Daily Dispatch 3/4/24: Dismal Democratic Early Voting Turnout, and More

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Poor turnout by Democrats in the early voting phase of the 2024 primary causes the overall turnout to fall well short of 2020: https://www.texastribune.org/2024/03/03/early-voting-turnout-2024-primaries/ ...Republicans outpaced Democrats in early voting turnout three to one: https://www.kxan.com/news/your-local-election-hq/march-2024-turnout-tracker/ ...One high-profile Democratic item, the Travis County District Attorney's race, features a shadowy PAC smearing incumbent D.A. Jose Garza: https://www.axios.com/local/austin/2024/03/04/jose-garza-jeremy-sylestine-travis-county Texas lawmakers in D.C. are scrambling to claim support for in-vitro fertilization, while supporting an extreme bill that would largely outlaw it nationally as written: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2024/03/04/texas-republicans-face-questions-about-life-at-conception-bill-after-alabama-ivf-decision/ One Texas State lawmaker - a Republican who voted against school vouchers - now wants to abolish the Texas Education Agency: https://www.statesman.com/story/news/education/2024/03/03/texas-schools-lawmaker-says-abolish-tea-education-experts-weigh-in/72499627007/ Still no word from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on the state appeal of a federal judge's blocking of SB-4, which was set to take effect tomorrow: https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/2024/03/04/texas-sb-4-immigration-law-predictably-fails-its-first-legal-test/ ...That same ruling says that the recent wave of migrants cannot be considered by Texas an "invasion": https://reason.com/volokh/2024/03/01/federal-court-rejects-texass-argument-that-illegal-migration-qualifies-as-invasion/ Ken Paxton's office's attempts to force a trans-friendly non-profit to hand over records of young trans kids it has supported has also been blocked: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/03/us/texas-paxton-transgender-records.html Governor Abbott draws online fire for hanging out at the border with Donald Trump while historically-destructive wildfires burn in the Panhandle: https://www.newsweek.com/greg-abbotts-priorities-questioned-record-wildfires-intensify-texas-1875388 ...Those fires rage on, with very little containment: https://apnews.com/article/texas-wildfire-panhandle-hutchinson-united-way-donations-d61f26c6686ae62e855bd2075453651b Women's History Month is here and there's lots to do to celebrate across Texas: https://progresstexas.org/blog/trailblazing-texan-women The annual Amplify Austin charity and non-profit fundraiser happens Wednesday thru Thursday: https://www.amplifyatx.org/organizations/progress-texas-institute Thanks for listening! Learn all about what we do and how to support our important work at https://progresstexas.org/.