Tag Archives: Ken Paxton
Texas (Kinda, Sorta) Accidentally Decriminalized Weed. Now What?
How harshly you’re punished for pot possession depends on where you’re caught, even more so now that a new law legalizing hemp has sowed confusion.
Texas lawmakers like to declare themselves leaders on criminal justice reform, but this session they mostly did nothing about it. During the 86th Texas Legislat...Read More
Ken Paxton Wants ‘Ultimate Home Field Advantage’ in Felony Case
Paxton, it seems, would rather watch his case implode from the comfort of his own backyard.
A couple of years ago, the private lawyers hired to prosecute the three felony charges against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton came up with a nickname for the...Read More
Will Texas Keep Fighting Foster Care Reform?
More than three years ago, a federal judge handed down court orders to reform Texas’ foster care system. And for more than three years, state lawyers have fought against those orders.
It’s been more than three years since a federal judge ruled that Texas dumps some of the state’s most vulnerable children into a foster care system “where...Read More
The System Works for Attorney General Ken Paxton. Again.
A court decision this week could be the coup de grâce that finally ends the attorney general’s four-year-old felony case.
The criminal justice system humiliates, maims and destroys some people. For a sick grandmother dependent on Social Security, traffic tickets can result in repea...Read More
Death Penalty Reform Bill Gets Watered Down to ‘Nothing’ Before Passing Senate
After passing the House, HB 1139, meant to reform how Texas decides whether a defendant is too intellectually disabled to execute, was significantly softened in Senate committee.
A House bill meant to reform Texas’ death penalty procedures for intellectually disabled defendants was amended in the Senate to the point that criminal justi...Read More
Texas Has the Highest Uninsured Rate in the Country. Lawmakers Haven’t Addressed it This Session.
Health care advocates were optimistic that the Legislature would do something this year to address high, and rising, uninsured rates; high rates of maternal mortality; and the rural hospital closure crisis.
Texas has the highest overall uninsured rate in the country, the highest rate of uninsured kids and the highest rate of uninsured women of childbearing age. Yet...Read More
Four Years Later, Sandra Bland’s Arrest Continues to Sow Distrust in Law Enforcement
New reporting shows that Sandra Bland recorded her infamous 2015 arrest. Authorities never told her grieving family.
After Sandra Bland’s death in the Waller County jail became a national scandal, former Texas Department of Public Safety trooper Brian Encinia struggled to ju...Read More
The EPA Told Texas to Crack Down on Dangerous Air Emissions in 2015. The State Never Did, and Now It Won’t Have to.
Trump’s EPA rescinded a rule that would have forced Texas to close a loophole exploited by industrial polluters in 97 percent of illegal emission events.
May, 22, 2015, was a red-letter day for Hilton Kelley. The 58-year-old environmental justice activist was on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., 1,300 miles from ...Read More
Congressional Democrats are Investigating Texas’ Targeting of Naturalized Citizen Voters
A congressional oversight committee is probing acting Secretary of State David Whitley’s flawed voter purge, as well as allegations of voter suppression in two other states.
Democrats in Congress are investigating Texas officials’ targeting of tens of thousands of naturalized citizen voters earlier this year. The investigation is ...Read More
