To see more political cartoons from Ben Sargent, visit our Loon Star State section. Find Observer political reporting here.

The post Loon Star State: Religion in Schools appeared first on The Texas Observer.

The State of Texas is set to get into the cryptocurrency investment game as the Texas House passed a Senate bill on Wednesday to create a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve” that could use millions of taxpayer dollars to purchase cryptocurrency.  Senate Bill 21 will—assuming Senate concurrence and the governor’s sign-off—establish a new government investment fund through […]

The post Texas Set to Create State Bitcoin Reserve that Would Accept Private Donations appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Three long years ago, in a southwest Texas town now almost synonymous with the tragedy, something happened in an elementary school so horrifying that it nearly defied meaning altogether, challenging any sense of a guiding plan or greater judiciousness in human affairs. Nineteen children. And two teachers. Gone. Uvalde—a place name to be forever followed […]

The post Three Years Later, an Uncle in Uvalde Searches for Solutions on School Board appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Representative Andy Hopper played biologist on the House floor, claiming with certainty that there are only two sexes during a debate in early April. He made this point when presenting a budget amendment that would reduce government funding to the University of Texas at Austin in part because some programs “deny the unchangeable biological reality […]

The post Republicans Push to Define Biological Sex in Statute  appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Midway ISD, a school district with around 9,000 students just outside Waco, is staring down a growing budget deficit that Superintendent Chris Allen hoped would shrink with the new state funding for public schools provided under House Bill 2, the school finance package that the Texas House passed in April. That was until Lieutenant Governor […]

The post Texas School Districts Slam the Senate’s School Finance Plan appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Clinton Young stepped out of the Midland County Jail, the way station between his previous address for the last 18 years and the free world, on the afternoon of January 20, 2022. He’d been anxious all day, sitting in the cell block with an ankle monitor already affixed to his leg, awaiting release on bond.  […]

The post ‘You Don’t Have to Kill Us. You Don’t Have to Throw Us Away.’ appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Update: Matthew Johnson was executed via lethal injection Tuesday night in Huntsville. In his final statement from the gurney, he apologized to Nancy Harris’ family members, who were there to witness the execution. “I please ask for your forgiveness. I never meant to hurt her,” he reportedly said. “I pray that she’s the first person […]

The post Texas Set to Execute Fourth Person of the Year on Tuesday appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Simply being in the United States without a legal immigration status is a civil matter—not a criminal one. Yet Donald Trump’s regime increasingly treats immigrants like criminals. In March, the administration sent more than 200 immigrants to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), a mega-prison with a history of human rights abuses. The Trump administration […]

The post Shipped to El Salvador: An Austin Immigration Lawyer on Her Teen Client’s Forced ‘Disappearance’ appeared first on The Texas Observer.