State Reps. Garnet Coleman of Houston, Jim Dunnam of Waco, Jessica Farrar of Houston and Pete Gallego of Alpine got out early in support of Tom Schieffer, who dropped out of the Democratic primary for governor today. Their statement: Full Story
Bill White is the sort of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Schieffer had hoped to be. He's well-funded. He's got an organization and a base of voters. He's the kind of moderate who can attract votes from independents and not just Democrats. And he never voted for George W. Bush. Full Story
Houston Mayor Bill White hasn't even announced yet that he's running for governor. But state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, is endorsing him. Full Story
Democrat Tom Schieffer dropped out of the gubernatorial race, saying he'll endorse Houston Mayor Bill White and hopes other gubernatorial candidates will do the same. Full Story
Earlier this month, Rick Perry helped push a so-called RINO — Republican In Name Only — off the congressional ballot in New York, only to see the Conservative Party candidate he backed lose to a Democrat. But that kind of us-versus-them narrative was missing from the just completed Republican Governor's Association meeting in Bastrop County. Full Story
The Dallas church community has vowed to forge 25 partnerships with high-poverty public schools and push for 700 units of housing for the homeless — a down payment on a larger effort to heal wounds left by racism and injustice. Full Story
No snowbirds here. A growing number of state employees are retiring and coming straight back to work, padding — and in some cases nearly doubling — their state salaries with pension pay-outs. Full Story
The number-crunchers among the Republicans and the Democrats in Texas use election results to get a feel for the political environment in each legislative district. They start with statewide races and then bake in some assumptions about what might happen if they put the right candidates in place. We and other political watchers need the same thing, without the partisan ingredients. So we cooked up the Texas Tribune Index. Full Story
Multi-part stories from Ramshaw and Grissom and Stiles on mental health services for detained immigrants and on payday lenders who provide exorbitantly priced credit to people with nowhere else to turn... Twitter, word clouds and the race for governor — a Stiles joint... Farouk Shami is in and Hu was there to watch... Philpott went to Bastrop for a gather of Republican governors... Rapoport finds a State Board of Education that's trying to control itself... and we have the skinny on legislative races that are likely to be competitive (only about 5 percent of the races on the ballot). It's the best of The Texas Tribune from November 14 to 20, 2009. Full Story
This ad is worth a look. Toward the end, there's a special shot of Medina really connecting with common man, by carrying a non-descript giant sack on her shoulder. Full Story