Politics & Government

Despite clear Democratic gains, much will be the same when the Texas Legislature convenes for the 2019 session. Republicans will still hold clear majorities in both the Senate and the House and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, thanks to his 4-point win in his re-election race with Mike Collier, will preside…

Last week I wrote about Dallas City Council member Jennifer Gates, who is white, appearing on her own Facebook page dressed in a Halloween costume as a caricatured Mexican man in a sombrero with a black mustache. Later Sharon Grigsby at The Dallas Morning News wrote a thoughtful column taking…

Significant local and statewide races remained in the balance Tuesday night as polls closed at 7 p.m. in Dallas County and much of the rest of Texas. Results of the approximately 5 million early votes cast around the state are trickling in. In Dallas County at least, the so-called blue…

At 7 p.m. Tuesday when polls close throughout the state of Texas — with one notable exception, but we’ll get to that — only one thing will be left to do if you’re the slightest bit politically inclined. No more doors to knock on, texts to send or votes to…

Heather Hacker, Texas’ assistant solicitor general, made it clear from the start Monday that one of the most controversial provisions of Senate Bill 8, Texas’ latest and greatest piece of sweeping anti-abortion legislation, isn’t about protecting women’s health, as Texas Republicans have so often argued when they’ve defended anti-choice laws in…

Of all the races on Texas’ midterm ballot Tuesday, the one that’s built up the greatest disparity between the attention paid to it by the media, the Observer included, and its potential effect on the lives of everyone who lives in the state is the battle between incumbent Lieutenant Governor Dan…

Dallas City Council Member Jennifer Staubach Gates, whose name has been mentioned recently as an establishment candidate for mayor in 2019, announced the end of her political career in novel fashion the day after Halloween by posting photos of herself dressed as a Mexican man in a sombrero with a…

Halloween and rain don’t make for ideal voting conditions. Just more than 26,000 people showed up to cast early votes in Dallas County on Wednesday, the second-lowest total so far in 2018. The depressed turnout was just a blip on a radar full of good news about civic participation so…

A lot of the time, probably too much, we talk about the Dallas City Council strictly in terms of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, death, famine, war and conquest. There’s more to it than those four guys. A recent debate about a run-down apartment complex in far West Dallas…

Another day, another promise from President Donald Trump to his base ahead of next week’s midterm elections. Tuesday, rather than issuing more wisdom about the caravan of Central American migrants that’s still hundreds of miles from the U.S. border, Trump declared that he’s considering ending birthright citizenship with an executive…

It’s remarkable we’re here. For decades, Texas political junkies looking for action on the eve of a general election either had to look really small, to one of the few competitive Texas legislative races that might crop up now and then, or outside the state to one of the national…

A new poll from Quinnipiac University shows El Paso U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke closing in on incumbent U.S. Senator Ted Cruz as the two candidate embark on their last full week of campaigning. Quinnipiac’s previous poll two weeks ago showed O’Rourke trailing Cruz by nine, seemingly having lost his momentum…

U.S. Representative John Lewis had some cautionary words for his Dallas supporters on Saturday. “We must take our country back and save our democracy,” Lewis said. “I don’t want to go back. I want to go forward and create one America.” Lewis said our differences don’t matter because we’re all living…

Like their counterparts across the state, Dallas County voters have voted early and often throughout the state’s early voting period. Throughout Texas, voters are showing up as if the Nov. 6 election was for president, rather than a midterm. According to numbers released by the Texas secretary of state Sunday…

The family of Botham Jean, the 26-year-old accountant shot and killed in his own apartment by an off-duty Dallas police officer on Sept. 6, sued the city in federal court late Friday. The suit alleges that Amber Guyger, the police officer who shot Jean, used excessive force and violated Jean’s…

Three days. That’s how quickly it would’ve been over if Dallas had just let Jeff Handy have his convention in the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center. Instead, here we are two-and-a-half years later with no end in sight to the legal battle between Handy and the city. Wednesday, the 5th…

Kevin Felder, the Dallas City Council member I have been calling King Cuckoo, cuckooed me big-time Wednesday I guess, winning a 13-2 vote against the South Dallas car wash that I have been defending from time immemorial. Another big winner in the deal — this one really sticks in the…

Dallas is out of the business of managing Fair Park. By a unanimous vote Wednesday afternoon, the Dallas City Council voted to turn over the reins of the city’s biggest vein of untapped potential to the Fair Park First Foundation, which will oversee management of the park. Spectra — a…

Dallas County residents kept up the momentum and then some on day two of early voting. Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said more than 55,000 registered voters cast ballots at polling places throughout the county Tuesday, eclipsing 53,000-plus who voted the second day of early voting during the 2016 presidential…