Enlarge Cooper Neill

Republican presidential candidate Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker visits with supporters at the Highland Park Soda Fountain in Dallas, Texas on September 2, 2015. (Cooper Neill for the Texas Tribune)

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is starring in a new TV ad for Ted Cruz with five days until the Republican presidential primary in the Badger State.

Walker, who endorsed Cruz on Tuesday, says in the 30-second spot that Cruz is "the only conservative who can beat Hillary Clinton," the Democratic presidential frontrunner. 

"He'll challenge the status quo, just like we've done in Wisconsin," Walker also says, nodding to his high-profile fight with public-employee unions in 2011. 

Cruz is favored to win the primary Tuesday in Wisconsin, where 42 delegates are for grabs. The latest poll, released Thursday morning, shows him beating Trump there by 1 point, 38 percent to 37 percent. A survey released a day earlier found Cruz up by 10 points.

Walker is expected to campaign with Cruz in Wisconsin before the primary.

*****

Cruz said Tuesday afternoon the assault charge against Donald Trump's campaign manager shows the "abusive culture" within the billionaire's circle.

“When you have a campaign that is built on personal insults, on attacks and now physical violence, that has no place in a political campaign," Cruz, the U.S. senator from Texas, told reporters while campaigning in Milwaukee. "It has no place in our democracy, and I think it is a really unfortunate development. But I do think it help clarify for the voters what the Trump campaign is all about.”

Cruz did not answer shouted questions from reporters about whether the campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, should be fired in light of the charge, which stems from an incident with a reporter after a news conference by Trump earlier this month in Florida. Trump's campaign issued a statement saying Lewandowski is "absolutely innocent of this charge" and that he plans to plead not guilty.

Campaigning earlier this month in Illinois, Cruz suggested he would have ditched his campaign manager if he did what Lewandowski is accused of doing.

"Physically assaulting a reporter is a fireable offense," Cruz said, "and at the end of the day, the responsibility for any campaign rests with the candidate."

*****

Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, will be in Houston on Saturday to promote a campus sexual assault awareness campaign during the NCAA Final Four.

The White House announcement hinted that the Bidens’ also have more than a passing interest in the games on Saturday with the two having attended a couple of the universities playing in the national semifinal games.

Joe Biden is an alumnus of Syracuse University while Jill Biden is an alumna of Villanova University.

*****

Opponents of Texas’ voter ID law are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, seeking speedy action ahead of this year’s General Election to ensure that the law is not enforced during the elections.

The Campaign Legal Center last Friday filed a petition asking the high court to enforce lower court decisions finding that the law, considered one of the nation’s strictest, was unconstitutional.

The case centers on whether the Texas Legislature intentionally discriminated against Hispanic and African-American voters when it passed Senate Bill 14 in 2011, requiring most citizens to show one of a handful of forms of allowable photo identification before their ballots can be counted.

The rules did not take effect until the U.S. Supreme Court struck down part of the Voting Rights Act ruling in Shelby County v. Holder that forced states with a history of racial discrimination to seek federal approval when changing election laws or procedures. After a district court judge ordered the Texas law halted in advance of the November 2014 election, a panel on the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals stayed that ruling, arguing that it came too close to the election.

In its latest petition, the legal center argues that stay has lasted too long, asking the court to take action ahead of the next election.

The law, has “injured Texas voters in two more statewide election cycles in 2015 and 2016,” the group’s attorneys wrote, "and, unless vacated, will very likely cause further injury by allowing enforcement of an invalid state law again during the 2016 Texas general elections.”

In August of 2015, a 5th Circuit panel ruled that the law has a “discriminatory effect” that violates the Voting Rights Act, but that it is not a “poll tax” barred under the U.S. Constitution.

The full appeals court will rehear arguments on May 24.

Enlarge Marjorie Kamys Cotera

U.S Secretary of Defense is Ashton Carter, visits the University of Texas at Austin where he held a discussion with students on March 31, 2016

U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said he is "definitely considering" opening a Department of Defense office in Austin after visiting the city and meeting with technology leaders on Thursday. 

