Texas prosecutors have dropped charges against a prominent conservative activist in Houston related to allegations he was part of what authorities have called a baseless voter fraud conspiracy theory.

Hotze, who was indicted under former District Attorney Kim Ogg, was alleged to have been involved in the case of an air conditioning repairman being pulled over and held at gunpoint because of a former Houston Police Officer, Mark Aguirre.

If elected next year, Woodfill also plans to run for House speaker. His campaign accuses his 2024 opponent, conservative state Rep. Lacey Hull, of conspiring with incumbent Speaker Dade Phelan to work against conservatives.

The CDC estimates one million people in the country would benefit from HIV prevention medications known as PrEP.

A federal judge in Texas has ruled that required coverage of an HIV prevention drug under the Affordable Care Act violates a Texas employer’s religious beliefs and undercut the broader system that determines which preventive drugs are covered in the U.S. The ruling was handed down Wednesday by Fort Worth-based U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, who ruled in 2018 that the entire ACA is invalid.

A well-known Houston political activist is facing a criminal indictment stemming from bogus charges of election fraud during the 2020 election.

The charges stem from Hotze’s hiring of more than a dozen private investigators to look for voter fraud in Harris County ahead of the 2020 presidential election.

HOUSTON – An attorney and a doctor representing a Houston-based group that paid a former police captain accused of assault had little to say Wednesday about the person being charged. Mark Aguirre, 63, was arrested Tuesday and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in connection with the Oct. 19 incident. Attorney Jared Woodfill and Dr. Steven Hotze, of Liberty Center, held a news conference Wednesday to answer questions. Hotze confirmed that Aguirre was paid as a contract investigator to look into allegations of election fraud in Harris County. Hotze described the charge against Aguirre as “bogus” and said he hasn’t spoken to Aguirre since he was charged.

Mark Aguirre, who was working on behalf of a powerful Republican megadonor’s group to investigate unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud in Harris County, was arrested Tuesday, according to the Harris County District Attorney’s office. Hotze was among a group of Republicans who unsuccessfully sued to have nearly 127,000 Harris County ballots tossed out this year. The company contracted approximately 20 private investigators to work on claims of fraudulent ballots in Harris County and Texas during the 2020 election. “There were no ballots in the truck,” according to a Harris County district attorney’s office press release. “We are lucky no one was killed,” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said in a statement.

A rejection of the votes would constitute a monumental disenfranchisement of voters — drive-thru ballots account for about 10% of all in-person ballots cast during early voting in Harris County. The clerk’s filing with the Supreme Court in the earlier lawsuit also said the Texas secretary of state’s office had approved of drive-thru voting. Since the first Republican challenge to drive-thru voting was filed on Oct. 12, the Texas secretary of state and Gov. Greg Abbott had both ignored requests from reporters and Harris County officials to clarify their positions on whether the process was legal. The county clerk’s office countered that the first challenge to drive-thru voting had already been denied, and the second filing came much too late.

In the state’s most populous — and largely Democratic — county, drive-thru voters are left anxiously awaiting court decisions before Election Day on Tuesday that could force them to go back to the polls. They argue that the county’s new drive-thru voting sites are an illegal expansion of curbside voting and violate Texas election law and the U.S. Constitution. An earlier legal challenge against drive-thru voting brought by Hotze, Hemphill and the Harris County Republican Party was rejected by the Texas Supreme Court last week. Harris County officials have continued to defend the legality of the program, and noted that the Texas secretary of state’s office had approved of drive-thru voting. “The GOP is doing everything possible to not allow people to vote, and I don’t think they understand that there are Republicans who also took part in drive-thru voting.”

HOUSTON – Around 60 people gathered to protest the Harris County mask order in downtown Houston on Saturday. The group held an event called, ‘Unmuzzled Freedom Rally.”Steven Hotze was a speaker at the rally. “This is not a pandemic,” Hotze said. “If you think that this [mask] takes away your freedom, wait until you try COVID-19,” Rea said. “You need to take precautions and you need to take your vitamins.”About 12 Houston police officers were present during the rally.