Tag Archives: Eric Johnson

Straus backs removing Capitol Confederate monument

Kudos. Texas House Speaker Joe Straus requested on Tuesday that a contentious Confederate plaque be removed from the Capitol. The plaque, erected in 1959, asserts that the Civil War was “not a rebellion, nor was its underlying cause to sustain … Continue reading

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Confederate monuments in the Capitol

Get rid of them, too. A state lawmaker wants all Confederate symbols removed from the Texas Capitol grounds, including a plaque that is 40 steps away from his office that rejects the idea that the South seceded from the Union … Continue reading

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No special session for redistricting

Buried in my Wednesday post about the SCOTUS ruling that declared North Carolina’s Congressional map to be an illegal gerrymander was a note that the court in the Texas redistricting case asked the state to consider a special session to … Continue reading

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A bipartisan bill to address actual vote fraud

Miracles do happen. Here’s something folks rarely see in Austin, or other statehouses, in these politically prickly times: a bipartisan effort to crack down on voter fraud. In the waning days of the 85th Texas Legislative Session, a group of … Continue reading

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LGBT anti-discrimination bills voted out of House committee

One bit of good news this week. In an unprecedented vote, a House committee on Wednesday approved two bills to prohibit housing and employment discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. Dallas Republican Rep. Jason Villalba split with his … Continue reading

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We now have data about police shootings of civilians

The Chron reviews the first year’s worth of data. Texas police reported shooting 159 people in the first year that the state tracked such cases under a groundbreaking new law. Officers in Houston shot 31 of them – compared to … Continue reading

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More pre-K bills filed

The Observer has the best reporting on the latest pre-k bills that have been filed in the Lege. There’s widespread support around the Capitol for more state spending on pre-kindergarten programs, and much less agreement about how to do it. … Continue reading

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Abbott-style pre-k bill filed

From the inbox: State Representatives Eric Johnson (D-Dallas) and Marsha Farney (R-Georgetown) today filed a bill to provide incentive payments to school districts to provide full-day, quality pre-kindergarten. To receive the incentives, districts would be required to adopt best practices … Continue reading

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The farm team

Roll Call takes a look at the Texas Democrats of the future. Democrats rarely fielded competitive Senate candidates over the past two decades — the party’s three best performers in that time span received 44 percent, 43 percent and 43 … Continue reading

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Committee time

Now the real work gets started. House Speaker Joe Straus announced committee assignments for the Legislature’s lower chamber on Thursday, ending speculation over key chairmanships and giving lawmakers the go-ahead to start considering bills. Here’s his list. Of the standing … Continue reading

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House passes its budget

The Trib has a good writeup of how it went down on Sunday. Mot of the heavy lifting was done before then, in the bills that closed the books on the previous biennium and allocated Rainy Day funds for them … Continue reading

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It’s way past time to regulate payday lenders

From the Observer: As an industry, when you’ve got Tom Craddick, consumer groups, the Midland County District Attorney and Bible-quoting Baptists arrayed against you, most likely you’re facing a serious come-to-Jesus moment. Today, a House committee heard hours of impassioned … Continue reading

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House Appropriations Committee passes a budget

It’s not much different than what they started out with. House budget-writers were able to sprinkle some extra money into education and health care but otherwise did little to change the bare-bones proposal with which they started. The 2012-13 budget … Continue reading

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The itty bitty budget deal

It’s not nothing, but not by much. Gov. Rick Perry and House leaders struck a deal Tuesday to spend $3.2 billion from the state’s rainy day fund to fix one piece of the state’s budget shortfall. […] Perry said at … Continue reading

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Sibley in for SD22 special election

With the official resignation of State Sen. Kip Averitt, his predecessor in SD22, David Sibley, has announced that he will be a candidate for the May special election to fill the remainder of Averitt’s term. The winner of the expected … Continue reading

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Election results: The Lege

There are way too many races to recap here, and since the Trib has done such a thorough job of it, I’ll leave the heavy lifting to them. A few highlights: – Steve Ogden easily won re-nomination in SD5, and … Continue reading

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Hodge pleads guilty, will resign

Well, at least this got resolved before the primary. State Rep. Terri Hodge, D-Dallas, pleaded guilty early this morning to lying on her tax returns in connection with the FBI’s Dallas City Hall public corruption investigation, an act that ends … Continue reading

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Election tidbits for 9/28

Two weeks till Early Voting begins. Psst! Hey, Peggy! Rep. Kristi Thibaut represents HD133 here in Houston, not Galveston. Just FYI. As for the news that the GOP will be targeting State Rep. Abel Herrero, given the 2008 partisan index … Continue reading

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Terri Hodge draws a challenger

State Rep. Terri Hodge, a fixture in HD100 since 1996, has drawn a challenger for next year. Dallas lawyer Eric Johnson announced [Friday] that he is running for the District 100 seat in the Texas House. That’s the seat currently … Continue reading

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