This week is the beginning of the end for one of Texas’ longstanding political fights. Over the course of at least five days in a San Antonio courthouse, a three-judge federal panel will hear arguments over whether Texas illegally discriminated against the state’s minority population when it drew its current…
The state of Texas, thanks to its new, slightly weaker voter ID law, is no longer discriminating against minority voters. At least that’s the case if you listen to the U.S. Department of Justice. Late Wednesday, John Gore, the deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division,…
I understand why leaks in Washington about Trump are a big deal and my leaks about things like drainage problems in Dallas, not so much. I think I have a pretty good working sense of proportion. But leaks are still leaks, and I have my reasons to make sure people…
The view I give you here sometimes of City Hall is depressing, and yet some twinge of conscience provokes me now and then to tell you how optimistic I am about the city. According to the surveys, I think you are, too. Between City Hall and the city, a strange…
The greatest challenge in the thing we call vaguely “The Trinity River project” is sheer size. The full project area along the river through downtown is 10,000 acres. That’s 15.6 square miles. You could put New York City’s Central Park in it 12 times. It’s two-thirds the size of Manhattan,…
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Thursday that he and a 10-state coalition will sue the federal government over Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals protections if the U.S. Department of Homeland Security refuses to phase out the program. DACA, established by President Barack Obama in 2012, protects certain undocumented individuals…
The Dallas City Council turned over the city’s seats on DART’s board of directors Wednesday, dumping three board members who defied the City Council in 2016. The council move is in direct defiance of the stated goal of DART’s leadership to build the suburb-friendly Cotton Belt rail line from Plano…
Unlike Sean Spicer and Sarah Hauckabee Sanders, the usual suspects sent to the White House Press Room podium, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, the former Texas governor, looked like he was having fun, at least. Perry, given the mic to promote the Trump administration’s energy week, regaled the press corps for…
On Thursday afternoon, the Observer had the chance to sit down for the better part of an hour with Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings. Rawlings, fresh off losses by several of his allies in this spring’s City Council election, talked with us about the changing council, a changing city and the challenges…
By no means is it all bad news at Dallas City Hall. At least we learn from our mistakes. I offer in evidence an idea that popped up in the most recent City Council briefing on the upcoming bond program, which I call the new rule of “no money, no…
Dallas’ next police chief, no matter who he or she might be, faces a tough task right off the bat. Rank-and-file Dallas police officers are frustrated with pension cuts and ongoing attrition issues, crime rates have ticked up slightly after reaching historic lows earlier this decade and the Dallas Police…
8i Everybody’s for civility now. So am I. Newly elected Montana Rep. Greg Gianforte called for civility shortly before seeking a soft sentence, which he got, for assaulting a man who had asked him a question he didn’t like. Aging rocker Ted Nugent called for civility after the recent congressional…
As is ordained in the city charter, the first Monday following the 30th calendar day after the final canvass of the general election is Dallas’ inauguration day. The city’s 14 City Council members and mayor each took an oath of office at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in the morning…
Revolution never happens in one fell swoop. It’s a process. I think what we just witnessed in our recently completed Dallas City Council election was a very early stage in the process. This election was the local equivalent of the 1825 Decembrist revolt against Czar Nicholas. Not the full-tilt boogie…
On June 28, the Dallas City Council will have the chance to sign off on the city’s first permanent memorial to the five Dallas police officers killed July 7 last year. The proposed memorial sculpture will sit in front of the flagpoles at Jack Evans Police Headquarters in the Cedars,…
All the talk has been good so far about a new regime at Dallas City Hall under recently hired Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax and the new city attorney, Larry Casto. Their new byword is supposed to be transparency. You could fool me. On my first real challenge to them,…
Dallas still hasn’t shaken the Exxxotica monkey off its back. Although the case was dismissed, the Dallas City Council committed Wednesday to spending at least another $157,000 on its lawsuit to keep the porn convention away from the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center. This new expense brings the city’s total…
Let me ask you a hypothetical question. Imagine your neighbor has a burned-out VW van, six broken, badly stained toilets and part of a rotten skateboard ramp in his front yard. You call the city on him. How would you like it if the city inspector told the guy he…
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…
