Donna Howard discusses Dan Neil’s election contest.
Austin
Posted in
Health care
Abbott: Why “Obamacare” is Unconstitutional
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott says the reason is simple: Never before have Americans been mandated to buy a product for a specific reason.
Posted in
Health care
Abbott: No Limits To Congressional Authority?
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott says there will be no limits to congressional authority if the constitutionality of health care reform is upheld.
Posted in
Demographics
Red Meat, Fast Track
Abortion politics is back on center stage, with Gov. Rick Perry putting it, voter photo ID, state support for a balanced federal budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution, eminent domain and a ban on sanctuary cities at the top of his list of priorities. Why?
Posted in
State Government
A Conversation with Michael Williams
For our latest TribLive conversation, I sat down with the soon-to-be-ex Rairoad Commissioner and declared 2012 U.S. Senate candidate to talk about why he’s qualified to serve, what he thinks of his potential primary opponents and a range of issues that he’d face if he were in D.C. today.
Posted in
Economy
Artistic Development
Creative industries — from advertising to dance companies to book publishing — generate $4.5 billion per year in economic activity for Texas, according to a new report released by the Texas Cultural Trust in association with the Texas Commission on the Arts. The report features projects in communities like Amarillo, El Paso, Rockport, Texarkana and the tiny, north central Texas town of Clifton, population 3,795. “It’s more than fluff,” says Amy Barbee, the Trust’s executive director. “We want to tell the story that the arts truly are economic development.”
Posted in
State Government
The Weekly Recap: Jan. 24 to Jan. 28
No time to follow every twist and turn of the Texas Legislature? We’ve made it easier for you with our weekly recaps of the action under the dome. Take a look back at the top political news from Jan. 24 to Jan. 28.
Posted in
State Government
TribBlog: Texas Senate Committees Names
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst appointed senators to committees late this afternoon
Posted in
Politics
Fair Game?
Are families out of bounds in politics? A newspaper columnist’s recent unflattering piece on Anita Perry has what passes for a Royal Court at the Capitol debating that question.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Testing the Evidence
In police departments across Texas, tens of thousands of rape kits have been sitting on the shelves of property storage rooms for years — thanks to strained budgets, overworked crime labs and a law enforcement philosophy that such kits are primarily useful as evidence if a stranger committed the assault. Victims’ rights advocates and some lawmakers say they’ll work to pass legislation this year to take that evidence out of storage and create a DNA database that would help track rapists and perhaps even identify those who have been wrongly convicted. “I think we owe it to every person who has been raped,” says state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth.
