All nine candidates on the ballot for mayor of Dallas in the election Saturday have come out officially in opposition to corruption. Several have offered specific plans for combating corruption. Most of those proposals are aimed at catching people in the act of being corrupt. We could do that all…
For more than a year, Dallas officials and others have struggled to come up with a plan for offering shelter to homeless people on nights when it’s too cold to sleep outdoors. It’s a problem many other communities have already solved. Across the region and nationwide, other cities offer examples…
The good news for Dallas City Council member Philip Kingston is that he and his attorney are going to have more time to prepare their defense to an anonymous ethics complaint filed against the downtown and East Dallas representative filed earlier this year. That’s thanks to an extension handed down…
The news was enough to make one check the calendar and make sure it wasn’t April 1. Monday morning, former Republican Texas state Sen. Konni Burton, fresh off her November 2018 loss to Democrat Beverly Powell, announced that she’s starting a news outlet “dedicated to shedding light on the stories…
It’s not decriminalization, but it’s a start. Late Monday afternoon, the Texas House of Representatives signed off on a bill that would reduce Texas’ penalty for possessing less than one ounce of marijuana to a Class C misdemeanor, the same criminal penalty reserved for traffic tickets and driving with an…
Bedford Republican Jonathan Stickland has long been the court jester of Texas’ House of Representatives. Since his election in 2012, he’s positioned himself as a darling of the Tea Party and antagonistic right, never shying away from a political stunt or a chance to hear his voice projected from the House…
The political flap over Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot’s recently announced policy of reduced prosecution for certain offenses opens a window on a really interesting question in these tumultuous times: What does somebody mean when he says he’s a conservative on crime? Or a liberal? I admit, one reason…
Texas Secretary of State David Whitley’s push to purge nearly 100,000 registered voters from the state’s rolls is over. Friday afternoon, a coalition of voting rights groups announced they’d reached a $450,000 settlement with the state. The groups sued Whitley earlier this year over his order that counties across the…
Turns out Texas state Sen. Angela Paxton’s hands may not have been quite as clean as she claimed they were during a February ethics flare-up over a bill she filed that would’ve changed the securities law her husband is currently accused of breaking. Paxton’s Senate Bill 860 would allow the…
A citizens subcommittee tasked with finding short-term help for homeless people in Dallas struggled Thursday to work out a plan for what to do with those people when it’s dangerously cold outside. Ultimately, the Citizens Homeless Commission’s short-term solutions committee settled on a plan to solicit proposals from groups that…
The Dallas City Council voted Wednesday to require all employers in the city to provide paid sick time to their employees, starting in August. Whether any Dallas worker ever benefits from the new policy remains up in the air. Austin passed a similar ordinance in 2018 but still hasn’t been…
Dallas’ Citizens Police Review Board got meaningfully stronger Wednesday. The new board won’t be as strong as activists wanted it to be and is probably a little stronger than Dallas’ police associations would’ve preferred. Its creation is a compromise, just as Dallas Police Chief U. Renee Hall said it would…
Today I proudly and courageously don my tinfoil hat. I do so for you, Dear Reader, so that you will not have to wear one. First, in the Department of Problems It Seems Like Maybe We Should have Been Able to Foresee, we learned recently that the mayor’s plan for…
Missy Shorey, the combative head of the Dallas County Republican Party, died Tuesday night at age 47, her husband said Wednesday morning. “Friends and family,” Marc Himelhoch said in a Facebook post. “It is with heavy heart that I must inform you that my beloved Missy Shorey passed unexpectedly last…
For the second time in two weeks, one of Texas’ biggest political names has decided there’s no error like an unforced Twitter error to get people talking. Last week, Sen. Ted Cruz chose to mock Disney for its $5 million offer to help rebuild fire-damaged Notre Dame Cathedral Paris. Tuesday,…
Do you like having a previous speculation confirmed in black and white? I kind of do. A lot. That’s why I got such a kick out of the endorsement editorial in The Dallas Morning News last weekend urging people to vote for three people not named Scott Griggs for mayor…
More than two weeks after running into a couple of state troopers outside Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen’s house in Angleton, gun rights activist Chris McNutt spoke out against Bonnen at a news conference Tuesday. He refused to take the blame for the Texas Legislature’s apparent failure to expand gun…
Dear Indianapolis, Welcome to NRA convention week. About a year ago, we, and by we, we mean Dallas’ feisty alt-weekly, were sitting in the same spot you are now, wondering what to expect from Wayne LaPierre and his merry band of misfits. Given that we’ve already seen the other side,…
Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot defended his recent decision to stop prosecuting certain quality-of-life crimes over the objections of members of the Dallas City Council’s Public Safety and Criminal Justice Committee on Monday. The reforms, Creuzot said, are meant to make Dallas a safer, more equitable city, not to…
Nine months after a petition drive to get an ordinance requiring paid sick leave for everyone who works in Dallas went down in flames, the Dallas City Council will take up a similar ordinance. Wednesday, the council will decide whether city code will require all Dallas employers to credit their…
Sen. Ted Cruz learned a lesson he should’ve leaned long ago the hard way Wednesday afternoon: Mess with the mouse, and you’re going to get the ears. The story starts, as many have over the last six-years plus, with Cruz trying and failing miserably to pass himself off as human…
Sometimes you learn more about people in politics from their shadows than their faces. Serial efforts over a period of years to take down two progressive Dallas City Council members have cast the same kind of shadow consistently. In the effort, mostly failed I think, to dirty up council members…
