Trump’s new directive that aims to increase death sentences clashes with some Texas lawmakers’ efforts to add guardrails to capital punishment.
Senfronia Thompson
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LGBTQ+ Texans
The eyes of LGBTQ Texans are upon Dade Phelan and the House
Spurred by a groundswell of far-right support, the Texas Senate has passed all of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s priority LGBTQ bills — and then some. What the House does next will impact queer Texans’ lives and could determine Speaker Phelan’s future.
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Texas Legislature 2023
Bills advance to close loophole allowing some lawmakers to increase their pay to $140,000
Two bills that advanced in House and Senate committees on Wednesday both exempt any lawmaker who has already taken advantage of the benefit.
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Texas Legislature 2023
Why three longtime Texas lawmakers are now eligible for an extra $140,000 a year
A few of Texas’ most veteran lawmakers may have seen their part-time legislative compensation skyrocket from $7,200 to nearly $150,000 annually, thanks to a law passed quietly at the end of the 2021 legislative session.
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Texas Legislature 2021
For Democrats of color, walkout on Texas voting bill was rooted in the long fight for equal voting rights
All they could get was a temporary win. But the lawmakers said taking the extraordinary measure of breaking quorum in the Texas House was justified by the harm they felt their mostly Black and Hispanic constituents would face under the GOP’s voting bill.
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Point of Order
Point of Order: The Queen’s Gambit
In this episode of our podcast about the Texas Legislature, recorded on Jan. 15, 2021, Evan Smith interviews 25-term state Rep. Senfronia Thompson about COVID-19, race, public ed and that whippersnapper Dade Phelan.
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Criminal Justice
After defeats in 2019, a group of Texas lawmakers is teaming up to push criminal justice reform
The new Criminal Justice Reform Caucus in the Texas House will set its sights on changes in 2021.
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State Government
“Safety is at risk”: Future of Texas plumbers’ licensing and regulation uncertain after legislative impasse
Some plumbers are calling for a special session after the Texas House ended the state plumbing code and a plumbing regulation agency that has dozens of employees.
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Texas Legislature 2019
Despite bipartisan support, Texas bill tackling intellectual disability in death penalty cases fails
Negotiators in the House and Senate couldn’t come to an agreement on a bill addressing how Texas handles capital murder defendants who may be intellectually disabled. In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that executing people with intellectual disabilities amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.
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Texas Legislature 2019
What the “wave of women” elected in 2018 looks like in the 2019 Texas Legislature
This freshman class of female legislators is young, diverse and — thanks to the women who came before them — treated as equals in the traditionally male-dominated chambers.