Last year, Grand Prairie state Rep. Kirk England announced he was switching to the Democratic party, making news across Texas as the first lawmaker in years to undergo such a transition. But recently, yard signs have been spotted in his district asking voters to Re-elect Kirk England, “Republican for state representative.”
Now, here’s where it [...]
Written on September 30, 2008 | Posted in
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Answer: By requiring the state to follow the letter of the law. According to the Texas Politics Blog, AG Greg Abbott must decide whether or not to force the state legislature to vote on multiple secondary education bilingual programs, or none at all.
Currently, Texas public schools promote only Spanish as an alternative for students who [...]
Written on September 30, 2008 | Posted in
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Looks like the hall monitors may get a shot at the big leagues after all. Allan Polunsky of the Office of Public Safety has asked the attorney general whether Polunsky’s department can set up sobriety checkpoints in Texas. According to Texas Politics Blog, Polunsky wrote:
“Driver license checkpoints could potentially serve significant public interests in traffic safety [...]
Written on September 29, 2008 | Posted in
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There are few acts of campaign cowardice more egregious than ducking a debate against a credible challenger. What’s the point of election, if not to convince voters that you’re right on the issues?
Even Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez, whose management of the jail was so lax the feds had to get involved, agreed to a [...]
Written on September 29, 2008 | Posted in
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So this is choice: Houston state Sen. John Whitmire has asked state leaders to let him to chair a special legislative review of the Hurricane Ike recovery efforts. And he tells the Chronicle that he wants to look at whether CenterPoint Energy should be mandated to replace wooden electrical poles with concrete or metal ones. [...]
Right now, there’s really only one big story in Dallas: The school district’s massive budget shortfall that will almost certainly result in hundreds and hundreds of contracted teachers losing their jobs, perhaps as soon as December.
Last year the number of recognized or exemplary schools in the district doubled. Things were looking up for the public [...]
Written on September 26, 2008 | Posted in
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The Houston Chronicle, the Galveston Daily News, the Dallas Morning News, the New York Times and the Associated Press are going to court to lift a gag order in the criminal case against federal judge Samuel B. Kent (here’s the Galveston Daily News story).
The judge is accused of sexually touching his female former case manager, [...]
Written on September 25, 2008 | Posted in
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A struggling bank makes loans to a prominent businessman who offers flimsy excuses on why he can’t pay back his debt. The gentleman than begs a federal agency for a helping hand, claiming he can’t come up with the money.
No, it’s not a scene ripped from today’s headlines — this was in 1993, and the [...]
Written on September 25, 2008 | Posted in
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The Houston Press released its annual Best of Houston 2008 issue and we were thrilled to see one of our favorite bloggers win Best Local Blog.
We couldn’t agree more. Off the Kuff is a must-read over here at Texas Watchdog. His interviews of folks running for office are excellent. And we really appreciate his analysis [...]
Written on September 25, 2008 | Posted in
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The Texas Department of Transportation wants to hire someone from the outside to help open up the agency’s books and processes — and the cost will run into the seven figures, the Texas Politics blog reports:
Agency staff say they want an outside consultant’s expertise and vantage point. That’s necessary, they say, to ward off concerns [...]
Written on September 24, 2008 | Posted in
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The state consumer credit commissioner’s office — the state agency that regulates car loan places, payday loans places, pawnshops, and other lenders who aren’t banks — has issued to licenses to some folks without required criminal background checks, the state auditor said Wednesday. (Read the press release here and the whole audit report as [...]
Written on September 24, 2008 | Posted in
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From PolitickerTX:
Four members of the Texas congressional delegation made Roll Call’s list of the 50 wealthiest members of Congress. Three Republicans - U.S. Reps. Michael McCaul of Austin, Kenny Marchant of Coppell, and Randy Neugebauer of Lubbock - made the list. U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Austin was the only Texas Democrat in the top [...]
Written on September 24, 2008 | Posted in
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First Hurricane Ike stormed through the city. Now Hurricane White has followed suit.
Our mayor directed his hot wind at government workers from Georgia, then blustered some more toward one of our own Harris County sheriff’s deputies. The Houston Chronicle reports that Bill White — frustrated that thousands of Houstonians were waiting on relief supplies — [...]
Written on September 23, 2008 | Posted in
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As it turns out, the Resource Center of Dallas was right–and the Dallas Police Department was wrong.
The loopy, typo-ridden homophobia questionnaire–”bisexual are actually completely gay?”–that employees of the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office were asked to fill out had been used before. Police recruits have taken the survey in the past too. After a police spokesperson [...]
Written on September 22, 2008 | Posted in
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Oh, wait. What’s that? No one told you your hotel was a registered FEMA housing participant? Sheesh. Sorry about that.
Austin’s News 8 reports that FEMA is struggling to keep up with evacuees’ housing requests, and Austin Convention Center evacuees told the station that even some FEMA representatives are having trouble getting through to FEMA HQ. [...]
Written on September 22, 2008 | Posted in
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(And not because we’re taking sides. But because we like to watch someone here actually run a campaign.)
At some point, Tarrant County state Sen. Kim Brimer has to start fighting back, right? Because right now, Democratic challenger Wendy Davis is so kicking his ass. And it’s not just that she has a professional-looking [...]
Written on September 22, 2008 | Posted in
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It’s because of the government-imposed media blackouts.
The Houston Chronicle’s Rosanna Ruiz pens a story today about rumors that run rampant in the aftermath of a storm such as Ike:
The stories about Ike’s yet-unaccounted-for victims invariably come from those who say they know someone who has photos of them or who talked to an acquaintance of [...]
Written on September 21, 2008 | Posted in
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Bloggers are buzzing with debate about the bizarre homophobia survey handed out recently to employees of the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office. There’s also some discussion of Sheriff Lupe Valdez, who is running against Republican challenger Lowell Cannaday.
On to the blogs:
Dallas Voice, a well-respected gay newspaper, asks if yours truly is a tool of Cannaday. Full [...]
Written on September 20, 2008 | Posted in
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Houston has blown through (pardon the phrase) its entire municipal rainy day fund — $20 mil — and is taking an extra $5 million out of a road fund because of Hurricane Ike, The Chronicle is reporting tonight.
… City Controller Annise Parker said the disaster shows Houston should always keep at least $50 million on [...]
Written on September 19, 2008 | Posted in
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What have McAllen officials being doing in Germany on public business? Some folks in McAllen would like to know.
McAllen’s economic development agency is suing the state attorney general to try to keep closed some records the AG says are public, The McAllen Monitor reports. The Monitor asked this summer for access to records pertaining [...]
Written on September 19, 2008 | Posted in
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After Texas Watchdog broke the news of the survey on homosexuality handed out to employees of the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department, the group that presented the survey, the Resource Center of Dallas, claimed they had used it before in a training workshop with members of the Dallas Police Department.
It was a smart way to defuse [...]
Written on September 19, 2008 | Posted in
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Despite being tagged as a liberal group, the ACLU has a sterling record of fighting for all types of people–from white supremacists to Rush Limbaugh–if their rights are being violated. And, on the flip side, they’re not afraid to take on left-leaning causes if they’re regarding the Constitution as a list of suggestions. So we [...]
Written on September 19, 2008 | Posted in
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