The latest state government news from The Texas Tribune.
Jan Newton — who chairs the board of directors at the state's electric utility grid operator — is stepping down from that post, leaving the agency with interim officeholders and holes in key positions at the top of its organization chart. Full Story
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Nearly two months after border-area cattle inspection stations in Mexico ceased operations amid security concerns, the sites have reopened on the Texas side of the border. A popular South Texas lake, however, is now on the radar. Full Story
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Former U.S. Secretary of Education and Houston Superintendent Rod Paige this morning asked the State Board of Education to delay adopting its standards, saying they had “swung too far” to the ideological right and diminished the importance of civil rights and slavery. Asked if the board should delay a final vote expected Friday, he said, "Absolutely." Full Story
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Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, may be 50, but he's only been in the House for three sessions. He's part of a youth movement in the power corridors of the Legislature — one that's less about age than lack of seniority. Full Story
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Four members of the State Board of Education who are exiting their seats in January are preparing to cast decisive votes this week on controversial curriculum revisions that will alter social studies textbooks for 4.7 million public school children in Texas. But, just maybe, not so fast: Two Republicans who'll likely win election to the SBOE this fall, and a Democrat who is vying for another soon-to-be-vacated seat, said in interviews that they'd support reopening the standards process if consensus emerged on the newly constituted board. Full Story
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Before adopting the Fair Defense Act in 2001, Texas was considered abysmal in legal circles when it came to providing representation for the poor. Proponents and critics of the current system agree the situation has improved since lawmakers started requiring counties to implement minimum representation standards. But has it improved enough? Full Story
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Lawmakers are pledging to take a closer look at the Texas Department of Insurance’s Division of Workers' Compensation in light of allegations by former employees that their higher-ups failed to sanction or remove dozens of doctors accused of overmedicating patients and overbilling insurers. The chairman of the House panel that oversees workers' compensation says he's planning a hearing on the matter this summer, and the chair of the Sunset Advisory Commission plans to question the division's commissioner at a public hearing next week. Full Story
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Lawmakers said Monday that the state's newborn disease screening program — which has been used to warehouse infant blood samples for biomedical and forensics research — has misled parents and given them few options to protect their babies' DNA. Full Story
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Rick Perry made national headlines last year when he announced Texas was turning down unemployment insurance benefits available as part of the federal stimulus package. Attempts by state lawmakers to get their hands on the money anyway ran out of time at the end of the Legislative session, but as Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports, the $555 million is still there for the taking. Full Story
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The governor reveals that and other nostalgic tidbits to Texas Monthly. Full Story
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Jack Colley, head of emergency management for the Texas Department of Public Safety, died of a heart attack Sunday, the department announced this morning. He was 62 and had worked at DPS for more than 12 years. Full Story
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For many of the more than 150,000 Texans who have returned from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, the struggle to cope with the horrors they've seen can result in drug addiction and violent outbursts. To deal with those harsh realities, 10 counties are working to establish "veterans courts" that would emphasize treatment or counseling over punishment. Full Story
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Grissom on the transgender marriage conundrum, Hu on the workers' comp whistleblowers, M. Smith on the Texas GOP's brush with debt, Garcia-Ditta on why student regents should vote, Aguilar on the tripling of the number of visas given by the feds to undocumented crime victims, Hamilton on the paltry number of state universities with graduation rates above 50 percent, Ramshaw and Stiles on the high percentage of Texas doctors trained in another country, Ramsey and Stiles on congressmen giving to congressmen, Galbraith on how prepared Texas is (very) for a BP-like oil spill, and my conversation with Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst: The best of our best from May 10 to 14, 2010. Full Story
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When they meet in Austin next week, social conservatives on the State Board of Education — some now lame ducks — may be going even further with amendments challenging the separation of church and state, entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare, landmark desegregation cases and the work of muckraking journalists such as Susan B. Anthony and W.E.B. Du Bois. Another amendment amplifies a long-running effort to resuscitate the reputation of communist-hunting Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Full Story
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For the ninth event in our TribLive series, I interviewed the lieutenant governor about the budget shortfall, state-federal tensions, immigration, why he doesn't release his taxes, and his future plans. We've provided the conversation with the lite guv in three forms: full video, full audio and a transcript. Full Story
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The next legislative session is more than eight months away, but that doesn't mean you can't explore the Capitol grounds — from your desk — thanks to Google Maps. Full Story
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It's not only rich people and lobbyists and interest group activists who make political contributions. Texas congressional candidates gave at least $1.3 million to other campaigns and causes over the last 15 months, according to itemized records of campaign expenditures released for the first time by the Federal Election Commission. Topping the list of big spenders in the Texas delegation were U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Surfside, who contributed at least $240,000 — the highest dollar amount — and Charlie Gonzalez, D-San Antonio, who gave more than 60 contributions — the highest number. Search our database to see who gave what to whom. Full Story
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On Tuesday, the Federal Election Commission for the first time released detailed records for all congressional candidates' campaign spending. These records tell us who the candidates hire for advertising, consulting, etc., and can often be more interesting to politics junkies than lists of campaign donations. We've made spending by the Texas delegation in the U.S. House of Representatives searchable. Full Story
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Texas has nearly eight times as many people with serious mental illness in jails and prisons as it does in psychiatric hospitals, according to a new study by the Treatment Advocacy Center and the National Sheriffs’ Association. Full Story
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The state won't need new taxes or expanded legal gambling to cover a budget shortfall next session, but higher fees and more budget cuts are a possibility, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said at this morning's TribLive interview in Austin. Full Story
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