Texas Republicans want to stop all-night voting in Harris County
Texas Republicans have made it clear that voter suppression is a legislative priority, and one of their biggest targets involves Harris County. State Rep. Jared Patterson filed a bill last week that would restrict voting hours at early voting locations to between 6...
Musings: Greg Abbott Doesn’t Care if You Die
I usually try to be a little more clever with the titles to these columns, but yesterday’s news deserves to be called out for what it is. Less than 10 percent of Texans have received a Covid-19 vaccine, and less than half of that number has gotten both doses. With...
Lawmakers urge Texans to continue masking up despite Abbott’s orders
Health experts, elected officials, and Democrats in Texas are concerned that Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order lifting the statewide mask mandate and fully opening businesses will set the state back in the fight against COVID-19. “If you’re interested in knowing what...
Abbott rescinds mask mandate and announces state is reopening to 100 percent
Today at a press conference in Lubbock, Governor Greg Abbott announced a sweeping executive order that would end a statewide mask mandate, and allow businesses to start operating at full capacity next week. “It is now time to open Texas 100 percent,” Abbott said in a...
Texas Dems announce candidate training program
Texas Democrats and the National Democratic Training Committee announced Tuesday the arrival of a new candidate training program. The four-week training program will teach candidates about campaign finance, messaging, and managing grassroots support in preparation for...
Musings: On the Road in the State of Denial
They stuck out like sore thumbs, just like the dilapidated houses often found at the end of their gravel driveways. It starts with a lone sign at the end of a long drive somewhere south of Glen Rose and grows into a spattering as you pass through a small town square....
Joe Biden visits Houston as snowstorm recovery continues
President Joe Biden visited Houston with First Lady Jill Biden on Friday to meet with officials and aid workers following last week's devastating snowstorm. During his visit, Biden stopped by the Houston Food Bank and traveled to the Harris County Emergency Operations...
Texas Democrats have been trying to fix ERCOT for years
Texas’ Republican leaders are trying to avoid responsibility for the disastrous blackouts by passing the buck to ERCOT. However, the Republican state government is still responsible for overseeing ERCOT, a responsibility they have spectacularly failed....
Orlando isn’t as nice as Cancún, Cruz tells CPAC crowd
"I gotta say, Orlando is awesome. It's not as nice as Cancún. But it's nice,” Sen. Ted Cruz told a crowd of attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday. Cruz’s opening remarks were referring to his flight to Cancún to escape last week’s...
Multiple candidates emerge for a special congressional election
Governor Greg Abbott officially slated May 1 as the primary date for a special election in TX-06, and there are currently three democratic women vying in the jungle primary. If no candidate gets above fifty percent a run-off will occur with the top two finishers. The...
Texas Legislature kicks off hearings over grid failure
Lawmakers in the Texas Legislature held joint hearings in the state Senate and House on Thursday to get to the bottom of what happened during last week’s snowstorm and subsequent blackout. Among the first to testify to members of the House were NRG Energy CEO...
The Texas Blackouts are a reminder that America needs to modernize the grid
Last week’s disaster is a stark reminder that modern civilization is very dependent on electricity. Many issues were unique to the Lone Star State such as the lack of winterization or the isolated, deregulated nature of Texas’ grid. But grid problems are not unique to...
After Cancún trip, Ted Cruz will probably never see the White House
New polling this week shows that the trip Sen. Ted Cruz took to Cancún amid a catastrophic snowstorm in Texas may be the political blunder that ends his dream of becoming president. The recent national survey of registered voters by Morning Consult and Politico found...
Five takeaways from Texas Democrat’s big post-mortem 2020 report
This week, Texas Democrats released a detailed analysis of their performance in 2020, a post-mortem report of sorts requested by party officials after suffering losses in November that saw Democrats gain few statehouse seats and no congressional districts. The 29-page...
Biden’s disaster response stands in stark contrast with Trump’s
In the week following the devastating winter storm that left millions of Texans without power, President Biden is showing his ability to lead during a crisis. Last week, Biden declared a state of emergency in Texas and had FEMA send generators and other supplies...