The latest state government news from The Texas Tribune.
Through the close of business on Monday, 119,195 Texans had voted early in the big counties, a 98 percent increase over four years ago. GOP primary voting was up 146 percent, to 86,179; Democratic primary voting was up a mere 52 percent, to 33,016. Full Story
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It's a battle of the "reformers" — Texans for Lawsuit Reform and Texans for Insurance Reform — out in El Paso, and the two are neck-and-neck. Full Story
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March 2 picks from the Texas State Rifle Assocation (yes to Dora, no to Delwin) and Texas Right to Life (no to Kays). Full Story
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There’s plenty for Texas-focused Supreme Court watchers to gnaw on today. Also, there’s this election going on, and people really want to vote in it. Full Story
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The five major candidates in the governor's race spent $24 million from Jan. 22 to Feb. 20. Full Story
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With only a week to go before the GOP primary for governor, Debra Medina is pressing forward with her insurgent candidacy — despite the controversy over 9/11 truthers that temporarily upended her campaign. Her core supporters remain strongly with her, unfazed by and miffed at the media's scrutiny. How the whole thing ends is anyone's guess. Ben Philpott, covering the 2010 elections for KUT News and the Tribune, spent Monday on the trail with Medina and her flock and filed this report. Full Story
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Forget about issues. The GOP primary for this Senate seat in Central Texas is all about honesty and integrity. Incumbent Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, says of his challenger, Ben Bius, "I can't remember the last time he said something truthful." Bius says of Ogden, "I can forgive a man a policy difference if he keeps his word." Full Story
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North Texas Democrats see GOP state Rep. Linda Harper-Brown's Irving seat as theirs for the taking in 2010 — the top target in their battle to take back the majority in the House. But first they have to settle on a candidate. Full Story
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The Texas Attorney General's office is throwing its own punches at the attorney who sued the state over its storage of infant blood samples, saying all he wanted was the headlines. Full Story
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Republican candidate Milton Rister says he's got nothing to do with the speaker-bashing in an email making the rounds in Georgetown. Full Story
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As Texas education officials predicted when objecting to federal Race to the Top grant rules, the feds may now be moving to tie billions more in federal funds to the adoption of national curriculum standards, according to an Education Week report. Full Story
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Did it just get easier for governmental agencies in Texas to delay releasing public information? Full Story
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"[S]omeone who began working at age 10 on the family cattle ranch." Full Story
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When they were sued last year for storing baby blood samples without parental consent, Texas health officials said they'd done it for medical research. They never said they turned over the blood spots to the federal government to help build a vast DNA database. A Texas Tribune review of nine years' worth of e-mails and internal documents on the Department of State Health Services’ newborn blood screening program, released after the state settled the case so quickly that it never reached the discovery phase, shows an effort to limit the public’s knowledge of the program. Full Story
Is this the year that independent-minded state Rep. Tommy Merritt, R-Longview, finally gets his comeuppance from conservatives? Full Story
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For the third event in our TribLive series, I interviewed the mayor of San Antonio about the big issues facing the nation's seventh-largest city, how his early notions of the job squared with the reality of being in it, his age, his ethnicity, his party affiliation in a nonpartisan office and, of course, his future plans. Full Story
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Ron Paul wins the first big straw poll of the 2012 race for the GOP nomination. Full Story
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"[N]obody in the race — perhaps on the entire ballot — offers a more admirable life story." Full Story
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Ramsey on Flintstone truthers, Thevenot on the explosion of "dual-credit" enrollees and the potential sacking of teachers when student test scores don't measure up, Ramshaw on government-subsidized child care providers with troubled track records, Stiles's enhanced state employee salary app and new dangerous day care app, Aguilar on our commie trading partner and the cost of being undercounted in the next census, Philpott on the legal wrangling over gay divorce and how social media fanned the flames of Debra Medina's 9/11 flap, and our roundup of powderkeg party primaries: Hu in HD-20, M. Smith in CD-23, Ramsey in HD-98, Hamilton in HD-127, Grissom HD-76 and HD-78, and Rapoport in SBOE 5. The best of our best from February 15 to 19, 2010. Full Story
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Voters in Texas’ 15 largest counties cast more than twice as many ballots during the first three days of early voting for the March Primary as they did during the same span in 2006. Full Story