Those who believe that Dallas state Rep. Eric Johnson is a stalking horse candidate, the tool of a cabal of wealthy people opposed to Scott Griggs as mayor, might be called paranoid — if they weren’t so damned right. We have audio to prove it, thanks to an anonymous source…
Just as quickly as it came onto the scene in January, the 86th Texas Legislature faded into the background Monday night, closing up shop for the next two years. With Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s tweeted promise that he would not call a special session, Texans can rest easy knowing that…
Victor Vital, the lawyer who represented Dallas City Council member Philip Kingston before the city’s ethics advisory commission this week, won a victory even harder to achieve than a favorable verdict in court. In court you have the rule of law. The ethics commission, on the other hand, is sort…
Dallas City Council member Philip Kingston did nothing wrong when he advocated for zoning changes to make building and renting garage apartments easier in Dallas before building a garage apartment on his own property, Dallas’ Ethics Advisory Commission decided Tuesday. Kingston was under fire after an anonymous member of the…
One could be forgiven for not noticing that Texas Secretary of State David Whitley, the man behind the attempted voter purge that drew so much local, state and national media attention during the first half of 2019, exited the political stage Monday afternoon. It was Memorial Day, after all, and…
There have been times, during the five years that I’ve spent at the Observer, that I’ve been surprised when a subject provoked hate mail or Facebook comments from you, our lovely readers. The ad hominems, for instance, fly far more frequently than I ever would’ve thought after articles about the…
The $11.5 billion public education bill passed by the Texas House and Senate last week is proof that Texans are getting smarter, especially those who thought they were already smart, like education reformers. Intently focused for the last two decades on clearing the sludge out of the state’s public school…
Tuesday morning, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a mixed judgment on one of the most controversial abortion laws to reach the court since it heard Hellerstedt v. Texas in 2016. Indiana’s rule that all aborted fetuses in the state must be buried or cremated is back in effect, thanks to…
David Blewett is not Philip Kingston. If you aren’t Blewett’s wife, one of his seven kids or The Dallas Morning News editorial board, that’s probably all you know about him, but Blewett wants people to know he’s more than that. To that end, and in the interest of pulling together as…
The runoff campaign in the District 14 East Dallas City Council race is a mirror of the citywide runoff for mayor. In both contests, a challenger backed by the business community accuses a long-term City Hall incumbent of being a jackass. It’s the jackass question that I have a particular…
More than 25% of Texas women between ages 18 and 44 don’t have health insurance coverage. That’s one of the biggest takeaways from a new study into the effects of Medicaid expansion on maternal health from the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute. Texas’ uninsured rate for women of child-bearing age…
A bill that would overhaul Texas’ college credit transfer system is on its way to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk. Senate Bill 25 seeks to help students avoid losing course credits when they transfer from community colleges to four-year colleges and universities. Both houses of the Legislature approved the bill last…
Just days after advocacy groups filed more than two dozen new sexual harassment charges against the fast-food chain, a group of McDonald’s workers from across the country protested in North Texas on Thursday, demanding better wages, better working conditions and the right to form a union. Fight for $15, a…
Texas’ big three — Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dennis Bonnen — effectively ended the state’s 2019 legislative session Thursday, announcing that the Legislature had reached a deal on school finance reform. With the agreement, the Legislature has settled its three biggest priorities for 2019:…
DFW cities and suburbs are booming, according to numbers released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau. Three of the 15 fastest-growing large cities — defined by the bureau as having populations of more than 50,000 — are in North Texas, as is the city with the third-highest numeric population growth…
Texas’ bare-minimum medical THC program, 2015’s Compassionate Use Act, appears set to get a little more robust this spring after the Texas Senate followed the Texas House in approving a new list of conditions eligible for the program. When Gov. Greg Abbott signed the Compassionate Use Act four years ago,…
First I was confused. Too many great Democrats running for president. But then I saw the Fox poll: Biden beats Trump by 11 points. I said that’s it. Biden’s my man. Then I watched Beto O’Rourke’s town hall the other night on CNN. Now I’m confused again. I do have…
Attention all Dallas Lost Cause fetishists: Dallas’ Robert E. Lee statue, the same one you so desperately tried to keep on its pedestal in Oak Lawn, can now be yours, assuming you win an auction with a low, low opening bid of $450,000. That’s right, thanks to a 12-3 Dallas…
Last week, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed a piece of anti-abortion legislation that left Texas, one of the pro-life movement’s biggest hotbeds, in the dust. Thanks to Kemp’s signature, Georgia law now bans any abortion occurring more than six weeks into a pregnancy, creating an almost impossible window for women…
George Hale is a journalist, an occupation that confers on him no special legal status beyond what any American citizen enjoys and may even, on any given day, rate him a little lower. Being a reporter has taught him that somebody at some point will always want to shut him…
Last weekend’s murder of Muhlaysia Booker was the third killing or assault of a Dallas transgender woman since October, Dallas police said Tuesday afternoon. Police found Booker shot to death early Saturday morning in Far East Dallas. “These cases, although not directly related at this time, do have similarities the…
It’s almost summer in Dallas, which means a couple of things: unbearable heat is just around the corner and Cowboys star running back Ezekiel Elliott has gotten himself involved in a situation he had no business getting himself involved in. This time Elliott didn’t commit an unforced error at the…
