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The latest Texas Legislature news from The Texas Tribune.

  • TribBlog: Pitts Sees Deep Cuts Ahead

    By Ross Ramsey

    State budget writers will propose eliminating agencies, cutting others to a quarter of their current size and mandating furloughs for state employees to balance the budget without raising taxes or using the state's Rainy Day Fund, Appropriations Chairman Jim Pitts told a hometown crowd. Full Story 

    Jim Pitts (R-Waxahachie)
    Credit: Bob Daemmrich

  • We Lose?

    By Elise Hu

    Citing performance issues and alleging a conflict of interest, critics blasted Friday's decision by the Texas Lottery Commission to renew a 10-year operations contract worth up to $1 billion with Rhode Island-based GTECH Corporation, the state’s primary lottery vendor since its 1992 inception. Full Story 

    "Check your ticket" lottery machine in an Austin, TX gas station.
    Credit: Todd Wiseman

  • Inside Intelligence: The Budget Will Be Balanced By...

    By Ross Ramsey

    For this week's installment of our non-scientific survey of political and policy insiders on issues of the moment, we focused on the budget. Specifically, we asked how big the shortfall is going to be, how the Legislature will close the gap and which areas of the budget are most likely to be cut. Full Story 

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    Credit: Graphic by Todd Wiseman

  • Michael Quinn Sullivan: The TT Interview

    By Ross Ramsey

    The bomb-throwing president of Empower Texas and Texans for Fiscal Responsibility on why Joe Straus hasn't proved himself as a conservative, why the entry of outside groups like his own into the insiders' race for speaker is proper and what he'd like to see out of a Texas House with 99 GOP members in it. Full Story 

    Michael Quinn Sullivan of Empower Texans and Texans for Fiscal Responsibility.
    Credit: Justin Dehn

  • Derision Points

    By Elise Hu

    To the list of things that Rick Perry shows contempt for — Barack Obama’s leadership abilities, excessive federal regulation, coyotes that interrupt his morning jog — add this surprising one: George W. Bush’s ideological disposition. The governor seems to go out of his way to criticize his predecessor as insufficiently conservative. Bush, for his part, makes no mention of Perry in his memoir. "There's certainly no love lost between these two men," says UT presidential scholar Bruce Buchanan. Full Story 

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    Credit: Bob Daemmerich

  • Hosed in Waco

    By Ross Ramsey

    It was a bad Election Night for residents of the largest city in McLennan County. After years of regional dominance, their congressional seat belongs to Bryan, halfway to Houston; their state senate seat is 86 miles away in Granbury; and one of their House seats has moved three counties east, to Centerville. Full Story 

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    Credit: Illustration by Bob Daemmrich/Marjorie Cotera/Todd Wiseman

  • Arlene Wohlgemuth: The TT Interview

    By Ross Ramsey

    The former budget-slashing Texas House member and current executive director of the Texas Public Policy Foundation on how she reads the mood out there, what reductions in state spending should be on the table, whether cost-shifting to local school districts is a plausible option, why lawmakers should forget about new sources of revenue, the trouble with Medicaid and what members of the Republican near-supermajority in the Legislature must do to keep the confidence of voters — and get re-elected. Full Story 

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  • The Weekly TribCast: Episode 55

    By Elise Hu

    In this week's TribCast, Evan, Ross, Elise and Ben discuss the latest in the race for House speaker, ongoing budget woes and how governing may prove a lot harder than campaigning come January. Full Story 

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  • TribBlog: Straus Rebuffs Patrick

    By Elise Hu

    State Sen. Dan Patrick issued a release saying he would host a sit-down meeting of the three candidates for speaker in a "neutral" location. But House Speaker Joe Straus' office says it never agreed to to the meet-up. Full Story 

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    Credit: Bob Daemmrich

  • Guest Column: Put Up or Shut Up

    By Bill Ratliff

    If major-party leaders are not willing to make tough-love decisions on the ballooning national debt, and if the Tea Partiers are not willing to endorse painful measures, the American people must ask them, "Okay, what is your solution?" Full Story 

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