The Texas secretary of state’s job is a pretty good one. Whoever holds it gets an annual salary of more than $130,000 to make sure the state’s election machinery runs smoothly, which has to be satisfying. Barring any monumental screw-ups, the job is easy to keep, too. There are no…
Steve Bartlett. Ron Kirk. Tom Leppert. Eric Johnson? A who’s who of Dallas’ conservative business elite has made its presence known in Dallas’ mayoral race, throwing its considerable fundraising weight behind Eric Johnson. We’ll give you a minute to catch up from the cognitive dissonance. Johnson is a progressive, Democratic…
The pattern has repeated itself several times even in the short period Beto O’Rourke has been a national figure. The media fawning over the former U.S. representative slows down a bit, because of fatigue or outside events, and people begin to wonder whether the El Pasoan has peaked, whether in…
Barring intervention from Dallas’ preservation board, the Confederate War Memorial that towers over Pioneer Plaza downtown is coming down. The Dallas City Council voted 11-4 Wednesday afternoon to remove the statue, which was built in 1896 and moved downtown in 1961 to accommodate freeway construction. “I want to be free…
Robert Jeffress made perhaps his strongest statements yet in defense of President Donald Trump Wednesday. Given what Jeffress has said about the president in past, it should come as no shock that the First Baptist Dallas pastor’s new remarks have left him teetering on the edge of the deep end…
Dallas Police Chief U. Renee Hall gave the public the first look at what she and her department believe Dallas’ improved Citizens Police Review Board should look like Monday. After harsh reactions from both those who want to strengthen the board and those who believe doing so would be unfair…
If you want a preview of the road President Donald Trump intends to take when it comes to reproductive freedom at the federal level, don’t look any further than Texas. Republicans here have already proudly taken the path the president outlined during Tuesday night’s State of the Union address, leading…
Texas Senate Democrats grilled new Secretary of State David Whitley on Thursday over his office’s decision to partner with Attorney General Ken Paxton on an announcement that more than 95,000 noncitizens might be registered to vote in Texas. In the two weeks since the announcement, Whitley and Paxton’s claims have…
Following a Dallas City Council discussion Wednesday, it seems clear that Dallas’ Confederate War Memorial is going to get removed from the park between Dallas City Hall and the convention center at some point. A majority of the council wants it gone, and there is little public resistance to the…
We’ve been here before, but Dallas’ Confederate war memorial, the one that dominates Pioneer Plaza between City Hall and the convention center, appears to be in its final days. Dallas city staff gave City Council members three options Wednesday for what to do with the 60-foot behemoth. The council could…
Today the Dallas City Council, after a year of crass weaseling, will try once more to decide what to do with the huge, lugubrious Confederate War Memorial that stands 400 feet from Dallas City Hall like a very bad billboard for the city. Meanwhile, I’m still trying to decide how…
Former El Paso U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke ended his vagabond run on Tuesday afternoon, emerging from the haze of dentist appointments, morning runs and road trips to sit for an interview with Oprah in Times Square PlayStation Theater. The interview isn’t set to air on the media maven’s Oprah Winfrey Network…
Repeat the words enough times and the message becomes fact: Dallas needs more cops. Ask the mayor. “Dallas needs more cops.” Ask a City Council member. “Dallas needs more cops.” Ask the cop unions. “Dallas definitely needs more cops.” Ask Dallas’ only daily newspaper. “We’re scared, so Dallas needs more…
The bad news for traffic scofflaws and anyone else walking around with a Dallas C misdemeanor warrant is that it’s warrant roundup time. The good news is, this time the city’s offering a discount on your warrant fees, if you’re willing to go through a little trouble. If you’ve got…
Here we go already, off to the slime pits. Bring a towel. Last week mayoral candidate Scott Griggs was one of a handful of City Council members caught with dodgy campaign donations in the past, and you’d have thought he’d shot and killed a child. The donations were dodgy, not…
Someone get Texas Secretary of State David Whitley one sequined glove, please. Last week Whitley dethroned the late Michael Jackson as king of the moonwalk, appearing to move forward while walking backward. On Jan. 25, Whitley and Attorney General Ken Paxton announced that as many as 58,000 noncitizens may have…
D Magazine’s Tim Rogers got the scoop Wednesday afternoon. Three Dallas City Council members — mayoral candidate Scott Griggs, Philip Kingston and Omar Narvaez — received thousands in campaign donations from attorney James Stanton III’s four children, who are ages 5-11, according to the Morning News. The donations don’t violate…
William Barr, nominee to become U.S. attorney general, was right. Unindicted co-conspirators don’t get enough respect. Barr said at his Senate confirmation hearing: “If you’re not going to indict someone, you don’t stand up there and unload negative information about the person. That’s not the way the [Justice] Department does…
It’s still January, a couple of months away from the meat of the 2019 Texas legislative session, and it’s already easy to see the difference in the way Dallas state representatives and senators are representing their city. Wednesday afternoon, Nathan Johnson, the Park Cities and North Dallas state senator who…
Friday afternoon came the breathless proclamation from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Texas Secretary of State David Whitley: Ninety-five thousand noncitizens were on Texas’ voter rolls, and 58,000 of them had cast ballots between 1996 and 2018. Friday night and Saturday, progressive groups and Democrats pushed back, suggesting that…
Texas’ long fight over voter ID, settled just last year, is already old news. The state’s new battlefront in the war for and against voter rights is over citizenship verification, and it looks like Texas could be in for another round of litigation. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and newly…
Cold, quiet weekday afternoon. One of my favorite East Dallas sausage and egg places, Barbec’s on Garland Road, is still as the tomb, empty but for this table, where a waitress hovers over five of us with a pot of hot coffee. Here I am, chatting up a table full…
