Turns out, former Texas state Rep. Jason Villalba wasn’t the last person to squeeze himself onto Dallas’ large field of mayoral candidates. Tuesday morning, West Dallas state Rep. Eric Johnson surprisingly threw his own hat into the mayoral ring, bringing the number of candidates running for the city’s most visible…
Former Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Monica Alonzo is looking to retake her spot on the Dallas City Council, two years after being unceremoniously dumped out of her District 6 seat in a June 2017 runoff by Omar Narvaez. While she has apparently yet to speak to the English-language press about…
A half-dozen or so candidates remain in Dallas’ mayoral race, hoping to navigate the rocky path to a one-on-one showdown and a runoff. Friday morning, former Dallas City Attorney Larry Casto announced he is no longer one of them. Casto, a North Oak Cliff resident, said he believes his remaining…
Apologies in advance, but we’re going to have to take another long look at Beto O’Rourke’s Medium blog. Late Wednesday afternoon, O’Rourke took to the blogging platform with another journal entry right out of a graduate creative writing workshop — Doesn’t the University of Iowa have one of those? —…
It’s hard to blame DFW Airport’s Transportation Security Administration agents for being unprepared at this point. For federal workers, a government shutdown is always looming, an event out of their control that can be forced on them at any time. Those employed by the TSA and other federal agencies around…
City Hall is having a big debate with itself about getting rid of the city’s long-standing youth curfew. We should do an experiment. Try this: Rigorously enforce the curfew outside late-night teenage house parties in the affluent white Lakewood and Preston Hollow neighborhoods. Then re-poll everybody on how many people…
Looks like it’s going to be eight. Former state Representative Jason Villalba added his name to Dallas’ long list of mayoral candidates Tuesday morning, becoming the eighth, and likely final, candidate to join the race. Villalba is trying his hand at municipal politics after being ousted from his seat in…
The good news, such as it is: The Tarrant County Republican Party decided that a politically conservative trauma surgeon who also serves on the Southlake City Council is a perfectly fine choice to be party vice chairman, even if he is a … gasp … Muslim. The bad news for…
Greg Abbott gets away with a lot. He’s a firebrand, far-right conservative in a state that’s tilted significantly more liberal over the last five years. He didn’t get much done during his first term — the state’s property tax and school finance system are still in shambles — and, unlike…
It’s easy to get politically depressed. Sometimes it’s not easy to get out of bed. But we need to draw a deep breath and look at the long arc. Sunlight glows out there on the far horizon. Last week at the very moment President Donald Trump was doing his Dumbo…
Oprah, teeth cleanings and nascent beards. Among a few other tidbits, that’s where we are in Beto O’Rourke’s presidential flirtation. The maybe candidate still isn’t doing anything that actually means anything, so social media gawkers and the media are left to project their own meaning onto everything the newly out-of-a-job…
The Texas State Capitol’s ahistorical Children of the Confederacy plaque is finally coming down after a unanimous State Preservation Board vote Friday morning. The plaque, which features the “Children of the Confederacy Creed” has long been a source of controversy at the capitol. Over the last year, Democratic Dallas state Representative…
As of last night, it’s official. Scott Griggs, North Oak Cliff’s long-serving City Council member, is running for mayor. “Dallas needs a new kind of mayor, a mayor we can trust to champion our neighborhoods and our diverse communities and lead us to reclaim Dallas for the people of Dallas,”…
As rumors surrounding Dan Patrick and a potential White House job reached a fever pitch, the Observer’s thoughts turn, naturally, to Henny Youngman. “Take our lieutenant governor … please.” Patrick, the most powerful politician in the state, couldn’t be a better fit for the White House. Throughout 2016, he was…
The Dallas city auditor released a report last Friday painting the outfit that promotes the Dallas Convention Center as a runaway, money-burning, out-of-control party barn. Soon after, Mayor Mike Rawlings had words to say. Rawlings told The Dallas Morning News: “The narrative in the audit is about vaguery. That ultimately…
As is typical for the first day of any session of the Texas Legislature, there was a lot of ceremony in Austin on Tuesday. Dozens of kids and other visitors were at the Capitol, gathered to see their parents and loved ones take the House or Senate oath of office…
Do you care who the next mayor is? Who any mayor is? I mean really. Lots of people want you to care. The field of candidates for mayor of Dallas in the election next May, already swollen to just over a half dozen with the announcement Monday of school board…
For two or three weeks before November’s midterm election, there was no better parlor game in Texas than trying to figure out what the daily early voting numbers coming in from the Secretary of State’s Office actually meant. Was 2018 going to be politics as usual in Texas or was…
And then there were six. Or is it seven? Nine maybe? Whichever it is, former Dallas ISD School Board President Miguel Solis announced Monday morning that he’s joining Dallas’ burgeoning herd of mayoral contenders. Solis, rumored for months to be looking at a run, officially kicked off his campaign on…
If it’s anything, the Ridgecrest apartment complex, located almost all the way to Mountain Creek Lake in far West Dallas, is proof that in the last half-century most local and national government programs designed to end poverty have been stupid. The good news is that Dallas is beginning to figure…
Dallas’ airports are feeling the effects of President Donald Trump’s government shutdown but aren’t likely to face any serious pain for another couple of weeks, Transportation Security Administration union officials say. Quoting unnamed local sources, CNN reported Friday afternoon that “call-outs” (sick days) by DFW Airport TSA agents are up…
Thursday should’ve been — and was — a triumphal day for Dallas’ newest U.S. House representative, Democrat Colin Allred. He got his reward for beating incumbent Pete Sessions in their grueling 2018 campaign, finally being sworn in as member of the 116th Congress. Allred, who’s contributing a diary about his…