"I would like the entrepreneurs of Austin to meet our entrepreneurs and also our war fighters so they understand both how we're trying to innovate and also what our mission is, our really vital mission, of fighting and winning wars," Carter said during a press conference at Capital Factory this afternoon.

Carter toured the Capital Factory office in downtown Austin before hearing pitches from three local companies  — Correlated Magnetics, Macromoltek and Firefly Space Systems — and participating in a roundtable discussion with "leading tech influencers" in Austin. 

After wrapping up his meetings, Carter said he was impressed with the city and said people he met with described it as being "free thinking, but very American – and that's attractive."

"We are going to increase our presence here in Austin," Carter said. "I don't know exactly what form that will take because I'm experimenting." 

Earlier in the day, Carter visited the University of Texas at Austin where he met with administrators and researchers from the school of social work to discuss efforts to combat sexual assault on college campuses.   

"Whether you are members of a prestigious university like this or a proud and noble institution like our Department of Defense, we do encounter similar challenges and we should share a common commitment, which is to create an environment where everyone is treated with the dignity and respect they deserve," Carter said while addressing a ballroom full of ROTC cadets and students.

More than 18 percent of female undergraduates at UT-Austin say they have been sexually assault since arriving on campus.

*****

Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday morning addressed black business leaders at the Capitol, making good on a promise to pay more attention to the community in his first term as governor. 

"The bottom line is this: I want to see the state of Texas succeed. That is my goal," Abbott said. "The state of Texas is not going to succeed if anybody gets left behind. Everybody must enjoy the fruits of prosperity that the state of Texas has to offer."

Charles O'Neal, president of the Dallas Black Chamber of Commerce, introduced Abbott, suggesting he has been more attentive to the black business community than the governor who came before him, Rick Perry. 

"Governor Abbott has been responsive to us, and that's much more than we did receive from his predecessor," O'Neal said.

The business leaders were convening in Austin for Black Business Day, an annual summit put on by the Texas Association of African American Chambers of Commerce.

Enlarge Illustration by Shelby Knowles

Texas officials still don’t much like the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The Texas House Select Committee on Federal Environmental Regulation met for the first time Tuesday to examine the litany of federal rules — some looming, some held up in court — that power companies and others may soon grapple with. Among them: the Clean Power Plan, tightened standards on smog-forming ozone and a crackdown on methane that wafts from oil and gas sites. And that’s just to name a few.

Lawmakers heard testimony from several officials, including Bryan Shaw, chairman of the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality and Bryan Lloyd, executive director of the Public Utility Commission. They each portrayed the federal rules as unnecessary, costly and a threat to the electric grid.

On perhaps the most consequential regulation, the Clean Power Plan, Lloyd said, “We ultimately don’t think this rule will be upheld.” The U.S. Supreme Court stayed the rule in February as litigation unfolds, but the death of conservative justice Antonin Scalia later threw a curveball at the rule's opponents.

Though Democrats such as state Rep. Gene Wu of Houston, pushed back against the criticism, the mostly Republican panel largely echoed those officials, continuing a recent Texas tradition of treating the EPA as a political punching bag.

The committee did not invite any testimony from parties more sympathetic to the EPA.

*****

A chunk of Texas’ congressional delegation is supporting folks along Texas' side of the Red River in their legal battle against the federal Bureau of Land Management.

Twenty-two members of the delegation filed an amicus brief Wednesday backing the landowners’ arguments in the case, currently in federal district court in Wichita Falls.

“Today I stand in support of Texans who have, in many cases, for generations, owned and paid their taxes on property that is legally theirs,” U.S. Rep. Roger Williams, R-Austin, said in a statement announcing the filing. “The right to private ownership is a core foundation on which this nation was built, but today the federal government is trying to change the rules to strip Texans of what is rightfully theirs.”

Questions have swirled near that stretch of river since December 2013, when bureau representatives arrived in North Texas to discuss updates to its resource management plans in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas — specifically, how the land would be used for the next 15 to 20 years.

The area includes about 90,000 acres along the Red River that the agency considers public land, with perhaps a third of it on the Texas side.

The agency has said its claim comes from a 1923 U.S. Supreme Court decision, one that delineated the boundaries between Texas and Oklahoma and assigned the feds the patches in between.

