The system is meant to kill legislation: That’s the old line often heard around the Capitol. As the session’s end slams the coffin door on a slew of bills, more than a few lawmakers are taking solace in the fact that their dead bills have lots of company.
Criminal Justice
Get the latest Texas Tribune coverage on criminal justice, including crime, courts, law enforcement, and reforms shaping the state’s justice system.
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Criminal Justice
20 Weeks in Which the Budget Held Sway
The 82nd Texas Legislature’s regular session ends as it started, with lawmakers arguing about a shrunken state budget and redistricting.
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Criminal Justice
Data App: 27 New Entities, 30 Updated in Public Salaries Database
We’ve added 27 new entities — including university systems, transit authorities, and appraisal and school districts — to the Tribune’s government employee salaries database and updated 30 others, bringing the total number to 129, with salary data for 660,000 public employees.
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Criminal Justice
Senate Approves Loser-Pays Bill
The Senate unanimously passed a major tort reform bill today that would allow courts to grant attorneys’ fees to prevailing parties under certain circumstances.
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Criminal Justice
Woman’s Death in East Texas Jail Sparks Legislation
Beginning next year, jails like the one in Gregg County where Amy Lynn Cowling died could be required to tell state officials how many staff members leave their jobs every month. Experts say there likely is a correlation between high staff turnover rates and increased deaths.
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Criminal Justice
How Do You Solve a Problem Like a Data Breach?
It’s been more than a month since state officials acknowledged they’d exposed millions of Texans’ Social Security numbers and other information online. Matt Largey of KUT News reports what the state’s been doing to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again.
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Criminal Justice
TribWeek: In Case You Missed It
Root and Galbraith on a Dallas billionaire’s radioactive waste dump victory, Grissom on the passage of eyewitness ID reform, Hamilton on the old grudges bedeviling the debate over higher ed, Philpott on the status of congressional redistricting, Ramsey on Rick Perry’s un-campaign for president, Ramshaw on why medical schools are the scorned children of the state’s education budget, my session-wrap interview with three veteran Democrats, M. Smith on why Rob Eissler can’t pass mandate relief for school districts and Stiles on who’s giving what to which Texas candidates in 2011-12 congressional races: The best of our best content from May 16 to 20, 2011.
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Criminal Justice
Updated: Forensic Science Commission Bill Revived
A bill that would clarify and expand the jurisdiction of the Forensic Science Commission appeared to have fizzled in the Texas House. But tonight lawmakers revived the bill and voted it out of committee.
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Criminal Justice
Updated: Wentworth Blasts Straus Over Campus Carry
State Sen. Jeff Wentworth charged today that his San Antonio colleague, House speaker Joe Straus, used undue influence last night to strip an amendment allowing concealed handguns on college campuses out of a fiscal matter’s bill.
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Criminal Justice
Eyewitness ID Reform Headed to Perry’s Desk
The Senate today approved a measure that would reform the way law enforcement officers conduct identification lineups, a measure that criminal justice advocates hope will mean fewer wrongful convictions in the future.