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Most Recent in Politics:

1‘A Mockery of Public Trust’: Bexar Sheriff Cleans House, Angers Deputies’ Union

2Loon Star: Trump University, Department of Mendacity

3Shelter Director Ruben Garcia on How Struggling Nonprofits Carry the Load of the Migrant ‘Crisis’

4The System Works for Attorney General Ken Paxton. Again.

5Is the Texas House Violating the Americans with Disabilities Act by Refusing to Caption Legislative Hearings?

6The Cost of Carve-Outs

Most Recent in Environment:

1Nearly 500,000 Texans Live in Communities with Contaminated Groundwater. Lawmakers Aren’t Doing Much About It.

2‘All it Took was 25 Years’: Legislature Ponies Up Cash for Underfunded Texas Parks

3Carbon Sequestration Isn’t The Long-Term Solution. Is it a Short-Term One?

4Report: Oil and Gas Producers May Be Pushing the Permian Basin Past Federal Air Quality Limits

5The EPA Told Texas to Crack Down on Dangerous Air Emissions in 2015. The State Never Did, and Now It Won’t Have to.

6The Flood Next Time

Most Recent in Border:

1Shelter Director Ruben Garcia on How Struggling Nonprofits Carry the Load of the Migrant ‘Crisis’

2In the Rio Grande Valley, a Fight to Bring Back NPR

3Meet Maria Espinoza, the Texan Elevating ‘Angel Moms’ to the National Stage

4Democrats Finally Play Hardball on the Border Wall

5Washington Crossing the Rio Grande

6With Proposed Tariffs on Mexico, Trump Attacks Texas

Most Recent in Criminal Justice:

1‘A Mockery of Public Trust’: Bexar Sheriff Cleans House, Angers Deputies’ Union

2The System Works for Attorney General Ken Paxton. Again.

3Death Penalty Reform Bill Gets Watered Down to ‘Nothing’ Before Passing Senate

4With a Bizarre Assist by Democrats, Police Groups Kill Bill to Limit Arrests for Fine-Only Offenses

6‘The Penal System Today is Slavery’: Lawmakers Finally Start to Talk About Unpaid Labor in Texas Prisons

Most Recent in Education:

1The Cost of Carve-Outs

2Texas Legislature Improves Suicide Prevention in Schools, but Makes Little Progress for Adults

3Texas House Considers Free College For Students Experiencing Homelessness

4‘The Wolf is in the Henhouse’

5‘We’re Not Stupid’: Texas Teachers Take on Dan Patrick and the Legislature over Dismal Education Funding

6In Violation of Texas Law, Most High Schools Aren’t Giving Students the Chance to Register to Vote

Most Recent in Health Care:

1Yet Another Rural Texas Hospital is in Jeopardy After Anti-Tax Activists Kill Funding Proposal

2Texas Legislature Improves Suicide Prevention in Schools, but Makes Little Progress for Adults

3Inside Texas’ Failed Experiment to Replace Planned Parenthood with an Anti-Abortion Group

5Texans with Disabilities are Struggling to Find Health Care Attendants. Lawmakers Didn’t Do Much to Help.

6Texas Legislature Set to (Slightly) Expand Medical Marijuana Access

Most Recent in The Interview:

2The Interview: Mass Resistance

3Meet Jim Allison, Texas’ Newest Nobel Laureate (and Three-Time Cancer Survivor)

4Dolores Huerta is Still Knocking on Doors and Registering Voters at 88

5The Interview: Veronica Escobar is Poised to Make History

6Redistricting Guru Michael Li on Texas’ Gerrymandered Maps

Most Recent in Books:

1Announcing the Ninth Annual Texas Observer Short Story Contest

2‘Human Matter’ Dredges up the Dark History of the Guatemalan Civil War

3With Sprawl and Serial Killers, Houston Noir Packs a Mean Punch

4When Crossing Over Becomes a Deadly Game

5Beasts of the Border

6Invasive Species Have Reshaped Texas. Now What?

Most Recent in Features:

1Washington Crossing the Rio Grande

2Ghosts of the Baker Hotel

3At Home in the World

4Plight at the Museum

5The Texas Observer’s Best Features of 2018

6East Texas Photographer Captures 50 Years of Haunting, Ordinary Magic

Most Recent in Essay:

1Lost in Limbo in the Hays County Jail

2The Trouble with Yoga

3Heads in the Mud

4The Day the Windows Shook

5Women’s Work

6I Grew Up on the Texas-Mexico Border, but Now I Barely Recognize It

Most Recent in Eye on Texas:

1Eye on Texas: Loren Elliott

2Eye on Texas: Charlotte Moore

3Eye on Texas: ‘My Joyful Dance’

4Eye on Texas: Ghosts of the City

5Eye on Texas: Fiesta Protesta

6Eye on Texas: Remembering Draylen Mason

Most Recent in Poetry:

1Remembering W.S. Merwin, Honorary Texan

2Lost in Limbo in the Hays County Jail

3Houston Poet Analicia Sotelo’s Debut Smashes Latino Stereotypes

4Parallel Planes

6Poem: ‘Resistance’

Tag Archives: HERO

by Michael Barajas

Meet Dave Welch, the ‘Pastor of Pastors’ who Mobilizes Texas Churches Against LGBT Rights

The Houston conservative's ability to blend politics and religion makes him a particularly potent force.

Tue, Dec 19, 2017 |

Editor’s note: With the far right ascendant in Texas politics, once-marginal ideas and people have found a place in the political mainstream. Our recurrin...Read More

Houston Mayor Annise Parker at Dallas' 2015 Black Tie Dinner LGBT fundraiser.

Houston Mayor ‘Running Out of Runway’ on HERO Relaunch

Mon, Nov 16, 2015 |

In the aftermath of HERO’s resounding defeat at the polls November 3, Parker had indicated the current City Council could consider an amended non-discriminati...Read More

Houston skyline.

by Eesha Pandit

Fallen HERO: The Campaign That Couldn’t Save Houston

An equal rights ordinance would have offered protections for all Houstonians, but many groups say they weren’t represented by Houston Unites’ strategic leadership.

Fri, Nov 6, 2015 |

HERO would have offered protections for all Houstonians, but those who live at the intersection of multiple points of marginalization simply weren’t reflected...Read More

Southside Place Police Detective Michael Kelly

by Andrea Grimes

HERO Opponents Serious About Bigotry, Not Preventing Rape

Wed, Nov 4, 2015 |

In October, police say, a man raped a 12-year-old girl in a Houston public bathroom. Well, that’s not actually what police say. The detective, a man who is pa...Read More

vote here sign

by Christopher Hooks

What to Watch (Besides HERO) as Texas Goes to the Polls

Tue, Nov 3, 2015 |

If you haven’t voted yet today, don’t worry, you’re not alone! These constitutional amendment elections don’t garner much attention or excitement, but t...Read More

Experts: HERO ‘Too Close To Call’ Ahead of Tuesday’s Vote

Fri, Oct 30, 2015 |

Early voting numbers could spell trouble for Houston’s embattled Equal Rights Ordinance, according to three local political scientists who’ve been closely m...Read More

by Emily DePrang

Cons-Queer-Acy? Petition to Repeal Houston ERO Fails

Tue, Aug 5, 2014 |

Foes of Houston's new equal rights ordinance are crying foul after Mayor Annise Parker announced that thousands of petition pages were disqualified....Read More

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