Trump impeachment hearing, changes at Texas driver’s license centers, teen vaping

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Here are the top political headlines from Austin, Washington, the campaign trail and Dallas. If you’d like to receive this newsletter in your inbox, sign up here.

Points from Austin

1. Texas lawmakers expressed frustration Tuesday over the rise of vaping devices among youth and the lack of federal and state regulation, despite a new law that raised the smoking age to 21 in September.

“We don’t know where they’re being made,” Republican Sen. Lois Kolkhorst of Brenham, chairwoman of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, said during a hearing. “We don’t know what’s in them, and there is no real requirement on labeling.”

The use of electronic smoking products, referred to as vaping, has sparked an outbreak of associated lung injuries, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control.

2. Hourslong waits at driver’s license centers across the state make it impossible for Gayle Kesinger, an 81-year-old from Dallas, to renew her license in person.Beginning next year, the Department of Public Safety plans to implement several measures to prevent the struggles Kesinger and other Texas drivers have been facing.

3. On Wednesday, Gov. Greg Abbott joined in on the “Is Ted Cruz the Zodiac Killer?” meme in response to a New York Post story claiming the Texas senator “killed” the viral baby Yoda meme with an earlier tweet. Read the latest installment in our story about why people, including Cruz, joke that he’s the California killer.

4. Officials from some of the world’s biggest tech companies told state lawmakers Wednesday that they are working hand-in-hand with law enforcement to detect and prevent mass violence attacks. But police officials at a hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Mass Violence Prevention and Community Safety said Twitter, Facebook, Google and other companies need to be better partners.

Points from the trail

1. President Donald Trump has kept his promises such as tax cuts and is more in tune with Texas voters than anyone the Democrats will nominate, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Tuesday.

Democrats have embraced “radical” policies such as the Green New Deal that threaten Texas’ energy-production jobs, Patrick said as he filed papers in Austin to officially put Trump on next year’s ballot in the state. Bob Garrett was there to report on what else Patrick predicted about the Democratic field in 2020.

2. Sometimes the writing on the wall is so bright and indelible that even the most determined candidate can’t ignore it.

Sen. Kamala Harris’ abrupt exit Tuesday leaves the Democratic field for president a whole lot less diverse, though Todd writes that it prolongs the candidacy of two candidates of color: Julián Castro, the only Hispanic in the race, and Sen. Cory Booker, who is black.

3. A Houston-area GOP state representative who said two of his primary opponents were running because they are “Asian” drew sharp rebukes Tuesday from Gov. Greg Abbott and other party leaders and then announced he’ll retire from politics.

Points from Washington

1. The House Judiciary Committee opened a new chapter in impeachment Wednesday, at a contentious hearing featuring legal scholars tutoring lawmakers on standards for corruption and abuse of power that would merit removal from office.

“It does not matter that President Trump got caught and ultimately released the funds that Ukraine so desperately needed. It matters that he enlisted a foreign government to intervene in our elections in the first place,” argued chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y.

Republicans bristled at the proceedings, accusing Democrats of seeking to railroad a president out of political animus.

2. Relief seemed imminent for Becky Welch from tax legislation that inadvertently created a financial burden for the Wylie mother of two, along with thousands of other Gold Star families who’ve had loved ones die while serving in the military.

The GOP-run Senate had passed a fix. The Democrat-run House had done the same, folding a similar correction into a broader bill. The two chambers needed only to reconcile their differences.

Six months later, nothing has changed, leaving Welch and others with bruised bank accounts as Congress proves incapable of passing a simple fix that has universal support in both political parties.

4. Lawmakers have taken a small, but significant step toward building a memorial in the nation’s capital to the long-forgotten diplomatic efforts of the Republic of Texas, the independent country that became the Lone Star State.

5. Despite their adversarial past, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban says he still has at least some semblance of a relationship with Trump.Cuban told comedian Kevin Hart that he still receives unsolicited calls from the president asking about his thoughts on the stock market.

6. During a time of partisan divide on the issue of gun control, some lawmakers are declaring a 2018 law to strengthen the FBI’s background check system a success.

Todd’s take

Todd J. Gillman is the Washington bureau chief for The Dallas Morning News. He has covered government and politics for decades, from Dallas to D.C., and is a White House Correspondents’ Association board member. Here, Todd offers his take from Washington.

And then Johnson instantly tweeted out a boast about his minor procedural achievement: “I just obtained unanimous consent to enter this into the record.”

Golly.

The quip at issue: “While the president can name his son Barron, he can’t make him a baron.”

The Trump campaign called her comment “disgusting,” and the first lady tweeted that “A minor child deserves privacy and should be kept out of politics. Pamela Karlan, you should be ashamed of your very angry and obviously biased public pandering, and using a child to do it.”

Thanks to Johnson, that’s now in “the record.” It’s almost as though they think voters are watching, like judges in a high school debate tournament taking copious notes and keeping score of arguments that went unrebutted.

Some day, a diligent historian will dig out “the record” and mine it for glimmering nuggets of truth. Until then, it has pretty much nothing to do with how this will all play out.

Points from Dallas

1. Was Dallas’ Oct. 20 tornado a disaster? Federal emergency officials haven’t said so yet, and millions in relief are on the line. It might all come down to whether or not the feds will pay to replace a bunch of old traffic signals, Robert Wilonsky reports.

2. Mayor Eric Johnson’s letter demanding a prompt crime plan surprised many in the city, including council members, former law enforcement and some members of his community task force. Some wondered Wednesday whether it signaled a shift in his confidence in how violent crime is being addressed by the Dallas Police Department.

While a request for a crime plan is not unusual from a mayor, it was a bold move by Johnson to issue a public letter stating his grievances with the police response, observers said.

3. A change allowing voters in Dallas and Tarrant counties to vote at any polling location appears slow to catch on. Most in Dallas and about half in Tarrant chose to vote at their traditional precinct this fall rather than take advantage of countywide voting, according to new data from election officials. Both counties have until today to file a request to make the changes permanent.

4. Nearly seven months after its CEO and president resigned in the wake of a scathing City Hall audit, VisitDallas has a new leader: Craig T. Davis, who runs the tourism promotion agency in Pittsburgh. He’ll have to sell VisitDallas to the City Council, which will decide early next year if it wants to renew its contract or start over.