A User’s Guide to How Texas’s Top Elected Officials Are Handling the Coronavirus
In the best of times, our politicians can be a frustrating bunch. How are they doing in an unprecedented crisis?
Christopher Hooks is a former senior editor at Texas Monthly. Raised in Austin, he has been writing about Texas since 2013, for publications including the Atlantic, Gawker, GQ, Rolling Stone, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Texas Observer, and the Washington Post. For Texas Monthly, he has written about redevelopment battles in El Paso; a congressional race in Amarillo; a wet/dry election in Texarkana; a Black Lives Matter rally in Vidor; and a water sommelier in Harlingen. He is probably currently somewhere between those five points.
In the best of times, our politicians can be a frustrating bunch. How are they doing in an unprecedented crisis?
The candidate is running in a district that’s home to more Asian Americans than anywhere else in Texas. Her newest campaign ad blames the People's Republic for the coronavirus pandemic.
The Texas lieutenant governor is among a growing number of politicians who are willing to trade lives to save the economy. It’s a false choice.
Surprising statements by oil industry leaders have grabbed headlines. But the bigger change is underway more quietly, among young Republicans.
A high uninsured rate, hospital closures, and poor elder care leave Texas especially vulnerable to a COVID-19 epidemic.
At a honky-tonk in Dallas, the Democratic party made its move against Bernie—finally.
Led by a twentysomething Latina, Democrats now run Harris County, offering a glimpse at what things might look like—for better or for worse—if the party finds itself back on top across Texas.
The departure of the longtime Austin senator—for the greener pastures of higher education—will set off a fierce race for his seat.
This year is going to feature a lot of confident pronouncements from experts who will be proved wrong again and again.
Beto & co. came up embarrassingly short, but the result probably doesn’t say all that much about November.
The author and UT professor believes our country is falling apart—and he has a plan to fix it.
The governor’s decision makes no sense from a practical perspective, and ultimately, it can’t be explained as a policy choice at all.
Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick were quick to find a self-serving narrative in the shooting at a church last week.
Castro’s presidential ambitions have ended, but Texas has likely not heard the last of him.
The Austin director’s war film is notable for its near-total absence of politics.
We stumble down memory lane, gawking at the madness and the mayhem of 2010–2019—and looking for an off-ramp.
Like so much in American conservative politics these days, everything begins and ends with Trump.
Now that races for the March primary are (mostly) set, here are a few things worth keeping an eye on.
A.P. Merillat helped send at least 15 people to death row. On Wednesday, Travis Runnels will become the third this year to be executed, even though a former prison official calls Merillat’s testimony “bullshit.”
Now that the Texas GOP is trying to present a more diverse face this year, it can't afford to alienate voters in places like Fort Bend County.
What Poncho Nevarez’s cocaine problem tells us about corruption and impunity at the Texas Capitol.
The eccentric megalawyer’s unpredictable and at times unintelligible speech claiming victory in Houston’s mayoral election has to be seen to be believed.
One constitutional amendment on the ballot poses a question that often vexes lawmakers—short-term need, or long-term benefit?
When Beto left Texas, he lost his way.
As part of his campaign against Austin’s homelessness rules, Greg Abbott tweeted an old video of a non-homeless man having a mental health episode. His attorney says the governor is “retraumatizing” the man and his family.
The embattled speaker of the Texas House, Dennis Bonnen, calls it quits.
Dan Patrick, John Cornyn, and Ted Cruz stood by at the president’s Thursday night rally in Dallas as he ridiculed them and claimed Hurricane Harvey made the state “a fortune.”
The secretly recorded meeting between Dennis Bonnen and Michael Quinn Sullivan shows how Texas political operators talk behind closed doors.
Our ever-entertaining former governor has been awfully quiet for the past few years. But we knew that couldn’t last.
Austin’s legalization of camping and sidewalk sleeping has stirred a backlash that obscures the progress some Texas cities have made in steering the homeless off the streets.
Austin-bashing is as old as the hills, but things have gotten a little out of hand.
John Cornyn and other Republicans are doing their best to explain away the Ukraine scandal, but their best just looks silly.
The straightforward circumstances of Jean's slaying proved too difficult for the jury to ignore.
But the event was also unsettling in the way it brought together two leaders—Trump and Modi—in an authoritarian embrace.
While a new generation of scholars is rewriting our history, supporters of the traditional narratives are fighting to keep their grip on the public imagination.
Beto vs. Julian, Castro tries to shank Biden, why the debate format sucks, and (bonus!) a snoozy Latinos for Trump rally.
At a meeting of Texas social conservatives, all anyone wanted to talk about (and eat) was Chick-fil-A
There’s something dishonest in the state’s bureaucratic approach to killing its own citizens.
What politicians like Matt Schaefer are really saying is that no number of victims is worth the discomfort of a fairly small number of gun owners.
The governor has apologized (sort of) for an ill-timed fund-raising letter calling on supporters to “defend” Texas from immigrants. But there’s much more he can do.
House Speaker Dennis Bonnen offers a masterclass in how to lose friends and alienate your allies in just a few easy steps.
MQS isn't the most trustworthy person in Texas politics, but Bonnen has done a poor job offering an alternative narrative about what transpired.
In the event that millions lose their health insurance and protections for preexisting conditions disappear, the state has no real backup plan.
His fundraising is bad, his poll numbers are worse, and some Texans still think he should run for Senate.
Congressman Roy and Senator Cruz urged Trump to print the census with a citizenship question despite a Supreme Court ruling. That would’ve been a dangerous precedent.
As the Trump administration ratchets up its dehumanization of migrants, we Americans stand to lose our moral center.
The debate had the feel, at times, of an episode of Survivor—the little guys teaming up to clear their ranks before the real fight begins.
They called it the kumbaya session, but we still found plenty of scoundrels and statesmen.
In one of the worst legislative sessions for criminal justice reform in years, bipartisan legislation got caught between an ugly fight between the police lobby and prominent Democrats.
The governor, lieutenant governor, and the speaker of the House announced a deal on property taxes and school finance. It sounds good, but offered awfully little in the way of specifics.