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On a desperate deadline night in the Texas House, the quality of mercy was...
Good day Austin: They fashion themselves as apostles of the one true conservative Christian faith and there are, as it happens, twelve member of the Texas Freedom Caucus in the Texas House of...
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`Big John’ Cornyn would be crazy to take the FBI job. I say, `Go for it.’
Good morning Austin: U.S. Sen. John Cornyn was one of eight people interviewed Saturday by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to be President Donald Trump’s choice to replace James Comey as FBI...
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Coarse correction: How the Freedom Caucus changed the session’s trajectory.
Good day Austin: Just to be clear, of coarse we knew what we were doing with the sunset safety bill. #txlege #winning — Jonathan Stickland (@RepStickland) May 17, 2017 *course https://t.co/YZRj7H36k5...
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That didn’t escalate quickly. On the oddly subdued denouement of the bathroom...
(State Rep. Chris Paddie, R-Marshall, discusses his amendment to SB 2078, which would ban transgender-friendly bathroom policies in public schools, on the House floor on Sunday (TAMIR KALIFA/...
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In ‘Giant of the Senate,’ Al Franken suspends the ‘unwritten rules’ to write...
Good day Austin: Taking a break from the final excruciating grind of the 85th Texas legislative session, let us look for some diverting reading. How about Minnesota Sen. Al Franken’s new book, Giant...
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Robert Morrow throws his jester’s hat in the ring for Texas GOP chair on an...
(Wearing a jester cap that he calls his truth-telling hat, Robert Morrow is sworn in as chairman of the Travis County Republican Party by Melissa Goodwin, Justice of the 3rd Court of Appeals, at the...
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On Sine Die, Jonathan `Kill Bill’ Stickland takes credit for ‘bad bills’ that...
Happy Sine Die Austin: Having finished its business – or not – the House and Senate on the last day of the 140-day session, generally devote themselves to thanking their staffs, thanking each...
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Death threats and fighting words. On a sad and sour sine die.
Good morning Austin: Sine die left me profoundly sad. Two people I know and like threatened to kill one another on the House floor yesterday, or, more likely didn’t really threaten to kill one...
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Abbott calls special summer session; Alex Jones and Megyn Kelly had their...
Good morning Austin: Yesterday was my birthday. I turned 63, which is very old, or at least the oldest I’ve ever been. Busy day. Very busy. Gov. Greg Abbott called what promises to be an...
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`In Austin, Texas, Austin, Texas, owns your trees.’ On the poetry of Gov....
(TAMIR KALIFA/ AMERICAN-STATESMAN) Good morning Austin: First Reading has in the past taken note of the found poetry of American politics. When Donald Trump announced for president on June 16, 2015,...
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For Texas GOP, the special session may be The Most Dangerous Game
Good day Austin: It turns out that the Texas Disposal System’s Exotic Game Ranch in Creedmoor is really quite lovely and very cool. Not at all what I expected at a landfill on the outskirts of...
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Who’s the far-rightest of them all? On acing the Mark Jones lib-con score.
Good Friday Austin: Among the very first stories I wrote as political writer for the Statesman was a January 2013 piece under the headline, Texas House returns with largest contingent of new members...
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Why haven’t the Wilks brothers given Gov. Abbott so much as a straw of deer...
FILE – In this Dec. 29, 2015, file photo, Farris Wilks watches Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz speak in the community center named after his mother in Cisco, Texas. The “Reigniting the...
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Summer session: On bathrooms, Boy Scouts, Trump, Abbott, Patrick, Straus and...
Good day Austin: Since he launched his candidacy for re-election on July 14, and the start of the special session four days later, Gov. Greg Abbott has been doing a lot of radio and TV interviews from...
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Be nice and carry a gun: Freshman of the year Rep. Tom Oliverson’s nuanced...
Freshman State Rep. Tom Oliverson, R-Cypress, at his office in the Capitol on July 26, 2017. (TAMIR KALIFA/ AMERICAN-STATESMAN) Good day Austin: I wrote a story for Sunday’s Statesman that began as...
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Dan Patrick: Joe Straus is the speaker, so why isn’t he willing to talk?
Good morning Austin. The special session of the Texas Legislature is half over. Last night, the hour-long Facebook live Jim and Michael Show – that is Texas Right to Life’s Jim Graham and Empower...
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Friend and foe alert: Gov. Greg Abbott has $41 million, a campaign TV studio...
Good Monday Austin: Late Friday afternoon I walked over to the Texas Association of Broadcasters Building on East 11th Street a few blocks from the Capitol, to interview Gov. Greg Abbott about the...
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With a shiv to the cities: Dan Patrick and the practice of `positive...
Good Tuesday Austin: Yesterday morning I did a podcast with Jim Henson and Josh Blank of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas, one of a series of podcasts that is used as part of a...
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This is the way the special session ends. Not with a bang but a whimper.
Good morning Austin If you’re reading this, it means we haven’t yet been incinerated, in, as our president put it yesterday, “fire and fury like the world has never seen.” That’s good. It would be a...
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Texas Two Step: House stiffens penalties for nursing home ballot fraud while...
Good morning Austin: Toward the end of the regular session, Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bipartisan voter fraud bill that promised to expand voting by residents of nursing homes even as it eliminated the...
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