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March 9, 2026 3:41 PM

Houston teenager faces capital murder charge after the shooting death of a Texas Capitol staffer's friend

Cassie Daniel, Chief of Staff to Rep. Candy Noble, posted an emotional video online over the weekend after the death of a friend who's been helping her with chemotherapy in Houston

An 18-year-old from Houston was set to appear in a Harris County criminal court Monday afternoon after he was charged with capital murder in the shooting death of the very good friend of a Texas Capitol staffer.

Darius Dewayne Hall is accused of gunning down Marietta Allison, a best friend of Cassie Daniel, who was in Houston receiving treatment for cancer at MD Anderson. Daniel, as many of y'all know, is Chief of Staff to Rep. Candy Noble.

Daniel posted an emotional video online about what happened late Friday night, when she said Allison was killed after parking her car in The Heights neighborhood. Daniel said that her chemotherapy lasted longer than expected Friday, which was why she and Allison arrived late at night at the place they were staying in The Heights. Daniel also asked that her privacy be respected and simply asked that we all send our love by keeping her and Allison’s family in our thoughts and prayers.

Meantime, some Capitol folks have stepped up with this page to help Cassie in her battle with cancer, including says to send resources and to help her travel to her chemo treatments.

By Scott Braddock

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March 9, 2026 1:50 PM

Sen. Adam Hinojosa calls urgent meeting of local leaders on water issues in Corpus Christi and the Coast Bend region

“Sinton and Corpus Christi are both vital parts of the Coastal Bend Region. Our goal is to provide a venue and facilitate discussion so that both Sinton and Corpus Christi may both benefit,” Sen. Hinojosa said

Sen. Hinojosa’s full statement is here.

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March 9, 2026 1:37 PM

After four decades on the air, Rio Grande Valley radio legend Davis Rankin retiring from KURV

But Rankin tells QR he'll still appear from time to time on the station. He started at KURV radio back in 1984. Cheers my friend - SB

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March 6, 2026 3:10 PM

People on the Move

Lobby moves, associations’ news, big corporate gigs, and more

The Texas primary is in the books. Now onto a $100 million GOP runoff.

Or not.

Sen. John Cornyn and AG Ken Paxton spent most of their week wondering which of them will get an endorsement from President Trump. He not only promised to endorse one of them but also said he plans to demand the other drop out of the race. On the latest Quorum Report Radio podcast, dropping later this evening, we went in-depth on all that plus the way national Republicans are already working to portray Democratic US Senate Nominee James Talarico as a “far left” Austin liberal. Shouldn’t be too hard – they’re using his own words to prove it. The links to listen on Apple and Spotify are on the Quorum Report homepage. If you’re following Quorum Report Radio on your favorite podcast app, it’ll just show up automatically on your phone later.

Speaking of the show: Thanks to Mike McGuff for featuring the podcast. Mike, who covers media trends in Texas, was an avid listener of “the old show” and had some questions about the new one. You can check it out here. Depending on your browser, you might have to right click that link and open it in a new tab.

Meantime, it’s back to basics with People on the Move. There wasn’t as much career news crossing my desk during the final weeks of the primary, but now it’s picking up again. For the uninitiated, POTM is the premier way to let the Texas Capitol community know about your gig, venture, or whatever career news you want to share. Send it anytime to ksbraddock@gmail.com and use POTM in the subject line for the quickest service. I’m always happy to get texts from y’all but for this stuff, email is better so I can keep it all straight.

Here’s the latest edition.

The rest of the story, subscribers only

By Scott Braddock

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March 6, 2026 2:22 PM

Kronberg with a personal plea to help our friend Davey Joe Montgomery

The initial fundraiser reached its goals but of course the true expense of sustained health care after an accident is much more

I am happy to report that we exceeded our initial goals in raising money to help veteran Davey Joe Montgomery cover his hospital bills. However, as anyone who has dealt with long term hospital and rehab care knows, our initial goal did not begin to cover the true expense.

So, I thought I might tell one of the many untold stories about Davey Joe’s career and see if we can rustle up some more dollars to meet new goals. You can donate here.

Although Davey Joe was stationed for seven years in the Soviet Union, I suspect this untold story of speaker politics ranks right up there.

Republicans gained the Texas House majority in 2003 and elected Tom Craddick as Speaker. By 2007, his chairmen were frustrated at his micromanagement and engineered an insurrection to try and take him out of the chair. That ultimately failed.

But the stage was set for a 2009 speaker’s race.

Amazingly, Barack Obama had enormous coattails and in 2008, Texans elected 76 Republicans and 74 Democrats to the Texas House – a virtual tie.

Then-Democratic Caucus chair Jim Dunnam said, “you guys won, you have the majority, you get to pick the Speaker. All I can say is as long as it’s anybody but Craddick, I can deliver at least 50-55 votes.”

And the hunt was on.

Then referred to as the Cardinals, mostly Republican chairman picked Joe Straus.

It was a heated race until…

Back then, the pressroom was alive and robust, and Craigslist had not yet destroyed newspaper classifieds, so it was a hotbed of energy and yelling and just good times. But you could always hear Davey Joe’s accent over the din.

If memory serves, he was working for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram at the time and just as a routine speaker’s race story he contacted one of Craddick’s captains, a state representative named Warren Chisum from Pampa Texas.

Not particularly expecting an answer, Davey Joe who was in the next to me me asked Chisum, “so how many pledges do you have?”

Chisum did not know how to lie or mislead so he just candidly said “well, 56”.

Completely measured and without showing any emotion, Davey Joe simply said, “let me make sure I got that right and repeat it back to you, you have 56 pledges, right?”

The room went silent. Everyone knew that Davey Joe just got the scoop of the speaker’s race and no one, including Quorum Report was going to steal that scoop from him.

Representative Chisum did not realize until later that he had just ended the speaker’s race. An incumbent speaker with only 56 pledges days before session started was toast.

They Startlegram (as it was known) published his story and within a matter of days if not hours Joe Straus had all the votes he needed to coast to victory.

It’s that kind of reporting over many decades that’s shed so much light on developing situations at the Texas Capitol.

Since Davey Joe has always helped all of us understand what’s happening in Texas government, we hope you’ll join us in helping him and his wife now.

By Harvey Kronberg

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