The latest courts news from The Texas Tribune.
Low voter turnout means that in a downballot statewide race like that between Debra Lehrmann and Rick Green the winner could be decided by chance — whose name comes first, or whose name sounds the friendliest. Green and Lehrmann are working to combat that dynamic in an unlikely place: Lubbock. Full Story
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Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins won’t go so far as to compare his support to the near-divine fervor of President Obama’s. But Watkins, who gained national prominence for using DNA evidence to exonerate nearly two dozen wrongfully convicted people in one of Texas’ notoriously tough-on-crime jurisdictions, will come close. “It’s a religious experience to vote for Craig Watkins,” Texas’ first African-American D.A. says without irony. Like Obama, he says, other Democratic candidates are “hanging their hats” on his re-election — and on the minority voters he draws to the polls. Like Obama, he’s got “a big target” on his back. “I’ve got to fight the political attacks coming at me from all directions," he insists. “I’ll say it publicly: If you throw punches at us, we’ll drop a bomb on you.” Full Story
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A small but growing number of state officials are warming to the idea of greater transparency and open access to raw government data, following a budding trend across the country. In the latest example, state Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, wrote to numerous Texas agencies, urging them to post "high-value" databases online in open-standard formats. Full Story
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Texans' lagging response to the U.S. census questionnaire is getting the attention of the higher-ups at the bureau. Full Story
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The U.S. Census Bureau recently launched an interactive map that makes it easy to track participation in the decennial count of households. The map application, which relies on the Google Maps API, visualizes the participation rates by color — orange for higher rates, and blue for lower rates. Full Story
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As of Friday, three-quarters of Texans hadn't returned their census forms. Only five states have a worse rate of participation so far. Full Story
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Grissom on the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to stay Hank Skinner's execution, Thevenot on the myth of Texas textbook influence, Rapoport on the wild card who was just elected to the State Board of Education, Ramshaw on the price of health care reform, Philpott on the just-enacted prohibition on dropping kids from the state's health insurance rolls, M. Smith on the best little pole tax in Texas, Ramsey on the first corporate political ad and the reality of 2011 redistricting, Stiles on the fastest-growing Texas counties, Aguilar on the vacany at top of Customs and Border Protection at the worst possible time, Galbraith on the state's lack of renewable energy sources other than wind and its investment in efficiency, and Hu and Hamilton on the runoffs to come in House districts 52 and 127. The best of our best from March 22 to 26, 2010. Full Story
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Rick Green and Debra Lehrmann face-off. And Green finds inspiration for a new campaign slogan — from The Texas Tribune. Full Story
The state says that if it has the power to ban alcohol in strip clubs, then it can levy a $5 "pole tax." But the clubs argued before the Texas Supreme Court on Thursday that nude dancing is a form of protected speech and that the tax violates the First Amendment. Full Story
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Hank Skinner was set to die Wednesday for the 1993 murders of his live-in girlfriend and her two mentally disabled adult sons — a crime he insists he did not commit. About an hour before he was to have poison pushed through his veins, the U.S. Supreme Court spared his life. Full Story
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The U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay this evening of the execution of death row inmate Hank Skinner, who was scheduled to die today. Full Story
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State Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, and state Rep. Elliott Naishtat, D-Austin, wrote Gov. Rick Perry letters today urging him to grant a 30-day reprieve for death-row inmate Hank Skinner, who is scheduled for execution tomorrow. Full Story
President Barack Obama signed the health care reform bill into law this morning. Texas and 12 other states promptly filed a lawsuit challenging its constitutionality. Read that lawsuit here. Full Story
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Listen to Attorney General Greg Abbott explain why he and other attorneys general are suing the federal government over the just-passed health care reform bill. Full Story
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The seven-member Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles today unanimously rejected death-row inmate Hank Skinner's request for a reprieve from his execution, which is scheduled for Wednesday. Full Story
We've added 14 school districts (from Aldine to San Antonio) and five counties (Bexar, Dallas, Harris, Tarrant and Travis) to our government payroll app — an addition of 140,000 public employees earning roughly $6 billion. Full Story
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"It's just a question of whether to file our own lawsuit or join a multistate effort," says Attorney General Greg Abbott. Full Story
Grissom on the 1.2 million Texans who've lost their licenses under the Driver Responsibility Act and the impenetrable black box that is the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, Ramshaw and Kraft on nurses with substance abuse problems and rehabilitation that can get them back to work, M. Smith finds it's not easy being Rick Green, Stiles on counting Texans (and everybody else), Rapoport on the State Board of Education's war with itself and the runoff in SBOE District 10, Thevenot's revealing interview with a big-city superintendent on closing bad schools, Aguilar on the tensions over water on the Texas-Mexico border, Hamilton on the new Coffee Party, Hu on Kesha Rogers and why her party doesn't want her, Philpott on the runoff in HD-47, Ramsey on Bill White and the politics of taxes, and E. Smith's conversation with Game Change authors Mark Halperin and John Heleimann: The best of our best from March 15 to 19. Full Story
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Barring the intervention of the U.S. Supreme Court, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles is Hank Skinner’s last hope for reprieve from the poison-filled syringe he is set to meet on Wednesday. The board makes life-or-death decisions, recommending to the governor whether an execution should be delayed, called off or carried out, yet it’s one of the least transparent agencies in state government. Full Story
State agencies have received nearly one million requests under the Texas Public Information Act since September. Full Story
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