Politics & Government

There won’t be a recount after all. Just before noon Monday, former Dallas County District Judge Elizabeth Frizell conceded her hard-fought primary for Dallas County district attorney. John Creuzot, also a former district judge, is now officially the Democratic nominee for DA. He’ll take on Faith Johnson, Dallas County’s last…

As things stood in November, the last time the Dallas City Council took up Dallas’ Confederate statue problem, it seemed the council was ready to accept the recommendations of the task force hastily assembled by the city this summer after a woman was killed during a fight over the fate…

Presuming Democrats don’t pull off a statewide upset, Texas’ November election is going to be about the small things. Lupe Valdez or Andrew White probably won’t beat Gov. Greg Abbott, and Beto O’Rourke, however charismatic, probably isn’t going to knock off Sen. Ted Cruz. Across the state, however, there are…

U.S. District Judge David Godbey has ruled against Dallas firefighters and cops whose retirement savings were frozen by the Dallas Police and Fire Pension Fund board, saying that the retirees don’t have a case because they will get their savings back eventually. I am trying to get my head around…

This is intriguing. Ben Carson, who is Trump’s secretary of Housing and Urban Development, has announced (see below) a new initiative imposing a system of spending controls on the agency, which spends $60 billion a year. You might wonder why somebody didn’t think of that before. We know all about…

This makes four times. Four times in the course of one week I have sent the same set of questions to the Atmos Energy public relations staff. First time, they messaged me back that they were busy. Next three times, radio silence. I just find that remarkable. This is a…

More than a week after Dallas County’s Democratic primary for district attorney, the two candidates in the race, former judges Elizabeth Frizell and John Creuzot, are still fighting it out over who will move on to challenge  Republican Faith Johnson in November. Wednesday, Frizell made her strongest attack yet against…

Joe Straus and Byron Cook, two retiring moderate Texas House Republicans, got in their last licks on their frequent opponents, Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, with the release of a Straus-commissioned report on Texas’ economic competitiveness. By publicly championing legislation last year to keep transgender people from…

All but one provision of Texas’ 2017 sanctuary cities law can be enforced as the law makes its long journey through the federal courts, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday. The bill, which is the subject of a legal challenge from the cities of Dallas, Austin, Houston,…

The National Rifle Association’s national tent revival is coming to Dallas in May. Whether the city and its residents like it or not, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre and company have a valid contract, good for a free takeover of the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center on Cinco de…

For a time in the fall and winter, and maybe still, Texas Democrats talked themselves into thinking that maybe this year was going to be the year. Through the Virginia gubernatorial election in November, Doug Jones’ massive senatorial upset in Alabama and early voting in Texas, those who’ve wandered through…

Results from this week’s primary election in Dallas do not illustrate a conservative/liberal split in the city. Lots of luck even trying to get those labels to work. The outcomes in a couple of key state House districts argue more for a widening divide between people whose views are basically…

The Democratic primary race for Dallas County district attorney is turning out to be a battle between liberal forces over who will challenge Republican incumbent Faith Johnson, whom Gov. Greg Abbott appointed after former DA Susan Hawk stepped down for mental health reasons two years ago. In one corner once…

Heading into Tuesday night’s Texas primary, the state’s Democrats had plenty of reasons to be hopeful. During early voting, more Democrats had turned out than during any previous mid-term primary in the state’s 15 biggest counties, besting their Republican counterparts by more than 40,000 ballots. Beto O’Rourke, the El Paso…

Former Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez may not have been the best fundraiser or the smoothest campaigner during the 2018’s Democratic gubernatorial primary, but she did enough, and had enough name recognition, to ensure that she’ll have at least a few more months to get better on the trail. Valdez…

Dallas County voters easily topped their previous best turnout for early voting in an off-year primary thanks to an energized Democratic electorate. According to numbers from the Texas Secretary of State’s Office, 110,334 county residents voted early in the 2018 primary, beating the county’s previous high turnout in 2014 by…

This is a difficult moment for Dallas where the city’s affordable housing and economic development policies are concerned, probably even a scary moment for some people. Since most of the money in question — possibly vast sums — comes from the federal government, we should be able to look to…

This is one of those excruciatingly embarrassing moments that tend to be beyond the ability of persons of civility and good taste to resolve. That’s what I’m here for. It’s time to ask the president to stop giving his condolences in mass shootings. Of course I know how horrible, coarse,…

This week was the best of Lupe Valdez’s gubernatorial campaign. The former Dallas County sheriff announced her highest fundraising numbers since kicking off her campaign in November, picked up a key endorsement, and earned some poll numbers that are confusing but not any kind of a death knell. For a…