It was a bad Election Night for residents of the largest city in McLennan County. After years of regional dominance, their congressional seat belongs to Bryan, halfway to Houston; their state senate seat is 86 miles away in Granbury; and one of their House seats has moved three counties east, to Centerville.
Texas Senate
Posted in
State Government
Inside Intelligence: The Next Speaker Will Be…
For this week’s installment of our non-scientific survey of political and policy insiders on issues of the moment, we asked two main questions: “Do you think Joe Straus will win another term as Speaker of the House next year, or do you think it will be someone else?” and “Should the Senate keep or abandon its practice of requiring approval from two-thirds of the senators before raising an issue for debate and approval?” And we asked an open-ended third: “How do you think the election outcomes will affect the legislative session ahead?”
Posted in
Economy
TribBlog: The Most Important Legislators?
Who will be the most important legislators in Austin in 2011? UT Vice Chancellor Barry McBee has an answer.
Posted in
Economy
Interactive: Senate Office Spending
State senators reduced the amount they spent on office expenses by $830,000 this year, or an average of nearly $26,000 per senator, an analysis by The Texas Tribune found.
Posted in
State Government
The Weekly TribCast: Episode 54
In this week’s TribCast, Evan, Ross, Elise and Ben look ahead to the next legislative session — the bills, the two-thirds rule and division in Republican ranks.
Posted in
State Government
The Most Unpopular Fraction
Whatever the size of their majority in the Texas House, Republicans in the Texas Senate have to contend with the rule requiring two-thirds of members to agree to bring a bill up for vote. That’s 21 out of 31 — and there are only 19 Republicans in the upper chamber. As Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports, some in the GOP want the rule changed.
Posted in
State Government
Full Audio: Linda Chavez-Thompson at TribLive
Raw, unedited audio from Linda Chavez-Thompson’s Wednesday morning appearance at our TribLive breakfast series. Features questions from Evan Smith and the audience.
Posted in
State Government
And They’re Off!
The start of the 2010 election sprint finds Texas Republicans feverish: Even the sober ones think they could snatch up to 10 more state House seats. Democrats maintain they can still wrest majority control away from the GOP.
Posted in
State Government
How I Became Lieutenant Governor
“I always wanted to run for office,” Bill Hobby writes. “And I grew up in a family that had been part of state government for a couple of generations.” An excerpt from the forthcoming How Things Really Work: Lessons from a Life in Politics.
Posted in
Politics
The Sting of the Killer Bees
The rules of the Texas Senate are designed to create an orderly process that respects the rights of individual members. They have lasted this long because they do the job well and consider the need for compromise in the legislative operation. Trampling the rights of the minority is never a good idea — and yet it has happened over and over again. An excerpt from the forthcoming How Things Really Work: Lessons from a Life in Politics.
