Texas State Legislature

Dallas Real Estate Baron Gene Phillips Hasn't Paid Taxes on His $25 Million Estate Since 2005

Gene Phillips isn't the type of homeowner the Texas Legislature had in mind when it passed a law in 1979 allowing senior citizens to indefinitely defer their property taxes. Think instead of an ailing grandmother, whose Social Security check wouldn't stretch quite far enough to cover groceries and p ... More >>

NCTCOG Seems Pretty Enthusiastic about Letting a Dallas Company Build Texas' First Private Toll Road

A few years ago, a private, Dallas-based corporation announced it would like to build a private toll road, all with its own money, connecting northeast Dallas County to somewhere around Greenville, running basically parallel to the Interstate 30 and passing near Lake Lavon and Lake Ray Hubbard. The ... More >>

Planned Parenthood's New HB2-Proofed Clinic Opens in Southern Dallas

It's a nice clinic, it really is. With more space and amenities, it's a credit to the private donors who payed for it and continue to fuel Planned Parenthood's response to the Texas Legislature's crackdown on abortion. It's just unnecessary. The large janitor's closet, the backup generator, the loc ... More >>

Ethan Couch Case Prompts California Lawmakers to Mull Banning "Affluenza" Defense

It was inevitable, really. Some lawmaker, surfing the outrage stoked by the wrist-slap handed down to 16-year-old Ethan Couch for drunkenly running over four people in Burleson last summer, was bound to propose a law attacking his novel "affluenza" defense. It's just weird that it would happen in Ca ... More >>

Texas' Highest Criminal Court Overturns Ban on "Titillating Talk" With Minors

Since the Texas Legislature made online solicitation of a minor a crime in 2005, it's been used to lock up any number of gymnastics coaches, teachers, as well as plenty of non-educators caught digitally cruising for sex with underage kids. Today, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled unanimously ... More >>

Dallas ISD Is Pumping Millions into Helping Parents Prepare Their Kids for School

Every time we broach the subject of improving Dallas ISD, the chorus starts in before we get too far: It starts with the parents. District officials appear to agree. In a recent vote, the district earmarked $2.75 million for parent-education programs, including the expansion of an Israeli-born prog ... More >>

Congressman Marc Veasey Is Suing the State of Texas to Stop Enforcement of Its Voter ID Law

The dust still hadn't settled on the Supreme Court's decision to strike down a key part of the Voting Rights Act when Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott dispatched a press release announcing that the state's voter ID law, which the courts had up put on hold, would "take effect immediately." It was ... More >>

All Those Anti-Abortion Bills that Failed Resurface in Legislature's Special Session

This session in the Texas Legislature was sort of stupid, but then again, they usually are. Although they did manage to pass a budget, their main piece of business each session, your esteemed lawmakers also spent time approving such vital pieces of legislation as the "Merry Christmas Bill" . They al ... More >>

Bill Expanding Home-Made Foods Sales Stalled in House Committee

Two years ago we tracked the progress of cupcakes through the Texas Legislature, or more specifically, a bill that allowed home bakers to legally sell their goods under certain provisions. That bill passed and now there are many happy home bakers and full bellies around the state. But, equal rights ... More >>

Lowering Testing Standards is not an Effort to Help Poor Kids. It's a Way to Screw Them.

Story in The New York Times this morning about efforts in the Texas Legislature to cut back testing and course requirements for graduation from high school. If you sort through, most the alligator-tears for poor kids supposedly being pushed to learn too much stuff come from tea party types like stat ... More >>

Raw Milk Bill Hung Up By Fuddy Duddies at the Texas Medical Association

Dig raw milk? Right now to indulge unpasteurized, unhomogenized milk from cows and goats that are raised on pasture-based farms (you know, the way we all used to do it) individuals have to drive out to the farm and purchase it directly. That may be a fun weekend drive if you've got a convertible and ... More >>

Raw Milk Bill Would Allow for Expanded Sales, Plus Other Farmers' Markets Matters before the Texas Legislature

We've been so busy chatting about beer legislation, we've failed to recognize a few other important food and drink bills working their way through the Texas Legislature right now. There are a few worth watching, particularly if you like farm-fresh goods. House Bill 46, filled by Representative Dan ... More >>

A Year Since Disclosure Law, Fracking Fluid Remains a Mystery

A year ago, a Texas law was supposed to bring the raw ingredients used in hydraulic fracturing out of the shadows and into the sunlight. The process, which involves blasting millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals into shale formations a mile below the surface, isn't subject to the federal ... More >>

