Congress

Aguilar on an environmental battle in South Texas, Galbraith on the impact of the drought, Grissom on the latest in the Michael Morton case, Hamilton and Theobald on plans for greater scrutiny of faculty performance, Murphy on Rick Perry's campaign donors and expenditures, Ramsey on where we stand on redistricting, Ramshaw on the intense interest in stem cell rules, Root on a congressman's controversial pipeline holdings, M. Smith on the backlash against student testing and Tan on the fight for a new medical school in Austin: The best of our best content from February 6-10, 2012.

Full Story 

Legislation cracking down on insider trading by members of Congress hasn’t landed on the floor of the U.S. House yet, but it’s already become a hot topic in Congressional District 10, which Michael McCaul of Austin represents.

Full Story 

Houston Democrat Jason Gibson has dropped out of the race for U.S. Senate and endorsed Paul Sadler of Henderson.

Full Story 

Sites like Wikipedia, Google and Reddit aren't the only ones protesting federal anti-piracy legislation today. As Andy Uhler of KUT News reports, some Austin-based web companies have blacked out their content for the day, too.

Full Story 

The chief executive of the web hosting company Rackspace on why the tech industry is against the bills that federal lawmakers have filed to stop online piracy and other cyber crimes.

Full Story 

The Sunlight Foundation released an update to the interactive Capitol Words on Monday. The application allows users to search and compare words spoken by federal legislators using data from the Congressional Record.

Full Story 

Full video of my December 1 TribLive conversation with state Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, a candidate for the U.S. House in CD-20.

Full Story 

Full audio of my December 1 TribLive conversation with state Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, a candidate for the U.S. House in CD-20.

Full Story 

At Thursday's TribLive conversation, state Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, offered his take on issues he'd face if elected to Congress next year, including same-sex marriage, Afghanistan, taxing the rich and health reform.

Full Story 

At this morning's TribLive conversation, state Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, talked about the political and personal consequences of having briefly challenged U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, in the Democratic primary for Congress.

Full Story 

At this morning's TribLive conversation, state Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, explained why in the world he'd want to be a member of the unloved, unlovable U.S. Congress.

Full Story 

Pending any legal intervention, the three court-issued redistricting maps (House, Senate and Congress) and the State Board of Education map drawn up by the 82nd Legislature are now in effect. Use our interactive to see which district you live in now and who represents you.

Full Story 

State Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, who planned to run for one of Texas' four new congressional seats, will instead run to succeed retiring U.S. Rep. Charlie Gonzalez, D-San Antonio.

Full Story 

The breakdown raised new questions about the way forward for Congress and the trickle-down effects for politics and federal spending in Texas.

Full Story 

A balanced-budget constitutional amendment fell short in the U.S. House today. Only one Texas Republican, U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, of Tyler, voted against the measure.

Full Story 

Use our latest news application to search federal campaign contributions to U.S. House and Senate candidates in Texas in the 2012 election cycle. Filter your search by candidate, party, chamber, donor, location and donation amount.

Full Story 

A panel of federal judges in San Antonio proposed new redistricting maps for the Texas Senate and the Texas House late Thursday, asking for comments by noon on Friday. They're trying to finish maps before candidates start filing on November 28 — a date set by the court.

Full Story 

With American troops leaving Iraq and an eventual withdrawal from Afghanistan expected, advocates for tighter border security hope to bring military technology — and soldiers' expertise — to the border.

Full Story 

Gov. Rick Perry is proposing to bring a little Texas to Washington — with a “part-time citizen Congress” that doesn’t meet so often, and whose members earn only half of what they make now. Perry will also call for an end to lifetime appointments for federal judges, including members of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Full Story 

In a new web-only ad posted on YouTube, Gov. Rick Perry takes aim at congressional insider trading — the subject of a 60 Minutes segment last night.

Full Story