But Texans have long managed swaths of that area. They hold deeds to the land and have diligently paid their local taxes. The bureau has not fully surveyed the area, so it is not clear precisely where the public boundary lines intersect with private lands.

The court recently granted standing in the case to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Land Commissioner George P. Bush.

See the Tribune’s previous coverage of the lawsuit here.

*****

Texas Sen. Bob Hall is really concerned about electromagnetic pulse attacks — so concerned that he will host a two-day summit at the Capitol about that possibility and other issues that he sees as threats to the state’s electric grid.

Other topics mentioned in the invitation to the April 28-29 event: geomagnetic solar storms, cyber attacks and “discussions related to emergency preparedness and emerging protective technologies.”

Electromagnetic pulse (often abbreviated EMP) has long been a fascination and fear of Hall and a doomsday faction of the Republican Party. Last session, he pushed failed legislation that would require an independent organization to study and report on such threats to the Texas grid.

For the uninitiated, the EMP threat goes like this: If a nuclear missile is detonated in outer space above our country, it would release a shockwave of electricity that would fry circuits grid-wide — triggering mass chaos in a country left without cell phones, refrigerators, working cars and pretty much everything else folks depend on.

“The EMP/GMD threat is real and it is not 'if' but WHEN it will happen,” Hall, R-Edgewood, wrote on his website last August.

No one disputes the science, but many in the industry suggest that the billions of dollars required to harden the grid would be better spent addressing other problems or more likely forms of cyber attacks.

Enlarge

For this week’s nonscientific survey of insiders in government and politics, we asked about changing the conversation in the race for the White House.

A couple of important developments have cropped up in the last couple of weeks. The terrorist attack in Brussels focused attention in the race (for a brief while, at least) on foreign affairs. But then the tenor of the conversation on the Republican side dropped to a new low with the use of social media to launch personal attacks on the wives of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.

This week's questions focus on potential shifts in the conversation when it comes to the presidential race and what those shifts might mean for the candidates.

We began by asking who benefits most should voters place more emphasis on who's better on foreign affairs. On this one, nearly three-fifths of the insiders gave the advantage to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Cruz, a U.S. Senator who sits on the Armed Services Committee, was mentioned by nearly a fifth of the insiders while Ohio Gov. John Kasich and businessman Trump trailed further behind.

We followed by asking whether the GOP presidential race would shift away from the current predominance of personal attacks. If that happens, we asked who benefits most.

The insiders were a pessimistic bunch on this one. Nearly three-fourths of the insiders didn't see a shift in tone happening. Of those who did see a move away from personal attacks, Cruz (named by 13 percent) was the one most seen as benefiting. He was followed by Kasich (10 percent) and then Trump (3 percent).

We next asked whether spouses of candidates should be considered off limits. A majority of 55 percent agreed with the statement with about 40 percent disagreeing.

We changed things up with the last question, asking whether it matters if the spouse is a public figure in his or her own right. On this one, 55 percent said yes, the public status of the spouse matters while 44 percent said no.

We collected comments along the way, and a full set of those is attached. Here’s a sampling:

Enlarge Emily Albracht

.

If the conversation shifts to foreign policy, the advantage goes to…

• "Trump has dominated this space in the election. Voters are dissuaded by his lack of experience; in fact, voters are drawn to him."

• "Honestly, Clinton has the most experience dealing with foreign policy going back to her days as first lady, but I still ain't voting for her."

• "Kasich should come out ahead, however Cruz is quite articulate on the issues and comes across more prepared."

• "Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State for heaven's sake. Hands-on experience and extensive contacts. Far from perfection, but at least in the game."

• "Trump is clueless. And ever changing."

Enlarge Emily Albracht

.

Does the GOP nominating contest shift away from personal attacks, and if yes, who benefits most?

• "IF the WWE cage match closes down, then so does viewership eyelids."

• "Are you kidding? These two school yard wannabe bullies' egos prevent them from shifting away from personal attacks. Believe me, it'll get worse the closer we get to the convention."

• "Regular Republicans are moving to take over the process and stop Trump. Nobody wins if the personal attacks continue."

