Tag Archives: Texas

Updated: More than 1,000 Soccer Balls Contributed for Detained Immigrant Children

An effort to deliver a little bit of Christmas joy to detained immigrant children in El Paso County spearheaded by the office of Sen. Jose Rodriguez became bipartisan this week and as of Saturday morning has now raised more than 1,000 items so far. There are 2,400 kids and the deadline to get this done […]

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Straus retirement may set the stage for a responsible redistricting cycle

During the 2007 session of the Legislature, Rep. Byron Cook took to the front mic of the Texas House to rally the troops against then-Speaker Tom Craddick. Longtime observers will remember Cook’s words included a call to arms from Shakespeare, quoting from the Saint Crispin’s Day speech in Henry V: “We few, we happy few, […]

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Amid accusations of fake news, phony organizations help AG Paxton in felony case

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, parroting President Donald Trump, has recently taken to calling news coverage he dislikes “fake news.” As a distraction, it works. When it comes to transparency, the Texas Senate’s recent moves to restrict media coverage are in line with Patrick’s order to the Legislative Budget Board to suppress staff reports – a […]

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Trump Victory Could Pressure Gov. Abbott to Lay Out an Agenda

It was a decade ago that then-Gov. Rick Perry stood on the banks of the Rio Grande in his Carhartt jacket, promising in a TV commercial that “If Washington won’t protect our border, Texas will.” At that time, Texas Republicans were treating President George W. Bush as an apostate who was weak on the issue […]

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The Trump Effect in Texas

During an election cycle in which it’s been repeatedly proven the political chattering class has the capacity to be quite wrong, it is no shock the ascendancy of Donald Trump has some prognosticators once again raising the question of whether Texas will be any color other than deep Republican red when voters make their choice […]

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One Would Think the Tea Party Would be Outraged by What the Texas AG is Said to Have Done

The three-count felony indictment handed up by a grand jury in very-Republican Collin County against Attorney General Ken Paxton has sparked some wild conspiracy theories but yielded little, if any, consistency from some of Paxton’s fellow Tea Party patriots. Employees of Tim Dunn’s Empower Texans, a self-proclaimed conservative group, have tried to make the case […]

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Texas has Not Disclosed Data Used to Achieve Massive Funding Cuts for Medicaid Reimbursement Rates

Note: This story written by Emily DePrang originally appeared in The Quorum Report. Join us there daily for coverage of Texas politics and government – SB  With the deadline looming to finalize new Medicaid therapy rates, stakeholders fear they’ll never get answers to serious questions about how the Health and Human Services Commission arrived at […]

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Tea Party Senator Calls for Unilateral Disarmament in Competition for Business

Much of the chatter in the business lobby over the past few days suggests that Facebook executives were not happy at all with Tea Party Sen. Konni Burton’s argument that the state needs to “stop throwing our tax dollars to big business.” In this op-ed, the Republican from Colleyville argued that the City of Fort […]

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AUDIO Flashback: Dan Patrick vs Ted Cruz

As mentioned on the West Texas Drive this afternoon, here is the audio of then-Sen. Dan Patrick and Sen. Ted Cruz on Patrick’s radio show in Houston. This was during the GOP primary in 2012. The two really get into it about the way the Texas Senate operated under former Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst. Tweet […]

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2014: The Year of Tom Delay’s Permanent Republican Majority

As 2014 draws to a close, one thing of which I am certain is you do not need to read another story about the variety of reasons Texas did not turn blue – or mauve or any shade of purple – this year but instead went from pretty darn red to “red concentrate” with a […]

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