State news in Texas
Statewide Texas News
Analysis: The $1M Lottery Jackpot Texas Sent to China
Texas is the Wild West of lottery ticket printing and payouts under Gary Grief and Ryan Mindell.
Lt. Gov. Patrick: House Speaker Burrows Will Pass Bail Reform Measures
A Senate committee considered and eventually passed several proposed measures and constitutional amendments on bail reform today.
Report: Texas Must Secure ‘Critical Infrastructure’
Texans face a rapidly changing battlespace.
Lawmaker Seeks to End Public University, School Contracts With Foreign Adversaries
The proposal follows Gov. Abbott’s November executive order to “harden state systems” against the Chinese government.
State Archive
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...
Team Powers Grows Silent
The cavalcade of objections coming from those who have close relations with Bill Powers has grown increasingly weak and silent as the embattled UT President’s impending termination draws near. The protests peaked yesterday with House Select Committee Chairmen Dan...
Flynn and Alvarado Disregard Oaths of Office
Over the holiday weekend, Breitbart Texas broke news that University of Texas System Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa had offered embattled University of Texas President Bill Powers an opportunity to resign or else be fired at the upcoming meeting of the UT Board of...
The Education Debt Industrial Complex 2: The Fast Growth Debt Coalition
Recently, we reported on how school administrators, education vendors, and construction companies cooperate to influence ISD bond elections in favor of education debt. However, you might not be aware of the incestuous relationships between some elected officials and...