Tag Archives: Collin County

The case against moving the Paxton trial back to Collin County just got more interesting

All right, settle in for a minute, this is going to take a bit of explaining, and there’s no accompanying published news story that I know of. Way back in March of 2017, visiting District Court Judge George Gallagher (from … Continue reading

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Precinct analysis: State House district changes by county

Introduction Congressional districts State Rep districts Commissioners Court/JP precincts Comparing 2012 and 2016 Statewide judicial Other jurisdictions Appellate courts, Part 1 Appellate courts, Part 2 Judicial averages Other cities District Attorney County Attorney Sheriff Tax Assessor County Clerk HCDE Fort … Continue reading

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An alternate route to Medicaid expansion

I’m okay with this. Texas Democrats have tried for years to convince Republican state leaders to increase access to Medicaid. Now they think they have found a way to do it with or without their help. U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett … Continue reading

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En banc request granted for Paxton trial moving issue

I don’t know if that headline makes sense, but it’s the natural next step after the special prosecutors in the Ken Paxton trial asked the First Court of Appeals to reconsider its ruling that would send the trial back to … Continue reading

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Betsy Price to run for Tarrant County Judge

I don’t usually pay much attention to county races outside the Houston area, but there are some points of interest to discuss about this. Outgoing Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price is running for Tarrant County judge in 2022, attempting a … Continue reading

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Not so fast on moving the Paxton trial back to Collin County

The special prosecutors have requested an en banc review of the three-judge panel ruling. Prosecutors in the felony fraud case against Attorney General Ken Paxton are asking the full 1st Court of Appeals to review a decision by a three-justice … Continue reading

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Paxton trial to head back to Collin County

You can go home again, apparently. A panel of three justices ruled Thursday that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s felony fraud charges should be held in Collin County — where he lives — instead of Harris County, after a yearslong … Continue reading

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More May election post-mortems

From the DMN: Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson bet the second half of his first term on these two council seats. Here’s how it looked after polls closed. Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson bet the second half of his first four-year term … Continue reading

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Why North Texas?

The Trib reprints a WaPo story about a cluster of Capitol insurrectionists in the Dallas suburbs, and it’s something. Hope for Trump’s return is fervent in Frisco and across the northern Dallas suburbs, an area of rapid growth and rapidly increasing diversity. … Continue reading

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Lee Merritt

We have a new contender for Attorney General. Civil rights attorney S. Lee Merritt has announced he’s running for Texas Attorney General in 2022 via his social media pages Saturday. “Texas deserves an attorney general that will fight for the … Continue reading

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Another look at how redistricting may go

RG Ratcliffe analyzes the geographic and political realities the Republicans face as they try to maximize their haul from the 2021 reapportionment. Rick Perry famously called West Texas—a sparse land with few trees or humans—the Big Empty. The 92,016 square … Continue reading

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A high level look at the changing suburbs

The Trib takes a broad and high-level look at what I’m digging into now. Although they didn’t get the blue wave they expected, Democrats narrowed the gap with Republicans in five of the most competitive and populous suburban counties in … Continue reading

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Counties of interest, part two: Around the Metroplex

Part 1 – Counties around Harris Dallas and Tarrant Counties are two big squares right next to each other, so I’m combining them into one post. County Romney Obama Trump Clinton Trump Biden Shift ========================================================================= Collin 196,888 101,415 201,014 140,624 … Continue reading

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A closer look at county races, Part 2

Part One is here. As before, this is about taking a closer look at the counties where Democrats made gains from 2016. Collin County: Our reach may have exceeded our grasp, but it’s important to note that progress was made. … Continue reading

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A few thoughts about Election 2020 before Tuesday

Just a brain dump, to get this all out there before we find out what happened. Let’s start with this: After the conclusion of three weeks of early voting, 9.7 million Texans have cast ballots, crushing previous early voting totals … Continue reading

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Paxton trial move back to Collin County on hold

Delay is the natural state of being in this saga. I don’t know why we’d ever expect anything else. A Houston appeals court has pressed pause on a ruling that would have allowed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to stand … Continue reading

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Judge sends Paxton case back to Collin County

Pending appeal, of course. A Harris County judge on Friday moved Attorney General Ken Paxton’s criminal case to Collin County, handing Paxton a major win by placing the case in his hometown, where legal experts say he’s more likely to … Continue reading

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Giving a motion its proper due

As you know, Ken Paxton really really wants to get his securities fraud case moved back to what he assumes are the warm and friendly confines of Collin County. The case was originally moved out of Collin County on the … Continue reading

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Who knows what our positivity rate is?