Allowing Concealed Guns on Campus is Back Before the Texas Legislature

Back in 2011, a simpler time, the most heated gun-related debate in the Texas Legislature was over a provision allowing concealed weapons to be brought onto college campuses. That proposal seems almost quaint as the focus has shifted to proposals to arm elementary school teachers. That's not to say ... More >>

State Rep. Bill Zedler Wants to License Strippers

State Representative Bill Zedler first gained attention about a decade ago, when he led a grassroots crusade to block a Hooters from opening near his neighborhood in Arlington. To a certain extent, this was a classic case of not-in-my-backyard activism in which neighbors unite against an unwanted bu ... More >>

Texas House Rep Allen Fletcher Files Bill To Tackle Non-Existent Problem of Sex-Selective Abortion

With the shiny new session of the Texas Legislature a mere six days away, your lawmakers are gearing up to debate some important issues, like handsy TSA agents and whether we should drug-test people who have the audacity to file for emergency welfare relief. But, as ever, some legislators are most ... More >>

Frackers Are Walking Through Gaping Holes In Texas Chemical Disclosure Law

Last summer, as the Dallas City Council was briefed on the ins and outs of bringing heavy, industrial processes into a densely populated, urban area, industry boosters like Ed Ireland of the Barnett Shale Energy Education Council assured council members we would know in virtually all cases what was ... More >>

Appeals Court Says Texas' Redistricting Maps Are Discriminatory; Texas Vows to Appeal

When the Texas legislature passed new redistricting maps in 2011, it sure seemed that the lines had been drawn to dilute the power of Democratic-leaning Hispanic voters in favor of Republicans. State leaders swore that wasn't the case, but, rather than taking them to an unfriendly Justice Department ... More >>

Supreme Court Tosses District Judges' Redistricting Maps, Says Texas Needs a Do-Over

​Back in November U.S. District Judges Orlando Garcia and Xavier Rodriguez down in San Antonio drew up new congressional and state House and Senate maps, since they so hated the ones submitted by the Texas Legislature. The judges claimed the state willfully ignored the state's growing Hispanic pop ... More >>

Democracy: What a Meshuga Way to Run a Country -- or HOA

Can't we all get along? Oh, hell no.

My, How This Crisis is Growing

Arlington Rep. Bill Zedler Wants To Hear All About Your Abortion

Rep. Bill Zedler just has a few questions about your legal medical procedure.​In the latest piece of depressing women's health news from the Texas Legislature, The Dallas Morning News reported today that the House has voted to deny state funding to public hospitals that either perform "elective a ... More >>

State GOP Legislators' Revenge Won't Be on Democrats, But on the Old, Poor and Sick

​People all over America should watch the special session of the Texas Legislature, just now beginning, if they want to see what Republicans are really up to. Among other things, they're out to kill Medicare and Medicaid. The regular session was stymied at the last minute when Democratic sta ... More >>

In Legislature's Final Days, Lawmakers Extend Court Protections for Polluters

Rep. Dennis Bonnen​Amid these "late nights and high feelings" of the tail end of the 82nd Texas Legislature, House lawmakers took a little time to pay the bills yesterday, tying up one last niggling loophole that was letting property owners sue polluters that were contaminating their land. As it ... More >>

Fracking Chemical Disclosure Bill Blasts Through Texas House, Enviros Unimpressed

From the rapidly spreading "Fracking Song" from ProPublica and Studio 20 NYU.​In these final days of the 82nd Texas Legislature, lawmakers in Austin are throwing support behind Eastlake Rep. Jim Keffer's bill that'd require drillers to report the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing at each of t ... More >>

Peace, Love and Chicken-Fried Steak Day

God Bless the Texas Legislature. No amount of political discord will prevent them from the serious work for which the people of this great state sent them to Austin. And it has nothing to do with cuts to a cash-strapped educational system. No, ma'am. Our state government has bigger things to worry a ... More >>

What Would Happen if the Proposed Beer Legislation Becomes Law?

​Three bills bouncing around the Texas Legislature are being trumpeted as game-changers for the state's beer industry. In quick review: HB 660 would permit brewpubs to sell directly to wholesalers and distributors; HB 2436 would allow small breweries to sell their product for on- or off-site c ... More >>

DISD Splits Townview Center Into "Two Schools" With Two Principals, Not Seven

​The Dallas Independent School District sent word earlier this afternoon: It is splitting the mammoth Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Center on E. Eighth Street into two schools -- one devoted to humanities; the other, arts and science. The six magnets housed within Townview, among them the TAG Magnet, t ... More >>

A Pro-Guns-On-Campus Buzz! (Someone Else Wrote It)

Walk for Choice Rallies Support for Women's Reproductive Rights, Squares Off Against Religious Counter-Protest

Photos by Patrick MichelsPro-choice demonstrators shout it out with religious abortion opponents downtown Saturday at the Walk for Choice. A slide show is here.​Some 200 pro-choice demonstrators -- some college-age, others old enough to recall protesting for abortion rights before Roe v. Wade -- t ... More >>

Concealed Guns on Campus a Fait Accompli?

