Gov. Rick Perry thanked emergency responders and urged Texans to remain on guard against wildfires, after touring a massive blaze near Bastrop that he described as being "as mean-looking as I've ever seen." Full Story
With wildfires raging outside of Austin, Gov. Rick Perry is leaving the campaign trail to return to his home state, the governor's office confirmed this morning. Full Story
Even as the Obama administration delighted conservatives last week by pulling back on a broad regulation to combat ozone pollution, the controversial "cross-state" rule that would also reduce smog-forming pollutants in Texas remains on track. Full Story
In this week's edition of our nonscientific survey of political and government insiders, we asked who the state's 31 senators would pluck from their own ranks to run the Senate, and perhaps to serve as governor, should the state's top officials move on to bigger and better things. Full Story
Gov. Rick Perry will spend his Labor Day campaigning in South Carolina. While it's still early in the campaign, Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports that it appears the state has become Perry's top priority. Full Story
Gov. Rick Perry’s early opposition to the Obama administration’s education policies — whose bipartisan backers include former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush — make him something of an ideological outlier among Republicans. Full Story
Rick Perry, taking a dig at rival presidential candidate Mitt Romney on his home turf, urged New Hampshire voters Saturday to steer clear of Republicans who seem too much like the president they want to replace. Full Story
Gov. Rick Perry, the GOP frontrunner in the race for the White House, mingled with voters today in the crucial early primary state of New Hampshire. Full Story
Aaronson on the stats behind the Texas Miracle, Aguilar on an area of the budget that didn't get cut during the session, Dehn and Tan wrap-up our 31 Days, 31 Ways project, Galbraith talks to Todd Staples about the drought, Grissom on controversial executions during Rick Perry's tenure (plus a visualization by Murphy and Seger), Hamilton on the Rodney Dangerfield of Texas universities, Philpott on the search for clues in past Perry debates, Ramshaw on Perry's opposition to abortion rights and Root on Perry's assurances to conservatives that his past won't embarrass them: The best of our best content from Aug. 29 to Sept. 2, 2011. Full Story
Lawmakers are long gone from the statehouse, but their decisions have consequences that will be seen throughout the next two years. The Tribune's Thanh Tan spent the month of August explaining 31 ways Texans' lives are going to change. Full Story
This morning @TribData released a visualization of all executions in the state of Texas since Gov. Rick Perry took office in late 2000. Here's how we made it happen. Full Story
Credit:
Graphic by Ryan Murphy / Noah Seger / Todd Wiseman
Gov. Rick Perry announced who's running his presidential campaign Friday, bestowing official titles on the staff that has brought him into hallowed front-runner status in a matter of a couple of weeks. Full Story
Specialty services for thousands of Texans with disabilities are on the chopping block, yet another casualty of the significant budget cuts state lawmakers passed in May. Full Story
As Gov. Rick Perry touts his tough-on-crime policies on the national stage, the case of Cameron Todd Willingham remains in the headlines. But Willingham’s execution is hardly the only controversial one Perry has presided over. Full Story
Credit:
Illustration by Bob Daemmrich / Todd Wiseman
Austin Democrats are pretty unhappy with the Republican Legislature’s redistricting maps, and Rep. Lloyd Doggett is the poster child for their frustrations. Their anger might save him. Full Story
State Rep. Pete Gallego, D-Alpine, says he is filing papers to run for the CD-23 congressional seat now held by Republican Francisco "Quico" Canseco of San Antonio. And in El Paso, former City Rep. Beto O'Rourke says that he will challenge longtime U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes in the Democratic primary election next year. Full Story