Contest
In the St. Nick of time.
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.
In the St. Nick of time.
By Paul Burka
What happened when Big Oil and Big Government fought it out over the superport?
By Paul Burka
Homily grits.
By Paul Burka
Merger mystery.
By Paul Burka
It’s been Us and Them in the deregulation fight, but one of us has become them.
By Paul Burka
Commentations.
By Paul Burka
You’ve heard of the Texas Water Plan; now meet the Texas Coal Plan.
By Paul Burka
Name Plates.
By Paul Burka
We just rate them. You voted for them.
By Paul Burka and Richard West
The great endorsemen.
By Paul Burka
Acronymity.
By Paul Burka
Title bout.
By Paul Burka
Some transplanted evening.
By Paul Burka
For years, liberals have been the biggest critics of Austin city government. What happened when the got the power to do something about it?
By Paul Burka
Foreign aid.
By Paul Burka
By Paul Burka and William Broyles
File 13.
By Paul Burka
There are two things you should never see being made: sausage and legislation. All in all, we’d rather watch sausage.
By Paul Burka
Occupational hazards.
By Paul Burka
Casting about.
By Paul Burka
Listomania.
By Paul Burka
By Paul Burka
Issues and Questions.
By Paul Burka
. . .but back home? Never.
By Paul Burka
Getting a head.
By Paul Burka
The Lord giveth the beach and the developer taketh away.
By Paul Burka
Poetry in motion.
By Paul Burka
Strange bedfellows.
By Paul Burka
Whodunit?
By Paul Burka and Judy Benson
Roots are all evil.
By Paul Burka
Rating the Texas Congressmen from number one to, sigh, number twenty-two.
By Paul Burka and Griffin Smith Jr.
Talented scouting.
By Paul Burka
The natural gas deregulation bill almost made it through the labyrinth of Congress, but not exactly in the way they tell it in the civics books.
By Paul Burka
Accidentally on purpose.
By Paul Burka
Oh, say can you sing?
By Paul Burka
Chain gang.
By Paul Burka
Did the Sharpstown Scandal really make any difference?
By Paul Burka
Sometimes the history books leave out the best part.
By Paul Burka
Something old, something new.
By Paul Burka
The game of the name.
By Paul Burka
Labelous.
By Paul Burka
Gridirony.
By Paul Burka
Life and lively.
By Paul Burka
A title match.
By Paul Burka
When Billy Martin takes his Texas Rangers on the road, the games are among the least of their worries.
By Paul Burka
Just having a little pun.
By Paul Burka
Seeing triple.
By Paul Burka
How Coastal State Gas pulled the plug on the Texas consumer.
By Paul Burka
Blood and irony.
By Paul Burka
Getting your words’ worth.
By Paul Burka