The latest politics news from The Texas Tribune.
With Pope Francis scheduled to visit Ciudad Juárez next month, the area's Catholics are speculating whether the famously outspoken pontiff will bring up hot-button social issues such as immigration, poverty and corruption. Full Story
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Supporters and opponents of two controversial new gun laws passed last year — open carry and campus carry — will update Texas lawmakers Tuesday on how the measures are working so far. Full Story
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Campaigning Monday in Iowa, Ted Cruz found himself responding to familiar criticism: his defense of a Chinese tire company for patent infringement when he was in private practice. Full Story
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Taking aim at a new Texas law making it a state felony to harbor undocumented immigrants, a national civil rights group announced Monday that it is suing the state. Full Story
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Former Gov. Rick Perry has endorsed fellow Texan Ted Cruz for president — more than four months after Perry dropped out of the 2016 race himself, and a week before the first-in-the-country caucus in Iowa. Full Story
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As U.S. Housing Secretary Julián Castro spent a day of campaigning for Hillary Clinton in Iowa, the Texas Democrat found himself in a familiar position: waving off questions about whether she will pick him as her running mate. Full Story
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U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz belongs to an elite club of lawyers who have repeatedly argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. A closer look at the nine times the Texan argued before the justices shows wins and losses as he challenged legal limits. Full Story
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A top Clinton official acknowledged to volunteers in Austin Sunday evening that the campaign should have built up its organization in the state earlier ahead of the March 1 primary, yet predicted Clinton will still do well in Texas. Full Story
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Ted Cruz began his final swing through Iowa on Saturday offering contrast after contrast between him and billionaire Donald Trump, hoping to close the deal with caucus goers nine days before the contest. Full Story
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Conservative media personality Glenn Beck on Saturday endorsed Ted Cruz for president, while urging urged Iowans to stop billionaire Donald Trump dead in his tracks. Full Story
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Facing a nasty fight to the finish in Iowa with Donald Trump, Ted Cruz is betting big that the best way to beat a nontraditional opponent is with tradition, going places Trump won't while building a superior get-out-the-vote operation. Full Story
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State Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, will remain on the primary ballot for re-election in Senate District 13, despite his plan to seek the Harris County Commissioner's seat left open when Commissioner El Franco Lee died on January 3. Full Story
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This week on The Ticket: KUT’s Ben Philpott and the Tribune's Jay Root explain the primary delegate system and revisit their dissection last summer of the Donald Trump campaign. Full Story
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Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth announced Friday that it will opt out of the state's new campus carry law, making it the 21st private college to decide to continue to ban guns. Full Story
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The upcoming GOP presidential debate in Houston has become a headache for Texas Republicans, who have witnessed it go through one shakeup after another. Full Story
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Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are trading their first attack ads in the GOP presidential race as their rivalry reaches a new level of intensity. Full Story
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In the crowded race for Senate District 24, the challenge candidates face is standing out to voters across a sprawling district that stretches from Abilene to the northwest suburbs of Austin to tell the difference between them. Full Story
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A federal appeals court on Thursday denied a request from Texas and other states to block President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, leaving the climate change rules in place as a legal challenge winds through the courts. Full Story
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Texas should consider scrapping its top 10 percent automatic admissions rule for universities, which hurts the prestige of the University of Texas at Austin, UT System Chancellor Bill McRaven said in two separate public appearances this week. Full Story
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John F. Kennedy would be a Republican today, and the New England Patriots are good at that football thing, U.S. Sen Ted Cruz observed as he cozied up to voters in a four-day tour of icy New Hampshire. Full Story
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