Texas voter turnout is abysmal at every level. It doesn’t matter if you’re voting in a school board election, for your next mayor, for your favored presidential nominee or for the president; you’re among the minority in the Lone Star State to show up and make your voice heard. The…
Some people in a Lake Highlands were dismayed earlier this summer when a Hustler sex shop raised its “COMING SOON” banner at a property near the LBJ service road and Abrams Road. A middle-class neighborhood in Dallas protesting an adult store isn’t exactly shocking. More surprising is that the Dallas…
Despite finding himself in the midst of an unprecedented run of good fortune, Ken Paxton, Texas’ still-indicted attorney general, insists on making trouble for himself. If there’s litigation to be filed or glommed onto related to conservatives’ pet causes, the attorney general will be there, leading the charge against a…
Justin Nelson hit three bars on a short pub crawl Thursday night. It wasn’t a big task. The attorney, University of Texas law school professor and Democratic candidate for Texas attorney general traversed less than half a mile visiting Shangri-la, Ah Sing Den and the Easy Tiger on East Sixth…
Texas reproductive rights groups and their legal allies made a major move earlier this month. In attempt to reclaim the abortion rights that Texas Legislature has slowly chipped away over the last decade, the groups sued the state. Two weeks after the lawsuit was filed on June 14, however, the…
Just like that, Texas years-long fight over its congressional and state legislative districts is over, thanks to a Monday morning decision from the U.S. Supreme Court. The GOP-led Texas Legislature, the court ruled, did not intentionally discriminate against minorities when it approved the state’s electoral map. By a 5-4 partisan…
Rather than picking off the Texas Legislature’s anti-abortion measures one at a time, as reproductive rights groups in the state have seemingly been willing to do over the last decade, a six-pack of pro-choice organizations joined with an abortion provider Thursday to sue the state over a whole slate of…
On a late September day in 2015, Inmate No. 1455104 was supposed to be standing quietly in line for a midday prison count in the women’s unit at a Gatesville prison. But Marinda Griggs, a longtime epileptic, could feel a seizure coming on and asked to go to the medical…
Thursday was National Black Mama’s Bail Out Day, a time for community groups around the country to raise money to get black women in county jails out on bail just in time for Mother’s Day. This year, unlike in 2017, Dallas got in on the project; a team of women’s…
Dallas County Democrats avoided a crisis Monday afternoon when Dallas County District Judge Eric Moyé dismissed a lawsuit that would’ve kicked dozens of Democratic candidates off November’s general election ballot. Moyé dismissed the suit — brought by the Dallas County Republican Party and its chairwoman, Missy Shorey — for lack of standing…
Atmos Energy failed to respond to service calls and failed to fix a haphazard system of pipes surrounding the home of a 12-year-old girl killed in a gas explosion last month, according to a wrongful death lawsuit filed by her family Thursday in Dallas County. Linda Michelle Rogers’ family is…
Most everyone in the case of John Doe Jr. and John Doe vs. the Episcopal School of Dallas agrees on this much: John Doe Jr., a student at the pricey private prep school in Northwest Dallas, broke school rules and drove off campus at lunch with a pal without permission…
Two Fort Worth women are suing the federal government and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops after being denied the opportunity to serve as foster parents to an unaccompanied refugee child. Fatma Marouf and Bryn Esplin say that Catholic Charities Fort Worth, the only organization in Texas that partners with…
Barring a last-minute reprieve, Texas will execute one of Dallas’ most notorious murderers at 6 p.m. Thursday. John Battaglia, 62, killed his daughters, 9-year-old Faith and 6-year-old Liberty, in 2001 in his Deep Ellum loft while on the phone with their mother. He’s been on death row in Livingston since his…
A controversial new state law that would’ve required Texas abortion clinics to bury or cremate any fetal tissue removed during procedures will not go into effect as scheduled on Feb. 1. San Antonio-based U.S. District Judge David Ezra ruled Monday afternoon that the requirement would likely place “significant burdens on…
In a Jan. 9 article, the Dallas Observer spoke with Dallas County officials from pretrial services about the changes being made to help reduce the high number of poor people serving time in jail without being convicted of a crime.The changes were a response to the Texas Commission on Jail…
Of the excuses typically asserted by establishment conservatives for their continued support of President Donald Trump, perhaps the most common is that the president is doing a good job with judicial appointments. Whether it’s the nomination of archconservative Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court or his selection of former Texas…
Texas’ fight over its congressional and legislative boundaries isn’t over. Not by a long shot. On Friday afternoon, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Perez v. Abbott, the state’s years-long fight with voting rights organizations that claim that Texas’ black and Latino populations have been unconstitutionally packed into some…
Dallas County fired Health and Human Services Director Zach Thompson after sexual harassment allegations made by another Dallas County employee, according to a press release from a law firm representing the woman. “Our client has alleged a pattern and practice of sexual abuse, harassment, intimidation and retaliation by Mr. Thompson,”…
The 2017 session of the Texas Legislature, like most recent sessions of the Texas Legislature, wasn’t a good one for reproductive rights. While lawmakers rejected some of the most stringent anti-abortion legislation, including a blatantly unconstitutional bill from state Rep. Tony Tinderholt of Arlington that would’ve banned abortion statewide, Texas…
At least U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold had someone who wanted him to seek re-election. Unfortunately for the retiring Texas GOP congressman, alleged sexual harasser and world’s worst boss, the people in his corner were the Texas Democratic Party. The Democrats sued the Texas GOP on Wednesday afternoon to keep Farenthold,…
James Ho, the Dallas attorney confirmed by the Senate on Thursday for a seat on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, is staunchly conservative but isn’t in lockstep with President Donald Trump ideologically, says Chad Ruback, a Dallas-based appellate lawyer who’s crossed paths many times with Ho. Ho, appellate attorney…
