Conservatives in Texas have filed three lawsuits seeking to overturn LGBTQ protections in the name of “religious freedom.” As the Texas state legislature gears up for its 2019 session, the litigation suggests a bold and renewed effort to undermine civil rights for LGBTQ people, seemingly at every turn.
The three suits in question were filed last week — all within a few days of each other — by three of Texas’ most vocal anti-LGBTQ groups. Two of them tar...
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The Supreme Court’s original sin in gerrymandering cases
Few matters capture the pathology of the Roberts Court more completely than the two Abbott v. Perez cases, a pair of identically named racial gerrymandering cases that the Supreme Court will hear on Tuesday.
The Perez cases are about partisan gamesmanship. In 2013, the state of Texas admitted in a brief filed in a federal court that their “redistricting decisions were designed to increase the Republican Party’s electoral prospects at the expense of the Democr...
The 2020 Census citizenship question is going to mess with Texas
Last week, the Commerce Department announced that a citizenship question would be added to the upcoming decennial Census for the first time in 70 years. The implications are stark for the entire country, but results could be dire for one state in particular: Texas.
The Census is a constitutionally mandated project, one that meets a number of crucial national needs. But years of funding shortages, stalled efforts to upgrade its technology, and general leadership issues within the Cen...
Ted Cruz admits he just ignores Trump’s scandals
After calling candidate Donald Trump a “pathological liar” and “narcissist” during the 2016 presidential campaign, one might have thought that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) would have emerged as a critic of the president’s mounting ethical issues. He has not — and in an unusually candid comment on Wednesday, he made it clear why.
Asked about the chaotic Trump presidency on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Cruz said that he simply ignores the chaos and s...
Obamacare repeal is back, and it is stupider than ever
The sun rises. The sun sets. Young people fall in love. Taxes are paid. People die. And Republicans make newer, dumber attempts to repeal Obamacare.
It’s an endless, unbreakable cycle of meritless lawsuits, half-baked legislation, and disingenuous political rhetoric. It would be hilarious if hundreds of thousands of lives weren’t at stake.
The latest effort to kill Obamacare is a lawsuit brought by 20 Republican governors and attorneys general alleging that, since...
Even Ted Cruz not ready to support latest Obamcare repeal
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said on Sunday that he’s yet in support of the Graham-Cassidy bill to repeal the the Affordable Care Act because his concerns about health care premiums have not yet been addressed.
Cruz’s comments were made during a discussion with Texas Tribune CEO Evan Smith before an audience at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin. The discussion included fellow Republican Texas Senator and Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, who said he’s voting in favor of Graham-Cassidy. ...
Texas governor signs controversial ‘rape insurance’ abortion coverage into law
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed a bill Tuesday afternoon, approved by the Senate over the weekend, that would prohibit all insurance companies from covering non-life threatening abortion care in standard health plans. Women, trans, and non-binary people will need to pay an additional insurance premium if they want their health plan to cover abortions performed outside medical emergencies; there will be no exceptions for instances of rape or incest. Opponents of the bill are calling it &#...
Abortion rights face a full-on assault at the state level
A new report shows more than two dozen states have introduced legislation targeting abortion rights.Activists dressed as characters from “The Handmaid’s Tale” chant in the Texas Capitol Rotunda as they protest SB8, a bill that would require health care facilities, including hospitals and abortion clinics, to bury or cremate any fetal remains whether from abortion, miscarriage or stillbirth, and they wou...