When they return to Austin for the next legislative session. lawmakers will confront, for the first time as a group, federal health care reform. Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports on how some conservative activists and politicians think Texas should respond. Full Story
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott says he feels “pretty good” that the coalition of states suing to halt health care reform will triumph, partly due to concerns raised during “HillaryCare” in the 1990s. Full Story
53 percent of Texans strongly favor a repeal of federal health care reform legislation, while 24 percent strongly oppose repeal, according to a new Rasmussen Reports poll. Full Story
Texas Attorney General Abbott and his colleagues in other Gulf Coast states are casting their legal eyes on the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Erika Aguilar of KUT News reports. Full Story
The Gulf oil spill that currently spans almost 50 miles wide and 80 miles long is “growing worse by the day“ with “no end in legitimate sight,” Attorney General Greg Abbott said at a press conference this morning. Full Story
It's no surprise that Arizona's new immigration enforcement law is unpopular with Texas Democrats. But it's hard to find a high-ranking Republican in the state who'll endorse it, either. Full Story
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. Full Story
Grissom on the fall of Norma Chávez; M. Smith and Ramsey on the runoffs, the results, and the aftermath; Hu on the Tea Party's birthday party; Thevenot and Stiles on the path between schools and prisons; Ramshaw on prosecutors' reaction to helping hands from Austin; Hamilton on self-appointed lawyers; Galbraith on property rights and power lines; Aguilar and Grissom sit down with the mayor of Juárez to talk about his crime-ridden city; Kraft on telling the stories of Texans and other Americans who died in Vietnam; Ramsey on slots and horses and casinos; and Hamilton goes on a field trip with Jim Hightower to hear the history of populism. The best of our best from April 5 to 9, 2010. Full Story
It's embodied in the Tea Party movement, in this week's runoff election results from Lubbock and Plano, in last month's primaries, in Gov. Rick Perry's embrace of states' rights and the 10th Amendment, even in Barack Obama's campaign against the status quo in 2008. Voters are furious, and politicians are listening. Full Story
Depending on whom you ask, Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins’ repeated refusal to allow Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott into a local corruption investigation is either bold or stupid. Either way, it’s unusual. Abbott has offered prosecution assistance to local district attorneys 226 times since 2007, when lawmakers first gave him permission to do it. In all but 16 cases, he’s been invited in. And Watkins didn't decline politely. Full Story
Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins won’t go so far as to compare his support to the near-divine fervor of President Obama’s. But Watkins, who gained national prominence for using DNA evidence to exonerate nearly two dozen wrongfully convicted people in one of Texas’ notoriously tough-on-crime jurisdictions, will come close. “It’s a religious experience to vote for Craig Watkins,” Texas’ first African-American D.A. says without irony. Like Obama, he says, other Democratic candidates are “hanging their hats” on his re-election — and on the minority voters he draws to the polls. Like Obama, he’s got “a big target” on his back. “I’ve got to fight the political attacks coming at me from all directions," he insists. “I’ll say it publicly: If you throw punches at us, we’ll drop a bomb on you.” Full Story
She said she would limit her time in the U.S. Senate to two terms and is currently serving a third. She said she would resign her federal office to run for governor and didn't. She said she would quit after the primary and hasn't. So who's to say she won't reconsider in two years and run for a fourth term? And what of all those would-be successors? Full Story
Attorney General Greg Abbott is suing the feds for mandating that individuals buy health insurance. Some Texas political observers say Abbott did exactly that in 2009. Full Story
President Barack Obama signed the health care reform bill into law this morning. Texas and 12 other states promptly filed a lawsuit challenging its constitutionality. Read that lawsuit here. Full Story
Listen to Attorney General Greg Abbott explain why he and other attorneys general are suing the federal government over the just-passed health care reform bill. Full Story
House lawmakers passed the Senate version of long-awaited health care reform on Sunday night. And Texas leaders were quick to fire off on it. Full Story
A same-sex couple, married in Massachusetts but now living in Travis County, has been granted a divorce by a state district judge. It's the second time in five months that a same-sex divorce has been granted in Texas — and also the second time that Attorney General Greg Abbott has moved to block such an action. Ben Philpott, who's covering politics and policy for KUT News and the Tribune, filed this report. Full Story
Gov. Rick Perry announced the state is suing the Environmental Protection Agency over its recent finding that greenhouse gases endanger human health. Full Story