The latest Public Information Act news from The Texas Tribune.
The engine is primed to rev up the national economy, but businesses aren’t putting the pedal to the metal, Richard W. Fisher, the president and CEO of the Dallas Federal Reserve, said today. Full Story
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The Sunlight Foundation released an update to the interactive Capitol Words on Monday. The application allows users to search and compare words spoken by federal legislators using data from the Congressional Record. Full Story
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TxDOT's plan to hire five new executives — each paid up to at least $250,000 annually — has received heavy criticism. How do the salaries compare to those at other public entities? We checked our government salary database to find out. Full Story
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At last Thursday's TribLive conversation, Comptroller Susan Combs talked about the health of the Texas economy, her agency's data breach, her shifting position on abortion and more. Full Story
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At this morning's TribLive conversation, Comptroller Susan Combs talked about the data breach on her agency's web site that inadvertently exposed the personal information of 3.5 million state employees and retirees. Full Story
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The Tribune loves infographics, including the recent one posted by the Perry campaign called “State of Texas Economy.” But like all claims made by a political campaign, it deserves the scrutiny of a fact-checking exercise. Full Story
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Mitt Romney says Rick Perry has "substantially underperformed his predecessors on job creation” and that the state's unemployment rate has doubled on his watch. Is Romney right? Full Story
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As wildfires continue to sweep across the state, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has authorized seven more grants to help Texas manage the flames. Although the figures for the grants given to Texas after June are not yet available, the Tribune has a look at the $3.8 billion FEMA has given Texas to mitigate disasters. Full Story
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This morning @TribData released a visualization of all executions in the state of Texas since Gov. Rick Perry took office in late 2000. Here's how we made it happen. Full Story
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About two dozen candidates and political action committees have more than $1 million in their accounts, some of them much more, according to our analysis of midyear filings with the Texas Ethics Commission. Full Story
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About two dozen candidates and political action committees have more than $1 million in their accounts, some of them much more, according to a Texas Tribune analysis of midyear filings with the Texas Ethics Commission. Full Story
The state comptroller talks about the flip in her position on abortion, the data breach at her agency this spring, what office she might seek next and how all of the politics of those subjects mix. Full Story
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Comptroller Susan Combs, on her agency's data breach, her changed position on abortion, andher political future. Full Story
Texans are already opening their pocketbooks to show support for their favorite presidential candidates. The Tribune’s visualizations of data from federal campaign finance reports reveal who has collected and spent the most in Texas. Full Story
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State officials said Friday they can’t reveal how much money taxpayers are spending to protect Gov. Rick Perry — and that records of security costs compiled before 2008 have been “purged.” Full Story
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New Texas Workforce Commission stats show that Texas has gained more than 220,000 jobs since last year. Check out this visualization of unemployment rates broken down by city for June 2010 and June 2011. Full Story
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A new data visualization tool, the Tweet Topic Explorer, makes analyzing a user’s Twitter feed quick, painless and beautiful. Check out what Gov. Rick Perry tweets about most on his personal twitter feed, and see how his tweets compare to others. Full Story
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An Everybody-in-the-Pool effort on what's left to do in the special session, Ramshaw on a doozy of a congressional race shaping up, Aguilar on the debate over sanctuary cities and other immigration proposals, M. Smith on the state's used-up Rainy Day Fund, Grissom on efforts to kick the special interests out of an insurance fight, Dehn and Tan on whether the special session helps or hurts the governor's national ambitions, Galbraith and KUT Radio team up for a series on the long-term outlook for Central Texas water, Aaronson on government attempts to balance openness and privacy with data releases, yours truly on Amazon's run at a sales tax break, and Hamilton on an ethnic gap in higher education: The best of our best from June 20 to 24, 2011. Full Story
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In the wake of high-profile data breaches that left the personal information of millions of state workers exposed, state lawmakers are trying to strike a balance between promoting transparency and protecting records. Full Story
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We have a special update to the Tribune's government employee salary database, adding recently acquired salary data from the last six agencies missing from the the University of Texas System, Texas Woman's University and the Sabine River Authority. Full Story
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