Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation to prohibit vaccine and mask mandates on Thursday.

DeSantis’ announced his four new ‘Prescribe Freedom’ bills during an event in Destin. Senate Bill 252 prohibits workplaces, government agencies and schools from requiring COVID-19 vaccination or masks.

The governor began his speech by referencing the intense criticism that Florida faced during the COVID-19 pandemic.

‘Everything we were doing in Florida, we were getting attacked. We were getting attacked by bureaucrats like Fauci. We were being attacked by the political left. We were being attacked by corporate media. And we were even attacked by some Republicans,’ DeSantis said.

‘I mean, that’s just kind of the way it goes. But we stuck to our guns because we believe that we are doing the right thing for the state,’ he added.

The legislation also formally denounces World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations in Florida. It also protects alternative COVID-19 treatments. 

‘You should have the right to try these [alternative COVID-19 treatments] under the supervision of your physician, and that is protected in the state of Florida,’ DeSantis said.

Another component of the legislation is Senate Bill 1387, which bans gain-of-function research. DeSantis said gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China, was likely to blame for the pandemic.

‘What we know is there was gain-of-function research being conducted at Wuhan, and that very likely led to the emergence of COVID-19. And yet there really isn’t effective regulation,’ the governor said.

Senate Bill 1580 also ensures freedom of speech and whistleblower protections for physicians. 

‘We want our physicians practicing evidence based medicine. We don’t want it to just defer to authority or to just follow the herd,’ DeSantis explained. ‘So that is now law in the state of Florida.’

DeSantis’ remarks come nearly a week after the WHO announced that the COVID-19 pandemic was no longer a global emergency.

But despite the announcement, WHO officials still warn that the pandemic is technically not over. Countries in Southeast Asia and the Middle East have reported some spikes in COVID-19 cases.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday slammed Rockland County Executive Ed Day as ‘racist’ and ‘antisemitic’ after the official issued a restraining order blocking the Democratic mayor from sending busloads of asylum seekers. 

Adams tried to distance himself from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, telling reporters that New York City was footing the bill and only taking volunteers. He stressed that his office has been in communication with Rockland and Orange county officials — an assertion the counties have challenged.  

‘When you look at the County Exec [Ed] Day, I mean this guy has a record of being antisemitic, you know, his racist comments,’ Adams said, without providing examples. ‘You know, his thoughts and how he responded to this, it shows a lack of leadership.’

Adams’ office pointed Fox News Digital to past reports which portrayed Day’s remarks as pitting voters against a bloc of Hasidic and Ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities.

Day shot back at Adams, telling Fox News Digital, ‘the mayor can call me every name in the book to deflect the reality of this clear disregard for our laws. And maybe he can explain his own documented ‘racist comments.’ 

Day was referring to comments Adams, a former police officer, made before he became mayor, in which called White cops ‘crackers.’ Adams later apologized for those remarks. 

Adams’ Thursday comments came as his plan to move several hundred asylum seekers to hotels in New York’s Orange and Rockland counties moved forward.  

Leaders in Orange and Rockland counties have pushed back against Adams’ plan to send over 300 migrants to Rockland County’s Armoni Inn & Suites hotel in Orangeburg, and Orange County’s The Crossroads Hotel in Newburgh, the latter of which saw migrants arrive on Thursday.

Rockland County successfully obtained a temporary restraining order from a state Supreme Court judge on Tuesday, after arguing that the move violated local zoning regulations.

Adams said Thursday the city would not be deterred by legal challenges. 

‘You can’t use the court to deny people to move around the State of New York,’ Adams said. ‘We’re going to challenge all of the legal obstacles that are attempting to be placed in our way because it would set a bad precedent if someone was saying in the State of New York that you are not allowed to come here.’ 

Fox News’ Michael Lee contributed to this report. 

The Biden administration touted conservation programs funded by bipartisan legislation passed in 2020, but it failed to mention that they are largely fueled by federal fossil fuel drilling revenues.

In a joint announcement Thursday, the Department of the Interior and Agriculture Department praised the Legacy Restoration Fund (LRF) and Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), both of which were earmarked in the Great American Outdoors Act. The agencies said the programs would enable them to spend $2.8 billion on various conservation initiatives in fiscal year 2024.

‘The Great American Outdoors Act allows us to increase outdoor recreation opportunities, improve infrastructure on our public lands, invest in the U.S. economy, and honor our commitment to Tribal communities,’ Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement.

