Republican Texas Gov. Rick Perry is set to be sworn in for an unprecedented third term, and a good-sized crowd has turned out for the festivities (and free barbecue). Stay with us for updates from the speech and swearing-in at the Capitol.
Governor’s Office
Posted in
Demographics
Back to Basics
As be begins his second decade as governor, Rick Perry’s plan is to deal with the basics: to make sure the state is on a smooth economic path, to pass a balanced state budget, to coax the federal government into loosening its purse strings and tightening its security on the Mexican border.
Posted in
Guides
Texplainer: What’s an Emergency Item?
Ever hear something about Texas politics or policy and wonder what it is? Or read something that made you think, “I have no idea what that means”? We’re here to help. From questions about why Rick Perry is within his legal right to shoot a coyote while jogging to what the heck “chubbing” is, Texplainer will answer your burning questions. Today: “What’s a Legislative emergency item?”
Posted in
State Government
The Reformer
As a gift to Trib readers this holiday week, we’re pleased to reprint Calvin Trillin’s New Yorker profile of 1972 Democratic gubernatorial candidate Frances “Sissy” Farenthold — one of a dozen and a half articles and poems that will be published early next year in Trillin on Texas, a new anthology from the University of Texas Press. A staff writer at the magazine since 1963, Trillin has long seen the state as a rich source of material; elsewhere in the anthology are meditations on subjects ranging from Texas barebecue to the fictional film critic Joe Bob Briggs. He also considers Texas to be a part of his ancestral narrative, as several members of his family arrived in the United States by way of Galveston. “Yes, I do have a Texas connection,” he writes in the introduction to the anthology, “but, as we’d say in the Midwest, where I grew up, not so’s you’d know it.”
Posted in
Inside Intelligence
Inside Intelligence: The Budget Will Be Balanced By…
For this week’s installment of our non-scientific survey of political and policy insiders on issues of the moment, we focused on the budget. Specifically, we asked how big the shortfall is going to be, how the Legislature will close the gap and which areas of the budget are most likely to be cut.
Posted in
State Government
Guest Column: Over Before It Started
On April 15, 2009, Rick Perry positioned himself for the first time as the defender of Texas against Washington oppression — and the 2010 race for governor was decided.
Posted in
State Government
Perry Declines, But the Debate Must Go On
Two weeks before Election Day, three Texas gubernatorial candidates debated the issues and made a final plea for support. As Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports, one of them was not Gov. Rick Perry.
Posted in
Economy
“Nothing Untoward” on ETF, Perry Insists
Gov. Rick Perry says there was “nothing untoward” about his friend and donor’s company receiving $4.5 million from the state’s Emerging Technology Fund without getting approval from a regional screening board.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
2010: Perry Provided “Political Schedule” By Mistake
Texans weren’t supposed to see Gov. Rick Perry’s Sept. 15 schedule after all. The governor’s office says it mistakenly released the governor’s “political schedule” — as opposed to his schedule of official state business — to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White’s campaign.
Posted in
Politics
The Polling Center: Another View of Those Undecideds
Six points separate Rick Perry and Bill White, but that’s not all there is to it: The pattern of partisan preferences evident in the latest polling suggests that the Republican Party still holds a substantial baseline advantage over the Democrats in Texas.