• "Trump and Cruz are locked in a cage match, and it seems nothing is off limits. Trump is Teflon coated, mostly because the mainstream media doesn't understand the more it attacks Trump the better it is for him. Additionally, the mainstream media doesn't get that it, too, is part of the status quo both populist strains (from the left & from the right) are rebelling against."

• "Of course not. A Trump can't change his spots."

Enlarge Emily Albracht

.

Should candidates’ spouses be off limits in campaigns?

• "They should — but they NEVER will — we want to know every detail about candidates and their entire families. Nothing is off limits these days."

• "But Bill and Hill makes this difficult."

• "The question is not should they be off limits. They most certainly should not be. In addition to having taxpayer provided home, offices, travel, security, etc., in recent history they've taken prominent roles in health care policy, anti-drug campaigns, and school nutrition. The real question is, should candidates have a sense of restraint and decorum to know where a reasonably decent human would draw the line?"

• "You can't use your kids and spouse in political ad and then claim your family is off limits. It's a doggie-doggie world out there and you can't wear Milk-Bone underwear."

• "This is one of those sacred cows, but everyone does the oppo work on spouses and families anyway. It would be more realistic to say that spouses are 'fair game' if they were active in the campaign."

Enlarge Emily Albracht

.

If the spouse is already a public figure, does that matter?

• "If they are public figures with policy initiatives, they are fair game."

• "If you are asking if the spouse is a public figure as in an elected position or a national spokesperson or a Hollywood celebrity then I don't know how one would be able to separate the private life from public life."

• "The spouse is not running for office. Focus on the candidate."

• "There is no way Bill Clinton won't be a huge issue in November — for both sides. And Hillary certainly can't say 'leave my husband out of it' when her campaign will be leveraging Bill in every way they think is helpful."

• "Somewhat because he/she likely will be involved in policy discussions during the campaigns."

Our thanks to this week's participants: Gene Acuna, Cathie Adams, Brandon Aghamalian, Brandon Alderete, Clyde Alexander, Jay Arnold, Dave Beckwith, Andrew Biar, Allen Blakemore, Tom Blanton, Raif Calvert, Lydia Camarillo, Janis Carter, Elna Christopher, Randy Cubriel, Curtis Culwell, Denise Davis, June Deadrick, Glenn Deshields, Tom Duffy, David Dunn, Jon Fisher, Tom Forbes, Dominic Giarratani, Bruce Gibson, Eric Glenn, Kinnan Golemon, Daniel Gonzalez, John Greytok, Clint Hackney, Wayne Hamilton, Bill Hammond, Steve Holzheauser, Kathy Hutto, Deborah Ingersoll, Bill Jones, Mark Jones, Walt Jordan, Robert Kepple, Richard Khouri, Tom Kleinworth, Sandy Kress, Nick Lampson, Pete Laney, James LeBas, Luke Legate, Myra Leo, Ruben Longoria, Homero Lucero, Vilma Luna, Matt Mackowiak, Jason McElvaney, Steve Minick, Bee Moorhead, Mike Moses, Gardner Pate, Robert Peeler, Jerry Philips, Tom Phillips, Wayne Pierce, Richard Pineda, Allen Place, Gary Polland, Jay Pritchard, Ted Melina Raab, Patrick Reinhart, David Reynolds, A.J. Rodriguez, Grant Ruckel, Tyler Ruud, Andy Sansom, Jim Sartwelle, Barbara Schlief, Stan Schlueter, Robert Scott, Bruce Scott, Steve Scurlock, Ben Sebree, Nancy Sims, Ed Small, Larry Soward, Leonard Spearman, Dennis Speight, Jason Stanford, Colin Strother, Sherry Sylvester, Trey Trainor, Vicki Truitt, Corbin Van Arsdale, David White, Darren Whitehurst, Peck Young, Angelo Zottarelli.

Enlarge Todd Wiseman

Friday, April 1

• Texas Alliance for Life Leadership Circle Luncheon with featured speaker U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas; Norris Conference Center, 2525 W. Anderson Ln. #365, Austin (11:15 a.m.-1 p.m.)
  

Sunday, April 3

• Dallas County District Attorney Susan Hawk bilingual town hall meeting; St. Pius X Catholic Church, 3030 Gus Thomasson Road, Dallas (2 p.m.)

