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Ross Ramsey co-founded The Texas Tribune in 2009 and served as its executive editor until his retirement in 2022. He wrote regular columns on politics, government and public policy. Before joining the Tribune, he was editor and co-owner of Texas Weekly. He did a 28-month stint in government with the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. Before that, he reported for the Houston Chronicle, the Dallas Times Herald, as a Dallas-based freelancer for regional and national magazines and newspapers, and for radio stations in Denton and Dallas.
Less than two days after approving a state budget that cuts $23 billion from current spending, Rep. Jim Pitts says House leaders are already talking among themselves about how much more money they'd be willing to spend. Full Story
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There aren't any maps yet, but now there are two Texas redistricting lawsuits. The Mexican American Legislative Caucus has filed suit to block the use of what it calls flawed census data in drawing new political maps for legislative, congressional and State Board of Education districts. Full Story
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For the latest installment of our nonscientific survey of political and policy insiders, we asked how the state's top leaders are doing so far this session and which lawmakers — and which freshmen lawmakers — are standing out, for better or for worse. Full Story
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Anything else would have been a surprise. Full Story
The Texas House started with a $164.5 billion budget and ended with the same total. But lawmakers spent the better part of a weekend making changes inside the budget for 2012-13 before giving it their approval, 98 to 49. Full Story
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Tan's wall-to-wall coverage of the budget (with more from the rest of the Trib crew, interviews with some of the freshmen seeing this up close for the first time and a map of how it works), Philpott on the similarities between budget worries in Texas and those elsewhere, M. Smith explains school finance, Ramshaw on the dwindling insurance options for orphans, Grissom on legal fights over the drugs used for state executions, Aguilar on the run-up to the debate over sanctuary cities, Stiles maps the diversity of Texas counties, Galbraith on efforts to recycle plastic bags and Hamilton on calls for "entrepreneurship" at the University of Texas: The best of our best content from March 28 to April 1, 2011. Full Story
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We liveblogged the full debate over HB 1, the House version of the general appropriations bills for the next biennium, which passed late Sunday night 98 to 49. Full Story
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It’s not just that state Sen. Robert Duncan doesn’t like gambling. He doesn’t think he could get legalized casinos approved. But Duncan's got a mission: Find $5 billion to $6 billion. Full Story
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Numbers aren’t all that’s buried in the budget. Lawmakers have filed hundreds of amendments that are political in nature, from repealing in-state tuition for illegal immigrants to trying to push Planned Parenthood out of the family planning business. Full Story
The House is scheduled to take up the full budget on Friday, and members filed more than 400 pages of amendments in advance of that debate. Here's the full set, in searchable, electronic form. Full Story
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