President Barack Obama signed the health care reform bill into law this morning. Texas and 12 other states promptly filed a lawsuit challenging its constitutionality. Read that lawsuit here.
Courts
Stay up to date on Texas courts with in-depth coverage of major rulings, judicial elections, criminal justice, and the judges shaping state law from The Texas Tribune.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
TribBlog: Abbott Explains Health Care Lawsuit
Listen to Attorney General Greg Abbott explain why he and other attorneys general are suing the federal government over the just-passed health care reform bill.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
TribBlog: Pardons Board Rejects Skinner Request
The seven-member Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles today unanimously rejected death-row inmate Hank Skinner’s request for a reprieve from his execution, which is scheduled for Wednesday.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Data App: Even More Payroll
We’ve added 14 school districts (from Aldine to San Antonio) and five counties (Bexar, Dallas, Harris, Tarrant and Travis) to our government payroll app — an addition of 140,000 public employees earning roughly $6 billion.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
TribBlog: Texas “Fully Engaged” in Health Care Challenge
“It’s just a question of whether to file our own lawsuit or join a multistate effort,” says Attorney General Greg Abbott.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
TribWeek: In Case You Missed It
Grissom on the 1.2 million Texans who’ve lost their licenses under the Driver Responsibility Act and the impenetrable black box that is the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, Ramshaw and Kraft on nurses with substance abuse problems and rehabilitation that can get them back to work, M. Smith finds it’s not easy being Rick Green, Stiles on counting Texans (and everybody else), Rapoport on the State Board of Education’s war with itself and the runoff in SBOE District 10, Thevenot’s revealing interview with a big-city superintendent on closing bad schools, Aguilar on the tensions over water on the Texas-Mexico border, Hamilton on the new Coffee Party, Hu on Kesha Rogers and why her party doesn’t want her, Philpott on the runoff in HD-47, Ramsey on Bill White and the politics of taxes, and E. Smith’s conversation with Game Change authors Mark Halperin and John Heleimann: The best of our best from March 15 to 19.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
The Secret Pardon
Barring the intervention of the U.S. Supreme Court, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles is Hank Skinner’s last hope for reprieve from the poison-filled syringe he is set to meet on Wednesday. The board makes life-or-death decisions, recommending to the governor whether an execution should be delayed, called off or carried out, yet it’s one of the least transparent agencies in state government.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
On the Records: One Million Requests
State agencies have received nearly one million requests under the Texas Public Information Act since September.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
TribBlog: AZ Lab Offers Free Testing for Skinner
Chromosal Laboratories, a DNA testing lab in Phoenix, Ariz., told Gov. Rick Perry that it will test evidence in the Hank Skinner case for free and within 30 days if he grants a reprieve of the convicted murderer’s March 24 execution date.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Can Rick Green Be Stopped?
Ever since his narrow March 2 win set off a collective grumble from the legal establishment, there’s been a movement afoot to shore up support for his runoff opponent. Now the fruits of those efforts have ripened.