House Lawmakers Propose Privatizing All State Jails
House lawmakers are considering a plan to privatize all of Texas' state jails for low-level felony offenders, a move they say could save the state up to $40 million. Full Story
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Credit: Bob Daemmerich -
Texas-Like Budget Debates Have Already Played Out Around U.S.
Heated debate over the state budget is already under way, but as Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports, similar fighting has been playing out for at least three years across the country. Full Story
Credit: Bob Daemmrich -
Supporters Rally Around Texas Historical Commission
With the strum of a guitar and the whine of fiddle strings, Ray Benson and two other members of his band Asleep At The Wheel kicked off a rally Thursday to support the Texas Historical Commission, which faces deep budget cuts. Full Story
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Credit: Muliadi Soenaryo -
House Gives Early OK to Bills Balancing '11 Budget
House lawmakers voted this afternoon to preliminarily pass HB 4 and HB 275, two bills that together will balance the state's budget for the remaining months of the fiscal year through a mix of spending cuts and use of the Rainy Day Fund. Full Story
Credit: Bob Daemmrich -
Plenty of Politics in Budget Amendments
Numbers aren’t all that’s buried in the budget. Lawmakers have filed hundreds of amendments that are political in nature, from repealing in-state tuition for illegal immigrants to trying to push Planned Parenthood out of the family planning business. Full Story
Credit: Bob Daemmrich -
Guns on Campus Bill Heads to Senate Floor
The Senate Criminal Justice Committee today approved a controversial bill that would allow students to carry concealed handguns on college campuses. Full Story
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The Midday Brief: Top Texas Headlines for March 31, 2011
Your afternoon reading: slew of amendments go down in House budget debate; freshman Republicans break ranks on funding for deaf and blind Full Story
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Credit: Todd Wiseman -
TribLive: Don't Cut Public Ed, Thompson Says
At this morning's TribLive conversation, state Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, the longest-serving woman, African American and Democrat in the Texas House, forcefully argued that state funding of public education should not be cut — unless school districts are made to tap into their own reserves. Full Story
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Denton Paper Takes Close Look at Fracking
The Denton Record-Chronicle, a newspaper in the heart of the Barnett Shale gas-drilling region, has produced a series about "what it means to live in the midst of a modern gas boom" that is worth reading. Full Story
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The Brief: Top Texas News for March 31, 2011
House debate over this session's heavyweight bills — the only legislation that has to pass this year — gets under way today. Full Story
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Texas' Complicated School Finance System: A Primer
The Texas public school finance system, responsible for underwriting the education of the nation’s second-largest student population, is notoriously byzantine. Here’s our layman’s guide to figuring it out. Full Story
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HIV Medication Program in Peril
With budget deliberation looming in the Legislature, Gretch Sanders of KUT News reports that funding cuts to one health program could mean a death sentence for some. Full Story
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VIDEO: GOP Freshman Lawmakers Discuss Tea Party Influence, Budget Clout
Thirty new GOP state lawmakers took office this year, promising their constituents they'd cut the fat out of government. As the House prepares to vote on a slew of budget bills on Thursday and Friday, this freshman bloc is showing some clout. Full Story
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House Budget: All the Amendments
The House is scheduled to take up the full budget on Friday, and members filed more than 400 pages of amendments in advance of that debate. Here's the full set, in searchable, electronic form. Full Story
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