Politics
Will Texas Keep Fighting Foster Care Reform?
Book Review: Scapegoating the Media Ignores Other Major Problems in American Politics
Yes, the news industry helped get Trump elected — but not to the extent that Nolan Higdon and Mickey Huff argue in their new book, United States of Distraction.
In the wake of the 2016 presidential election, the American news media was the subject of much well-deserved criticism. A report from Harvard’s Shorenstein Ce...Read More
How Julián Castro’s ‘Decade of Downtown’ Reshaped San Antonio
The presidential hopeful has branded himself as an affordable housing visionary. But his record in San Antonio on this issue is more complicated.
In January 2010, eight months into his job as mayor, Julián Castro delivered his vision for San Antonio to the city’s business and political elites. Inside a...Read More
‘A Mockery of Public Trust’: Bexar Sheriff Cleans House, Angers Deputies’ Union
Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar is feuding with his deputies' union in the midst of a bout of scandals.
Javier Salazar has bounced between scandals since he took over the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office in 2017. During his first year, the department drew national ...Read More
Loon Star: Trump University, Department of Mendacity
Ben Sargent's latest 'toon takes on Trump's "truth."
Ben Sargent To see more political cartoons from Ben Sargent, visit our Loon Star State section, or find Observer political reporting here....Read More
Shelter Director Ruben Garcia on How Struggling Nonprofits Carry the Load of the Migrant ‘Crisis’
The director of El Paso's Annunciation House has brought compassion to the front lines of migration for four decades.
Ruben Garcia, 70, is a man with the weight of the world — or at least the hemisphere — on his shoulders. The longtime director of Annunciation House, a migr...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
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.
John Woodley pushed a wheelchair through the Capitol almost every day this session, his files and laptop piled on the seat. At age 2, he developed partial deafn...Read More
The Cost of Carve-Outs
Lawmakers passed an omnibus school finance and property tax reform bill this session, but didn’t include a way to pay for it past 2021. One place to look: corporate tax breaks.
Just before Memorial Day weekend, lawmakers inked an $11.6 billion school finance and property tax reform package. The passage of House Bill 3, which includes a...Read More
Yet Another Rural Texas Hospital is in Jeopardy After Anti-Tax Activists Kill Funding Proposal
As rural hospitals struggle across the state, local voters killed a proposition to create a hospital taxing district meant to keep a facility in La Grange open for the foreseeable future.
The voters of Fayette County have spoken, and they’ve said that they don’t need a hospital in this rural community of 25,000 people, one hour southeast of A...Read More