Texas renters got unprecedented help during the pandemic. The Legislature is unlikely to extend it.
Lawmakers will decide whether to keep protections that shielded tenants from eviction — or to ban them. Full Story
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![A leasing sign outside Garden Court Apartments in north Midland, where rent for a one-bedroom can run as high as $850 per month. Leasing signs were an uncommon sight in Midland as recently as 2014, when apartment occupancy nearly hit 100 percent. It's fallen to about 80 percent now, according to the Permian Basin Apartment Association.]()
Credit: Jerod Foster for The Texas Tribune -
Texas Senate passes bill to make illegal voting a felony again
The priority bill, backed by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, reverses a change the Legislature made two years ago during an omnibus voting bill that made illegal voting a misdemeanor. Full Story
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![Voters line up outside of the Hays County Independent School District Arnold Transportation Building voting center to cast their vote in the Texas General Elections on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022 in Kyle.]()
Credit: Eli Hartman for The Texas Tribune -
Shuttered Fairfield Lake State Park will reopen temporarily starting Tuesday
State officials plan to offer free day access to the property as they consider how to acquire the land before its sale. Full Story
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![State Park Police Officer Kyle Ware points at a map of Fairfield Lake State Park in Fairfield on Feb. 27, 2023.]()
Credit: Eddie Gaspar/The Texas Tribune -
Legislature has little appetite to fund Ken Paxton’s settlement with whistleblowers
A lack of lawmaker support jeopardizes the attorney general’s $3.3 million settlement, which would resolve a lawsuit alleging Paxton fired high-ranking deputies who accused him of misconduct. Full Story
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![Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton gave a speech in the Senate chamber during his swearing-in ceremony on Jan. 10, 2023. This is Paxton's third term in the office.]()
Credit: Bob Daemmrich for The Texas Tribune -
How could Texas spend its record $32.7 billion surplus?
If Texas’ budget surplus were distributed directly to Texans, it could pay for 12 years of school lunches, seven months of rent or 11,000 miles of travel. Here’s how to put the big number into perspective. Full Story
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![An illustration of people gathered.]()
Credit: Alex Ford/The Texas Tribune -
Search the newly updated Government Salaries Explorer
The Texas Tribune’s database of Texas state employees’ compensation is updated to represent salaries as of Feb. 1. It includes detailed data for the 113 agencies in state government and positions at each of those agencies. Full Story
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![Government Salaries Explorer]()
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Texas families would get $8,000 in tax dollars to send students to private school in sweeping “parental rights” bill backed by lieutenant governor
The bill, which has the blessing of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, will create new rules on how gender and sexual orientation is taught. It will face a tougher test in the House. Full Story
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![An empty classroom at Chapa Middle School in Kyle on Aug. 24, 2021.]()
Credit: Jordan Vonderhaar for The Texas Tribune -
Texas Senate’s priority bills on higher ed would end tenure, diversity policies
The bills are part of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s list of priorities and, if passed as filed, could have profound impacts on how Texas universities recruit top faculty and other employees. Full Story
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![University of Houston students back on campus in Houston on Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2017, after Hurricane Harvey.]()
Credit: Michael Stravato for The Texas Tribune -
Landowners fear injection of fracking waste threatens West Texas aquifers
Operators pump a sea of “produced water” underground for disposal. Intensifying tremors raise fears that the deep toxic waste pits could intermingle with water used for farming and drinking. Full Story
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![David Shifflett, a farmer in Reeves County, parses records of his protests to the Texas Railroad Commission against permits for nearby wastewater injection wells.]()
Credit: Pu Ying Huang/The Texas Tribune -
Workforce shortages in the state psychiatric hospital system prolong jail time for mentally ill Texans
The state has added more beds for jail inmates who need psychiatric treatment to be considered competent to face trial. But at least a third remain empty because the state can’t hire enough people to staff them. Full Story
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![The Austin State Hospital is shown on April 29, 2016. Despite an infusion of funding from lawmakers for the state’s mental health care system, Texas struggles to provide psychiatric care for all patients who need it.]()
Credit: Shelby Tauber/The Texas Tribune -
Texas bill requiring 10-year prison sentences for gun felonies faces opposition from criminal justice and firearm advocates
