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Ross Ramsey

Ross Ramsey’s staff photo

Ross Ramsey co-founded The Texas Tribune in 2009 and served as its executive editor until his retirement in 2022. He wrote regular columns on politics, government and public policy. Before joining the Tribune, he was editor and co-owner of Texas Weekly. He did a 28-month stint in government with the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. Before that, he reported for the Houston Chronicle, the Dallas Times Herald, as a Dallas-based freelancer for regional and national magazines and newspapers, and for radio stations in Denton and Dallas.

Latest Contributions

  • Ka-Blooey!

    By Ross Ramsey

    Gov. Rick Perry pulled the trigger early on the negative ad everyone in Texas politics has been expecting for more than a year, hitting Democrat Tony Sanchez for a drug money scandal that hit a savings and loan that was controlled by the Laredo businessman and his family in the early 1980s. Full Story 

  • Ring and Run

    By Ross Ramsey

    Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tony Sanchez apparently likes answering questions from reporters about as much as Britney Spears likes pimples in the middle of her forehead. And any candidate likes to let things cool a bit before jumping into a hot story. And when one candidate is ducking stories, the opponent is sure to try to capitalize on that. Full Story 

  • The Sweet Smell of Success

    By Ross Ramsey

    Watch the business page and you know why John Cornyn moved his July 13 fundraiser to a ranch owned by oilman/rancher Walter Mize. It was scheduled for the Beaumont Ranch, near Grandview (which is south of Fort Worth), but the owner of that spread is Cornyn supporter Ron Beaumont. Beaumont is also the chief operating officer of WorldCom. Revelations about that company's accounting scandals prompted Cornyn to start up the legal machinery in the attorney general's office–he's launched an investigation–and to move the fundraiser for his bid for U.S. Senate. Full Story 

  • State Employee Pay Raises Aren't Dead Yet

    By Ross Ramsey

    One of those things bubbling in the back of the current state budget is a list of contingent appropriations—unfulfilled items on the last Legislature's wish list. The list includes things like a pay raise for state judges and a 3 percent pay raise for state employees. It works like this: If the state is bringing in more tax money than she predicted, Comptroller Carole Keeton Rylander is supposed to watch until there's enough extra money to fund the first thing on the list, and when there is enough, to tell the Legislative Budget Board about it. And so on. Full Story 

  • Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

    By Ross Ramsey

    The newest member of Gov. Rick Perry's anti-crime task force has two unusual traits: He's been under federal criminal investigation for more than two years, and earlier this year, he sought the Democratic Party's nomination to run against Perry. Former Attorney General Dan Morales was appointed to the panel by Bexar County District Attorney Susan Reed and former AG and Texas Supreme Court Justice John Hill. He says it's not politics: He's serving on the task force because of his expertise in asset forfeiture and drug money laundering laws he helped write. Full Story 

  • Way Out West

    By Ross Ramsey

    You would think the Democrats were holding their convention in the Yukon to hear some of the griping about going "all the way to El Paso" for the biennial state gathering. But the Democrats are the biggest convention that city gets, and El Paso is one of the most reliably Democratic counties in the state. They need each other. Full Story 

  • Friends Like These

    By Ross Ramsey

    A fair number of Republican state representatives in Texas–almost a third of them, in fact–think it would be a bad idea to decide the next speaker's race inside the Republican caucus. Full Story 

  • A Gathering of Elephants

    By Ross Ramsey

    The Republican Party of Texas expects to have a relatively smooth state convention: Nobody is throwing fits about positions taken by prominent state officeholders, nobody is opposing the reelection of Chairwoman Susan Weddington, and there haven't even been any juicy scandals lately. Expect something of a love fest when the GOP meets in Dallas this week. Full Story 

  • How Deep is this Ditch?

    By Ross Ramsey

    Either Tony Sanchez is 25 points behind Rick Perry, as a recent third-party poll shows, or he's 12 points behind–the margin he and his aides say they see in their own polling. Full Story