The embattled state representative admits making a false statement on a federal tax return.
Texas Legislature
Burned Orange
A clash over a beloved campus music club at UT-Austin portends the gnashing of teeth at schools statewide as a budgetary winter threatens to envelop higher education.
Seat Warmers?
Dallas County Republicans are jockeying for a chance to topple two freshman Democrats who seized House districts in 2008. The incumbent Dems โ hoping to claim their first House majority in eight years โ are girding for battle.
2010: Game On in HD-76
A little insight into state Rep. Norma Chavez’s Democratic primary race out in El Paso can be gleaned from the campaign finance reports filed yesterday, and it looks like she could have a real fight on her hands.
Their State of the State
Governors across the country have been delivering their state report cards in January โ but not in Texas, where the State of the State address is only given during odd-numbered years, when the Legislature is in session. Ben Philpott, reporting on politics for KUT News and the Tribune, asked people from different sectors of the economy to offer their own outlook for Texas in 2010.
Social Studies
Thanks to sites like Facebook and Twitter, we know the elected officials who represent us better than ever โ sometimes in weirdly intimate ways. You can find out that Dan Patrick had to put his dog down, that Wayne Christian is a fan of real estate wunderkind and reality TV star Chad Rogers, and that Bill White just finished listening to a book on tape. But woe to the pol who hasn’t updated her status in a year.
2010: Rallying Cry
More than a week after they surfaced in the Republican gubernatorial primary debate, the politics of abortion are again heating up.
2010: Michael Williams Rails
… against Washington, of course, and the less-than-resolute wing of his party: An interview with the Texas Railroad Commissioner, who’d like very much, thank you, to be the next Marco Rubio.
TribWeek: In Case You Missed It
Hu explores on the schism between Bushworld and Perrywold and the increasingly curious question of what Debra Medina wants; Stiles goes all Shark Week on gubernatorial campaign finance, with searchable databases, bubble maps and word clouds; M. Smith on what happens if there’s a GOP runoff; Rapoport on the sniping between Perry and KBH on transparency; Hamilton on KBH’s abortion issue odyssey; Ramshaw exposes the disgracefully low percentage of state school employees who abuse or kill profoundly disabled Texans and are then prosecuted for their acts; Thevenot on higher ed’s tuition time bomb; Aguilar on the Latino pay gap; Ramsey on Farouk Shami’s “gift” to Hank Gilbert; Ramsey and Philpott on the the Supreme’s Court’s corporate campaign cash fallout; and E. Smith’s interviews with House Speaker Joe Straus with retiring Republican state representative โ and future Texas State chancellor? โ Brian McCall. The best of our best from January 18 to 22, 2010.
The Abortion Answer
As she demonstrated in last week’s debate, Kay Bailey Hutchison still struggles with how to describe her position on an issue that many Republicans consider sacrosanct.