‘Funding made possible through the Great American Outdoors Act’s Legacy Restoration Fund allows us to enhance equitable access for recreators, create job opportunities, advance community well-being and improve rural and urban economies,’ Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack added.

The Great American Outdoors Act — which former President Donald Trump signed in August 2020 after it passed with veto-proof majorities in the Senate and House — earmarks $1.9 billion per year to the LRF for deferred public lands maintenance and another $900 million per year to the LWCF for various conservation and recreation programs.

Both programs, and others included in the law, are funded by various forms of energy development on federal lands and waters. And the vast majority of that funding is specifically derived from fossil fuels, mainly oil, natural gas and coal development.

According to Office of Natural Resources Revenue data, for example, about 90% of the $9.6 billion in federal energy revenue that has been generated during the current fiscal year has derived from fossil fuel royalties. The remainder has come from other commodities, such as geothermal, mineral resources and wind development, which have accounted for 0.05% of federal energy revenue.

‘All of the funding for the Great American Outdoors Act comes from energy development on federal lands and offshore waters,’ Hannah Downey, policy director at the Property and Environment Research Center, testified during a congressional hearing last year. ‘Indeed, federal energy revenues have long provided significant funding for conservation and recreation on public lands.’

However, the Biden administration’s announcement Thursday didn’t mention the source of the conservation programs it touted. And the administration, led by the Department of the Interior, has repeatedly attempted to decrease the amount of land and waters leased for fossil fuel production, potentially curbing the government’s future energy revenue.

The Department of the Interior has only held a handful of onshore fossil fuel lease sales since President Biden took office, and it only held those auctions after a federal judge issued an injunction that blocked the president’s moratorium on new drilling. The agency has also failed to hold any offshore lease sales that weren’t otherwise legally mandated, and it proposed a plan to block all such leasing through 2028.

LWCF funding could alone decline by up to $420 million a year if the Department of the Interior restricts future offshore oil and gas leasing, according to a 2022 report from the National Ocean Industries Association (NOIA) and the American Petroleum Institute.

‘America’s conservation and outdoor recreation legacy is one that is reinforced by a healthy offshore oil and gas industry, a predominant source of funding for conservation programs across all 50 states,’ NOIA President Erik Milito said after the Great American Outdoors Act was passed in 2020. 

‘The funding for the GAOA is earmarked from energy activities on federal lands, and it is now even more important to protect Gulf of Mexico energy production, as without it, billions of dollars of funding for beloved conservation and recreation programs, such as the Land and Water Conservation Fund, will disappear,’ he continued.

A spokesperson for the Department of the Interior said Thursday that the agency would continue to implement the law.

‘The department will continue to obey the law, including implementation of the Great American Outdoors Act and Inflation Reduction Act,’ Interior spokesperson Melissa Schwartz told Fox News Digital.

The New Hampshire Senate rejected a marijuana legalization bill Thursday, leaving it the only state in New England that makes smoking pot recreationally a crime.

Republicans, who control the Senate, led the effort to dismiss the bill on a 14-10 vote.

Though several bipartisan bills in support of legalization have cleared the House in recent years, the Senate has blocked them. Republican Gov. Chris Sununu said earlier this year that he didn’t expect new legislation to reach his desk with teen drug use and overdoses on the rise.

Republican Senate President Jeb Bradley said the time isn’t right to legalize marijuana, as the state combats a drug addiction and overdose crisis.

‘Recreationalizing marijuana at this critical juncture would send a confusing message, potentially exacerbating the already perilous drug landscape and placing more lives at risk,’ he said in a written statement.

House Democratic Leader Matt Wilhelm said the push to legalize marijuana has strong support in New Hampshire. He said regulating the drug could also help protect public health.

‘Every day that New Hampshire remains an island of prohibition, more voluntary tax revenue from our residents flows to surrounding states to fund programs and services benefitting their residents,’ Wilhelm said in a press release.

The bill, which had been approved by the House, would have put the state’s Liquor Commission in charge of regulating marijuana, with a 12.5% tax levied at the cultivation level.

Most of the tax revenue would have gone toward reducing the state’s pension liability and the state’s education trust fund, with some set aside for substance abuse prevention programs and police training.

Opponents have focused on the impact of the drug crisis on families, individuals and communities, and noted strong opposition from the law enforcement community.

Frank Knaack, policy director at the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire, faulted those senators who opposed the initiative.

‘These lawmakers are willing to ignore the will of their own constituents and are okay with continuing to needlessly ensnare over a thousand people — disproportionately Black people — in New Hampshire’s criminal justice system every year,’ he said.

