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The latest Texas Legislature news from The Texas Tribune.

  • TribBlog: RINO Hunters

    By Ross Ramsey

    The latest salvo in the speaker race is a slick internet video that argues the House should have a more conservative speaker than Joe Straus. And it suggests the fight to come, knocking over dominoes with the pictures of "Republicans In Name Only" who could be targets in the GOP primaries two years from now: Keffer, Truitt, Geren, Solomons, Eissler, Cook... Full Story 

    Joe Straus' face on a slot machine. Screen grab from internet ad.

  • The Techbook Wars

    By Morgan Smith

    Penny-pinchers at the State Board of Education opted to incorporate changes to the high school science curriculum via lower-cost electronic supplements to existing textbooks instead of spending up to $500 million to have new ones printed. Trouble is, many schools lack the technological capability to use them. Full Story 

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    Credit: Illustration by Todd Wiseman

  • No Ethics Violation in House Speaker's Race

    By Ben Philpott, KUT News

    A House committee heard testimony yesterday on whether or a lawmaker used the threat redistricting as a tactic to coerce a colleague into supporting Speaker Joe Straus. Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports on the testimony — and what's next in the investigation. Full Story 

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    Credit: Bob Daemmrich

  • House Ethics Panel on Speaker's Race Threats

    By Elise Hu

    In a House Ethics Committee meeting Tuesday, state Rep. Chuck Hopson, R-Jacksonville, revealed that state Rep. Larry Phillips, R-Sherman, is the man behind an alleged threat that lawmakers who fail to support Speaker Joe Straus for re-election could face retribution through redistricting. Hopson named Phillips before the panel went into a closed executive session to discuss the allegation. Full Story 

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  • 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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