The Texas Windstorm Insurance Association offers homeowners along the Texas coast their only coverage against potential hurricanes. But some lawmakers say the pool is paying out too much — and they want to limit what sort of coverage it offers in the future.
Emily Brown
Posted in
Transportation
TribBlog: Life in the Fast Lane
More than a third of Texas drivers think roadways are less safe than they were five years ago even though data shows that deaths have steadily decreased, according to a survey by the Center for Transportation Safety at the Texas Transportation Institute.
Posted in
Public Education
TribBlog: Study: Better Health = Better Grades
According to Stuck in the Middle: The False Choice Between Health and Education in Texas Middle Schools, school administrators are choosing between improving academic performance and improving fitness — and sacrificing both as a consequence.
Posted inState Government
Red November
Rick Perry won his third full term as governor of Texas on Tuesday, defeating former Houston Mayor Bill White by a convincing double-digit margin and positioning himself for a role on the national stage. And he led a Republican army that swept all statewide offices for the fourth election in a row, took out three Democratic U.S. congressmen and was on its way to a nearly two-thirds majority in the Texas House — a mark the GOP hasn’t seen since the days following the Civil War.
Posted inState Government
2010: R’s Lead in 2 of 3 Key County Races
In the race for Harris County judge, Republican Ed Emmett is leading Democrat Gordon Quan by 26 points with 9 percent of precincts reporting. In the race for Nueces County district attorney, Democrat Mark Skurka is leading Republican Anna Jimenez by 7 points. Gov. Rick Perry appointed Jimenez, then a prosecutor in the DA’s child victims unit, as district attorney in March to replace Carlos Valdez. Skurka, who spent 10 years as chief prosecutor and another 10 years as first assistant district attorney, is vying for the final two years of Valdez’s unexpired term. In the race for Tarrant County Probate Court No. 2, Republican Judge Pat Ferchill is leading with 85 percent of the vote, with 11.8 percent of precincts reporting. Ferchill, who has come under fire for holding secret hearings to take child-guardianship rights away from families, is up against Libertarian Bob Shelton. Ferchill recently recused himself from a case in which a disabled girl’s parents had their guardianship rights taken away because they opposed a group home’s reliance on psychiatric medication. The judge who received the motion to re-hear the case postponed a scheduled October hearing last week, citing Ferchill’s upcoming election.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
TribBlog: Anti-Death Penalty Groups March Tomorrow
The 11th annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty will begin Saturday at 2 p.m. on the south steps of the Capitol in Austin.
Posted inState Government
TribBlog: Restoring Sanity in the Weird City
Inspired by Jon Stewart’s Washington, D.C., “Rally to Restore Sanity,” the nonprofit group Restore Sanity Austin will host a satellite rally on the Capitol’s south steps this Saturday at 11 a.m.
Posted in
Energy
TribBlog: A Vision for D.C.
Gov. Rick Perry continued to tout Texas’ superiority to the nation’s capital and the rest of the country when he spoke to the Clean Carbon Policy Summit in Austin this afternoon.
Posted in
Demographics
TribBlog: Senate Republicans Block DREAM Act
Senate Republicans voted unanimously against opening debate for the defense authorization bill this afternoon, a move that blocked the so-called DREAM Act, a controversial immigration measure.
Posted in
Demographics
TribBlog: Dream Rally
A group of people who typically prefer to stay out of the limelight gathered this morning to urge lawmakers to support the Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act.