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 3-2 along partisan lines on Tuesday to recommend that the full Senate reject the bill. The committee also made similar recommendations on bills that would allow homegrown cannabis for therapeutic purposes and would lower penalties on some drug violations.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers signed a pair of bipartisan bills Friday that would increase penalties for carjacking and reckless driving.

The bills come as part of a Republican-backed push to crack down on dangerous driving across the state but particularly in Milwaukee, where Mayor Cavalier Johnson has called rising rates of reckless driving a crisis. Evers signed the legislation at a Milwaukee church.

The first bill designates carjacking as a formal crime. Until now, someone who uses force or threatens to use force to steal a vehicle can be charged with operating a vehicle without the owner’s consent.

The bill raises the maximum sentence from 40 years in prison to 60 years. Anyone who steals a car by force without using a weapon will still face up to 15 years in prison.

The other bill doubles the fines and forfeitures for reckless driving. The range will increase to a maximum of $400 for a first offense to $1,000 for a subsequent offense. The maximum fine for reckless driving that causes bodily harm will increase to $4,000. Reckless drivers who cause great bodily harm will face up to six years in prison, up from the current maximum of three-and-a-half years.

Evers signed another bill in April that allows local governments to impound unsafe drivers’ vehicles.

California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein returned to the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday after being absent from the chamber for almost three months following a shingles diagnosis earlier this year.

Feinstein — the oldest-serving senator at age 89 and the longest-serving female senator — was photographed Wednesday exiting from a vehicle and getting into a wheelchair outside the Capitol, where she was greeted by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

With the help of her staff, Feinstein was then rolled into the Capitol as Schumer walked alongside of her wheelchair. Her return to work restores the Democrats’ 51-49 majority in the Senate.

Schumer confirmed the longtime senator’s return to D.C. in a statement on Tuesday, saying he was pleased that his ‘friend Dianne is back in the Senate and ready to roll up her sleeves and get to work.’

On March 2, Feinstein revealed she was hospitalized with shingles in San Francisco adding that she hoped to return to the Senate later that month.

‘I was diagnosed over the February recess with a case of shingles. I have been hospitalized and am receiving treatment in San Francisco,’ Feinstein’s office shared with Fox News Digital at the time. ‘I hope to return to the Senate later this month.’

Her nearly three month-long absence prompted calls from politicians on both sides of the aisle for the veteran senator to retire.

‘It’s time for [Feinstein] to resign. We need to put the country ahead of personal loyalty,’ Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., wrote on Twitter. ‘While she has had a lifetime of public service, it is obvious she can no longer fulfill her duties. Not speaking out undermines our credibility as elected representatives of the people.’

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., also called for the senator’s resignation as several judicial nominations are pending in the Senate. 

‘Her refusal to either retire or show up is causing great harm to the judiciary — precisely where [reproductive] rights are getting stripped,’ Ocasio-Cortez said during an interview. ‘That failure means now in this precious window Dems can only pass GOP-approved nominees.’

Feinstein, who took office in 1992 and is the longest-serving senator in California history, announced in February she would not seek re-election in 2024.

‘I am announcing today I will not run for re-election in 2024 but intend to accomplish as much for California as I can through the end of next year when my term ends,’ the senator wrote on Twitter. ‘Even with a divided Congress, we can still pass bills that will improve lives.’

Prior to representing California in the U.S. Senate, Feinstein served as San Francisco’s first female mayor.

Fox News’ Brandon Gillespie and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Democratic Gov. Janet Mills on Wednesday proposed nearly $900 million for a supplemental budget, with the additional spending intended to tackle urgent problems including affordable housing, shelter for homeless people and emergency medical services.

The total updated package envisions $432 million in new appropriations along with $455 million in transfers including $200 million to the Department of Transportation and $15 million to continue free community college tuition for in-state students.

The proposal contains no concessions to Republicans already angry over a procedural move used by Democrats, who control the Legislature, to adopt a two-year essential services budget over their objections. Democrats ended the legislative session after the vote, only to resume days later in special session.

Mills proposes to use additional surplus money and increased revenue projections to add to the budget signed March 31, pushing it to $10.3 billion over two years.

‘This proposal lives within our means, using revenues in a responsible way to address serious, pressing issues — like the housing crunch, homelessness, and food insecurity — while also making thoughtful, strategic investments that will strengthen our economy,’ the governor said in a statement.

The announcement adds to a previous supplemental budget bill and includes no tax cuts sought by Republicans.

