Nearly 37 percent of the state’s population of nearly 25 million is Latino, but only about 1.2 million Latinos who were registered to vote in 2008 cast ballots. Pinpointing when the emerging majority group in Texas will begin wielding its power at election time is no small feat. Scores of campaigns, party activists and interest groups spend millions of dollars each year trying to determine what will happen when that day comes.
Immigration
In-depth reporting on border issues, policies, communities, and the impact of immigration across the state, from The Texas Tribune.
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Demographics
TribWeek: In Case You Missed It
Ramshaw’s question about an insurance company denying coverage for an infant vaccine prompts a reversal; Stiles’ new app lets you poke through mid-year campaign reports on donations and spending; Ramsey finds foreshadowing of the state’s big fall races in the campaign finance reports; Aguilar interviews Henry Cisneros about current politics; Dawson finds Texas environmentalists getting advice from an unexpected place; Galbraith on “demand response” that might cut the need for power plants and on the next wave of electric cars; Aguilar on increasing trade through Texas ports of entry; M. Smith on affirmative action battles in higher education; Titus on Mexican college students’ drift from border universities to UT-Austin and Texas A&M; and Hamilton on controversy over private, for-profit colleges: The best of our best for the week of July 19 to 23, 2010.
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Demographics
TribBlog: North vs. South
A group of border leaders claims Washington is ignoring Texas yet again — but the issue isn’t immigration or security this time.
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Demographics
Courting Hispanics: The Dems
The Hispanic vote in Texas is often referred to as a “sleeping giant” because of historically low turnout. If Hispanics were to show up at the ballot box in record numbers, they could easily influence elections of all kinds. In part two of his three-part series, Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports on the efforts of state Democrats to sound the alarm.
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Demographics
TribBlog: Juárez’s Outgoing Mayor Mulls Future
Jose Reyes Ferriz on what he’ll do next, why his successor isn’t corrupt and why the violence in his crime-ridden city will continue.
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Demographics
TribBlog: UH-Downtown Favors DREAM Act
Bill V. Flores, president of University of Houston-Downtown, is joining calls for the passage of the DREAM Act, which clears a path to permanent-residency status for undocumented students.
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Demographics
Ports of Prosperity
After a sluggish 2009, Texas’ top trade districts — Houston, Laredo and El Paso — are rebounding well from the national recession and witnessing huge increases in the value of trade passing through their ports this year.
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Demographics
TribBlog: Troops to Texas Aug. 1
Of the 1,200 National Guard troops deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border, Texas will see 250 — fewer than half of the 524 ordered to Arizona.
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Demographics
The University of Someplace Else
Fewer students from Mexico have enrolled at border schools like the University of Texas at El Paso, UT-Pan American, and Texas A&M International since 2006, while their ranks have grown at schools farther from the Rio Grande, like UT-Austin and Texas A&M. Can the drop be attributed to the drug war, or is the growing violence simply compounding the decades-old problem of border “brain drain”?
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Demographics
TribWeek: In Case You Missed It
Grissom’s three-part series (here, here and here) on prosperity and peril along the U.S.-Mexico border, Hu on the Division of Workers’ Compensation audit report, Stiles puts more than 3,000 personal disclosure forms filed by politicians, candidates and state officials online, M. Smith on attempts to curb the practice of barratry (better known as ambulance chasing), Ramsey interviews the chair of the Texas Libertarian Party, Hamilton on attempts to improve the success rates of community colleges, Galbraith on whether electric deregulation has helped or hurt Texans, Aguilar talks to a chronicler of the bloody narco-wars and Ramshaw on doctors who most often prescribe antipsychotic drugs to the state’s neediest patients: The best of our best from July 12 to 16, 2010.