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Ross Ramsey

Ross Ramsey’s staff photo

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.

Latest Contributions

  • The Decider

    By Ross Ramsey

    It's like finding out the last season of your favorite TV show was a dream sequence: Kay Bailey Hutchison was never really leaving the U.S. Senate after all. Full Story 

  • TribWeek: In Case You Missed It

    By Ross Ramsey

    Hamilton on Tarleton State's fuss over a play featuring a gay Jesus and how it never got to the stage, E. Smith and a gang of political types with unsolicited advice for Bill White, Stiles on Texans' slothful approach to the census, Aguilar on immigrant detention policy and mentally ill inmates, Grissom on federal immigration reform, Rapoport on an effort to protect the state's prepaid college tuition program, Stiles and E. Smith interview Houston Mayor Annise Parker on NASA and the economy and staying out of state politics, Hu on the final move in U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's long and very public fretting over whether to stay in office, Ramsey on Hutchison's ripple through the political pond, Ramshaw on how federal health care legislation looks to Texas budget-writers, Garcia-Ditta on shrinking capacity at Texas mental hospitals, E. Smith has a conversation with former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, and Hamilton, Ramshaw and M. Smith on primary runoffs in Plano, San Antonio, and Central Texas. The best of our best from March 29 to April 2, 2010. Full Story 

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  • Kay in 2012?!?

    By Ross Ramsey

    She said she would limit her time in the U.S. Senate to two terms and is currently serving a third. She said she would resign her federal office to run for governor and didn't. She said she would quit after the primary and hasn't. So who's to say she won't reconsider in two years and run for a fourth term? And what of all those would-be successors? Full Story 

  • 2010: Flo Says No

    By Ross Ramsey

    State Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, is no longer a candidate for U.S. Senate and says she'll refund about $1 million to her contributors. Full Story 

    State Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano
    Credit: Shapiro campaign

  • TribBlog: McCall's Off to College [updated]

    By Ross Ramsey

    Brian McCall will apparently be the next chancellor of the Texas State University System. The board of regents picked the state representative, a Plano Republican, as the sole finalist to replace Charles Matthews in that job. They made the announcement on Monday. Full Story 

    State Rep. Brian McCall, R-Plano
    Credit: House photo

  • TribBlog: Holding Steady

    By Ross Ramsey

    Texas unemployment held steady at 8.2 percent last month, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. That's the same seasonally adjusted rate as in January, December, and November, but it's up from 6.8 percent in February of 2009. Full Story 

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  • Redistricting Reality

    By Ross Ramsey

    In 2011, political mapmakers will take the latest census numbers (Texas is expected to have a population of more than 25 million) and use them to draw new congressional and legislative districts. The last time this was done, in 2003, Republican mappers took control of the U.S. House by peeling away seats from the Democrats. This time, Texas is poised to add up to four seats to its congressional delegation — and early numbers indicate bad news ahead for West Texas and other areas that haven't kept up with the state's phenomenal growth. Full Story 

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    Credit: Matt Stiles

  • The First Corporate Ad

    By Ross Ramsey

    The first political ads bought by a corporation in Texas appeared in East Texas newspapers just weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court effectively ended the state's ban on that kind of spending. They challenged the Republican bona fides of state Rep. Chuck Hopson of Jacksonville, a Democrat who switched parties in November and ran in a three-way GOP primary. Full Story 

    The KDR Development Inc. advertisement that ran in the Panola Watchman