Lawmakers and state employees are getting trained in CPR and defibrillator use today — almost a year after Rep. Edmund Kuempel, R-Seguin, suffered a heart attack and collapsed in a Capitol elevator. He was saved by his colleague, Rep. John Zerwas, an anesthesiologist who resuscitated him with CPR.
TribBlog: Capitol CPR
Posted inState Government
Mr. President, Can’t We Have Federal Judges?
The Obama administration is taking heat from Texas Democrats in Congress over its slowness in filling the state’s vacant federal judgeships. Six are open, and a seventh will be next month — with no solution in sight. In his first 16 months in offfice, as Matt Largey of KUT News reports, the President has not nominated a single person to the federal bench in Texas.
Posted inState Government
The Brief: May 7, 2010
Cinco de Mayo isn’t the only celebration to happen in early May.
Posted in
Economy
Benefits and Drawbacks
The insurance plan for state employees will have a $140.4 million shortfall next year — and that’s the least of its problems. The projected shortfall for the two years after that is $880 million, and it will take another $476 million to replenish the legally required contingency fund. The Employee Retirement System and state leaders are surprisingly mellow about the red ink, saying growth in the cost of health benefits has actually stabilized at around 9 percent. But steady and large increases in costs threaten to erode the program, leaving policymakers to consider cuts in benefits, to negotiate lower prices or to find vast amounts of new money.
Posted in
State Government
Laura Bush on Midland
As part of a special report for KUT News, Texas Monthly editor Jake Silverstein talks to former first lady Laura Bush, whose memoir, “Spoken from the Heart,” hit bookstores this week.
Posted inState Government
Party Crashers
Two candidates hope to unseat Republican Party of Texas chair Cathie Adams at next month’s state convention in Dallas. The biggest issue isn’t their ideological differences — there are none. It’s the effectiveness of the party in organizing voter support, and, to a lesser degree, how willing the GOP should be to reach across the aisle and seek common ground.
Posted inState Government
The Blame Game
Lawsuits have already been filed over the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, with a range of plaintiffs, from shrimpers to resort owners, seeking damages from BP and other companies. Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports on the legal battle ahead.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
On the Records: Combs’ Open Data Center
Susan Combs’ new texastransparency.org includes an Open Data Center, where anyone can download dozens of raw data sets, much like the federal government’s data.gov.
Posted inState Government
TribBlog: Julián Castro in the Times Mag
The young mayor of San Antonio gets his global 15 minutes this weekend in a glowing 4,600-word New York Times Sunday Magazine profile.
