Texas Republicans are poised to pick the statehouse lower chamber’s next leader this weekend.
Texas Legislature
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Texas Legislature 2025
Speaker Dade Phelan abandons bid for third term amid bruising leadership battle
Phelan, a Beaumont Republican, had previously insisted he had enough votes to thwart a challenge from the right led by state Rep. David Cook of Mansfield.
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Texas Legislature 2025
Houston Rep. Gene Wu to lead Texas House Democrats through GOP-dominated legislative session
Wu defeated incumbent Trey Martinez Fischer on Thursday to become the next chair of the Texas House Democratic Caucus.
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Economy
Texas has billions pledged to expand broadband. Spending it is taking a while.
Despite the efforts of local governments and others, the move to provide internet access to millions of Texans has been slow and faces new challenges.
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Texas Legislature 2025
How David Cook went from Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan’s ally to lead the movement to replace him
The two-term Republican caught many Capitol observers off guard when he emerged as the standard-bearer for a coalition that wants to depose Phelan and reshape how the House operates.
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Public Education
State Board of Education says it wants more control over public school library books
A majority of the panel voted to call on the Texas Legislature to pass a state law giving members the authority to determine age-appropriate books for students.
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Health care
Could Texas do for Alzheimer’s research what it did for cancer?
Modeled after the state’s $6 billion cancer research fund, the dementia fund — a legislative priority for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick — could pump hundreds of millions of dollars into Texas researchers.
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2024 Texas Elections
Gov. Greg Abbott issues executive order targeting Chinese government operatives in Texas
The order is in response to “Operation Fox Hunt,” a Chinese government initiative intended to root out corruption but in practice has been used to intimidate Chinese citizens living abroad.
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Texas Legislature 2025
After election, Texas House speaker race remains up for grabs
Neither Speaker Dade Phelan, nor his current opponent Rep. David Cook, have enough public support yet from the GOP caucus to win the nomination.
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2024 Texas Elections
Texas Democrats underperformed yet again. Now what?
Tuesday was another electoral blowout in which Democrats underperformed expectations, weakening their case that Texas is a battleground state worthy of investment and attention from the national party.
