Texas will get four extra seats in the U.S. Congress in the decennial apportionment process, bringing the total to 36, the U.S. Census Bureau announced today.
Politics
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Politics
Dick Trabulsi: The TT Interview
The president of Texans for Lawsuit Reform on why the group spends spend so much money on state elections, what it still wants from the Legislature, what he thinks the trial lawyers on the other side are after and what’s wrong with the Democrats these days.
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Politics
The Defectors
After announcing they were defecting from the Democratic Party, state Rep. Allan Ritter, R-Nederland, and state Rep. Aaron Peña, R-Edinburg, were welcomed by Texas Republican leaders at a Tuesday afternoon press conference.
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Politics
The Way Forward
Six weeks after the drubbing their party took at the hands of voters, surviving Texas House Democrats find themselves at a crossroads — on style and substance, politics and policy. With massive budget cuts looming, will they effectively sit out the session and force Republicans in the majority to have all the blood on their hands? Will they participate just enough to soften the blow in the areas they care about the most: education and health care? Can they hold together a solid 51-vote bloc on key legislation? Where exactly should they go from here? And who will lead them?
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Economy
Sell It Like It Is
Republican leaders in the Texas Legislature are insisting that it will be a no-new-taxes session. In response, one Democratic lawmaker is pushing to expand the definition of the word “taxes” to include fees. Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports.
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Higher Education
TribBlog: Texans OK With Some Higher Ed Cuts
A new survey commissioned by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank, finds that 80 percent of Texas voters believe that colleges and universities could be run more efficiently than they are now.
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Demographics
Single White Female
The force of the GOP wave in November was so strong that black Republicans and Latino Republicans outnumber the Texas House’s new endangered species: the white Democratic woman. And if the 16-vote victory of state Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, doesn’t survive a recount, the species will be extinct.
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Criminal Justice
Marc Levin: The TT Interview
Marc Levin, director of the Center for Effective Justice at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, talks with the Texas Tribune about how the upcoming state budget crunch will affect criminal justice.
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Criminal Justice
Marc Levin: The TT Interview
The director of the Center for Effective Justice at the Texas Public Policy Foundation on the criminal justice challenges lawmakers will face next session (and how they can get the greatest return for each dollar spent), why eliminating prisons could be the most cost-effective way to improve safety and why creating new criminal offenses is the wrong thing to do.
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Health care
Tom DeLay Wins!
Yes, a jury convicted the former U.S. House majority leader of money laundering. But his maps — the ones that upended the careers of Democrats and helped the GOP take over Congress — are still in place. No amount of jail time can change that.