Lawmakers fought the latest battle in the State Board of Education wars at a Capitol hearing yesterday.
The Brief: April 29, 2010
Posted in
Environment
Burn It Before It Spreads
Crews set fire to an oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday in a last ditch effort to keep the spill from the eaching the coast. Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson has dispatched response teams and a special fire boom to help corral the mess, which resulted from the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon rig. David Brown of KUT News talked to Patterson about the clean-up efforts.
Posted in
Health care
Blame It On Health Care
Republican lawmakers in Texas may despise the federal health care overhaul, but it’s politically opportunitistic: They get to blame the staggering budget shortfall to come on the anticipated state share of the cost of reform.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Data App: Let’s Go to Prison
Our latest interactive database has records on each of the more than 160,000 inmates in Texas prisons, including their names, crimes, hometowns, height, weight and gender, the counties in which they were convicted and their sentencing dates. Explore them all.
Posted inState Government
Minority Retort
The State Board of Education is set to take a final vote on controversial social studies standards next month — but not if members of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus and the Legislative Black Caucus can help it.
Posted in
Demographics
Sound and Fury
Just as in 2006, some Democrats are clamoring for immigration reforms, including easing pathways to citizenship, while Republicans are insisting more border security must come first. Policy experts, meanwhile, say the outcome this year will likely be the same as back then: nothing.
Posted in
Immigration
The Weekly TribCast: Episode 26
In this week’s TribCast, Evan, Ross, Elise and Reeve consider the impact of Arizona’s tough immigration law on Texas, the upcoming special election in Central Texas, the debate over debates and Rick Perry’s run-in with a coyote.
Posted in
Demographics
HuTube: Border Cameras on TV
A multi-million-dollar plan gone bust? That’s how our television partner in Houston, KHOU-TV, describes the governor’s virtual border watch program, which has cost $4 million but has netted only a handful of arrests.
Posted in
Demographics
TribBlog: First Arizona, Now Texas?
ABC News reports that state Rep. Debbie Riddle, R-Houston, will introduce a bill in the Texas Legislature similar to the controversial immigration measure passed into law in Arizona.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
TribBlog: Texas Solicitor General Defends “Under God”
In 2007, the Texas Pledge of Allegiance was amended to include the phrase “under God.” The office of Attorney General Greg Abbott is fighting to keep it that way.
