Texas Senator Ted Cruz and his challenger for re-election, El Paso U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke will hold three debates over the six weeks-plus that remain in the run-up to the Nov. 6 election, their campaigns announced in dueling press releases late Friday afternoon. The first of the debates will be…
This is from way out in the boondocks here in Dallas, Texas, so far from the nation’s capital we have to take its existence on faith, but we’ve got feelings, too, you know. In fact I feel a very strong need to tell somebody how I’m feeling about the anonymous…
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before, but Dallas is one step away from settling one of the biggest civic issues left on its plate. Thursday, the Dallas Park and Recreation Board voted 13-2 in favor of the latest, greatest city plan to turn over control of Fair Park…
Ahead of November’s election, Texas Republicans have apparently found the hill on which they are willing to die. Late Thursday, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who’s campaigning by flying around in a private jet and speaking in front of local TV cameras at airports, made his newest push for re-election,…
For all the Observer’s many disagreements with former Texas Governor Rick Perry, sometimes he is, even we have to admit, so naive that he’s charming. Thursday morning, the man who got a C in freshman U.S. History at Texas A&M, hopped on the old Twitter machine to calm the fears…
In a speech to the Dallas City Council on Wednesday, Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price, the longest serving and most influential black elected leader in the city, warned that the most serious threat to racial amity in the city comes from white liberals. It was vintage Price. The 68-year-old…
Did Zina Bash, a star of Brett Kavanaugh’s U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings, flash a white power symbol while sitting behind Kavanaugh at his Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday? Some people on Twitter think so, but then some people on Twitter think anything. Bash, who until recently worked for Texas…
Here it comes, the 2019 Dallas mayor’s race, and it is going to be a filthy replay of the 2005 “strong mayor” election in which the business oligarchy jammed its thumb down hard on the race button. The preview is playing now on social media. It’s a corny video with…
You are forgiven if you think it’s too early to talk about the May 2019 mayoral election in Dallas. In fact, I would forgive you if you still felt the same way in May 2019, because maybe you have other fish to fry. Is the next mayoral election going to…
The short week that starts today is a big one for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Wednesday in Fort Worth, Paxton will take his first big swing at ending the Affordable Care Act, arguing in front of a federal judge that President Barack Obama’s signature achievement is unconstitutional. Paxton is…
First Baptist Dallas Pastor Robert Jeffress deserves some credit. Motivations, politics and decency aside, he picked the right horse way back in the summer of 2015 when he decided to back then-candidate Donald Trump’s nascent presidential campaign. For his trouble — Jeffress frequently worked “Make America Great Again” into invocations and…
The GOP has a problem attracting women voters, at least among those women who think uninvited pussy grabbing is a bad thing. And they have a problem with younger voters, a depressingly small group but one that nonetheless tends to be passionate about things like civil liberties, the environment and…
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…
Over the last couple of weeks, Sen. Ted Cruz has traveled Texas, coming home to answer the campaign challenge issued by Beto O’Rourke, the Democratic U.S. House member from El Paso facing the incumbent in November. Cruz hasn’t, as O’Rourke has, visited each of Texas’ 254 counties, but he’s made…
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.
