Miranda Michel, 26, couldn’t leave the state for an abortion. But she also couldn’t bear the idea of carrying a nonviable pregnancy to term.
Eleanor Klibanoff
Eleanor Klibanoff is the law and politics reporter, based in Austin, where she covers the the Texas Legislature, the Office of the Attorney General, state and federal courts and politics writ large. She also co-hosts the weekly politics podcast, TribCast. Eleanor previously spent three years as the Tribune’s women’s health reporter, covering abortion, maternal health and LGBTQ issues. Before coming to Texas, Eleanor worked for the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, where she reported, hosted and produced the Peabody-nominated podcast, “Dig.” Eleanor was born in Philadelphia and raised in Atlanta, and attended The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
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Ken Paxton Impeachment
An emboldened Ken Paxton returns to a battered attorney general’s office
The impeachment proceedings, and the events that precipitated them, have left the Texas Office of the Attorney General in turmoil. Can Paxton steady the ship of an institution vital to the conservative cause?
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Health care
Even after Planned Parenthood stopped performing abortions, Texas is still trying to shut it down
Planned Parenthood has managed to stay open in Texas despite the state’s best efforts to shut it down. But a lawsuit in front of a conservative judge poses an existential threat.
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Righting the Rule of Law
Part 2: Texas backlash to Obama fueled conservative drive to reinterpret U.S. Constitution
Barraging the Obama administration with lawsuits, the Texas attorney general’s office wasn’t just trying to block policies. It was injecting disruptive, overtly Christian legal philosophies into the mainstream, and grooming a generation of conservative legal warriors.
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Righting the Rule of Law
Part 1: In 1998, a legal revolution was quietly born in Texas. It would pull America’s courts rightward.
With his election as Texas attorney general, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn planted the seeds of conservatism. Gov. Greg Abbott used his tenure to cultivate them into an aggressive strain of right-wing activism aimed at driving the nation’s courts and laws to the right.
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Righting the Rule of Law
Part 3: Under Trump, Texas’ foot soldiers became federal judges, securing a conservative stronghold in the courts
A federal judiciary full of ideological allies is helping Texas block Democratic priorities and advance right-wing legal doctrines. But the bigger prize is conservative control of the rule of law itself.
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LGBTQ+ Texans
Lawsuit seeks to block Texas from banning gender transition-related care for children
The families argue the new law, which goes into effect Sept. 1, violates their parental rights by stopping them from providing medical care for their children and discriminates against transgender teens.
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Texas Abortion Restrictions
Tearfully testifying against Texas’ abortion ban, three women describe medical care delayed
The women, believed to be the first to testify about an abortion ban’s impact on their pregnancy since 1973, are seeking to clarify when a medical emergency justifies an abortion.
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Health care
500,000 Texans have been dropped from the Medicaid rolls since April
Advocates are calling for a halt to removals until the state can account for why more than 80% of the people who lost Medicaid coverage were eliminated for “procedural” reasons, like not responding to messages from the state.
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Texas Abortion Restrictions
Nearly 10,000 more babies born in nine months under Texas’ restrictive abortion law, study finds
This is the first analysis of live births since the law, which banned abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, went into effect in September 2021.