State
House GOP Caucus Censures Four Members for Supporting Conservative Challengers
The caucus did not expel the members, but condemned their conduct “in the strongest terms.”
Dr. Mary Talley Bowden’s Fight to Stop Bureaucratic Abuse
State Rep. Steve Toth has called the lack of oversight over the Texas Medical Board a “failure of the legislature.”
DPS Apprehends First of Texas’ Top 10 Most Wanted Illegal Aliens
Gov. Abbott recently created the most wanted illegal alien list.
Phelan Evicts Local GOP from Headquarters
House Speaker gives Orange County GOP until July 5 to vacate the premises.
State Archive
Texas Exports Tax Hike to Nevada
Although Texas leads the nation in energy production and a variety of key economic indicators, we’re exporting much more than goods and services. Other states are following our lead on destructive taxing policy to the economic detriment of their residents. Patrick...
Education Lobby Fails at Math
According to the National Education Agency (NEA), Texas allegedly ranks 47 in education spending per student. A quick look at government data, however, exposes that talking point for what it is—a lie by omission. For starters, comparisons of nominal education spending...
Congratulations, Charles Perry!
Congratulations to Charles Perry on his outright win in the Senate District 28 special election. He received more than 50 percent of the vote in a crowded 6-way race for the 51-county election. Perry was strongly endorsed by Texans for Fiscal Responsibility and other...
Criminal Commissions
For several years, Texas has been a model of limited government—at least compared to other states. A new trend is taking us in a disturbing direction: unelected, unaccountable commissions usurping power, undermining constitutional authority and growing government....
Straus Appointments Discredit Ethics Committee Before It Begins
House Speaker Joe Straus used a Friday press release to bury the news about his appointments to a joint interim committee that will review state campaign finance (so-called “ethics”) laws. The laws, and the body that oversees them, the Texas Ethics Commission, are...
When Leading Isn’t Popular
Although countless members of the legislature have appropriately defended Gov. Perry’s exercising of his constitutional authority to veto funding for a discredited agency, few have been willing to defend embattled UT Regent, Wallace Hall, for fulfilling his fiduciary...
Commission Races Forward With Illegal Slots Proposal
Today the Texas Racing Commission will take testimony from citizens concerned with the agency’s impending constitutional overreach. The Commission is considering enacting a rule that would allow Texas horse and dog tracks to implement devices called “instant racing”...
Texas Conservative Leaders: Limit Government Growth
Members of the Texas Conservative Budget Coalition are calling on lawmakers to keep state government growth at or under 6.2% in the 2016-17 biennium. Grassroots conservative leaders and budget experts gathered this morning in Austin to unveil a fiscally conservative...
Why Every Journalist Should Care About the Michael Quinn Sullivan Case
When Empower Texans President Michael Quinn Sullivan went before the Texas Ethics Commission last month on charges that he had failed to register as a lobbyist, much of the testimony hinged on whether Sullivan qualified for the media exception to the lobby law as an...