The latest politics news from The Texas Tribune.
One of the board members said the state needs to be more cautious about getting back to normal — especially with a new legislative session set to begin next month. Full Story
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The legislation is named in honor of retiring U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Clarendon, who is the top Republican of the House Armed Services Committee. Full Story
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The state party chair plans to do a "deep dive" after executive committee members asked for answers about the outcome of the November election and demanded reforms. Full Story
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Patrick and Republican state Rep. Dade Phelan, the likely next House speaker, “hope to be able to make an announcement regarding the Session shortly," a senior adviser to Patrick said Saturday. Full Story
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Cecilia Ballí and two colleagues spoke to 100 Texas Latinos to better understand what drives civic engagement and whom they prefer as candidates. Full Story
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Castro lost to U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York in a race that was a long shot from the start for the San Antonio Democrat. Full Story
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The super PAC backing Cornyn's reelection, Texans for a Conservative Majority, got a $1.2 million donation from the Senate Leadership Fund days before the election. Full Story
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Mayor Steve Adler told KVUE that he did not violate his own order or orders by Gov. Greg Abbott and took multiple steps to ensure the safety of his guests, including rapid COVID-19 testing. Full Story
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Burgess had been vying to be the ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Full Story
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In January, the lieutenant governor suggested he could push to further lower the threshold required to bring bills to the floor if the GOP lost its supermajority. Now that that has happened, it remains to be seen whether Patrick will follow through. Full Story
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Burgess, a Lewisville Republican, and Castro, a San Antonio Democrat, spent much of the last year pursuing colleagues to support their bids as their parties' top representatives of a pair of high-profile committees. Full Story
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The Legislature is set to convene in January. Full Story
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Springer and Luther, who has been a vocal opponent of Abbott's pandemic management, are in a Dec. 19 special election runoff. Full Story
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Nearly a dozen pieces of legislation, all of them filed by Republicans, target mail-in balloting, illegal voting and misbehaving elections officials — inspired by events and talking points from the previous election cycle. Full Story
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Outgoing President Donald Trump's administration wants to exclude undocumented immigrants from the count that determines how many congressional seats each state gets. Texas could lose at least one congressional district under the plan, according to a study. Full Story
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Keith Nielsen won the job in March, but as he prepared to take office this summer, he faced widespread condemnation for posting a Facebook graphic juxtaposing a Martin Luther King Jr. quote with a banana. Full Story
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At a housing unit turned health clinic in rural Brown County, the director of a family planning clinic laughs at the idea of offering tele-health visits to limit the virus' spread: “Where we are, that is just not an option for us.” Full Story
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More than 60 election-related bills have been filed in the House and Senate in the three weeks since the election. About half of them are aimed at increasing voter access, which lawmakers said became a more urgent issue during the pandemic. Full Story
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In this week's TribCast, Matthew speaks with Ross, Aliyya and Cassi about how state Rep. Dade Phelan became the likely next speaker of the Texas House and why remote learning has been so difficult for schools. Full Story
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Ryan Vassar, who had served as the deputy attorney general for legal counsel, was one of eight senior aides who told authorities they believed Paxton was breaking the law — a report that has sparked an FBI investigation. Full Story
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