Trudy Taylor Smith is senior administrator of policy and advocacy with Children’s Defense Fund-Texas. I want you to imagine a toddler appearing in court to face off against a government-trained attorney trying to deport them. Think of their terror as they take their seat in the courtroom, legs swinging because they’re not long enough to reach the floor. […]

The post How Republicans Are Willfully Endangering Immigrant Kids appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Alonso Montañez killed the outboard, and the boat swung against the scum and trash that had accumulated in the stagnant water on the high side of the dam.  “Escucha,” he said, gesturing at the surface of the lake.  In the quiet, we heard water slapping the hull, a life jacket buckle pinging on a metal […]

The post ‘With What Water?’ appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Partial remarks given at the 2025 MOLLY Prize Gala on May 28: Suddenly, it’s become a bit of a sad time for the Texas Observer community. Later in the program, you’ll hear about Carlton Carl—our former publisher and longtime board member who passed away in March. Then, yesterday, we learned that the Observer’s founding editor, […]

The post Editor’s Letter: Introducing Our July/August 2025 Issue appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Samuel Junior Sanchez had served around 15 years of a 75-year sentence for a violent road-rage incident and had seemingly exhausted all appeals when his sister contacted a group of Abilene attorneys in 2021 about new information she hoped might finally give her brother another chance at life. As an angry young man, Sanchez had […]

The post Moonlighting Midland Prosecutor Means Freedom for Samuel Sanchez appeared first on The Texas Observer.

We were just about done setting up for our workshop at the San Benito Cultural Heritage Museum when Hector Ruiz, president of the South Texas Equality Project (STEP), walked in. STEP is a coalition of diverse groups that celebrate and advocate for the LGBTQ+ community in the Rio Grande Valley.  “Friend!” I rushed over to […]

The post The Rio Grande Valley as Heart of LGBTQ+ Resistance and Joy appeared first on The Texas Observer.

On April 5 at 4 p.m., Reality Winner was hustling: She’d just learned she was needed to find additional last-minute female competitors for a Crossfit competition in Corpus Christi—a hassle for the 33-year-old who was already busy with other duties that day, including cleaning out dog kennels as one of the many requirements for her […]

The post Reality Winner Rebuilds in Kingsville appeared first on The Texas Observer.

As a rainstorm rolled in last Friday evening, hundreds of people eagerly filed through metal detectors at an 1,800-seat performing arts center in McAllen—the urban hub of Hidalgo County in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley—ahead of Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders’ 13th stop on his nationwide “Fighting Oligarchy” tour. Normally a stage for orchestra concerts and […]

The post Can Economic Populism Win Back the Rio Grande Valley? appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Gathered in a half circle, eight young equestrians atop multicolored horses bowed their heads for a prayer led by their coach, Heidi Ramirez. They prayed for many things, including their own safety, given that the synchronized routine they perform while riding sidesaddle in layered embroidered dresses, though beautiful, is both challenging and potentially dangerous.  They […]

The post Dancing on Horseback appeared first on The Texas Observer.

air so cold      breath rattles down my throat  like a penny tumbling in  the cracked engine of a 2008 ford ranger     going 75 on 45    with a broken a/c &  full of candles    during an ice age exhaling    2 centuries worth  of disappointment.   a loose spark plug coughs […]

The post APOCALYPSES: SCENARIO #267-590 appeared first on The Texas Observer.

The post Strangest State: Snakes, Mammoths, and Explosions appeared first on The Texas Observer.

In the leadup to Texas’ 89th legislative session, the Republican leadership apparatus was under siege and the party in open warfare as the sitting House Speaker Dade Phelan decided not to seek another term with the gavel.  This power vacuum created unbridled chaos among the GOP ranks, largely divided between those who aligned with Phelan […]

The post A Caucus, if You Can Keep It appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Editor’s Note: This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter. Growing up in San Antonio, Reina Saldivar had always loved science—all she wanted to watch on TV was “Animal Planet.” Yet until she applied on a whim […]

The post How Trump Is Changing Higher Education: The View from UT-San Antonio appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Elham Jalak and Mustafa Pashtoon met for the first time on a flight from Kabul in February 2016. Jalak was 6 years old, Pashtoon just 8. Their fathers had known each other in the Afghan Army, and their families came to the United States through the Special Immigrant Visa program, which has helped resettle Afghan […]

The post Wrestling with the American Dream appeared first on The Texas Observer.

When I was in college, I had to drive 35 miles from San Marcos to Austin to visit Planned Parenthood. The first time I drove there in 2016, I didn’t know the way and the traffic on Interstate 35 overwhelmed me. For someone like me, young, uninsured, and terrified of driving in a big city, […]

The post Why I Still Believe Texas Can Be Better appeared first on The Texas Observer.