In Need of Another Rolling Blackout? Then Read This New Story of ERCOT.

​This morning we received the same report presented to all members of the Texas Legislature: The Story of ERCOT, prepared by the Texas Coalition for Affordable Power. It's a mammoth thing -- 110 pages based, says TCAP, on "months of research, including a review of journalistic accounts, regulatory ... More >>

A Look at the Latest Proposed Legislation Calling for Statewide Sobriety Checkpoints

National Lampoon​As The American Independent reminds this morning, there have been myriad bills proposed in the Texas Legislature in recent years that would allow for the creation of so-called sobriety checkpoints. And last year's S.B. 298 -- submitted by state Sen. John Corona and co-authored by, ... More >>

Riddle in an Enigma: Puzzled by Austin's Odd Priorities

Council to Sneak Peek Pending State, Federal Legislation That Could Affect Dallas

​Doubtful Andrea's liveblogging today's meeting of the council's Ad Hoc Legislative Committee, fascinating though it may be. Because today's the day the council gets its Federal Legislative Update and the Development of the City's Legislative Program for the 82nd Session of the Texas Legislature, ... More >>

On The Range: Sopapillas

​On The Range is a weekly exploration of the history and lore of Texas menu items.Many of us got our first taste of sopapillas by raising the flag. Doesn't make sense? Well, back when dining out options were fewer and farther between, Panchos Mexican Buffet was one of the few places where you co ... More >>

On The Range: Chili Con Carne

Given the popularity of chili, this was probably inevitable.Chili con carne, better known as chili for short, was named Official State Dish of Texas back in the late 1970s. Why chili and not barbecue or steak? According to Paul Burka, political writer, food guru, and all-around reside ... More >>

A Downtown Law School is Good for Downtown. But is it Good for America?

A Friend of Unfair Park whose name does not rhyme with "Patt Mulle" sends us this Texas Watchdog story concerning the downtown law school the University of North Texas System is hoping to squeeze into the old Municipal Building. It's been almost five years since then-Mayor Laura Miller and other cit ... More >>

License to Drive? Not So Fast, Even If You're a Legal Immigrant With a Valid Work Visa.

A lawsuit filed in Austin on Wednesday has found its way to the Courthouse News Service: Miguel Salazar and Edgar Soria, both of whom live in Dallas County, and Avila Trejo, currently a resident of Denton County, are suing the Texas Department of Public Safety because it refuses to issue them a driv ... More >>

Easier Being Green

Despite tough times, energy conservation bills gain traction in Legislature

Open-Carry Advocates Are Bringing Their Gunfight to the DFW Airwaves

Tomorrow, don't be surprised if you start hearing radio ads advocating an open-carry policy for handgun owners with the proper permits. The folks behind OpenCarry.org are attempting to get some spots on the Dallas-Fort Worth airwaves in which they demand the Texas Legislature allow folks to wear the ... More >>

Texas Railroad Commissioner Takes to Internets to Dispute Channel 8 Story

Last night, WFAA-Channel 8 ran a piece by Brett Shipp about some Cooke County residents in Era who don't want a natural gas waste injection well installed in their backyard, which the Railroad Commission of Texas approved over their protests that it would increase traffic and muck up their idyllic c ... More >>

Who Paid for Your Politics?

Our friends over at Austin-based Texans for Public Justice sent word this a.m. they've just unleashed to the Interwebs an online report titled, bwah-haw-haw, Money in PoliTex, which, they promise, "analyzes the $158 million in campaign funds raised by 378 candidates for major statewide offices and t ... More >>

Membership Has Privileges

We're in the club, you're not. Pfffftt!

Rafael Anchia Wants to Kill Anti-Immigration Legislation Dead. Good Luck With All That.

Rafael Anchia is trying to kick out immigration legislation, but not immigrants. Because nothing gets the Friend of Unfair Park more riled up than the words "immigration legislation" (or "Avi Adelman," geez), we thought it'd be a good idea to mention the press release we just received from the offic ... More >>

Osama bin Bunny

House Bill 433 tackles terrorism?

Beer Bust

It's better to come to BJ's with a thirst than an appetite

A pox on 1995!

Next year will be better

A whorin' we will go

Texas Lege folds to pressures of Republicans and lobbyists

States' rights

New members of the Texas Lege promise to uphold the old seedy standards