Five takeaways from Texas’ third special legislative session
Gov. Greg Abbott’s office says there’s no plan for a fourth special session at this time. If this was the final special session of the year, what did we learn from it? Full Story
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![The north side of the Capitol building on Oct. 6, 2021.]()
Credit: Michael Gonzalez/The Texas Tribune -
White House calls Texas’ bill targeting transgender student athletes “hateful”
The comment further hints at a possible fight between the state and the Biden administration over transgender rights. Full Story
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![Transgender rights activists gather outside the entrance to the House floor in Austin on May 23, 2021.]()
Credit: Jordan Vonderhaar for The Texas Tribune -
Gov. Greg Abbott didn’t get everything he wanted in the special session. Will he call lawmakers back for more?
The latest special session ended without lawmakers passing two of Abbott’s priorities — legislation to increase an illegal-voting penalty and to ban vaccine mandates by any entity in Texas. Full Story
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![Gov. Greg Abbott speaks to the Senate at the Capitol on Jan. 12, 2021.]()
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After Texas and other states passed new voting restrictions, federal bills could expand ballot access. Here’s what you need to know.
The U.S. Senate is expected to vote this week on the Freedom to Vote Act, which would supersede some of Texas’ new elections law. Full Story
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![A polling location in the Performing Arts Center at Texas State University in San Marcos during early voting on Oct. 19, 2020.]()
Credit: Jordan Vonderhaar for The Texas Tribune -
After months of store closures and layoffs, border businesses eager to welcome back Mexican customers Nov. 8
For 19 months, business owners along the Texas-Mexico border have seen a drastic drop in customers because of COVID-19 travel restrictions. With land borders scheduled to reopen Nov. 8, they are banking on a return to pre-pandemic sales. Full Story
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![Shoppers buy traditional flowers for the upcoming Mexican holiday, "Día de Los Muertos," near the Paso del Norte International Bridge in El Paso on Oct. 17, 2021.]()
Credit: Ivan Pierre Aguirre for The Texas Tribune -
Houston state Rep. Dan Huberty, who spearheaded Texas’ 2019 public education overhaul in Legislature, to retire
Earlier this year, Huberty was arrested in Montgomery County after he crashed his car into another vehicle and failed a sobriety test. The lawmaker was driving home from the Capitol in late April. Full Story
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![State Rep. Dan Huberty, R-Houston, speaks from the dais at the Capitol on May 4, 2021.]()
Credit: Jordan Vonderhaar for The Texas Tribune -
It’s cheap, easy to make and in demand overseas. So why can’t this Texas-born COVID-19 vaccine break into the U.S. market?
A Houston vaccine team would like a U.S. distributor but for now focuses its efforts abroad to inoculate those in countries where COVID-19 variants surface more quickly. Full Story
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![Maria Bottazzi, left, and Peter Hotez at the Tropical Medicine Lab at Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development in Houston on Oct. 5, 2021.]()
Credit: Justin Rex for The Texas Tribune -
Texas legislators pass most — but not all — of Gov. Greg Abbott’s priority measures in final flurry of lawmaking
Lawmakers approved new political maps and decided how to spend COVID-19 relief money. But they didn’t pass bills about vaccine mandates or the criminal penalty for illegal voting. Full Story
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![Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan listens to a colleague while presiding over the chamber on Oct. 18, 2021, shortly before the Texas Legislature ended its third special session of the year.]()
Credit: Evan L'Roy for The Texas Tribune -
Texas bill to block COVID-19 vaccine mandates for employers failed in Legislature after business groups rallied against it
A prohibition on vaccine mandates was one of Gov. Greg Abbott’s priorities for the special session, but it did not have enough support in the Legislature. Full Story
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![Diana Phipps pulls up doses of the Pfizer vaccine into syringes at a clinic organized by the Travis County Mobile Vaccine Collaborative at Rodriguez Elementary School on July 28, 2021.
