Politics & Government

Ken Paxton’s political ambitions, at this point, are probably best served by the attorney general staying out of the spotlight, and away from controversy, at least until his November general election contest with Justin Nelson is over. That’s reality for a public official with low name ID and a bunch…

Dr. Mark P. Jones is the fellow in political science at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy and the Joseph D. Jamail Chair in Latin American Studies at Rice University and co-author of Texas Politics Today. We asked him to share his opinion on the Sen. Ted…

While the smart money, if such a thing exists among those willing to gamble on the whims of voters, is still on incumbent Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke got his most encouraging polling news yet in his bid to unseat Cruz. According to a new survey from…

John Jay Myers has owned The Free Man Cajun Café in Deep Ellum since 2011. Despite its proximity to concert venue The Bomb Factory, the small but booming café is in a block protected from the gentrification affecting its rowdy neighbors on Main and Elm streets. Myers, a Louisiana native, brought…

Put yourself in John Carney’s shoes. He’s got to wonder if he and his clients have some special thundercloud or mark following them around. Two years ago the mayor of Dallas named and listed several of Carney’s clients as “high impact landlords” whom the mayor was targeting in a special…

One moment please while I adjust my tinfoil hat. I hate it when the antenna tilts sideways like this. OK, got it. I am coming to you from my special broadcast booth high atop Mount Paranoia. And let me tell you something: Paranoia is a tough job, but somebody’s got…

This is not a column predicting that the two cable-stayed bridges jointly called the Margaret McDermott Bridge over the Trinity River near downtown Dallas are going to collapse like the catastrophic bridge failure in Genoa, Italy, Tuesday. But it is a column noting disturbing parallels. First is bridge design. A…

Dallas City Attorney Larry Casto is resigning effective Aug. 31. Casto took over as city attorney from Warren Ernst in October 2016. During his time as Dallas’ top lawyer, he helped dig the city out of two legal holes, working with the Texas Legislature on a compromise to keep the…

Plano City Council member Tom Harrison, facing a recall effort for sharing anti-Muslim messages on the internet, appears set to serve out his term after all. Late Tuesday, state District Judge Mark Rusch ruled that the petition filed to recall Harrison earlier this year was insufficient.

Longtime Dallas tea-partier and President Donald Trump supporter Katrina Pierson has found herself in the middle of this week’s presidential mini-scandal, thanks to allegations made by former White House adviser Omarosa Manigault-Newman. According to Manigault-Newman, tapes exist of Trump using the racial slur “n——-.” In a taped conversation provided by Manigault-Newman to CBS…

The one thing everybody agreed on Tuesday is that the Dallas Police Department needs more cops. The fight, as Dallas goes through its annual budget process, is going to be over how to keep the officers already on DPD’s rolls in the city and how to add new officers at…

In the unlikely event that you actually get busted by Dallas police for riding an electric scooter somewhere you shouldn’t, chances are you’ll walk, or glide, away with a warning and a stern talking to rather than a ticket, Dallas Police Department brass said Monday. Giving out citations to scooter…

Eight months into cite-and-release and not much has changed for Dallas or its police department. The overwhelming majority of those being cited-and-released for possessing less than 4 ounces of marijuana — a policy approved by the City Council in 2017 — are black and Latino and in southern Dallas when…

Two percent. Not a big number if you’re talking about, say, the rain chances on your average Tuesday. A really big number, however, if you’re talking about the number of cables that could fail on a suspension bridge. If they aren’t repaired or replaced, about 2 percent of the cables…

This is too spooky. They erased Dwaine Caraway. The very recently former Dallas City Council member’s name and image were expunged from City Hall the night after he pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges last week. Name plaque on the horseshoe dais in the council chamber: SCRAPE! Gone! Portrait in…

This is a letter from Jim Schutze to: 42 Deep Ellum, LP, Al Rousan & Wared Corp, Clarence & Gina Anderson, Apartment Association of Greater Dallas, Mr. & Mrs. Richard Ashton, Victor Ballas, Jackie Bewley, Mason Brown III, Comerica Inc. Political Action, Louis Corna, Trammell Crow, Dallas Citizen Council, Dallas…

Unless you’re lucky enough to spend a healthy, limited amount of time on the internet, you’ve surely run into QAnon. Spawned by an off-the-cuff aside about a coming storm by President Donald Trump in 2017, QAnon, ostensibly the mother of all conspiracies, is the unified theory of pro-Trump, anti-Clinton, anti-left…

Despite the clear and convincing evidence, not to mention the guilty plea, showing that now-former Dallas City Council member Dwaine Caraway took about $450,000 in cash to push the City Council to pass Dallas County Schools’ bus stop-arm ticketing scam scheme scam, the Observer is going to miss the guy. For…

Today the Dallas City Council goes into closed-door executive session, away from the eyes and ears of the taxpayers, to decide if the taxpayers should pick up the tab for the legal defense of City Council member Dwaine Caraway, who has been accused in a lawsuit of racketeering. Get out…

Dallas state Sen. Don Huffines, along with his twin brother and former Dallas County GOP Chairman Phillip, spent much of Monday in Russia. It wasn’t a well-publicized trip — both brothers’ social media accounts are bereft of any mention of the excursion — but as photos and stories began to…