It is the 8 a.m. assembly at Cactus Elementary School, located on the bleak plains of the Texas Panhandle. Kids with colorful backpacks and sleepy eyes sit cross-legged on the gym floor while their principal kick-starts the day: “Good morning, Cactus Elementary!” The students crow in response. Many of them …
AUSTIN, Texas — Former Republican Rep. Pete Sessions’ climb back into Congress was already off to a rough start, with some in his own party suggesting he was carpetbagging by leaving the Dallas district he lost last fall to try to get elected in a far more rural and politically …
A wave of G.O.P. House members leaving Congress is a political opportunity for hungry Democrats. AUSTIN, Tex. — The Republican Party of Texas appears to be molting. Last week, Representative Bill Flores became the 10th Texas Republican in the House to announce his retirement since the 2016 election, and the …
Bathroom bills are out; funding schools is in The key to understanding Texas is the state Capitol in Austin. It is there that legislators meet only every other year to pass new laws and set the state budget. The elegant domed building is several feet taller than the Capitol in Washington, …
And now, the Texas Tussle. Ted Cruz versus Beto O’Rourke! In verbal combat! Yes, people, we just had the first big debate of the election season. The super-cool El Paso congressman versus the U.S. senator so unbeloved that his own party is moaning about the likability problem. Challenged to say …
HOUSTON — Days after a top adviser to President Trump questioned Senator Ted Cruz’s chances of winning re-election, the Texas lawmaker casually stepped into the pinnacle of his hometown’s energy industry on Tuesday — the lobby of the Petroleum Club of Houston, on the 35th floor of a downtown skyscraper. …
The national party wasn’t expecting to have to defend a well-known senator in a conservative bastion. With a string of polls showing GOP Sen. Ted Cruz’s lead slipping, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick showed up in Washington on July 25 to deliver an urgent plea to White House officials: Send …
In another example of the administration’s animus towards Hispanics, officials are forcing U.S. citizens to prove the legitimacy of their births. Extending it’s fight against immigration generally, whether or not it is lawful, there are now signs the administration is trying aggressively to strip existing citizenship rights, and the privileges that go …
Republicans still dominate, but there’s a shift in the midterm-election breeze. The longest recorded drought in Texas lasted from 1950 to 1957. That doesn’t count the Democrats’ dry spell over the past quarter century. They haven’t won a U.S. Senate or governor’s race since 1990. They’ve lostevery statewide election since 1994. Republicans have …
With its growing Latino population and blue cities, the Lone Star State feels like it should be at least purple. If only people would actually vote. It is difficult to remember now, but there was a fleeting moment in 2016 when it seemed possible that public revulsion with Donald Trump …
In the country’s busiest oil patch, where the rig count has climbed by nearly one-third in the past year, drillers, service providers and trucking companies have been poaching in all corners, recruiting everyone from police officers to grocery clerks. Jerry Morales, the mayor of Midland, Texas, and a local restaurateur, …
Hurricane season begins in two weeks, but little has been done since last year’s devastating storms to make vulnerable communities more resilient. With hurricane season only two weeks away, I asked Dr. Irwin Redlener, the director of Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness, if communities struck by last year’s devastating storms were …