Is the Texas House Violating the Americans with Disabilities Act by Refusing to Caption Legislative Hearings?
Disability rights experts are questioning the methods Capitol staff use to determine when to fill an accommodation request.
Since 1954
Kate Groetzinger was a legislative fellow at the Texas Observer. She is a graduate from the master's in the journalism program at The University of Texas at Austin, where she focused on audio reporting and podcasting. Kate now serves as a reporter at Utah's NPR station, as a Report for America Corps Member. A native Texan, Kate hails from Waco and has lived in Houston, San Antonio and Austin.
Disability rights experts are questioning the methods Capitol staff use to determine when to fill an accommodation request.
The state added more than $75 million toward services for sexual assault survivors, but failed to improve protections for workers after pushback from the business lobby.
Community attendants had their $8-per-hour base wage boosted by only 11 cents this session — significantly less than what the governor and state health department requested.
House Bill 800 would save the state millions, reduce confusion among providers and lower Texas’ high teen birth rate, supporters say.
Lawmakers have been using Band-Aids to address the backlog of untested rape kits since 2011. This session could bring a real fix.
The floundering of House Bill 316 shows that Republicans are still unwilling to stand up to the NRA and far-right primary voters.
Convict leasing, which historians have called “slavery by another name,” was used to build the Capitol and earn profits for the state and private companies for decades.
One-quarter of the state’s crisis centers, which provide free services to survivors of sexual assault, have waitlists between two and five months.
Legislators began tackling issues like funding family planning, equal economic opportunity for women and justice for sexual assault survivors in the early 1970s. Their work continues a half-century later.
Despite Trump’s attempt to paint the Texas-Mexico border as a war zone, border counties are safer than the president’s own backyard. And local lawmen don’t believe a wall will do any good.