The latest Garnet Coleman news from The Texas Tribune.
Texas remains behind most other states on issues related to educational achievement, public health and the environment, according to the latest version of the "Texas on the Brink" study, released Monday. Full Story
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While members of the Texas Legislature can no longer act as lobbyists before state agencies, plenty of lawmakers still manage to lobby local governments. Others find work that critics would classify as lobbying by another name. Full Story
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Full video of my Monday conversation about the future of Medicare with state Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, Anne Dunkelberg of the Center for Public Policy Priorities, John Goodman of the National Center for Policy Analysis and Leo Linbeck III of the Health Care Compact Alliance. Full Story
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Texas has already joined the two-dozen other states challenging the constitutionality of federal health care reform before the U.S. Supreme Court. Now, 27 Democratic state lawmakers have signed on to try to defend it. Full Story
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House lawmakers gave early approval to a bill designed to let Texas take control of Medicaid and Medicare from the federal government after a high-decibel argument between the measure’s Republican author and Democratic lawmakers. Full Story
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Rep. Lois Kolkhorst threw herself a life raft tonight, attaching her Health Care Compact bill — a measure that would seek to give Texas control of the purse strings for Medicare and Medicaid — onto a Senate health care bill that the House passed on third reading. Full Story
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Budget negotiators will likely adopt the House's 2012-13 family planning budget, or something close to it. The House proposed $37 million for family planning funding, while the Senate proposed $99 million. Full Story
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House lawmakers have given an early okay to Rep. Lois Kolkhorst’s bill to ask Washington for a block grant to run Medicaid — the joint state-federal health care program for children, the disabled and the very poor — as Texas sees fit. Full Story
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For a rare moment, Republicans in the lower chamber set aside their anti-Washington rhetoric and joined their Democratic colleagues to congratulate President Barack Obama for ordering the military action that led to the death of Osama bin Laden. Full Story
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The House tentatively passed a bill to provide students who have demonstrated college readiness with priority access to TEXAS Grants, the state's primary need-based financial aid program. Full Story
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If congressional Republicans' proposed solution to cutting health care costs — giving states block grants to fund Medicaid — sounds familiar, it’s because it is. Full Story
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Federal health care reform was the clear antagonist at today’s meeting of the House Select Committee on State Sovereignty. Republican lawmakers laid out a dozen bills aimed at getting the federal government out of Texas' health care system. Full Story
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State Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, filed a bill today that would make it a state jail felony to "lewdly violate" a person's privacy in a place like a public restroom. Full Story
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Proposed reductions in community-based mental health treatment, experts say, will mean more mentally ill Texans are likely to end up on the streets, in emergency rooms and behind bars, where it will cost local taxpayers even more to care for them. Full Story
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This week's TribCast features Ross, Reeve, Ben and Emily discussing the University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll, the buzz about Medicaid and concealed carry on college campuses. Full Story
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The Democratic state representative from Houston on his Republican colleagues' quest for a federal Medicaid waiver, the problem with block grants and what realistically the feds could do to help Texas and other states. Full Story
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Texas, like many other states, is proposing billions of dollars in cuts to help close a budget gap. But as Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports, one thing Texas has that nobody else does is $9 billion in a piggy bank called the Rainy Day Fund — and lawmakers are divided over whether to crack it open. Full Story
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Texas, like many other states, is proposing billions of dollars in cuts to help close a budget gap. But as Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports, one thing Texas has that nobody else does is $9 billion in a piggy bank called the Rainy Day Fund — and lawmakers are divided over whether to crack it open. Full Story
Democratic state lawmakers warned Monday of the "dangerous" cuts to public and higher education that are likely as the Legislature prepares to address a massive budget shortfall. Full Story
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Citing performance issues and alleging a conflict of interest, critics blasted Friday's decision by the Texas Lottery Commission to renew a 10-year operations contract worth up to $1 billion with Rhode Island-based GTECH Corporation, the state’s primary lottery vendor since its 1992 inception. Full Story
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