Politics & Government

Now we know. We can predict future local elections. Based on the outcomes in the just-concluded Dallas City Council elections, we have a reliable yardstick by which to know in advance who’s going to lose, who’s going to win and what the real issue is. To know who’s going to…

Let’s make sure we don’t lose sight of one extremely interesting aspect of the big local political turnover that just happened. One of the most surprising outcomes in last Saturday’s City Council runoff elections, the victory of challenger Omar Narvaez over incumbent Monica Alonzo in District 6 in West Dallas,…

On Saturday afternoon, a couple of hours before the first results would be released in Dallas’ three City Council runoffs, the specter that had hung over Dallas municipal elections all spring reared its ugly head again. Dallas County Elections Administrator Toni Pippins-Poole announced that the vast majority of mail-in ballots…

In just a week, Dallas’ newest City Council will be inaugurated at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center. After some pomp and circumstance in the morning, the City Council will convene that afternoon to draw for seats and offices. Thanks to the events of Saturday night, the City Council also…

It’s hard to describe Saturday night’s Dallas City Council runoff elections as anything but a repudiation of Dallas’ political establishment. Three incumbents, all backed by For Our Community, the Super PAC run by Mike Rawlings’ consultant Mari Woodlief, appear to have lost their seats on the council. Rawlings endorsed two…

In less than two weeks — June 19 — Dallas will inaugurate its new City Council. Eleven members of that council are set. Ten incumbents are coming back. Dwaine Caraway, who knocked off freshman Carolyn Arnold in District 4, might as well be an incumbent; he served four two-year terms…

Tenants, the landlord and the judge in the HMK mass-evictions case in West Dallas cobbled together an 11th-hour deal Thursday afternoon, hours after a protective court order expired, with some help from Catholic Charities of Dallas. It should mean that even some tenants eight months in arrears on rent will…

Dallas is changing because the ground is shifting. The arrival of new, young players and their gradual ascent into elective office is altering the city’s dreams of itself. The new city has visions that the old city fears. Handing big assets such as Fair Park and the Trinity River off…

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings announced late Wednesday afternoon that the city of Dallas will join several of its fellow Texas in cities a legal challenge to Texas Senate Bill 4. The decision came after a parade of open-mic speakers encouraged the City Council to do so and followed a lengthy executive…

It has taken a while — half a year — but it looks like we are finally about to get our first good rubber-meets-the-road test of Dallas’ new city manager and new city attorney. Until now, they’ve been all about pretty talk and deck chairs. Both the new manager, T.C…

Irving state Rep. Matt Rinaldi picked either the worst time or the best time to put himself in the center of the Texas political universe. On Memorial Day, the last day of the 2017 Texas Legislature’s regular session, Rinaldi, a Republican, picked a fight with some of his Democratic colleagues,…

I can tell you exactly what the vote fraud is in West Dallas, where a Dallas City Council runoff election will be decided Saturday. It’s terrible. The fraud is the turnout. And to the extent that any other narrative serves to keep people away from the polls, that narrative is…

And then there were three. Following the first round of voting May 6, 11 of Dallas’ 14 City Council races ended with one candidate getting more than 50 percent of the vote and, in doing so, avoiding a runoff. But the three races that remain on the board are the council’s…

Is there anyone out there who doesn’t get what Dallas’ aversion to most government-subsidized affordable housing is really all about? The best answer is in the two kinds of government-subsidized housing Dallas does like. One is government-subsidized housing for seniors. The second, as we are about to see downtown, is…

It’s a free country, so just say it: If Dallas wants to use legal means to push poor people into the suburbs – assuming no cattle prods – then Dallas can do it. It’s just too bad our city leaders have to be so smarmy-two-faced about it. We’re hearing a…

Dallas’ city officials, the city’s representatives in Austin, representatives for the pension and Dallas’ police and fire associations have been praised for coming together and hammering out a plan to kick the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System toward financial stability. Less has been said about the compromise’s costs to…

For a preview of what Democrats will face in 2018 – here, anyway – take a close look at the District 2 Dallas school board runoff election. The Texas and Dallas Democratic Party organizations think they are reproducing the early Tea Party grassroots successes of 15 years ago by providing…

Irving’s Matt Rinaldi celebrated being named one of the Observer’s worst representatives of the 2017 session with a bang Monday, when he called U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on a group of people protesting Texas’ new anti-sanctuary city law at the state capitol. During an ensuing skirmish on the Texas floor,…

In addition to being Memorial Day, Monday is also the 140th — and last — day of official business for Texas’ 85th Legislature. As the session wound down, the Observer evaluated the performances of representatives throughout North Texas. Here’s our list of the best and worst DFW had to offer this…