The Best (and Worst) of the 2019 Texas Legislature

Just as quickly as it came onto the scene in January, the 86th Texas Legislature faded into the background Monday night, closing up shop for the next two years. With Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s tweeted promise that he would not call a special session, Texans can rest easy knowing that…

Philip Kingston Unanimously Cleared in Council Ethics Fight

Dallas City Council member Philip Kingston did nothing wrong when he advocated for zoning changes to make building and renting garage apartments easier in Dallas before building a garage apartment on his own property, Dallas’ Ethics Advisory Commission decided Tuesday. Kingston was under fire after an anonymous member of the…

Breaking Down Texas Republicans’ Biggest 2019 Black Eye

One could be forgiven for not noticing that Texas Secretary of State David Whitley, the man behind the attempted voter purge that drew so much local, state and national media attention during the first half of 2019, exited the political stage Monday afternoon. It was Memorial Day, after all, and…

Texas Women Needed Help From the Legislature. They Didn’t Get It.

More than 25% of Texas women between ages 18 and 44 don’t have health insurance coverage. That’s one of the biggest takeaways from a new study into the effects of Medicaid expansion on maternal health from the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute. Texas’ uninsured rate for women of child-bearing age…

Dallas ’Burbs Are Thriving, New Census Data Says

DFW cities and suburbs are booming, according to numbers released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau. Three of the 15 fastest-growing large cities — defined by the bureau as having populations of more than 50,000 — are in North Texas, as is the city with the third-highest numeric population growth…

Texas Leaders Reach Multibillion-Dollar School Finance Deal

Texas’ big three — Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dennis Bonnen — effectively ended the state’s 2019 legislative session Thursday, announcing that the Legislature had reached a deal on school finance reform. With the agreement, the Legislature has settled its three biggest priorities for 2019:…

Dallas City Council Agrees to Sell Robert E. Lee Statue

Attention all Dallas Lost Cause fetishists: Dallas’ Robert E. Lee statue, the same one you so desperately tried to keep on its pedestal in Oak Lawn, can now be yours, assuming you win an auction with a low, low opening bid of $450,000. That’s right, thanks to a 12-3 Dallas…

Texas Moves Toward Expanding Medical THC Program

Texas’ bare-minimum medical THC program, 2015’s Compassionate Use Act, appears set to get a little more robust this spring after the Texas Senate followed the Texas House in approving a new list of conditions eligible for the program. When Gov. Greg Abbott signed the Compassionate Use Act four years ago,…

Texas Is Going to Save Chick-fil-A, Whether You Like It or Not

All this because San Antonio didn’t want a Chick-fil-A in its airport. The Texas House of Representatives signed off on Texas Senate Bill 1978 on Monday, saving Texas Republicans from their worst fears about religious discrimination or opening the state’s LGBTQ community up to further discrimination, depending on who’s talking…

Texas Fixes Its Revenge Porn Law

Texas likely won’t have to wait on the courts to fix its 4-year-old revenge porn law. Sunday afternoon, the Texas Senate voted unanimously to support a change to the law that attempts to protect third parties’ free-speech rights while allowing the statute to retain its teeth. “One out of every…

Transgender Woman Attacked On Video Shot to Death

Muhlaysia Booker, the Dallas transgender woman brutally attacked on video last month in South Dallas, was shot and killed Saturday, Dallas police confirmed Sunday afternoon. Police found Booker, 23, laying face down on Valley Glen Drive near Ferguson Road just before 7 a.m. Saturday. Booker wasn’t carrying ID, leading to…

Texas’ ‘Born-Alive’ Bill Is Going to Be a Thing

Sometimes, Texas laws address real problems, like the state’s soon-to-be dead poverty trap, the Driver Responsibility Program, or its unconscionable rape kit testing backlog. Other times, they’re drafted and passed for purely political purposes. The “born-alive” act, now passed by both the Texas House and Senate, is one of those…

Texas House Digs In on Confederate Monuments

Last week, the Texas Senate threw the state’s Confederate fetishists a bone. Spurred in part by Dallas’ votes to get rid of the Robert E. Lee statue from the park that used to be named after the treasonous general and remove the towering Confederate war memorial from Pioneer Park near…

Texas Senate Approves Reanimated Religious Protection Bill

Wednesday night, two days after having an instantly vilified quickie hearing just to get it to the floor, the Texas Senate signed off on a religious protection bill that opponents fear could open the door to discrimination against Texas’ LGBTQ community. Prior to its hearing on the Senate floor, Senate…

Suspected Dallas Serial Killer Charged With 6 More Murders

After more than a year of investigation, the charges against suspected North Texas serial killer Billy Chemirmir are starting to come in. Already this week, a Dallas County grand jury has indicted Chemirmir for six murders, according to court documents. Multiple media outlets report than Chemirmir will soon be indictment…