‘We don’t find the governor’s change package responsive to the times, or responsive to the needs of the Maine people,’ Republican lawmakers said in a statement.

The governor’s updates include adding $50 million to a housing proposal, bringing the total to $80 million for affordable housing; $12 million in one-time funding for emergency housing for homeless people; and $31 million in one-time funding for grants to emergency medical services.

Her proposal comes after a new projection of an additional $223 million available for the 2023 fiscal year, followed by a $71 million increase in the 2024 and 2025 fiscal years and flat revenues in the next two years.

The proposals build on the current services budget that maintains 55% of the cost of education and fully restored revenue sharing with municipalities, Mills said.

Previous budget surpluses allowed the governor to return $729 million to residents in the form of $850 inflation relief checks in 2022 and another $473 million this year through $450 heating assistance checks.

Many Republicans called those one-time payments a gimmick and said permanent tax cuts would be a better option.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is set to announce a proposal to amend the Constitution to raise the voting age from 18 to 25.

Ramaswamy caught up with Fox News Digital on his tour bus as he traveled through the Hawkeye State amid the growing GOP presidential primary.

The former CEO told Fox News Digital that he plans to announce a constitutional amendment to raise the voting age from 18 to 25, unless a person serves the nation in the military or as a first responder or can pass the civics test immigrants take when becoming citizens.

Ramaswamy plans to announce the Constitutional amendment proposal during a Thursday evening rally with Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds.

‘We’re going to be talking about this to a large audience of actually young people in Iowa,’ Ramaswamy said. ‘Gov. Kim Reynolds is going to be there tomorrow. There was going to be the perfect place to roll this out tomorrow night to lay out one of the most, I think, bluntly, ambitious proposals we’ve rolled out in this campaign.

‘Which is to say that we want to restore civic duty in the mindset of the next generation of Americans. And how we want to do it is to say that, if you want to vote as an 18-year-old, between the ages of 18 and 25, you need to either do your civic duty through service to the country — that’s six months of service in either military service or as a first responder, police, fire or otherwise — or else you have to pass the same civics test an immigrant has to pass in order to become a naturalized citizen who can vote in this country.’

‘At age 25, that falls away,’ he added.

Ramaswamy said he believes the amendment will drum up civic engagement in America and lead to a more informed population of voters.

The GOP candidate also said his proposed amendment would ‘supercede’ the 26th Amendment that sets the national voting age to 18.

Ramaswamy noted that the 26th Amendment was passed in 1971 and that one ‘of the arguments for that was that if you’re going to have a draft, military draft, that brings 18-year-olds in, then they ought to have the right to vote.’

‘Which, actually said, that this is a relatively familiar notion to us, tying the voting age back then to the age that you could be drafted in the military says that there’s a deep and this is a long-standing tradition in our country, tying civic duties to the privileges of citizenship,’ he said.

Ramaswamy told Fox News Digital that the proposal is ‘fundamentally different’ to Jim Crow laws and that there is ‘no room for funny business like you had in the Jim Crow era.’

‘We literally require people to pass that test to vote today,’ he said. ‘If you’re an immigrant, I’d say the same thing applies if you’re an 18-year-old who graduates from high school who wants to vote.’

‘But you don’t have to do it that way,’ he continued. ‘You could also do it by doing a minimal amount of service to the country.’

Ramaswamy said he hopes the amendment will help younger Americans get out and vote more by ‘making voting something that’s a true privilege by attaching real civic duty to it.’

‘I think we will make it more desirable to vote by actually adding more meaning to the act of voting rather than just emotion that people go through or accustomed to going through. And I think that will actually be positive for our civic culture. And I also think that this can be unifying,’ he explained. ‘Whether you’re the kid of a billionaire in the Upper East Side of Manhattan or whether you’re the daughter of a single mother in the inner city, it doesn’t matter. You have the same requirements to be part of the special group of people at a young age who get to participate in deciding who governs the country. And I think that restores a sense of civic equality and a sense of civic duty that we have long missed in our country.’

Ramaswamy called his amendment proposal not a Republican or Democrat idea but ‘an American idea for restoring civic duty and civic pride in the next generation of Americans.’

Last week, Ramaswamy said he’s already poured eight figures of his own money into his 2024 campaign and emphasized that there’s ‘no limit’ to what he’ll continue to invest into his White House run.

Ramaswamy, a health care and tech sector entrepreneur, best-selling author, conservative commentator and crusader in the culture wars who declared his candidacy for president in February, is worth roughly $600 million, according to Forbes. And Ramaswamy hasn’t disputed past estimates that he has a net worth of half a billion dollars.

