A federal appeals case involving race-based admissions at University of Texas at Austin threatens to reinvigorate an ideological skirmish of the late 1990s. Fisher v. Texas — the first lawsuit of its kind brought against a university since the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a pair of landmark decisions in 2003 — has observers across the country wondering if the state’s troubled history with race-based admissions have made it the ideal incubator for the next round of affirmative action battles.
Matt Stiles
Matt Stiles covered government and politics for the Tribune, with a focus on data journalism, from 2009 to 2011. He oversaw and developed the Tribune’s library of web applications and interactive graphics. Previously, he was a government reporter at the Houston Chronicle. While there, he won the newspaper’s Jesse Award for service journalism and beat reporting and was its reporter of the year in 2007. Before joining the Chronicle, Stiles worked as a reporter for nearly four years at The Dallas Morning News.
Posted in
State Government
Mark Jones: The TT Interview
The chairman of the political science department at Rice University recently ranked Texas House members’ partisanship based on their 2009 legislative votes. Our interactive chart highlights what he describes as Texas’ increasingly polarized political environment.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Data App: Personal Finance
Politicians, candidates and other state officers are required to disclose their personal finances, to discourage conflicts of interest and, according to the law, “strengthen the faith and confidence of the people of this state in state government.” Yet getting these documents isn’t easy, so we’ve put all 3,070 available online.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
On the Records: How Public Servants Make Their Money
The Texas Ethics Commission recently released more than 3,000 personal financial statements — documents that detail state officials’ financial interests and liabilities. Read, download or embed them with our new application.
Posted in
State Government
Rice Poli Sci Chair Mark Jones on House Partisanship
Mark P. Jones, political science chairman at Rice University, recently ranked Texas House members’ partisanship based on their 2009 legislative votes. The study, which we’ve used to create an interactive chart, shows Texas’ increasingly polarized political environment, Jones says in an interview.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Last Call
Tonight is the legally imposed reporting deadline for the next round of campaign finance reports, which is big deal for two reasons: Candidates want to show momentum and credibility at mid-year, and they love having an excuse to ask supporters to pony up before the clock strikes midnight. Hurry, hurry, hurry!
Posted in
Demographics
TribBlog: Solomons to Berman: ‘You are a Liar’
In what might just be the toughest letter you’ll see exchanged among legislative colleagues, state Rep. Burt Solomons today attacked state Rep. Leo Berman over his “conspiracy theories” regarding illegal immigration.
Posted in
Transportation
Red-Light Camera Cash
Revenue from Texas red-light cameras soared in 2009, with cities collecting more than $62 million from motorists, newly released state records show. We’ve taken that revenue data to create an interactive visualization that shows how the traffic camera revenue, expenses and profits vary from city to city, along with the proportion of the money that goes to the state.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
On the Records: Mapping U.S. Growth by County
See how Texas’ fastest-growing areas compare with the 3,000 other counties across the country.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Data App: Texas Population Estimates
Texas now has about 24.8 million residents, an increase of 3.9 million, or almost 20 percent, since 2000, and trails only California in the proportion of its residents who identify themselves as Hispanic. We’re also the third-youngest state, with a median age of 33; only Utah and Alabama have younger populations. These and other fun facts can be discovered in a new database application that helps explain and visualize how the makeup of Texas counties has changed since the last U.S. Census.
