns are the result of more than new tariffs, and asserts that such circumstances are unlikely to revert to how they were before. Places responsibility for these changes on mounting geopolitical pressures like trade disputes, war, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
  See: https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/news/2025/04/10/austin-tarifffs-global-supply-chain-strategy.html
  
• Medicaid financing: Dangers of block grants and per capita caps: Lessons from TANF and CCDBG. By Suzanne Wikle. Center for Law and Social Policy, Updated April 2025, pp. 1-13.
  Provides an overview of Medicaid financing and the role of state Medicaid funding. Outlines five consequences of instituting block grants and per capita caps in the Medicaid financing structure. Mentions Texas.
  See: https://www.clasp.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/April-2025-updated-Medicaid-Block-Grants.pdf
  
• Costly cuts: The Trump effect. By Adrienne Lu. Chronicle of Higher Education, April 11, 2025, pp. 8, 10.
  Considers budget cuts that some universities and colleges are implementing in light of the Trump administration's actions affecting higher education. Focuses on potential impacts to faculty and staff.
• How AI is changing the way math teachers plan lessons. By Lauraine Langreo. Education Week, April 2, 2025, pp. 12-14.
  Discusses the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in math instruction at the elementary and secondary education levels. Mentions a middle school in the Dallas Independent School District that has implemented the MATHia platform.
  See: https://research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=eed556ff-291b-3f95-a456-baaf8197c788
  
• A wave of new legislation aims to ban DEI in public schools. By Sarah Schwartz. Education Week, April 16, 2025, pp. 14-15.
  Focuses on the recent state-level legislative movement to ban diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts in public schools. Quotes Senator Brandon Creighton.
  See: https://research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=b9b9a34d-284c-3185-bad3-39ce9be85cad
  
• Collision of crises: The triple threat to reproductive and maternal health care (Birthing While Black series #2). By Martinique Free and Andrea Flynn. Institute for Women's Policy Research, April 2025, pp. 1-11.
  Continues the research series on Birthing While Black: The Urgent Fight for Maternal Health Reform. Explores the Black maternal health crisis in the U.S. and analyzes complex and overlapping factors, including barriers to comprehensive reproductive health care; exposure to harmful social and economic determinants of health; and multigenerational racial discrimination. Includes Texas.
  See: https://iwpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Collision-of-Crises-The-Triple-Threat-to-Reproductive-an ...
  
• Red state, blue state: Comparing the generosity of state safety nets. By Gabriela Goodman, Emma Phillips, and Tara Watson. Milken Institute Review, Second Quarter 2025, pp. 66-78.
  Examines the relationship between a state's political ideology and the generosity of state-directed benefit programs. Addresses the interaction of state programs with the federal safety net. Includes benefit programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, federally-directed) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF, state-directed). Includes Texas in several state tables.
  See: https://www.milkenreview.org/articles/red-state-blue-state?IssueID=57
  
• Section 230 can't get no respect. By Charles C. W. Cooke. National Review, June 2025, pp. 44-46.
  Argues that a repeal of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act would be a mistake. Presents the nature of social media and expansive growth and innovation in the American tech industry as reasons to preserve Section 230 and its protections for the tech industry. Considers questions raised by Section 230 related to First Amendment protections of free speech.
  See: https://research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=5cd39cd7-7a42-3e7e-8e3e-63fb0db69c40
  Related information at: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2023-title47/pdf/USCODE-2023-title47-chap5-subchapII-part ...
  