Under Senate Bill 23, all felonies involving a gun would incur a mandatory 10-year prison sentence. It’s meant to curb crime, despite the lack of correlation between harsher sentences and crime rates. Full Story
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![Assault-style weapons are laid on a table at a gun show in San Marcos on Sunday, Jan. 29, 2023.]()
Credit: Jordan Vonderhaar for The Texas Tribune -
SXSW EDU panelists say the only solution to school safety is to address gun policy and mental health, not one or the other
Gun policy reform is the best way to address school safety, according to experts on a panel in Austin. They also cautioned against doubling down on surveillance technology. Full Story
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![Children arrive to Flores Middle School for the first day of classes in Uvalde on Sept. 6, 2022.]()
Credit: Evan L’Roy/The Texas Tribune -
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and senators unveil package of bills aimed at improving Texas’ power grid
The bills would allow the state to hire companies to build emergency gas-fueled power plants, among other ideas for swinging the state’s power balance away from wind and solar. Full Story
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![Nicholas Ware, a freshman computer science major at Texas State University, walks down the stairs to his dorm room on campus, which has been without consistent power for days. Feb. 17, 2021.]()
Credit: Jordan Vonderhaar for The Texas Tribune -
Conspiracy theory whirlwind threatens to blow Texas out of national program that keeps voter rolls updated
ERIC is a national system that Texas officials say is an important tool to keep voting rolls clean. But a band of right-wing voting fraud activists, joined by state GOP officials, wants to gut it. Full Story
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![A voter walks into the Hays County Government Center Elections Office to cast their vote in the general election on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022 in San Marcos.]()
Credit: Eli Hartman for The Texas Tribune -
Lawmakers offer stark choices for ending the crisis in Texas’ youth prisons — shut them all down, or build more
Plagued by decades of scandals over sexual and physical abuse of children, the Texas Juvenile Justice Department is at a crossroads. Full Story
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![State Rep. James Talarico, D-Round Rock, speaks at a presser to support a bill aimed at closing down juveniles detention centers and reforming the Texas Juvenile Justice Department at the state Capitol on March 9, 2023.]()
Credit: Evan L'Roy/The Texas Tribune -
“I love my babies. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy”: One mother’s struggle to survive in pro-life Texas
Pregnancy forced Destiny Williams to quit her job. She almost died during childbirth. Now with a newborn in tow, she’s struggling to build a more stable life for her and her children. Full Story
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![2/10/23, Pineland, Texas: Destiny Williams holds her three month old Irelynn inside her home in Pineland. Ilana Panich-Linsman for The Texas Tribune]()
Credit: Ilana Panich-Linsman for The Texas Tribune -
Ken Paxton’s whistleblowers ask Texas Supreme Court to take up their case as $3.3 million settlement in jeopardy
Lawyers for four former employees who accused the attorney general of firing them for reporting alleged crimes to authorities say Paxton won’t agree to finalizing the deadline by the end of this legislative session. Full Story
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![Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks at a press conference at the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. on April 26, 2022. Earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments for Texas v. Texas, the enforcement of the Trump-era “remain in Mexico” policy that required asylum seekers to stay in Mexico as they waited for hearings in U.S. immigration court. (Eric Lee for The Texas Tribune).]()
Credit: Eric Lee for The Texas Tribune -
Texas Senate passes first bill this session, a bipartisan effort to close teen gun loophole
In its first bill passed this session, the Texas Senate sought to ensure juvenile mental health hospitalizations are reported to the federal firearm background check system. Full Story
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![A patron holds a handgun at the SAXET Gun Show at the Richard M. Borchard Regional Fairgrounds in Robstown on Feb. 26, 2023.]()
Credit: Blaine Young for The Texas Tribune -
Lawmakers could use $5 billion of a record surplus for raises, flood prevention and border operations
Budget proposals would boost state spending for the current budget cycle for projects ranging from mental health hospitals to state pay raises. This would leave $27 billion in surplus for the next two years. Full Story
Credit: Jordan Vonderhaar for The Texas Tribune -
At a Korean community center in Houston, the struggle immigrant Texans face with language barriers is clear
Texas largely conducts its state business in English and Spanish. It falls to interpreters like Terry Yun to help people scale the wall dividing them from crucial government services. Full Story
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![Terry S. Yun listens and provides translating services for a couple at the Korean Community Center in the Spring Branch district of Houston, TX, on Thursday, Feb. 23, 2023.]()
Credit: Annie Mulligan for The Texas Tribune
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