House Speaker Joe Straus’ picks for the legislative committee that says whether the state should kill or keep state agencies: Reps. Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton, Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas, and Byron Cook, R-Corsicana. San Antonio attorney Lamont Jefferson, who’s with the Haynes and Boone law firm, will serve as the House’s public member.
TribBlog: Sunset’s Up
Posted in
Higher Education
Texas Reading Exams Fail the National Test
Federal officials say Texas’ testing standards in reading are below the “basic” proficiency standards — and that low bar means those passing the TAKS may not be as proficient as advertised.
Posted inState Government
Stump Interrupted: Kay Bailey Hutchison
U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is the first to get her stump speech interrupted by The Texas Tribune.
Posted inState Government
The Brief: November 9, 2009
With 220 approving U.S. House votes down and the U.S. Senate to go, healthcare reform is now closer to becoming a reality — but that’s no easy hurdle ahead.
Posted in
Demographics
Texas Weekly: Are Republican candidates ignoring Hispanics?
What concerns me as a Republican is that the race for governor may be focusing too much on the personalities of the candidates and the highly charged nature of the race rather than the long-term vision and consequences. I worry that either candidate could win the race but lose the future — too much focus on the politics of the next year, rather than the policies of the next decade.
Posted inState Government
Stump Interrupted: Kay Bailey Hutchison
Remember VH1’s “Pop-up Video”? We loved it, too. It inspired us to launch a new feature we call Stump Interrupted, a twist on the traditional stump speech. U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is the first to get the S.I. treatment. We take her seven-minute monologue from a Waco campaign event and put it into context.
Posted in
Demographics
Broken Border, Part Two: The Checkpoint Conundrum
Texas’ chain of inland checkpoints has created a border within a border, separating abused and sometimes undocumented children in counties adjacent to Mexico from services north of the invisible line.
Posted in
Demographics
Broken Border, Part One: Justin’s Story
Drugs are abundant in border communities. Poverty is rampant. Substance abuse treatment is scarce. What’s a 16 year old to do?
Posted in
Health care
Poll: Perry Leads
The new University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll debuted this week with a survey that puts Kay Bailey Hutchison 12 points behind Rick Perry in the race for Texas governor, that says the Democrats are mostly unknown and trailing that perennial frontrunner, Undecided, and that finds the Maybe Race for U.S. Senate dominated by three candidates who are all, in turn, losing to Undecided.
