State Secrets
Houston could forfeit the world’s largest convention; Mutscher loses—again; real estate empires totter; the growing ambitions of Bob Bullock.
Former senior executive editor Paul Burka joined the staff of Texas Monthly in 1974, one year after the magazine’s founding. He led TM’s political coverage for nearly forty years and spearheaded its storied roundup of the Best and Worst Legislators each biennium. A lifelong Texan, he was born in Galveston, graduated from Rice University with a BA in history, and received a JD from the University of Texas School of Law.
Burka spent five years as an attorney with the Texas Legislature, where he served as counsel to the Senate Natural Resources Committee. He won the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award in 1981. He also received a National Magazine Award in 1985, for his two-part profile of Clinton Manges. After retiring from Texas Monthly in 2015, he taught at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He died in 2022.
Houston could forfeit the world’s largest convention; Mutscher loses—again; real estate empires totter; the growing ambitions of Bob Bullock.
By Paul Burka
A controversial nuclear plant moves to Texas; Clements costs us $11 million; making census out of Houston; the Senate moves toward the center.
By Paul Burka
Plaguing the Panhandle; rebuking the Washington Post; slaughtering the Beeferendum; lusting after the Speakership.
By Paul Burka
This is the question: is it a crime to be politically inept?
By Paul Burka
Democracy in America
By Paul Burka and William Broyles
Nebraska scoundrels are absconding with West Texas water; adding grist to the Murdoch rumor mill; the old Dallas City Council was never like this.
By Paul Burka
Texas witches need regulation; the Killer Bees sting again; a cloud hangs over the Contemporary Arts Museum; the feds insist that minority rules.
By Paul Burka
Justices of the peace, maligned since the days of Roy Bean, don’t operate like other judges. But if lawyers want to get ride of them, they can’t be all bad.
By Paul Burka
Marlin sidetracks the Missouri-Pacific; school boards wrangle over the handicapped; two Texas Sports magazines slug it out.
By Paul Burka
A helicopter plague descends on Dallas; is the Texas environmentalist an endangered species?; cattlemen won’t be cowed.
By Paul Burka
Will the feds hijack out power? Will Akers slip off to LSU?
By Paul Burka
Texas Democrats run scared over Teddy; Arkansas bigwigs cry foul over gas lease; Mexican diplomats make waves over salt water.
By Paul Burka
There are two questions about John Connally: Is he good enough to be president? Is he too bad to be president?
By Paul Burka
How will Christo wrap up his trip to Texas?; pooh-poohing Three mile Island; the greatest train robbery of all; shake-up at Houston’s city hall.
By Paul Burka
Not-so-little leaguer finds fountain of youth; schools have to test and tell whether Johnny can’t read; Houston’s new shingle ordinance tries to lock the barn door.
By Paul Burka
How did we get into this sorry energy mess? By making sorry decisions.
By Paul Burka
Crying over spilt oil, greedy doctors, and disappearing millionaires.
By Paul Burka
At midseason, long-suffering Astros and Rangers fans were having visions of grandeur. We hope they weren’t delusions.
By Paul Burka
Texas real estate up for grabs; will Houston get a third daily newspaper?
By Paul Burka
We just rate them. You voted for them.
By Paul Burka
Will Arthur Temple take over Time Inc.? A Bergstrom AFB dentist gets the drill.
By Paul Burka
Teeing off women; Texas gets gassed again.
By Paul Burka
The F-16 bombs out; John White drops one on the Democrats.
By Paul Burka
The first shot in Clements’ campaign to cut 25,000 state employees fells 68 casualties.
By Paul Burka
Oil is a slippery business.
By Paul Burka
Why doctors don’t like nurses anymore; where is the tax revolt?
By Paul Burka
Working on the Railroad Commissioner; romance on the range; another guild nipped at the Post; should Bill Clements be for sale?
By Paul Burka
It will be up to the 66th Legislature to solve these problems, and we’ll have to live with the solutions.
By Paul Burka
Pop a cork for Château UT; Fort Worth wins American Airlines from New York and “loses” it to Dallas; will Dallas’ law firms catch Houstonitis?
By Paul Burka
Will somebody write the Great American LBJ biography? Is Billy Clayton Texas’ Earl Butz? Will Dolph take care of his flock?
By Paul Burka
Some tidbits and outrages under our very nose.
By Paul Burka
Fess up now. In your heart of hearts, don’t you hate it, too?
By Paul Burka
All’s well that ends well.
By Paul Burka
Some tidbits and outrages under our very noses.
By Paul Burka
For the Republicans this fall, it may be a trip to oblivion.
By Paul Burka
R.I.P.
By Paul Burka
Confessions of a bridge nut.
By Paul Burka
Four Score!
By Paul Burka
What was once a mere rural spring is now a crowded, languorous, bare-skinned utopia.
By Paul Burka
Resort hotels and luxury condominiums line the shore of South Padre, yet foot by foot, day by day, the island is washing away.
By Paul Burka
Sound waves.
By Paul Burka
Yellow fever.
By Paul Burka
Poetic license.
By Paul Burka
The dark horses, heavy favorites, and close calls of this year’s big elections.
By Paul Burka
Down memoir lane.
By Paul Burka
Roll over, Hank Williams.
By Paul Burka
At the state touch football tournament, winning wasn’t everything—or was it?
By Paul Burka
Are you from Blewett? Don’t enter this contest.
By Paul Burka
Saying will make it so.
By Paul Burka
Texas’ oldest city is heading for a political showdown, thanks to some newcomers to the power game.
By Paul Burka