From the We Still Suck At Data Department: As schools begin to reopen and Gov. Greg Abbott faces pressure to relax shutdown measures, it is impossible to determine where Texas stands on a COVID-19 metric that has guided the governor’s … Continue reading

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No new judge for Paxton

Sorry, Kenny. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is still fighting five-year-old felony securities fraud charges, has failed in his bid to kick a Democratic Harris County judge off his ongoing criminal case. An administrative judge in Houston, Susan Brown, … Continue reading

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Hollins asks for some slack on when mail ballots are received

From the inbox: On Wednesday, August 19, 2020, Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins sent a formal request to Governor Greg Abbott requesting that Governor Abbott extend the deadline by which county election administrators can receive mail ballots. The deadline for … Continue reading

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Paxton (again) wants another judge on his case

Round and round they go. Defense attorneys for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton — whose indictment for felony securities fraud is now more than five years old — are again asking for a different judge to oversee the case. It’s … Continue reading

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A whole lot of Paxton case news all of a sudden

Brace yourselves. A Houston appeals court on Monday abated a recent decision to move the criminal cases against Attorney General Ken Paxton from Harris to Collin County, giving a new judge on the case the chance to revisit that order. … Continue reading

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Move to Collin County on hold, Paxton judge recuses himself

Stay with me here. The Harris County state district judge who handed Attorney General Ken Paxton a big win by moving his criminal case back to Collin County two weeks ago is now recusing himself because Paxton’s office is representing … Continue reading

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Ready or not, here we vote

Hope it goes all right. Poll workers [began] greeting voters from behind face masks and shields as early voting begins in primary runoffs that will look and operate differently from any Texas election in the past 100 years. Although the … Continue reading

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Back to Collin County for the Paxton trial

Where it all began. Years after it was sent to Harris County, the criminal case against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will move back to his native Collin County, a Harris County judge ruled Thursday. Paxton, a Republican, was indicted … Continue reading

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The May elections will not happen

Not in May, anyway. Citing the state’s stay-at-home order, the Texas secretary of state is instructing municipalities to delay their May 2 elections. In an email to local election officials sent Thursday afternoon, the state’s director of elections, Keith Ingram, … Continue reading

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Primary precinct analysis: Who did what in the RRC race

The Railroad Commissioner primary was a bit like the Senate primary – multiple candidates (though not nearly as many), not a whole lot of money, but the candidate who did best in fundraising was also the leading votegetter. Here’s a … Continue reading

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Primary precinct analysis: Everyone did something in the Senate primary

So while we wait for actual precinct data from the primary, I thought I’d take a look at some county-level data from the non-Presidential races, as they have the county-by-county breakdown on the SOS election night pages. The US Senate … Continue reading

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Let’s talk turnout

Just a few random bits and pieces about turnout from the primaries. On the one hand, I think it’s great that Dems got the turnout that we did, in Harris County and around the state. On the other hand, I … Continue reading

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Primary early voting: Comparing 2020 to 2016

The Chron looks into the early voting numbers around the state. Experts cautioned that early voting data should be taken with a grain of salt — for one because the subset of people who vote early aren’t necessarily representative of … Continue reading

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Will the Paxton case move back to Collin County?

Team Paxton is asking for that to happen. A Harris County judge said Tuesday he will rule by the end of next month on Attorney General Ken Paxton’s request to move his felony securities fraud case back to his home … Continue reading

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After-deadline filing review: The Lege

Now we come to the State House, which is where most of the action will be in 2020. In 2018, much of the energy and focus was on Congressional races, to the point where some hand-wringing articles were written about … Continue reading

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Our all-important metro areas

Another look at the trouble Republicans face in Texas now. The key to Texas’ political future is whether it finally follows the geographic realignment that has transformed the politics of many other states over the past quarter century. Across the … Continue reading

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