Tuesday, April 5

• Presidential nominating contest: Wisconsin

Former Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, Ted Cruz's opponent in the bitter GOP primary fight in 2012 for the U.S. Senate, chose to endorse Cruz for president last Friday.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker on Tuesday endorsed Cruz for president, lending his support to a former Republican presidential rival a week before his state's primary.

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry may have stumped for Cruz for president, but there's no record he voted in this year's Republican primary in Texas. Perry's former campaign manager insisted that Perry filled out the ballot and mailed it in. His failure to vote in this year's Texas primary could lead to more speculation that he is interested in running as an independent candidate for president.

State lawmakers are considering whether to tighten eminent domain laws to help landowners battling pipeline companies, electric utilities, public agencies or other entities seeking to condemn land their land for public use. The discussion comes as property rights skirmishes persist across Texas, including Big Bend-area landowners’ long-shot effort to thwart the Trans-Pecos natural gas pipeline through the largely untouched region.

Texas lags most other states in preparing high schoolers for college and needs to update its readiness standards, Higher Education Coordinating Board Commissioner Raymund Paredes told state senators at a hearing on Tuesday.

Texas Tech University plans to ban guns in its recreation center, chapel and some dorms but won't prevent students with concealed handgun licenses from carrying in classrooms, according to an operating policy issued Tuesday.

A federal appeals court on Wednesday stayed the execution of a Dallas accountant who shot and killed his two daughters in 2001. John Battaglia's lawyers argue he is not mentally competent enough to be put to death.

Records related to the mental health of state Rep. Susan King, R-Abilene, will remain sealed at least until Nov. 21, punting a potentially thorny issue for the Texas Senate candidate until after the election. King is facing Austin ophthalmologist Dawn Buckingham in a May 24 runoff for the GOP nomination to succeed Horseshoe Bay Republican Troy Fraser.

Texas women will be able to obtain medical abortions later into their pregnancies under newly approved changes by the federal Food and Drug Administration. New rules will increase the number of days women can take medication to induce abortions from 49 days of gestation to 70 days. Doctors in many states already followed common, evidence-based protocols that strayed from the FDA’s previous label for the drug, but Texas doctors were prohibited from doing so by state law.

The national union that represents more than 16,000 agents of the United States Border Patrol issued its first-ever endorsement of a presidential candidate on Wednesday by throwing its support behind Republican Donald Trump.

State insurance regulators would need a big infusion of cash to handle injured worker fraud investigations if the Texas Legislature puts an end to the controversial funding deal between Travis County and the largest provider of workers’ compensation insurance, officials said Wednesday. Testifying before the committee at the Capitol Wednesday, state regulators said a fix would also require financial help from state lawmakers.

If Texas decided to pay off construction debt on nearly all of its toll roads tomorrow, the price tag would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $30 billion, according to a preliminary report. While the department is required to produce a plan for completely removing tolls, House Transportation Chairman Joe Pickett said his emphasis was on explaining what eliminating these tolls would actually look like for Texas.

Bernie Tiede — who in 1996 killed his elderly companion, Marjorie Nugent, and inspired a Richard Linklater dark comedy — could learn in just a few weeks whether he'll remain free, return to a life sentence or land somewhere in between.

State Rep. John Zerwas, the chairman of the Texas House of Representatives' Higher Education Committee said Thursday that he "would not have any concern" if the Top 10 Percent Rule governing college admissions in the state were eliminated. He stopped short of calling for a full repeal of the law but said the Legislature should at least consider tweaking it in the near future.

Disclosure: Texas Tech University is a corporate sponsor of The Texas Tribune. Richard Linklater is a major donor to The Texas Tribune. A complete list of Texas Tribune donors and sponsors can be viewed here.

Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday named six to the State Board of Dental Examiners. Diane Garza of Brownsville was named to a term to expire Feb. 1, 2017; Bryan Henderson II of Dallas, Jorge Quirch of Missouri City and Rich Villa of Austin were named to terms to expire Feb. 1, 2021. He reappointed Renee Cornett of Austin and David Tillman of Aledo to terms to expire Feb. 1, 2021. He also named Steve Austin of Amarillo the new chairman of the board.

