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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

  • Three Big Bills and a Bucket of Lint

    By Ross Ramsey

    You got your budget. You got your school finance/reform bill. You got your tax bill. And then you have everything else. If there's a notable feature to this legislative session, it's that those three pieces of legislation have sucked the oxygen out of the room. There are other bills of note — appraisal caps, workers compensation insurance, the water bill, some sunset bills, and so on — but the report card on this Legislature will focus on the three big deals. Full Story 

  • Blink

    By Ross Ramsey

    The House will vote on a statewide property tax proposal before the Senate gets to it, a vote likely to kill a key provision of the Senate's school finance package. Full Story 

  • Snake Eyes

    By Ross Ramsey

    Democratic leaders in the House say they're against gambling as a way to finance public education or to fill holes that might appear in the state budget. They said they'll oppose it during the current legislative session. Full Story 

  • Somebody's Lying

    By Ross Ramsey

    A week after the Texas House passed the largest tax bill it has ever considered -- a measure intended to replace some local school property taxes with new state taxes -- Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn stunned lawmakers by saying the bill spends three dollars for every two it raises. Full Story 

  • Begin the Beguine

    By Ross Ramsey

    It takes two to tango and two to tax, and the Senate isn't dancing with the House on revenue for school finance. Their bottom line numbers are similar. Both houses started with the idea of lowering local school property taxes by 50 cents, and that sets the size of the project. But their methods of getting to the bottom line are as different as Mars and Venus. Full Story 

  • If It Was Easy, It Wouldn't Be News

    By Ross Ramsey

    Tax bills are difficult to pass, and it never goes smoothly. Gov. Bill Clements signed a tax bill in 1987 that still holds the state record, and he did it over the objections of some of his fellow Republicans. In 1991, the political ambitions of then Ways & Means Chairman James Hury ended on the floor of the House when his fellow Democrats disassembled a multi-billion tax bill and left it to Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. That one finally got passed, and is the second-place finisher on the state's all-time list. Full Story 

  • The Session in a Nutshell

    By Ross Ramsey

    It's usually best to take your medicine fast, in one ugly gulp, like mom used to say. But House leaders, apparently confident they can pass a major tax bill and an ambitious rewriting of the state's school finance system, decided to let both measures sit unprotected over a long weekend. Full Story 

  • Wobbly, but Still in Motion

    By Ross Ramsey

    The specifics keep moving around, but House management still wants to see the tax and school finance bills on the floor for debate by March 7 or 8. That means the committees in control must move the bills next week. Full Story 

  • The Ides of March

    By Ross Ramsey

    Mention March 2006 to political people in Texas, and you'll trigger a conversation about the top of the ballot. But March 2006 — the month of the primaries and, in particular, the Republican primaries — is on the minds of a fair number of legislators who want to remain in office after this term. Full Story