When it comes to the world of politics, the news cycle develops new headlines every day. To help you keep up with them, The Battalion compiled a few of the most compelling political stories from the past week.
Advancement in Texas finance bill
On March 19, a comprehensive $9 billion school finance and property tax reform was signed off on by the Texas House Public Education Committee. Known as House Bill 3, the bill would see $6.3 billion be put into schools and $2.7 billion into a property tax reform. However, the initial version of the bill was met with backlash from teachers unions.
A merit system would have been used in order to tell which teachers would be paid more by districts. Teachers opposed this as they suspected standardized testing would be used in order to rate them. This lead to the dropping of that portion of the bill in favor of incentives to pay more in locations or academic areas with a shortage of educators. The bill is expected to pass in the House, but will need to then reconcile with its Senate counterpart afterwards.
Supreme Court faces issue of gerrymandering
Gerrymandering is back on the Supreme Court’s plate with two distinct cases. Previously, it was thought that the court might rule against the redistricting seen in cases similar to these. However, with Justice Kennedy being replaced with Justice Kavanaugh, that seems less likely.
The first case is that of Rucho v. Common Cause, where the argument is being made that unconstitutional and partisan gerrymandering occurred in North Carolina when officials redrew district boundaries. The other case, Lamone v. Benisek, argues the same, but with the state of Maryland instead. Both cases were heard on March 26, and the ruling is still undecided.
Controversial EU article is passed
Article 17, previously known as Article 13, has been a controversial topic on the internet for the past months. Many have opposed the European Union article as it would hold platforms such as Youtube with the legal responsibility of any copyrighted material they host. However, the issue arises from the size of such platforms. The only way to realistically implement such protections would be to implement content filters that are not ready, and critics claim that platform users will be negatively affected in the content they can make and enjoy.
Last-minute amendments failed to be implemented, and European politicians have voted to pass the article, 348 to 274. Respective governments will now have to implement it into their laws in spite of massive protests seen in Europe against the article.