Abbott made seven appointments this week to the Statewide Health Coordinating Council (SHCC): Larry Safir of McAllen for a term to expire Aug. 1, 2017; Salil Deshpande of Houston for a term to expire Aug. 1, 2019; and Carol Boswell of Andrews, Melinda Rodriguez of San Antonio, Courtney Sherman of Fort Worth, Shaukat Zakaria of Houston, and Yasser Zeid of Longview for terms to expire Aug. 1, 2021. In addition, Ayeez Lalji of Sugar Land was appointed as the council’s presiding officer.

Abbott named 15 women this week to the Governor’s Commission for Women: Estela Avery, Tina Yturria Buford, Jennifer Chiang, Starr Corbin, Alejandra De la Vega-Foster, Debbie Gustafson, Karen Harris, Amy Henderson, Nancy Ann Hunt, Karen Manning, Imelda Navarro, Rienke Radler, Jinous Rouhani, Catherine Susser, and Laura Koenig Young. Susser and De la Vega-Foster were named commission chairwoman and vice chairwoman, respectively.

Arun Agarwal of Dallas was named to the Product Development and Small Business Incubator Board by Abbott for a term to expire Feb. 1, 2019.

The Texas Oil and Gas Association’s PAC announced its support Monday for former state Rep. Wayne Christian in his runoff for a seat on the Texas Railroad Commission. The PAC also endorsed the following Republicans in their respective runoff contests: Bryan Hughes (SD-1), Ernest Bailes (HD-18), Justin Holland (HD-33), state Rep. Doug Miller (HD-73) and state Rep. Wayne Smith (HD-128).

GOP SD-24 runoff candidate Susan King announced Monday an endorsement from the political arm of the Texas Academy of Family Physicians.

Republican Party of Texas Chairman Tom Mechler announced Monday that he’s been endorsed for re-election by the Williamson County Republican Leaders club.

Jared Woodfill, who is challenging Mechler for the chairmanship of the RPT, announced endorsements from JoAnn Fleming, executive director of the Tyler-based conservative group Grassroots America; state Rep. Matt Shaheen, R-Plano; and Jeff Judson, the former State Republican Executive Committee member who challenged Speaker Joe Straus in this year’s primaries.

The Constitutional Restoration of State Sovereignty PAC, the organization founded last summer by state Rep. Cecil Bell Jr., now has an official spokesman. The new face of the organization is Bell’s House colleague, Mark Keough, a freshman GOP lawmaker from The Woodlands.

Gray Mayes, currently director of public affairs for Texas Instruments, is joining the board of directors of the Texas Institute for Education Reform. Other notable names on the board of the education advocacy group include former Texas Education Commissioner Michael Williams, former state Comptroller Susan Combs, and former U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige.

Si Cook has been selected to succeed Vernie Glasson III as executive director of the Texas Farm Bureau. He assumes his new role May 26.

The Ridesharing Works for Austin PAC announced on Thursday the hire of several activists with ties to the local Democratic community, bringing on former Texas Democratic Party staffer Joe Bowen as outreach director and Huey Rey Fischer, who ran this year for the open HD-49 seat, as deputy outreach director. The PAC also hired three local political operatives — Patrick McDonald, Jovita Pardo and Pedro Villalobos — to handle other facets of the campaign’s community outreach efforts.

Attorney Gregory M. Bopp has been elected managing partner for Houston law firm Bracewell LLP. Bopp takes over July 1 for Mark Evans, who is taking over as co-chairman for the firm along with Patrick Oxford.

Deaths: Joe D. Gunn, 85, president of the Texas AFL-CIO from 1989-2003 and labor representative to the Texas Employment Commission under Gov. Dolph Briscoe.

Disclosure: Texas Farm Bureau is a corporate sponsor of The Texas Tribune. Texas Instruments was a corporate sponsor in 2012 and 2014 of The Texas Tribune. Bracewell & Giuliani LLP was a corporate sponsor in 2012 of The Texas Tribune. Patrick Oxford is a major donor to The Texas Tribune. A complete list of Texas Tribune donors and sponsors can be viewed here.