‘There’s really no limit to what we’ll put into this campaign,’ Ramaswamy said in a Fox News Digital exclusive national interview following a campaign event at the University of New Hampshire in Durham.

The 37-year-old first-time candidate noted that ‘we’ve already made an eight-figure investment in this campaign. Combine that with nearly 30,000 unique donors in just the first 10 weeks. … There’s going to have to be a grassroots movement that lifts this up, but given the family sacrifice that we’re already making, there’s no limit to the financial sacrifice that we’ll make as well.’

Pointing to the $500 million that multibillionaire business and media mogul Mike Bloomberg spent in just four months in his unsuccessful campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, Ramaswamy said, ‘I do think that Michael Bloomberg proved it — you can’t buy elections in this country, which I think is a good thing. The people of this country are too smart for that.’

But Ramaswamy said that his wealth ‘is going to be something that allows us to compete. I don’t have years of political lists and campaign bases to draw from or existing donors — big donors who are viewing me as their sort of guy. That’s the part that we’re skipping by actually having independent, self-created wealth, and frankly, that actually gives me some latitude many of those professional politicians don’t have because those donors — especially mega-donors — have expectations. I don’t dance to anybody else’s tune but to voters who we actually serve.’

Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams is no longer a national surrogate for President Biden’s re-election campaign amid his criticism of the administration’s handling of the migrant crisis along the southern border.

The news that Adams had been dropped from Biden’s National Advisory Board, which was first reported by Politico, comes after Adams initially joined the campaign’s efforts in March.

‘Adams is among several lawmakers who were initially named to the president’s National Advisory Board in March but no longer appear on a roster of 50 prominent Democrats released by the campaign Wednesday,’ the outlet reported.

The board – which comprises 50 Democrats at varying levels of government to support Biden and Vice President Harris’ re-election chances in 2024 – was announced Wednesday and includes several prominent Democrat politicians, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Cory Booker of New Jersey, and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.

Adams’ noticeable absence from the board comes after several rounds of criticism against the Biden administration for its handling of the migrant crisis at the southern border.

‘It is not about the asylum-seekers and migrants, all of us came from somewhere to pursue the American Dream,’ Adams said last week. ‘It is the irresponsibility of the Republican Party in Washington for refusing to do real immigration reform, and it’s the irresponsibility of the White House for not addressing this problem.’

Adams has also been tasked over the last year with dealing with large influxes of migrants sent to the Big Apple by bus from Republican-led states like Florida and Texas who have become overwhelmed.

Adams has previously claimed that New York City ‘is being destroyed by the migrant crisis’ and said the Biden administration ‘failed’ the city on immigration.

Adams said in April that the ‘national government has turned its back on New York City,’ adding that ‘every service in this city is going to be impacted by the asylum seeker crisis.’

Upon being named to the advisory board, Adams told the New York Post that he would not be deterred from speaking out against Biden’s border policies and the migrant crisis.

‘I think to the contrary,’ Adams, the mayor of the nation’s most populous city, insisted at the time. ‘Those who cover me and know me, know that I’m going to speak on behalf of the people of this city, no matter what panel I’m on.’

‘And you know, being a president comes with a menu of items. It doesn’t mean there’s not going to be an item on that menu that I dislike. I dislike what we’re doing around the asylum seekers,’ he added.

Other members of Biden’s national advisory board include: California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Delaware Gov. John Carney, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, Marlyand Gov. Wes Moore, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, and more than a dozen Democratic House members.

In a memo from the New York City Office of Management, reported by the New York Post, the city will spend an estimated $4.2 billion on costs related to migrants and asylum seekers that would be spent through June 30, 2023, and the end of fiscal year 2024.

According to the internal city memo, Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s plan would reimburse the city for up to $1 billion in migrant aid, which only covers 29% of expected shelter costs.

New York City officials have applied for a FEMA grant worth $654 million, with a decision expected May 31.

A dispute is brewing within a Texas educational organization that could shape how the state’s history is taught to the next generation of students – history that includes everything from the pre-Columbian era to the Alamo, the Republic of Texas, Spindletop, and even the first human visit to the moon.

It concerns competing ideological narratives between board members of the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA). The independent non-profit publishes research material and education programs about the Lone Star State. Founded in 1897, TSHA’s output includes the Southwestern Historical Quarterly, the Texas Almanac, the Handbook of Texas, and other books and periodicals frequently cited by classrooms and authors and influences content on Texas historical sites, which include urban museums, Spanish missions, and world-famous revolutionary battlefields. The organization receives taxpayer funds from the Texas legislature. 

