Texas Government News

Top state leaders proclaimed that the 2013 legislative session would focus on the basics of building Texas' future, and infrastructure became the buzzword.

The state of Texas is turning down billions of federal dollars that would have paid for health care coverage for 1.5 million poor Texans.

State lawmakers have given final approval to a bill requiring an audit of Gov. Rick Perry's deal-closing Texas Enterprise Fund.

Police say Ebel killed Department of Corrections Director Tom Clements and father-of-three Nate Leon in Colorado and then drove to Texas where he got in a shootout with police March 21 and was killed.

It will likely be up to Texas voters to decide whether the state should dip into its Rainy Day Fund to pay for water infrastructure.

Last week, Gov. Rick Perry invited Sens. Rodney Ellis, Robert Duncan and other legislators to the signing of the Michael Morton Act, a measure aimed at preventing wrongful convictions in Texas.

This newspaper has been open to compromises regarding the number of STAAR exams required for high school students, but legislators are going too far in their decision that high-performing students don't need to take all of the state reading and math exams currently required in grades three through eight.

He was appointed chairman of the Texas Commission of Licensing and Regulation this week, after serving as a board member since 2005.

Texas came a step closer to requiring some applicants for unemployment benefits to first undergo drug testing, when lawmakers gave final approval to a Republican-backed bill mandating such checks on Wednesday.

A bill allowing for so-called "school marshals" to have access to a gun on school ground is headed to Texas Gov.

Harold Simmons, the Dallas billionaire and owner of a West Texas radioactive-waste dump, won yet another tailor-made piece of legislation Tuesday.

In a positively Bloombergian piece of legislation, a bill that would ban the sale of sugary drinks in Texas elementary and middle schools is off to be possibly signed by Governor Rick Perry.

Gov. Rick Perry gets most of the credit or blame, depending on your point of view, for Texas' refusal to expand Medicaid.

Seeking to help the state's youngest students develop nutritious habits, Texas lawmakers on Tuesday approved banning the sale of sugary drinks in public elementary and junior high schools.

The Texas Legislature has honored actor Sherman Hemsley, the man best known for playing the role of George Jefferson on The Jeffersons.

Friction over a Texas budget deal revealed signs of distrust and frustration Tuesday night when the House blew off a midnight deadline and again postponed a major vote on a new state water plan that is crucial to a spending compromise.

I know what the rest of conservatives feel like by all of the attacks on my stand for this country.

Members of an elite search-and-rescue team from Texas along with Xcel Energy crews have been dispatched to Oklahoma to help with recovery following a deadly tornado.

Earlier in the day during the local and consent calendar, Representative Ruth Jones McClendon killed several bills, one later on the general calendar, that were authored by Senator Huffman.

"We can't even bring red and/or green paper goods at our school for our kids' 'Holiday Parties'. Enough is enough!" "Teachers have enough on their plate to worry about [whether] the school district's going to be sued or if they can call a Christmas tree a Christmas tree." So says Republican State Representative Dwyane Bohac of Houston.