This Week in Texas Politics: Street racing in Texas, 'mega-drought' and Paxton in court

AUSTIN, Texas - The big stories in ‘This Week in Texas Politics’ took place in several different locations: courtrooms, classrooms, the border, the Texas heat, and on the street.

FOX 7 Austin's Rudy Koski and his group of experts speak on hot topics in This Week's Texas Politics.

RUDY KOSKI: We will start with Holly Hansen from The Texan. Holly. What's your word and headline? 

HOLLY HANSEN: Well, my word slash headline is Rule of law. 

RUDY KOSKI: Political Analyst Mark Wiggins, your headline In a Word.

MARK WIGGINS: The Passion of Paxton. 

RUDY KOSKI: Brian Smith with St Edward's University. Your headline in a Word. 

BRIAN SMITH: Oh, my word. Because of SB 12 is prurient. And my headline is Paxton Aggies and Longhorns Start this Fall. Will any go undefeated?

RUDY KOSKI: And Connie Swinney with The Highlander. Connie, what’s your headline in Word? 

CONNIE SWINNEY: My word is Megadrought.

PAXTON IN COURT/ HARRIS CO. ELECTIONS ON TRIAL

RUDY KOSKI: Attorney General Ken Paxton grabbed a lot of head headlines by showing up in court for his securities fraud hearing a long-running case that finally got its first hearing this week. But I think that the trial to force Harris County to hold an election redo because of mismanagement during the November election may be the sleeper of the week. Holly, you agree? 

HOLLY HANSEN: Yes, I do agree with that. Now, this is the first of 21 pending election contests to go on trial. 

BRIAN SMITH: I think Paxton in court is going to be the big headline and the court challenge is going to be a sleeper, but it's not going to hold up because you have to have that serious and substantial violation of election law and that it affected the outcome of the challenged election, which means a very, very high bar. And we haven't seen it yet.

MARK WIGGINS: On the part of the court case is concerned, Rudy. I think most folks recognize it was just a chaotic election in Harris County and a lot of eyes are going to be on this case to see if the judge agrees with the Republican complaints that they didn't get a fair shake.

RUDY KOSKI: In the Hill Country, are either of these issues in Harris County Plain? Are people paying attention there? 

CONNIE SWINNEY: In the Hill country, there was a lawsuit. It was dropped against Burnet County, and it had to do with allegations of election issues. But then again, local folks pointed to the state as being the body that's supposed to monitor and regulate, regulate, those things. So people here are keeping an eye on something like a lawsuit and how it would unfold in Houston, but not really following it very closely since, you know, we're very hyper local here.

BORDER BUOYS/STREET RACING

RUDY KOSKI: The governor's migrant policy along the Rio Grande was attacked again this week with two drowning victims showing up by the floating buoy barrier that the governor has installed on the river. Brian, the governor defended that strategy Wednesday while he was talking about cracking down on street racing and that big problem. Do both messages get muddled here? 

BRIAN SMITH: It's a mess for some people. It's a perceived mess for others. But at the end of the day, people look at the border saying there are problems there, and the governor's been able to exploit that for political gain. The same with street racing. The idea this is something the failure of the big cities of Texas to protect their citizens. 

MARK WIGGINS: Demonstrating that toughness is continually getting raised, to the point that these demonstrations (Street takeovers) inevitably are going to end up killing people. And by the way, the crossings haven't slowed, but the governor is betting that people in Texas are okay with the occasional death as long as the state's taking a hardline stance. 

DRAG SHOW LAWSUIT

RUDY KOSKI: The ACLU has this week sued the state of Texas in an effort to overturn the law that bans sexually explicit drag shows in front of minors. Brian, is this going to the Supreme Court?

BRIAN SMITH: It may not get out of the lower court system. 

HOLLY HANSEN: I think that's where the difference is. I mean, they're not trying to ban drag shows or any sexually explicit performance, which there are plenty of those in Houston, I'll just say. But what they're trying to do is say, you can't do this in front of children.

WATER WOES

RUDY KOSKI: Connie, earlier, your word was ‘megadrought'. We've had major fires. We've had the heat waves. Are you hearing anything in the Hill Country regarding a crackdown on water rights and water restrictions because of what's happening? 

CONNIE SWINNEY: What we're hearing mainly from three different entities. One, of course, Lower Colorado River Authority. You're hearing the same thing. They put out a statement that said that now folks that are watering their lawns, they're landscaping, 70% of the water usage from a home could come from that. And they're asking folks to curb that. Well, to that end, both the cities of Marble Falls and Burnet have decided that they need to crack down on that altogether. Marble Falls enacting mandatory watering restrictions and basically telling folks you can't water your yard with any kind of irrigation system except for once a week and then Burnet, doing much of the same. And lastly, the Central Texas Groundwater District here, they basically have a hard line on cutting back on all their permitted users by 15%. 

RUDY KOSKI: And we'll leave it with that. And we'll wrap up another Week in Texas Politics.