It’s not just Gov. Rick Perry who wants the President to make a trip south.
Criminal Justice
Get the latest Texas Tribune coverage on criminal justice, including crime, courts, law enforcement, and reforms shaping the state’s justice system.
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.
TribBlog: You Want Me to What? Really? [UPDATED]
“There’s really no e-mail to send you my questions?” Nope, she said, you’ll have to fax them. Fax?! No e-mail?!?
The Polling Center: Droning to the Choir
The governor’s political radar is characteristically fine-tuned here, at least for the short term.
TribWeek: In Case You Missed It
Thevenot on the non-stop wonder that is the State Board of Education and its latest efforts to set curriculum standards, E. Smith’s post-election sit-down interview with Bill White at TribLive made some news and got the November pugilism started, Ramshaw on whether it makes sense for the state to call patients and remind them to take their pills, and on the state’s botched attempt to save baby blood samples for medical research, Hamilton’s interview with Steve Murdock on the state’s demographic destiny, M. Smith on whooping cranes, fresh water, and an effort to use the endangered species act to protect them both, Grissom on potties, pickups, and other equipment purchased with federal homeland security money and Stiles’ latest data and map on where that money went, Aguilar on the “voluntary fasting” protesting conditions and treatment at an immigrant detention facility, Kreighbaum on football, the new sport at UTSA, and Philpott on Rick Perry and Bill White retooling their appeals for the general election. The best of our best from March 8 to 12, 2010.
TribBlog: Skinner Asks Perry for Reprieve
Lawyers for death row inmate Hank Skinner sent Gov. Rick Perry a letter yesterday asking him for a 30-day reprieve from Skinner’s scheduled March 24 execution. The lawyers also asked Perry to order DNA testing on evidence that Skinner says could prove his innocence.
On the Records: Visualize Texas’ Growth
Yesterday, Google formally announced its public data explorer, a cool new tool allowing anyone to make visualizations of government records and post them as embeds online.
Data App: Homeland $ecurity
Loving County, in far West Texas, spent about $1,100 per resident in U.S. Department of Homeland Security grant funds from 2003 to 2008. Compare that with Harris County, which spent less than $6 per resident. Contemplate the disparity — and search for individual purchases with DHS grant money — using our latest data application.
Starving for Reform
For two months, inmates in a South Texas immigrant detention facility have been on a staggered hunger strike — what the government calls “voluntary fasting” — to protest alleged abuse, lack of medical care and near-nil access to legal resources.
On the Records: The Census. It’s Happening.
This week, most mailboxes across Texas will get a notice from the U.S. Census Bureau. The message: Participate in the decennial count, which begins next week.

