Master Stroke
In 2002 and 2003, a troubled auto-insurance company based in Dallas wrote checks worth more than a quarter of a million dollars to a powerful Republican lobbyist with close ties to Gov. Rick Perry. On...
View ArticleSpeaker Straus’ Other Horse Race
Texas House Speaker Joe Straus III’s family could earn tens of millions of dollars if lawmakers and voters agree to let racetracks install slot machines. The magnitude of the payout is spelled out in...
View ArticleSpeak No Evil
The government takeover of private land for economic development projects is a cardinal sin for property-rights conservatives. In one of the nation’s most notorious examples, officials in the Gulf...
View ArticleIndictment Links Prominent Texas Family’s Horse Stable to Zetas...
A prominent Texas family with connections to the state’s top officials is alleged to have purchased and boarded horses for a Mexican drug cartel engaged in money laundering, according to court records....
View ArticleSister Act: Gov. Perry’s Little-Known Sister is a Lobbyist for Lucrative...
The glaring media scrutiny that helped derail Rick Perry’s presidential campaign never revealed that the governor’s older sister is a lobbyist embroiled in a national health-care debate. Milla Perry...
View ArticleDeLay’s Blank Check
Two years after scandal drove Tom DeLay from Congress and six years after DeLay allegedly violated state law to make over Texas’ congressional map, a state appeals court recently hammered out a...
View ArticleThe DeLay Scandal Turns Six
The Tom DeLay scandal has been with us longer than most kindergartners. Six years have passed since the controversial 2002 election, when DeLay sprang his audacious plan to use possibly illegal...
View ArticleRevolving-Door Democrats
In 2006, public relations giant Fleishman-Hillard Inc. announced that it was merging a recently acquired firm-Mercury Public Affairs-into Fleishman’s lobby division under former Texas Congressman Max...
View ArticleReappraising the Governor
Long before he got national attention for secessionist foreplay at Tax Day “tea parties,” Gov. Rick Perry quietly launched a personal tax revolt. In March 2001, Texas’ new governor bought an exclusive...
View ArticleIn Her Father’s House
Nine months after members of the Texas House stripped Midland Republican Tom Craddick of his speakership, Craddick’s daughter is dusting off her Austin lobbying shingle again. In September Christi...
View ArticleRevolving-Door Democrats
In 2006, public relations giant Fleishman-Hillard Inc. announced that it was merging a recently acquired firm-Mercury Public Affairs-into Fleishman’s lobby division under former Texas Congressman Max...
View ArticleReappraising the Governor
Long before he got national attention for secessionist foreplay at Tax Day “tea parties,” Gov. Rick Perry quietly launched a personal tax revolt. In March 2001, Texas’ new governor bought an exclusive...
View ArticleIn Her Father’s House
Nine months after members of the Texas House stripped Midland Republican Tom Craddick of his speakership, Craddick’s daughter is dusting off her Austin lobbying shingle again. In September Christi...
View ArticleMaster Stroke
In 2002 and 2003, a troubled auto-insurance company based in Dallas wrote checks worth more than a quarter of a million dollars to a powerful Republican lobbyist with close ties to Gov. Rick Perry. On...
View ArticleSpeaker Straus’ Other Horse Race
Texas House Speaker Joe Straus III’s family could earn tens of millions of dollars if lawmakers and voters agree to let racetracks install slot machines. The magnitude of the payout is spelled out in...
View ArticleSpeak No Evil
The government takeover of private land for economic development projects is a cardinal sin for property-rights conservatives. In one of the nation’s most notorious examples, officials in the Gulf...
View ArticleIndictment Links Prominent Texas Family’s Horse Stable to Zetas...
A prominent Texas family with connections to the state’s top officials is alleged to have purchased and boarded horses for a Mexican drug cartel engaged in money laundering, according to court records....
View ArticleSister Act: Gov. Perry’s Little-Known Sister is a Lobbyist for Lucrative...
The glaring media scrutiny that helped derail Rick Perry’s presidential campaign never revealed that the governor’s older sister is a lobbyist embroiled in a national health-care debate. Milla Perry...
View ArticleAre Big Donors Abandoning Attorney General Ken Paxton?
Ken Paxton’s mug shot after being indicted by a grand jury on three felony counts of securities fraud. Collin County Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s prodigious political fundraising plummeted...
View ArticleAs Energy Secretary, Rick Perry Would Have Radioactive Conflicts
Containers of radioactive waste at the Waste Control Specialists’ dump in Andrews, Texas. Waste Control Specialists Nominating Rick Perry to run a federal agency that he couldn’t name on live...
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