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The latest state government news from The Texas Tribune.

  • Adrian Garcia: The TT Interview

    By Brandi Grissom

    The first Hispanic sheriff in Harris County history in 2008 on growing up as a child of legal immigrants, how his mom helped change his liberal views about illegal immigration and whether Houston is a sanctuary city. Full Story 

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  • Does Every Vote Count?

    By Morgan Smith

    It's the stuff of an Orwellian dystopia: a voting machine hacked, an election stolen, the public none the wiser. Yet some civil rights groups believe it's a legitimate threat in Texas, one of only 12 states that still use paperless electronic voting machines. Ensuring the purity of the ballot box has been a point of concern for lawmakers since "hanging chad" entered the lexicon. Congress passed the Help America Vote Act to improve the administration of federal elections, but an irony of post-2000 reforms is that the electronic machines brought in to replace outdated lever-and-punch-card-based systems have their own flaws. Full Story 

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    Credit: Illustration by Todd Wiseman

  • Early Rise

    By Elise Hu

    In the state's 15 largest counties, early voting has spiked. The percentage of registered voters who have already cast their ballots is nearly twice what it was at the same point back in 2006: 5.2 percent of registered voters this time, compared to 2.7 percent four years ago. Full Story 

    Travis County's Democratic Coordinated Campaign Headquarters, days before the 2010 general election.
    Credit: Todd Wiseman

  • Closing for Good?

    By Tristan Hallman

    A barrage of abuse scandals, a federal investigation and the shrinking state budget could be just what disability advocates need to achieve a longtime goal: fewer state institutions and more community-based living services for developmentally disabled Texans who can’t care for themselves. Full Story 

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    Credit: Samantha Mesones

  • 2010: White Accuses Perry of "Milking" TRS

    By Ross Ramsey

    Top appointees and employees at the state Teacher Retirement System overrode staff recommendations in order to hire political cronies and business associates for investment work there, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Bill White charged Tuesday. A spokesman for Gov. Rick Perry's campaign says White is "throwing everything at the wall to see what will stick." Full Story 

    Republican Rick Perry and Democrat Bill White
    Credit: Bob Daemmrich

  • Where They Stand: HD-52

    By Ben Philpott, KUT News

    In House District 52 — southern Williamson County — incumbent Democrat Diana Maldonado faces one of her party's toughest challengers in Republican Larry Gonzales. Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune looks at how the candidates would set priorities for a fast-growing part of state. Full Story 

    State Rep. Diana Maldonado, D-Round Rock, and Republican challenger Larry Gonzales.
    Credit: Illustration by Todd Wiseman

  • Rob Owen: The TT Interview

    By Brandi Grissom

    The co-director of the University of Texas School of Law Capital Punishment Center, currently representing death row inmate Henry “Hank” Skinner before the U.S. Supreme Court, on what it's like to try a case in front of the high court, how Texas has influenced capital punishment law, why Texas juries are more inclined to impose the death penalty and the impact of life without parole. Full Story 

  • An Hour With Bill White

    By Evan Smith

    On Friday, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White sat down with me for an interview co-presented by the Tribune and Austin's public broadcasting stations, KUT and KLRU. We talked about whether the big bucks he's raised from appointees qualifies as "government for sale," how he'd cut the shortfall, how he feels about Barack Obama, the health care reform he'd prefer, those lawsuits against the feds and more. Full Story 

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  • Dunnam on Trial

    By Julián Aguilar

    The trial-lawyer-as-epithet strategy, a perennial favorite of Texans Republicans, is playing big in the effort to oust longtime Democratic House member Jim Dunnam, D-Waco. Full Story 

    State Rep. Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, at a press conference in 2009.
    Credit: Bob Daemmrich

  • Hank Skinner's Last Chance

    By Brandi Grissom

    The U.S. Supreme Court heard testimony Wednesday in a case that could have far-reaching ramifications for criminal justice nationally. Lawyers for Henry “Hank” Skinner maintain that the Texas death row inmate has a civil right to access DNA evidence that could exonerate him in the 1993 murders of his live-in girlfriend and her two sons. Lawyers for the state argue that Skinner exhausted his opportunity to analyze potentially exculpatory evidence when his defense team declined to request testing at his original trial, fearing that the results might be incriminating. Full Story 

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    Credit: Caleb Bryant Miller

  • Inquiring Minds

    By Morgan Smith

    Judge Charlie Baird will decide today whether to recuse himself from an investigation into the innocence of Cameron Todd Willingham, the Corsicana man executed in 2004 for the arson deaths of his three young daughters. But with or without Baird, a bigger question is in play: Is a court of inquiry the appropriate venue to consider Willingham’s guilt or innocence? Full Story 

    John Bradley and District Judge Charlie Baird.
    Credit: Illustration by Tom Pennington/Todd Wiseman