Charges will not be filled against the eight officers involved in the death of Marvin Scott III
On Tuesday a grand jury cleared eight officers of any wrongdoing and will not be charged in the death of Marvin Scott III, a Black man killed in police custody in Mckinney, Texas on March 14. The grand jury also released a statement regarding the case: "We are...
Ronny Jackson: A White House doctor turned MAGA Texas Republican
He’s only been in office a few months, but Congressman Ronny Jackson has truly embraced his role as an ultra-conservative Texas Republican with a penchant for outlandish and baffling statements. With his latest stunt, calling on Joe Biden to receive a test for...
‘We are out of options’: State lawmakers plead with Congress to act on voting rights
Sixty-two Democrats from Texas are among more than 480 state legislators who have signed a letter to Congress urging leaders from both parties to pass voting rights and campaign finance reform legislation. The state lawmakers warned that 400 anti-voter bills...
An exclusive one-on-one with Beto O’Rourke
Beto O’Rourke’s no stranger to traversing Texas and turning out crowds around the state. But over the past month, the former Congressman, U.S. Senate candidate, and potential gubernatorial contender has done so for a different reason than in the past. Namely, to...
Chris Turner: Abbott’s veto ‘dangerous attack’ on separation of powers
On Friday, Gov. Greg Abbott quietly vetoed a section of Senate Bill 1, the general appropriations bill funding the Texas government for the next two years. The victim of the partial veto was Article X, the legislature — something never before seen in Texas...
Beto’s For the People Act rally draws thousands outside Texas Capitol
Texas' summer heat was beating down yesterday in Austin when former Congressman and presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke took the stage in front of thousands of onlookers. The crowd, which rally organizers estimated ran between 3,000-5,000 attendees and included...
Commemorating Juneteenth, officially a national holiday.
On Thursday, President Joe Biden signed a bill making June 19 or Juneteenth a national holiday in the United States. June 19,1865 is marked as the day the last group of enslaved Black people in Galveston, TX learned of their freedom. This day marks two and a half...
Climate change alone cost Houston $13 billion during Harvey, study says
It’s widely known that Hurricane Harvey, one of the costliest storms in U.S. history, was supercharged by climate change. At least three separate studies have tried to quantify to what degree. In 2017, one research group led by Berkeley National Laboratory climate...
Gina Ortiz Jones testifies in Senate confirmation hearing
On Wednesday, Gina Ortiz Jones testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee in her confirmation hearing for the position of Undersecretary of the Air Force. Jones, a former Air Force intelligence officer and Iraq War veteran who previously ran as a Democrat in...
Returned from Washington, Texas Democrats reflect and regroup
For several Texas House and Senate members, the past week has been a whirlwind of meetings, photos, and press hits in Washington. They traveled to Washington to make a pitch regarding federal voting rights legislation, and now they finally have some time to reflect on...
Abbott makes expensive power grab to fund border wall
Gov. Greg Abbott held a press conference on Wednesday detailing the construction of his new border wall. Blaming Biden for abandoning Trump’s border wall, Abbott said Texas taxpayers would have to “step up.” To begin paying for the border wall, Abbott said the...
Gun safety activists react to Abbott signing permitless carry
At ten this morning temperatures in Dallas were already hitting ninety degrees, but that didn’t stop a group of dedicated gun safety activists from the local Moms Demand Action chapter from staging a press conference to call out Texas’s newest extreme gun legislation,...
Musings: Dropped
I love a used bookstore. I think it stems from my childhood when my mother would take my brother and me to the one used book emporium in the small town I grew up in and we would explore the stacks and shelves of books on a quest for hidden treasures as exotic and...
Veronica Escobar introduces legislation to award Medal of Honor to Latino WWI soldier
Rep. Veronica Escobar (D- El Paso) has introduced legislation to award the Medal of Honor to Marcelino Serna, a Mexican-American soldier who served in World War I. Historians and advocates have long argued that Serna was denied the nation’s highest military honor due...
Texas Democrats go to Washington to advocate for voting rights legislation
Less than two weeks after the historic walkout at the Capitol to stop Senate Bill 7, Texas House Democrats were again on the move, but this time nearly two thousand miles away in Washington, where some members even met with Vice President Kamala Harris. Members of the...