Both the Texas House and Senate have now released initial budgets intended to cover a massive state fiscal deficit that experts have placed as high as $27 billion. Cuts outlined in those budgets could mean the loss of tens of thousands of jobs in education — one lawmaker describes the effect on public schools as […]
Texas Legislature
Far Right Fails in GOP Speaker Vote
A large majority of Republicans in the Texas House have rejected demands by far-right groups by indicating that they will support the re-election of Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, as House speaker. The vote in the Republican House caucus represents a major defeat for far-right pressure groups like Texas Eagle Forum and Liberty Institute (the Texas […]
Race-Baiting E-mails
One of the state’s right-wing extremists who has been among the most vocal in demanding the replacement of Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, as speaker of the Texas House appears to have a stunningly ignorant understanding of civil rights history. In a new e-mail commentary about the speaker’s race on Friday, Peter Morrison insists that the […]
Backlash Against the Right in Speaker Fight?
The fight among Texas Republicans over who should be speaker of the state House of Representatives is getting hotter. We suggested on Tuesday that over-the-top efforts by far-right pressure groups and their extremist supporters to replace Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, may well alienate other Republicans. That point was made clearer in a letter from […]
Far Right Overplaying Its Hand in Lege?
A new e-mail to activists shows the religious right is narrowing even further its definition of a good Republican. An e-mail from the Houston Area Pastor Council on Monday demands that Republican members of the Texas House of Representatives base their vote for Speaker this month on three main issues: abortion, same-sex marriage and gambling: […]
