Keyword: Jeff Sessions
Most Texans Unlikely to Fall in Step as General Sessions Marches on Marijuana
While Texas has ceded pioneer status to other states such as Colorado, Washington state, and, most recently, California (!) when it comes to legalizing the sale and use of marijuana, Texans’ attitudes toward decriminalization don’t lag far behind the national trend as much as inherited images of Texas’ cultural conservatism might suggest.
Data Points for the Week in Texas Politics – April 28, 2017
This week brought a surprising (no really) amount of news on sanctuary cities enforcement and significantly quieter news on the franchise tax and ongoing budget negotiations between the Texas House and Senate. At the federal level, with President Trump's 100th day in office closing in, many have been inexplicably surprised (including House Republicans) by the frenetic energy emanating from the West Wing.
Everywhere you look, Democracy! Texas Data Points from the Week in Politics
The week was barely underway when the new Public Education Chair in the Texas House illustrated just how much style and personality can make the same position feel really different when it comes from a Huberty rather than an Aycock. The House managed to make a fight out of the one issue that there seemed to be universal agreement on in the Legislature, while the Texas Supreme Court decided they want to hear arguments about gay marriage after all. Meanwhile, in the commanding heights, Governor Abbott was invited by the other two-thirds of the big three to have a fight with one of them, but it was no cigar. Instead, the Governor was plenty happy to take the resolution passed by the Senate joining the call for a Convention of the States, though conservatives are not all of the same mind on whether that’s a good idea or not. If the governor has to change their mind, maybe he ought to ask the President, who seems to have done a good job of moving Republicans toward a more open-minded position on the President of Russia -- though it turns out Attorney General Sessions may have jumped the gun on that front at least a little.