Source diversity info: White Female]()
Credit: Sophie Park/The Texas Tribune -
Texas colleges and universities get more than $3 billion for campus construction projects under bill headed to Gov. Greg Abbott
Before ending the special session Tuesday, Texas lawmakers reached a deal to allocate roughly $3.3 billion to higher education institutions for capital projects. The price tag went up from the Senate's original proposal. Full Story
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![Students walk through campus at the University of Texas at Dallas on Aug. 27, 2021.]()
Credit: Shelby Tauber for The Texas Tribune -
Texas voters will decide whether to lower their property tax payments after Legislature completes last-minute Hail Mary
If voters approve the measure next year, it will raise the state’s homestead exemption from $25,000 to $40,000 for school district property taxes, netting the average homeowner about $176 in savings. Full Story
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![An Aerial image of a suburban neighborhood in San Marcos on October 18, 2021.]()
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Texas Republicans send Gov. Greg Abbott a new congressional map that protects GOP power, reduces influence of voters of color
After a few last-minute alterations, the state's new congressional districts are drawn and await the scrutiny of federal courts. Already, one lawsuit has been filed claiming the new maps intentionally discriminate against Latino voters. Full Story
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![A map of Tarrant County shows Hispanics' voting age population on the House floor on Oct. 12, 2021.]()
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U.S. Supreme Court considers taking up abortion providers’ challenge to Texas’ near-total ban on the procedure
Providers want the Supreme Court to take the case before an appeals court hears it. The high court gave defendants, including Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, until Thursday to respond to the providers’ request. Full Story
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![Protestors joined several Democratic lawmakers outside of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on May 21, 2019, to show their opposition to the recent abortion ban implemented by several states.]()
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First lawsuit filed challenging new Texas political maps as intentionally discriminatory
Before they’re even signed into law, the state’s new maps for congressional and statehouse districts have been challenged in federal court by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Full Story
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![Texas House of Representatives.]()
Credit: Bob Daemmrich for The Texas Tribune -
Longtime U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett will run in the Austin area's new congressional district
The Austin Democrat, who has served in Congress since 1995, currently represents the 35th District, which stretches down to San Antonio. He will run in the newly created 37th District located in Travis County. Full Story
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![U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett D-Texas, at a press conference at Foundation Communities in Austin on Sept. 2, 2021.]()
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Analysis: An election slogan you won’t hear in Texas in 2022
“Turn Texas Blue” was the Democratic rally cry in the 2020 elections. It didn’t happen, and with the maps the Texas Legislature is drawing, it’s not in the cards for 2022, either. Full Story
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![A map of Tarrant County shows Hispanics' voting age population on the House floor on Oct. 12, 2021.]()
Credit: Michael Gonzalez/The Texas Tribune -
Austin voters could put hundreds more police officers on the streets after last year’s budget cuts
A November vote on whether Austin should hire hundreds of new police officers is shaping up as a test of Austinites’ appetite for police reform. Full Story
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![The Austin Police Department building with the Austin skyline in the background on March 22, 2021.]()
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Texas bill restricting transgender student athletes’ sports participation heads to Gov. Greg Abbott
If the bill becomes law, Texas will join at least five other states that have passed such legislation. Full Story
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![A high school volleyball player gets ready to serve during a game.]()
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Texas congressional map heads into last-minute negotiations as Democrats decry shortage of Hispanic representation
Though people of color drove nearly all of Texas’ population gains in the last decade, the proposed map gives white voters control of both of the two new congressional districts the state earned. Full Story
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![People look at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 21, 2021.]()
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The law that prompted a school administrator to call for an “opposing” perspective on the Holocaust is causing confusion across Texas
Lawmakers say schools are misinterpreting a new measure designed to keep critical race theory out of public schools. Full Story
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![An empty classroom at Chapa Middle School in Kyle on Aug. 24, 2021.]()
Credit: Jordan Vonderhaar for The Texas Tribune