For the final part of his three-part series, Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune sat down with Hispanic student leaders to find out whether Texas Democrats and Republicans can attract first-time voters in November.  Full Story

The push to get out the vote is underway. Democrats in Austin scattered about town Saturday morning to reach out to registered voters and sign up new ones for the November election — a strategy they banked on in 2008. But as Erika Aguilar of KUT News reports, they've got competition.  Full Story

Mark P. Jones, political science chairman at Rice University, recently ranked Texas House members' partisanship based on their 2009 legislative votes. The study, which we've used to create an interactive chart, shows Texas' increasingly polarized political environment, Jones says in an interview.  Full Story

Grissom, Hamilton, and Philpott on the Texas Democratic Party's state convention, the two-step, the forecast, and the ticket; Galbraith on the political and environmental battle between state and federal environmental regulators, and on a new age of nukes in Texas; Burnson on signs of the times in San Antonio; Ramshaw on hackers breaking into the state's confidential cancer database; Aguilar's interview with Katherine Glass, the Libertarian Party's nominee for governor; Acosta on efforts to stop 'Murderabilia' items that sell because of the association with killers;  Ramshaw and the Houston Chronicle's Terri Langford on the criminal arrest records of workers in state-funded foster care centers; Hu on accusations that state Sunset examiners missed problems with workers compensation regulators because they didn't ask the right questions of the right people; Ramsey and Stiles on the rush to rake in campaign cash, and on political races that could be won or lost because of voter attraction to Libertarian candidates; and Aguilar's fresh take on South Texas' reputation for corruption. The best of our best from June 28 to July 3, 2010.

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It's impossible to know exactly which elections will be close in November. But with Libertarian candidates in more than a dozen House races that are on the Republican and Democratic target lists, signed up for the two Texas congressional seats on the GOP's national target list, and in the statewide races, too, here's a question: Are the Libertarians giving Texas Democrats a electoral boost?

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In this week's TribCast, Ethe gang discusses the Democratic Convention in Corpus Christi, Bill White calling out President Barack Obama, and Mike Toomey's ties with the Green Party.  Full Story

Two years after the party’s hybrid primary/caucus system allowed Barack Obama to win more presidential delegates than Hillary Clinton, Texas Democrats voted at their convention this weekend in Corpus Christi to keep the controversial “Texas two-step.”

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Incumbent Boyd Richie easily won re-election to his seat as the chairman of the Texas Democratic Party.

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The Texas Democratic Party State Convention is underway in Corpus Christi, and the Tribune is there to cover the whole shebang. Follow along with reporters Ben Philpott, Brandi Grissom and Reeve Hamilton as they bring you live updates and photos from the weekend.

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Your afternoon reading.

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At this weekend's state Democratic Party convention in Corpus Christi, there will be the usual speeches from candidates like gubernatorial hopeful Bill White, a debate over the party’s platform and a vote to determine its next chair. But one of the biggest fights could come when party officials reconsider the system that Texas Democrats use to award delegates in the presidential primary election process.

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If today’s court ruling stands, there will be no Green Party on the November ballot in Texas.

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The chair of the Texas Democratic Party on why he should keep his job, whether Matt Angle is really running things, why zero out of 29 statewide offices held by Democrats isn't his fault, why he's optimistic about 2010 and what he thinks of Barack Obama.

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The potential Green Party drain of votes away from the Democrats is probably pretty small.

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"Since when is zero-for-29 a winning record?" asks the South Texas schoolteacher who wants to replace Boyd Richie as chair of the Texas Democratic Party. He talked with the Tribune on Monday about why he's running — and how Barack Obama has let his supporters down.

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Gov. Rick Perry leads his Democratic challenger, former Houston Mayor Bill White, 44 percent to 35 percent in the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll, which was conducted May 14 to 20. Fifteen percent of the 800 registered voters surveyed are undecided about which of the gubernatorial candidates to support, while 7 percent prefer "someone else." Perry leads among men, women and Anglos. White leads among African-Americans and Hispanics. In five other statewide races polled, each Republican leads his Democratic opponent by a double-digit margin.

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Don’t look now, but the Texas GOP, the party of budgetary teetotalers, has been piling up debt like a college kid with his first credit card — and that has put chair Cathie Adams in the hot seat a month before she seeks reelection at the state Republican convention.

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The D.C.-based Texas Democratic Trust began as an attempt to revive flagging Democratic institutions in Texas and is now a critical source of funding for them and a host of consultants. That has made its director, Matt Angle, as powerful as most political bosses in other states. Maybe too powerful, his critics say.

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