State government

Congratulations, Mayor-Elect. Now you get to govern a great city — Houston — that’s much bigger than the electorate and much more complicated than the campaign. Perhaps you’d like some aspirin? Or a re-count?

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Think like the political pros and your mind will go to the long game instead of the short one. The short game is the elections of 2010. The long game is redistricting in 2011, when maps are drawn that corral the voters into the districts that will elect legislators for the next ten years.

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Alberto Gonzales — remember him? — in Esquire.

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The feds want Texas to sign onto a movement toward national education standards in order to get up to $700 million in "Race to the Top" money. Texas officials say our students —and our curriculum — aren't for sale. 

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As anticipated, Cynthia Dunbar has officially announced that she will not seek re-election to her spot on the State Board of Education

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Explore red-light camera intersections across Texas, or drill down to individual intersections to see images, crash figures and citation totals.

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Even if Cynthia Dunbar doesn't seek reelection to the State Board of Education, another conservative Republican stands ready to take up the cause.

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In 2008, the file at DPS headquarters in Austin still said Scotty Caven III caused the August 2004 car crash that killed him and two others. Officials there had declined to reopen and investigate the case. But his father, UT System regent Scott Caven Jr., wouldn’t take no for an answer.

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Benjamin Ligums was born with a rare degenerative brain disease that left him immobile, non-verbal and legally blind. His family has found a second home at Baylor's Transition Medicine Clinic, which specializes in treating profoundly disabled young adults.  

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The Texas Ethics Commission wants candidates and elected officials to come clean about their spending, and it's adopted new rules that require them to do just that.

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When kids with disabilities transfer from children’s Medicaid to the adult program, they lose services, health care and medical expertise. A few committed doctors and social workers are stepping in to ease the transition.

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After his son and two others died in a horrific car wreck in 2004, former UT Regent Scott Caven Jr. set out to prove that his namesake, Scotty, wasn't to blame. He eventually persuaded the Texas Department of Public Safety to change its accident report — a rare feat: In the last five years, DPS has changed the final reports in fewer than 1 percent of fatal crash investigations.

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The pro-charter National Center for Education Reform cites state's lack of financial support for facilities, a cap on the number of charters and a restrictive regulatory environment. 

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What are state and local governments in Texas doing to make raw data available to the public? Not much.

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It was a political week, with a full-court press from our staff on Bill White's switch to the governor's race and all of the fallout; the moves during the first week of filing for political races; Philpott's look at Republicans challenging Republicans; Hu's latest in the popular Stump Interrupted series; Ramshaw on emergency rooms, family doctors, and child protection; Stiles and Grissom mapping payday lending locations juxtaposed with family income data; Rapoport on the state budget and education; Thevenot on KBH's plans for schools; and Hamilton on the power (or not) of political endorsements. The best of the best from November 28 to December 4, 2009.

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Lobbyists from across the Republican party come out to support one of their own for State Board of Education, forsaking former chair Don McLeroy.

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Forget what I said on this week's TribCast, parroting the chatter around the Capitol: The state senator from Houston is not considering a primary challenge to his fellow Republican, Comptroller of Public Accounts Susan Combs.

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