Texas Supreme Court

The all-Republican court narrowly found that the nonprofit corporation operating the state’s electrical grid qualifies for sovereign immunity, which protects government entities from lawsuits.

ERCOT says that, as a division of state government, it has sovereign immunity. Plaintiffs point out that it is also an independent nonprofit, a fact the grid operator sometimes uses to its advantage.

In March, an attorney sued Austin City Council members on behalf of a dozen residents. He argued roughly 24,000 people who had been moved into new council districts as part of the city’s redistricting efforts had been denied their right to elect a local representative.

The state’s high court allowed the investigations to continue but said the Texas Department of Family Protective Services is not bound by Gov. Abbott and Attorney General Paxton’s orders.

Attorneys for the Mexican American Legislative Caucus took their latest challenge to Texas’s new political maps to the state’s high court. They argue lawmakers violated the Texas Constitution when drawing state house districts in the Rio Grande Valley.

The Texas Attorney General is defending the governor’s decision to order the state’s child welfare agency to investigate parents, and health care professionals for providing certain gender-affirming medical treatments to transgender kids.

See the results for the governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general primary elections.

Legal scholars, abortion providers and anti-abortion groups alike expect Texas' abortion law will stay in effect for the foreseeable future.

The court denied a request from abortion providers in the state to return the case to a judge who blocked Texas's six-week ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.

The 8-1 decision came Wednesday from the all-Republican Court of Criminal Appeals.