State government

A very special season finale of Dancing with the Stars features Texas' paunchy political star, Tom DeLay.

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Sorry, retired teachers and other public employees: You'll have to do without that extra $500 you were expecting. And you shouldn't count on any additional benefits next year — not if the state pension fund continues to be, in the words on one state senator, "actuarially unsound."

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School district police departments use tasers, pepper spray, dogs and drawn handguns to control crime on campus. But most don't keep data on the incidents, leaving parents no way to track them. Many even refuse to turn over their “use of force” guidelines, saying parting with their policies could create a security threat.

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State Rep. Norma Chavez, D-El Paso, announced today on a local radio show that she plans to run for reelection to the Texas House instead of making a go at the state Senate seat that Eliot Shapleigh is vacating.

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Texas will not adopt national school curriculum standards, risking its ability to get a $700 million federal grant.

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Comptroller Susan Combs says the state will have $77.7 billion in general revenue for the current budget, which calls for $77.6 billion in general revenue.

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How much of Bill White's federal war chest could be used in a race for governor? Most of it.

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Two legislative ABCs — Anybody But Craddicks — back the Republican moderate challenging Christian conservative member Don McLeroy.

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Who is this bald, wonkish, moderate Democrat, where’d he come from, and why’s everyone talking about him?

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Houston Mayor Bill White hasn't even announced yet that he's running for governor. But state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, is endorsing him.

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No snowbirds here. A growing number of state employees are retiring and coming straight back to work, padding — and in some cases nearly doubling — their state salaries with pension pay-outs.

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The Dallas church community has vowed to forge 25 partnerships with high-poverty public schools and push for 700 units of housing for the homeless — a down payment on a larger effort to heal wounds left by racism and injustice.

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The number-crunchers among the Republicans and the Democrats in Texas use election results to get a feel for the political environment in each legislative district. They start with statewide races and then bake in some assumptions about what might happen if they put the right candidates in place. We and other political watchers need the same thing, without the partisan ingredients. So we cooked up the Texas Tribune Index.

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He can "can blow bubbles with beef jerky"?

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Multi-part stories from Ramshaw and Grissom and Stiles on mental health services for detained immigrants and on payday lenders who provide exorbitantly priced credit to people with nowhere else to turn... Twitter, word clouds and the race for governor — a Stiles joint... Farouk Shami is in and Hu was there to watch... Philpott went to Bastrop for a gather of Republican governors... Rapoport finds a State Board of Education that's trying to control itself... and we have the skinny on legislative races that are likely to be competitive (only about 5 percent of the races on the ballot). It's the best of The Texas Tribune from November 14 to 20, 2009.

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The state's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose to 8.3 percent in October, up from 5.2 percent a year ago.

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Groups that offer high-interest, short-term consumer loans and want to avoid state regulation contributed more than $1.4 million to Texas politicians over the past nine years, Texas Ethics Commission records show.

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Gov. Rick Perry won't grant clemency to Robert Lee Thompson, who was sentenced to death under Texas' controversial "law of parties."

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Republicans Kay Bailey Hutchison and Rick Perry have started their air war, and Democrat Farouk Shami — new to the race — starts on TV at the same time.

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Speaker Joe Straus has given committees their assignments for the next year.

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