Retired oilman and philanthropist J.P. Bryan, who became executive director of TSHA last year, told Fox News Digital there had always been a natural bifurcation between ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ for much of the organization’s history. 

According to its bylaws, the board must comprise half academics, and half non-academics. Per TSHA’s bylaws, the board must be ‘balanced substantially between these two groups,’ with ‘the recognition that limited flexibility must be exercised where unusual circumstances dictate.’ 

That balance helped ensure that the subject matter was never overtly politicized and stayed objective. That is, until the past decade or so when the organization began a gradual shift toward a more progressive, liberal narrative of Texas history. 

‘A lot of us who were non-academics were really worried about the financial wherewithal [and] were not necessarily looking at the content of our publications … and other things we were disseminating,’ Bryan said. ‘So, we just assumed that we were always going along in our natural format, properly representing our traditional view that we have a great history made by exceptional people.’ 

Per Bryan’s account, academic board members started to emphasize marginalized groups and the plight of victims. Figures such as Stephen F. Austin, Sam Houston, and the Texas Rangers, once lauded as heroes in Texas history, had become villains. 

‘My concern is that we’re only writing one vernacular now, and it’s that all our traditional heroes are villains of some sort,’ Bryan said.  

TSHA member Dr. Jody Edward Ginn backed up this contention, telling Fox News Digital that other members started to refer to themselves as ‘activist scholars.’ 

‘Those are mutually exclusive concepts there. They just don’t blend together, because activists have an agenda and a narrative,’ Ginn said. ‘Whether you believe it’s right or wrong is irrelevant … an honest scholar cannot start with knowing how it’s going to end.’ 

A TSHA member for nearly 20 years, Ginn said he became a pariah after nominating Wallace Jefferson, Texas’ first Black Supreme Court Chief Justice of Texas to the board in place of the leadership’s preferred candidate, a White, leftist activist scholar. 

‘[TSHA President] Nancy Baker Jones herself, as incoming president, tried to stop in violation of the bylaws,’ Ginn said. ‘Since [Chief Historian] Walter Buenger and Nancy Baker Jones, and some of these other folks got on the board, they’ve started consolidating power.’ 

The board’s ideological shift was cemented during the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s when, according to Bryan, the board, ‘under the cover of dark,’ started filling the non-academic seats with academics. It now consists of 12 academics and eight non-academics. 

The gradual change in narrative, alleged Bryan, led to losses in membership and declining attendance at events. 

‘I saw incredible changes, but the thing I found so distressing is that 90% of our membership, nothing that we were doing would appeal to them, which is insane,’ Bryan said. ‘And the 90% – the non-academics are 90% of our funding. So, the academics contribute 1%, but they want to tell us what we are and what we’re going to do.’ 

Bryan, a veteran businessman, implemented changes to help improve the organization’s finances. But rather than earn him praise, those changes irked other board members, primarily TSHA President Nancy Baker Jones. 

Tensions came to a head last month when, according to Bryan, Jones called an emergency board meeting to fire him. On May Day, Bryan filed a temporary restraining order against Jones, arguing that the board’s decisions held no weight since it was technically not abiding by its bylaws. 

‘I knew that if we’re going to have a discussion where I was going to defend myself, from her charges, about things like I hadn’t raised any money – and I raised a million dollars – that I hadn’t presented a budget, which I did at the annual meeting,’ Bryan said. 

‘In the six months, for six months, I did more for the organization than the other three executive directors had done last 10 years. But they couldn’t stand the idea that I was threatening their vernacular of history.’ 

Bryan clarified that he is not out to impose a traditional view of history but to ensure that competing narratives have a fair hearing.  

‘When both sides are represented at the table, you have those healthy arguments, ‘this is my view, and that’s your view,’ so the listeners can make their own judgments from the arguments that they hear,’ Bryan said. ‘If there’s only one narrative there that’s dominating the entire discussions and all the material and content, then you’re not going to have that debate.’ 

A Galveston judge was scheduled weigh Bryan’s temporary restraining order on Friday, but a continuance has reportedly been sought which could delay that hearing. 

‘This is a fight. The next six months is going to determine the entire future of the way Texas history is taught and colleges across the entire state,’ Bryan said. 

Fox News Digital has reached out to Buenger and Jones for their side of the story but did not hear back.