Texas House GOP-led committee passes voter suppression bill
After several hours of public testimony on Monday, a Republican-led committee in the Texas House advanced Senate Bill 1, a GOP “election integrity” bill that would make it more difficult to access the ballot box. The bill passed the House Select Committee on...
FDA grants full approval to Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine
On Monday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) made the long-awaited announcement that it was granting full approval to Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine. That move now has implications in Texas, where Governor Abbott had previously issued an executive order banning...
Musings: Timid Souls
With a group of Texas House Democrats returning to the floor of the statehouse in waves over the past week, my mind keeps going back to the epic “Man in the Arena” speech by Teddy Roosevelt. The speech, which Roosevelt gave in 1910 while touring Africa and Europe...
Haiti hit by 7.2 magnitude earthquake, here’s how to help
A 7.2- magnitude earthquake over the weekend has left over 2,000 Haitians dead and over 12,000 injured in Saint-Louis du Sud, Haiti. According to statistics from the USAID Disaster Assistance Response Team, 83,300 houses have been damaged from the earthquake and...
Texas requests mortuary trailers due to COVID surge
Facing what could be the worst COVID surge yet, Texas is requesting five mortuary trailers from the federal government in anticipation of a spike in deaths. The state requested the trailers from FEMA on August 4 after officials reviewed data from the latest wave of...
The census and what it means for redistricting in Texas
Last week the U.S. Census Bureau released the long-anticipated 2020 redistricting data. Though there were fears of a serious undercount in Texas thanks to meddling from the Trump administration and the COVID-19 pandemic, the demographic data from the Census revealed...
Quorum restored in Texas House after string of surprise Dem defections
Enough members were present in Austin on Thursday evening for Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan to declare a quorum present. The return of quorum comes after a string of defections in recent days by Democrats who fled to Washington to prevent voter suppression...
Meet the new texas signal
We’re so excited to see you. We built Texas Signal because we knew progressives need a counterpunch in the age of misinformation and disinformation in Texas. As traditional and trusted media outlets have closed, they’ve frequently been replaced across the state and...
“They betrayed our cause”: Ana-Maria Ramos dishes on Democrat defections
Ana-Maria Ramos was speechless. It was last Monday, August 9, and the Texas State Representative (D-102) was in a meeting with several House Democrats in Washington, D.C., when the news broke: Four of their peers had, without warning, abandoned their posts and...
Op-Ed: Three ways redistricting could shift power on the Harris County, Texas commissioners court
Now that the Census Bureau has issued 2020 population results, jurisdictions across the country have the once-in-a-decade task of preparing for redistricting. Redistricting is the constitutionally-required task of re-drawing political boundaries for electoral...
Afghan refugees arrive in Texas
In the aftermath of the rapid collapse of the Afghan government, the United States is hurriedly trying to evacuate Afghans that provided critical assistance in its longest war. Thousands of these refugees will enter America through Texas, and at least hundreds will...
Rep. Garnet Coleman says he’ll be the latest Democrat to return to Texas House
It’s been nearly two weeks since Gov. Greg Abbott called a second special session and, thus far, Texas House Democrats have managed to stay away from the State Capitol. But unlike the first month of their quorum break, during which more than 50 members of the minority...
Paris ISD Changes District policy for mask wearing
On Tuesday, Paris Independent School District in Paris, Texas changed their district’s policy to implement mask wearing in their dress code for all faculty and students. Paris is a rural town about 100 miles from Dallas with 25,000 residents. Lamar County, where Paris...
Greg Abbott’s stunning COVID hypocrisy
Tuesday afternoon was another chaotic moment in Texas politics when the Governor’s office informed the public that Greg Abbott tested positive for COVID-19. But in the aftermath of that announcement and the revelations about all the precautions Abbott gets to utilize...
Op-Ed: Texas is Our Texas, Too
This past May, I sat in front of legislators to testify against their attempts to ban gender-affirming health care for transgender children in Texas, including my own transgender son. Despite COVID-19 and my aversion to public speaking, I traveled to Austin many times...