You almost have to admire the sheer brazenness of it all. Almost. In a fiscal switcheroo, Texas could free up state dollars to fund the embattled Women’s Health Program by seeking federal block grants for other programs, the state’s health commissioner... »
After Mitt Romney’s unimpressive showing on Tuesday, the race for the GOP Presidential nomination continues to slog on with no clear end in sight. Which is good news, I guess, if you’re a Texas Republican because it means that your vote on May 29 will ... »
I now finally turn my focus to legislative and Congressional primaries. As you might imagine, it’s been a bit of a challenge figuring this part out, since we just now know what the districts look like and who the candidates are. The order in which I do... »
I have three things to say about this. The city of Houston has been papering over multimillion-dollar budget deficits for nine years by borrowing money, tapping its rainy day fund, selling buildings and just plain putting off bills to the future, accor... »
I know it will break your heart to hear that Harris County GOP Chair Jared Woodfill is a little peeved at Greg Abbott and Steve Munisteri because he thinks the Abbott map makes Harris County too Democratic. What got Woodfill going was Munisteri’s willi... »
Michael Li reminds us what comes next. The San Antonio court has scheduled a hearing on interim maps and the election schedule for next Wednesday, February 15, with briefs on a broad range of issues due this Friday. That gives the parties a week to con... »
As I start to type this I have no idea if the “deal” that was announced earlier today will be in effect or on the trash heap. I think it’s instructive to look at the numbers in the proposed maps anyway, since they give a good idea of how much the state... »
In addition to county candidates, my 2012 Democratic primary election page has information about state and federal candidates who will be on the ballot in Harris County. There are numerous contested primaries, and while I’m not tracking information abo... »
As of today, the following candidates for county offices in Harris County have not filed campaign finance reports with the County Clerk: Candidates for Sheriff Charles Massey El (D) Guy Clark (R, formerly D) Daniel Lemkuil (R) Candidates for HCDE Jarvi... »
I’m sure you know that this Sunday is the Chevron Houston Marathon, but did you realize that there’s some hot marathon action happening on Saturday, too? Organizers for Saturday’s U.S. Olympic marathon trials arrived Tuesday to find a city and a race c... »
From Michael Li: Late Thursday evening, the D.C. panel issued its long-awaited opinion defining the standards for preclearance under section 5 of the Voting Rights Act and further explaining why the court had earlier rejected the State of Texas’ reques... »
Prior to the SCOTUS stay, yesterday was the filing deadline for the 2012 primaries. That has now been pushed back to Monday, with the likelihood of another window after we get some kind of ruling about what the maps will look like, but a flock of hopef... »
This Chron story about the new Congressional map and who’s looking at what (which ran in the Express News last week) has a lot of things we’ve been discussing, and a couple of things to point out. First, a theme that I’ve harped on more than once: The ... »
One district at a time… - I confess that I did not see the District A result coming. Helena Brown did raise a decent amount of money since entering the race at the filing deadline, about $22K through the end of October, which makes me wonder how she mi... »