The job of leading the minority party in the Texas House has long consisted, at best, of harm reduction and something like emergency room triage. At worst, it amounts to frantically herding several dozen cats—many of whom can be coaxed out of their homes by the GOP House speaker’s saucers of warm milk.  Since 2009, […]

The post ‘The House Got Rolled’: Gene Wu on the Trials of the 89th Texas Legislature appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Marijuana prohibition is a Texas tradition. Unless Governor Greg Abbott vetoes Senate Bill 3, the state’s new ban on THC, the state is about to suddenly and drastically renew its commitment to that tradition—at a potential cost of thousands of jobs, billions of dollars in lost taxable revenue, and countless lives broken in the prison […]

The post Reefer Madness Returns to Texas with Dan Patrick’s THC Ban appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Editor’s Note: The following is excerpted with permission from Art Above Everything: One Woman’s Global Exploration of the Joys and Torments of a Creative Life (Beacon Press; June 10, 2025). My dad drummed for presidents once. He drummed for admirals and ambassadors, movie stars and ministers. He drummed in halftime showcases of the NFL and […]

The post Art Is Immortality appeared first on The Texas Observer.

For four years, maternal health experts, reproductive rights advocates, and patients who suffered under Texas’ abortion ban have pleaded for lawmakers to clarify medical emergency exceptions in the state’s abortion law, seen as the bare minimum they could do to mitigate the disaster inflicted by the harsh restrictions.  Vague exceptions coupled with severe penalties that […]

The post This Session’s Worst Anti-Abortion Bill Died, but Pro-Choice Advocates Aren’t Celebrating appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Without any announcement or open debate, the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature passed a biennial state budget that will effectively halve the amount dedicated to its multi-billion-dollar border security operations—from a proposed $6.5 billion down to about $3.4 billion.  This marks the first time that GOP lawmakers have pulled back on their border security spending since Governor […]

The post Texas Quietly Downsizes Border Security Spending appeared first on The Texas Observer.

As a proud first-generation, undocumented graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, and a lifelong product of Texas public schools, I am outraged—but not surprised—by the latest cowardly attack on our immigrant community.  The most recent attempt to gut the “Noriega Bill”—also known as the Texas Dream Act—a law that has opened college doors […]

The post I Was an Undocumented Texas College Student. I’m Not Going Anywhere—and Neither Is Our Movement. appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Historian Nancy Baker Jones was a child when her father, who was serving in the U.S. Army in Europe, was called home in 1953 to testify at U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy’s hearings on an alleged communist spy ring at an army laboratory in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey.  During McCarthy’s four-year reactionary crusade to root out […]

The post Amid New McCarthyism, the Alliance for Texas History Embraces Diverse Scholarship appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Johnathan Gooch did a lot of wishful thinking throughout this legislative session. Most recently, he’s been wishing for soundproof walls.  “The worst thing about being queer in Texas right now is having neighbors, because I just want to scream all the time,” said Gooch, the communications director for Equality Texas, an LGBTQ+ rights advocacy group.   […]

The post Here are the New Anti-LGBTQ Bills Texas Passed into Law appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Republican lawmakers in Texas have long blocked heat illness prevention legislation and other mandates. During the record-breaking summer heat wave of 2023, Governor Greg Abbott signed into law the so-called “Death Star” bill, banning many local ordinances, including those p...

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared at Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy, and the environment. It is republished with permission. Sign up for their newsletter here. More than three-quarters of new gas pipeline capacity currently under development in the U.S. would feed additional liquefied natural gas exports rather than supporting domestic energy […]

The post The Massive U.S. Pipeline Buildout Is Mostly for Gas Going Overseas appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Over the weekend, the state House and Senate ironed out lingering differences in Senate Bill 8, a measure that will—assuming the governor’s signature—mandate previously voluntary agreements between Texas county sheriffs and federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).  As passed, SB 8 will require all Texas sheriffs to apply for so-called 287(g) agreements, “or a similar […]

The post Legislature Mandates Sheriff-ICE Cooperation in Jails or Streets appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Instead of attending family barbecues or local parades, Texas state representatives spent Memorial Day on the floor of the House scrambling its way through a long list of controversial priority bills like Senate Bill 13, which would further empower parents and school boards to review school libraries’ books for “indecent or profane” content. After about […]

The post Texas House Passes Raft of Dan Patrick Priorities Imposing Conservative Mandates on Public Ed appeared first on The Texas Observer.

For years, bail reform legislation has died long before it reached the governor’s desk in Texas. This session, with a strong push from the state’s top executive, measures to crack down on bail access achieved mixed results in the Capitol’s lower chamber. Last Monday, the House passed Senate Joint Resolution 5, which proposes a constitutional […]

The post Abbott’s Bail Crackdown Meets Mixed Fate in Texas House appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Tejano music superstar Selena Quintanilla has been gone for 30 years, but the late singer’s family issharing unseen footage of her life in a new documentary, which had its Texas debut at Austin’s Paramount Theater at this year’s South by Southwest festival. Selena y Los Dinos is the first feature-length documentary film produced about the […]

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Editor’s Note: Bellingcat Investigator Peter Barth, who grew up in Texas, researched and reported this story in collaboration with the Texas Observer. William “Bill” Asher Richardson Jr. pulled into the driveway of his upscale Corpus Christi home late on a Sunday night at the end of summer. The wealthy Texas oilman was unloading his Winnebago […]

The post New Leads in an Infamous Corpus Christi Cold Case appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Ronnie Dugger, founding editor and longtime publisher of the Texas Observer and for many years the crusading conscience of the progressive movement in Texas and beyond, died of complications of dementia at a hospice center in Austin on May 27. He was 95.  Dugger was the author of biographies of Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan […]

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