Texas' Ken Paxton and James Talarico focus their energies — and attack ads — on each other as the fight for U.S. Senate narrows to two.
More than 50 Democrats, including Wu — the House Democratic leader — left the state last August to shut down the Legislature and stall passage of the GOP’s map.
Texas lawmakers will be able to draw more aggressively partisan maps for the state House, Senate and education board when they return in 2027.
Burrows added the charge to his list of interim priorities, instructing lawmakers to study ways to strengthen child protections on gaming platforms like Roblox.
A Republican-led House committee approved the penalties Friday, charging Democrats $500 for each day they were absent, plus costs borne by law enforcement to bring them back.
The Republican and Democratic primary runoffs are May 26. See the full list of statewide candidates, as well as local races that will be on your ballot.
The lieutenant governor’s remarks are the latest sign that Republicans are worried about the fall midterms. The GOP has controlled the state House since 2003 and currently has an 88-62 advantage.
In 2012, the New York Times interviewed Brad Bailey at the Republican National Convention about his efforts to get the party “stop the hatred language and fix the problem.”
Junior Ezeonu, a Grand Prairie City Council member, defeated Turner in the Democratic primary, becoming the representative-elect for the southeast Tarrant County House district.
The Republican speaker’s interim charges also covered water resources, foreign threats and government accountability.
With Texas’ hardline conservative megadonors largely staying on the sidelines, a handful of House primaries have become battlegrounds for the state’s civil justice debate.
Talarico’s two years as a public school teacher is central to his Democratic Senate campaign after shaping his policy goals and driving his political rise through the Texas House.
The majority of the Democratic caucus’ haul came when the party broke quorum over the summer to delay the GOP-controlled Legislature from redrawing the state’s congressional map.
The lawsuit alleges Minnesota-based Xcel Energy failed to maintain utility poles that started the 2024 Panhandle fire that killed three people and thousands of livestock.
Rep. Christina Morales, the new chair of the Texas House Democratic Campaign Committee, said she wants to initially target five GOP-controlled districts, with a broader list to come later.
At a Texas Tribune Festival event on Thursday, the Beaumont Republican said his opposition to Trump and his agenda informed his decision to give up the speaker’s gavel last year.
Speaking at the Texas Tribune Festival, Democratic Rep. Donna Howard acknowledged that Republicans have unified around Speaker Dustin Burrows to the point that he “may not need us” to retain the gavel.
The Marshall Republican began lobbying less than two years after donating campaign funds to other state lawmakers, according to a Texas Ethics Commission order.
State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, announced Dec. 1 that he will file for re-election to his current seat in District 116 and not pursue the role of district attorney.
The five-term state lawmaker from Austin has homed in on education issues in the Texas House, becoming a primary foil to Abbott on school vouchers.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Camp Mystic leaders would be invited to testify before the committees, as part of what Speaker Dustin Burrows said would be a “comprehensive and thorough review.”
The Texas GOP will vote Saturday to possibly bar some state legislators from running in the 2026 primary, despite repeated Texas Supreme Court rulings saying they cannot.
The state party’s governing board will meet Saturday to decide whether 10 Texas House Republicans tried to thwart GOP priorities during this year’s legislative session.
The Austin lawmaker says his faith fuels his vision of a Democratic Party that “fights back” against billionaires. Republican critics say his stances are at odds with Scripture.
The Austin Democrat has made a name for himself with his viral social media presence. His entry to the race pits him against former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred in the increasingly crowded primary.
Between cracking down on abortion pills and restricting transgender restroom use, lawmakers also tackled flood safety and the STAAR test. Left untouched: Texas’ hemp industry.
Allen, known for her focus on public education issues, announced her retirement after 20 years in the House. She endorsed her son, Lawrence Allen Jr., to succeed her.
House members who freeze future legislation by fleeing Texas will face steeper fines, loss of seniority and committee posts, and limits on political fundraising.
Lujan, a Republican, represents a state House district that covers southern and eastern portions of San Antonio, overlapping with the new congressional seat.
Democrats say recent changes to the bill give too much power to the TEA and fall short of meaningfully easing the pressures of standardized testing.
Democrats said the walkout inspired a national protest against GOP redistricting. But it also greased the path for other bills they oppose and unified Texas Republicans.
The Texas House of Representatives’ Select Committee on Disaster Preparedness and Flooding is holding a hearing on Friday.
As speaker, Phelan oversaw passage of numerous conservative priorities, but he gave up the gavel under pressure from the far right over the House’s impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton.
The governor announced he was expanding his special session agenda shortly after the Texas House passed a congressional map that Democrats had delayed by leaving the state.
The order bars Paxton from prosecuting O’Rourke’s nonprofit or otherwise bringing legal action aimed at revoking Powered by People’s charter.
The Republican-controlled Texas House of Representatives has passed a redrawn congressional map that creates up to five new winnable GOP seats in Congress.
Republican lawmakers are pursuing the unusual mid-decade redistricting plan amid pressure from President Donald Trump to protect the GOP’s slim majority in the U.S. House.
After two weeks out of state, Democratic lawmakers returned to Austin, paving the way for Republicans to pass their proposed congressional map.
