Politics & Government

The political flap over Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot’s recently announced policy of reduced prosecution for certain offenses opens a window on a really interesting question in these tumultuous times: What does somebody mean when he says he’s a conservative on crime? Or a liberal? I admit, one reason…

Texas Secretary of State David Whitley’s push to purge nearly 100,000 registered voters from the state’s rolls is over. Friday afternoon, a coalition of voting rights groups announced they’d reached a $450,000 settlement with the state. The groups sued Whitley earlier this year over his order that counties across the…

Turns out Texas state Sen. Angela Paxton’s hands may not have been quite as clean as she claimed they were during a February ethics flare-up over a bill she filed that would’ve changed the securities law her husband is currently accused of breaking. Paxton’s Senate Bill 860 would allow the…

A citizens subcommittee tasked with finding short-term help for homeless people in Dallas struggled Thursday to work out a plan for what to do with those people when it’s dangerously cold outside. Ultimately, the Citizens Homeless Commission’s short-term solutions committee settled on a plan to solicit proposals from groups that…

The Dallas City Council voted Wednesday to require all employers in the city to provide paid sick time to their employees, starting in August. Whether any Dallas worker ever benefits from the new policy remains up in the air. Austin passed a similar ordinance in 2018 but still hasn’t been…

Dallas’ Citizens Police Review Board got meaningfully stronger Wednesday. The new board won’t be as strong as activists wanted it to be and is probably a little stronger than Dallas’ police associations would’ve preferred. Its creation is a compromise, just as Dallas Police Chief U. Renee Hall said it would…

Today I proudly and courageously don my tinfoil hat. I do so for you, Dear Reader, so that you will not have to wear one. First, in the Department of Problems It Seems Like Maybe We Should have Been Able to Foresee, we learned recently that the mayor’s plan for…

Missy Shorey, the combative head of the Dallas County Republican Party, died Tuesday night at age 47, her husband said Wednesday morning. “Friends and family,” Marc Himelhoch said in a Facebook post. “It is with heavy heart that I must inform you that my beloved Missy Shorey passed unexpectedly last…

Do you like having a previous speculation confirmed in black and white? I kind of do. A lot. That’s why I got such a kick out of the endorsement editorial in The Dallas Morning News last weekend urging people to vote for three people not named Scott Griggs for mayor…

More than two weeks after running into a couple of state troopers outside Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen’s house in Angleton, gun rights activist Chris McNutt spoke out against Bonnen at a news conference Tuesday. He refused to take the blame for the Texas Legislature’s apparent failure to expand gun…

Dear Indianapolis, Welcome to NRA convention week. About a year ago, we, and by we, we mean Dallas’ feisty alt-weekly, were sitting in the same spot you are now, wondering what to expect from Wayne LaPierre and his merry band of misfits. Given that we’ve already seen the other side,…

Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot defended his recent decision to stop prosecuting certain quality-of-life crimes over the objections of members of the Dallas City Council’s Public Safety and Criminal Justice Committee on Monday. The reforms, Creuzot said, are meant to make Dallas a safer, more equitable city, not to…

Nine months after a petition drive to get an ordinance requiring paid sick leave for everyone who works in Dallas went down in flames, the Dallas City Council will take up a similar ordinance. Wednesday, the council will decide whether city code will require all Dallas employers to credit their…

Sometimes you learn more about people in politics from their shadows than their faces. Serial efforts over a period of years to take down two progressive Dallas City Council members have cast the same kind of shadow consistently. In the effort, mostly failed I think, to dirty up council members…

Texas is set to turn a very fake problem into a very real law. Monday night, the state’s House of Representatives signed off on Plano Republican Jeff Leach’s “Born Alive Protection Act” which would create civil and criminal penalties for doctors who fail to care for babies born after attempted…

If Beto O’Rourke drives to a coffee shop or college campus and cable news doesn’t mention it, does he make a sound? O’Rourke’s been running for president now, at least officially, for just more than a month. During those first 32 days, his campaign is happy to tell you, the…

Last month, the U.S. House Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties asked Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to turn over records showing exactly what state officials were up to earlier this year when they tried to purge nearly 100,000 voters from the state’s rolls. Last week, as the deadline…

You do what you want, but this is popcorn and folding chair time for me. An eye-popping little tent show is about to unfold, and I want a front-row seat. It started last week with this: Dallas City Council member Scott Griggs, running for mayor on an anti-boondoggle platform, scored…