#WorkforceWednesday: OSHA ETS in Review, Texas Vaccine Mandate Ban, Health Premium Incentives - Employment Law This Week®
What Can Businesses Do After Texas Lifts the Mask Mandate?
With an expanding cannabis and hemp market and an upcoming legislative session that will consider medical cannabis expansion, hemp regulation, decriminalization, and other cannabis matters—we have our eyes on Texas! Texas...more
This is an update to our firm’s previous article covering the creation of Texas’ new business court system and Fifteenth Court of Appeals. These new courts were created in 2023 by the 88th Texas Legislature and will begin...more
In July 2024, Governor Greg Abbott announced that the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA) awarded over $95 million in housing tax credits to help finance the development and rehabilitation of more than...more
Here are curated AG and federal regulatory news stories highlighting key areas in which state and federal regulators’ decisions are having an impact across the US: •GOP AGs Seek to Black Out FERC’s Electrical Transmission &...more
Texas Deputy First Assistant Attorney General Judge Grant Dorfman has been appointed by Governor Greg Abbott to serve as a judge on Texas’s newly established Eleventh Business Court Division in Houston....more
Texas Governor Greg Abbott continues to announce the first wave of judicial appointees to the Texas Business Courts and the intermediate court of appeals which will oversee them—all of which are slated to go into effect on...more
Last Friday, June 9, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed Texas House Bill 19, which codifies a business court system in Texas. Similar to the commercial court systems that exist in Delaware and New York, Texas's business court...more
Is Texas at “war”? And, if so, may Texas take immigration enforcement into its own hands in “self-defense”? These are among the provocative questions raised by United States v. Texas . Texas may not like the answers it’s...more
In 2022, state and local governments banned 2,571 different books. This is more books than were subject to such bans in the previous three years combined (2,436). Most of these efforts are taken at the local level. Texas’...more
Law 360 is reporting on yesterday's hearing in the United States' litigation against the State of Texas to cause the removal of an unpermitted “marine barrier” placed by the State of Texas in the Rio Grande River. Putting...more
Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s latest push against vaccine mandates takes form in a new law now in force in the Lone Star State. Senate Bill 7 prohibits private employers from adopting or enforcing certain COVID-19 vaccine...more
Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed SB 4 on December 18, placing Texas on the course to yet another state-federal preemption challenge regarding the enforcement of immigration law regarding illegal entry to the United States...more
In June 2023, Governor Greg Abbott signed new legislation that will change the landscape in Texas for resolving business disputes. Texas House Bill 19 (HB 19) creates new Texas “Business Courts” with jurisdiction over certain...more
On June 9, 2023, Texas Governor Abbot signed House Bill 19 (HB 19) into law, prompting the creation of a new court system in Texas dedicated to resolving business disputes. The law took effect on September 1, 2023, but the...more
In the ever-evolving landscape of COVID-19 regulations, Texas has taken a unique stance with Senate Bill 7, which was signed into law by Texas Governor Greg Abbott on November 10, 2023. This legislation specifically addresses...more
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has signed into law SB 7, which bans private employers of any size from imposing or enforcing COVID-19 vaccine mandates as a condition of employment. The law will take effect on February 6, 2024....more
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law on November 10 a ban on private employer COVID-19 vaccine mandates, thus prohibiting employers in the Lone Star State from requiring vaccination against COVID-19 as a condition of...more
On September 10, 2021, Williamson County Attorney Dee Hobbs requested an “expedited” ruling from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in response to his question of whether executive orders issued by Abbott in response to the...more
On June 10, Governor Greg Abbott signed House Bill 19 into law — creating a new specialty court in Texas. These new courts will have significantly limited jurisdiction and are intended to provide a more efficient venue for...more
In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s momentous ruling this summer on the use of affirmative action in college admissions, many companies may wonder what it means for their affirmative action and Diversity, Equity and...more
After the 2018 Farm Bill legalized hemp at the federal level, Texas was one of the last states to legalize it at the state level. Governor Abbot passed House Bill 1325 in 2019, legalizing hemp cultivation as well as the...more
On May 25, 2023, the Texas Legislature enacted the biggest structural change to the Texas court system in recent memory. House Bill 19 (“HB 19”)—signed by Governor Greg Abbott in June—creates a new “Business Court” system for...more
On June 18, 2023, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed H.B. 4, otherwise known as the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act (TDPSA). Following substantive legislative action in Tennessee, Montana, and Indiana, Texas now becomes...more
Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed into law the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act (TDPSA) on June 18, 2023. With the passage of TDPSA, Texas becomes the tenth state to adopt a consumer data privacy law. TDPSA passed the...more
At the conclusion of a hotly contested Texas 88th Regular Legislative Session, the Texas Legislature has passed, and Governor Abbott has signed into law, two major pieces of legislation that could have substantial impacts on...more