The Amarillo businessman said he would tap into the $20 million political action committee he launched last year to preserve ballot access for censured Republicans.
The third-term governor appears determined to win any battle — even if it means scorched-earth primary crusades or trying to boot duly elected legislators from office.
Judge Scott Larson ruled that the Texas speaker and attorney general had “failed to present a legal basis for the court” to take up the issue.
In this week’s episode, Matthew and Eleanor ask University of Houston law professor David Froomkin to help them break down the legal cases seeking to remove 13 Democrats from the Texas House.
The leaders of both chambers said they would adjourn for the session Friday if Democrats do not return, while the governor said he might add more items to his agenda.
The governor and attorney general have asked the court to find that Democratic lawmakers abandoned their seats when they left Texas to delay a new congressional map.
The order came at the request of Attorney General Ken Paxton, who O’Rourke accused in a separate lawsuit of going on a “fishing expedition, constitutional rights be damned.”
Gov. Greg Abbott previously asked the court to expel Rep. Gene Wu, the House Democratic leader. Paxton disputed the governor’s authority to make the request.
The attorney general is calling on the “full faith and credit” clause of the U.S. Constitution, which says states should typically honor each other’s judicial proceedings.
The situation is an opportunity for the speaker to bolster his credibility with the right, but he has limited tools to combat a prolonged Democratic absence.
Texas Republicans are trying to redraw congressional districts to pick up five additional U.S. House seats. Democrats face financial and political risk in their bid to block the GOP plan.
The warrants apply only within state lines, making them largely symbolic as most of the legislators in question decamped to Illinois, New York and Massachusetts.
While the Democrats could technically derail the GOP’s redistricting map, such efforts have been largely symbolic and had limited success blocking past legislation, experts say.
KSAT Investigates received the indictment paperwork of nine suspects, including a former candidate for the Texas House and two former mayors, in connection with a massive state-led election investigation on Thursday afternoon.
Our interactive tool allows you to search how state lawmakers voted on the most consequential proposals debated during the session, which ended June 2.
Tinderholt attributed his decision to retire to his confidence in a new conservative generation of lawmakers and a desire to spend more time with his family.
A bill to increase judicial salaries from $140,000 to $175,000 a year stalled amid a disagreement over lawmakers’ own retirement benefits.
The House approved the ban after previously considering proposals to preserve the industry by tightening regulations.
Some measures that made it through before midnight dealt with jail bonds, an unconstitutional ban on gay sex, and the liability of vaccine manufacturers.
If it becomes law, the bill would define sex based on reproductive organs and require state documents and policies to comply with that framework.
The bill would bar those under 18 from checking out books with sexually explicit material without parental permission.
Dozens of people who signed up to speak were ready at 4 a.m. to debate whether public school classrooms should have to display the Ten Commandments.
The bill faced fierce opposition from hardline conservatives who say it is policing speech and could allow the state to jail people over silly political memes.
A House bill would require school districts to hold an election before breaking into smaller entities.
Uvalde’s former mayor, now in the Legislature, wrote the bill so that law-enforcement agencies would have better coordination and leadership as they respond to a mass shooting.
After Republicans and Democrats fight over the budget and constitutional amendments, GOP members stake out a new battlefield.
Voting rights advocates worry that legislation approved by House and Senate committees could make it harder to get more people on the rolls.
Texas Republican lawmakers in regions known for support of public schools defended voting for vouchers, saying they gained leverage to seek concessions.
Anti-voucher Republicans said they voted for the bill so they could fight to improve it, and also to fend off political retribution.
Normally, memorial resolutions to honor Texans who have died are passed without controversy. But the resolution for Richards, a former president of Planned Parenthood who died this year, sparked a cascade of outrage from conservatives.
The bill would let families use taxpayer dollars for their children’s private schooling. Lawmakers also signed off on a sweeping $7.7 billion package to boost public school funding.
The lower chamber overwhelmingly voted in favor of House Bill 2, a sweeping $8 billion piece of legislation that would also limit schools’ reliance on teachers without formal classroom training.
The vote instructs lawmakers who are negotiating a budget with the Senate to advocate for awarding Paxton the salary he missed while impeached over corruption allegations.
The Committee on Public Education in the Texas House of Representatives is expected to hold a hearing on school vouchers sometime Thursday.
Lawmakers, who are preempting locals on lot sizes in new subdivisions, have been eyeing ways to allow more homes to be built as the state faces a shortage.
The proposed legislation aims to establish Education Savings Accounts, sparking debate over tuition coverage and equity in Texas' educational landscape.
Turner, who spent nearly three decades in the Texas House and died last week, was remembered as a passionate Democrat committed to working across the aisle.
Don McLaughlin isn’t shy about speaking his mind and has disagreed with victims’ families and fellow Republicans. Now he brings his direct style to the Capitol.
Mo Jenkins is one of only a few openly transgender staffers working in the Capitol as lawmakers are making headway in restricting rights for LGBTQ+ Texans.
House Bill 239, which echoes a bathroom bill that failed in 2017, includes new provisions for shelters and prisons.
The topic was a budget request from a state agency. The exchange grew emotional when a lawmaker pressed for answers about a strategic plan that praises diversity.