• Taxing time. By Benjamin Wallace-Wells. New Yorker, April 21, 2025, pp. 7-8.
  Presents a timeline of the Trump administration's "Liberation Day" tariff announcement, including the 90-day pause on the tariffs announced the following week. Notes that financial analysts and economic advisors are confused by the abrupt changes in policy, adding that while the White House's theory is that tariffs will eventually incentivize more U.S. manufacturing, the political and economic instability are more likely to discourage such moves.
  See: https://research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=d50ee537-5bee-3b33-b7ce-b0a767df6da7
  
• Reducing taxes on personal property: A sigh of relief for Texas businesses. Research Report (Texas Taxpayers and Research Association), April 2025, pp. 1-6.
  Discusses the potential exemption of business personal property (BPP), such as machinery, equipment, and inventory, from property taxes. Identifies the various types of property in the Texas property tax base. Includes a 50-state table of BPP treatment by state.
  See: https://ttara.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/TTARAResearchReport_EliminatingTaxesonPersonalProperty_ ...
  
• Spice market not immune to tariff costs. By James McCandless. San Antonio Business Journal, April 25 - May 1, 2025, p. 11.
  Reports from the annual meeting of the American Spice Trade Association, noting that spice producers and international suppliers were on edge as the Trump administration's new tariff policies went into effect. Discusses the effects of the policy with an executive for Gonzales, Texas-based Adams Extract, who notes that prices for consumers will likely go up due to the spice industry's international supply chain.
  See: https://www.bizjournals.com/sanantonio/news/2025/04/14/tariffs-china-adams-extract.html
  
• Improvidently granted: Smith & Wesson v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos. By Dru Stevenson. South Texas Law Review, Winter 2024, pp. 103-134.
  Argues that a judicial appeal currently under review by the U.S. Supreme Court—Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos—should be dismissed as improvidently granted and that the case should go to trial to allow factual and evidentiary development before its merits can be properly assessed.
• Mexico’s case against the gun industry and domestic tort liability. By Andrew Willinger. South Texas Law Review, Winter 2024, pp. 97-102.
  Discusses Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos, a lawsuit under review by the U.S. Supreme Court concerning a group of U.S. gun manufacturers whose sales and distribution practices allegedly facilitate cross-border gun trafficking.
• Shoring up water supply, curbing demand key to Texas' future growth. By Ethan Dixon, Robert Leigh, and Pia Orrenius. Southwest Economy (Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas), April 16, 2025, pp. 1-8.
  Explains how Texas' economic growth is dependent on a steady supply of fresh water. Addresses rising water demand, potential water shortages based on rainfall data, and the different rules for groundwater and surface water. Highlights water infrastructure funding as a priority for the 89th Legislature.
  See: https://www.dallasfed.org/research/swe/2025/swe2505
  
• Texas Parks and Wildlife Department faces political crosswind over chronic wasting disease rules. By Matt Stringer. Texan, May 5, 2025, pp. 1-5.
  Discusses concerns of ranchers and rural landowners about Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) regulations on chronic wasting disease (CWD) in the deer population. Highlights current legislation relating to CWD and TPWD (HB 1379, HB 4938, and SB 2846, 89th Legislature).
  See: https://thetexan.news/state/legislature/89th-session/texas-parks-and-wildlife-department-faces-polit ...
  
• Driven by debt: An updated analysis of the state's Failure to Appear/Pay Program. By Jennifer Carreon and Chris Cassella. Texas Appleseed, April 2025, pp. 1-41.
  Describes the effects of the Failure to Appear/Pay (FTAP) Program in which Texas municipalities and justices of the peace place a hold on driver's licenses for nonpayment of fines and fees from traffic tickets.
  See: https://www.texasappleseed.org/sites/default/files/2025-04/drivenbydebt_report_updated.pdf
  
• Crypto's racket. By Candice Bernd. Texas Observer, May/June 2025, pp. 12-19.
  Describes the growing support for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies among public officials at all levels in Texas. Describes how Bitcoin mining stresses the Texas energy grid, diverts precious water from local areas, creates noise pollution, and increases toxic emissions. Mentions several Texas legislators' attempts to regulate and/or promote Bitcoin, including Senators Lois Kolkhorst and Charles Schwertner and Representative Giovanni Capriglione.
  See: https://www.texasobserver.org/the-crypto-racket/