Partisan Rift Over Medicaid Expansion Remains
The Capitol was the site of two dueling press conferences Monday over what could be one of the signature fights of the 2013 session: Medicaid expansion.
A native of Houston and a graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, Sonia Smith is a writer-at-large for Texas Monthly. She cut her teeth reporting on crime on the bayou for the Baton Rouge Advocate. She has also written for Slate, The New York Times Magazine, Roads & Kingdoms, and the Kyiv Post, and was a finalist for the 2008 Livingston Awards for Young Journalists for her reporting on sexual abuse at the Louisiana School for the Deaf. Her Texas Monthly profile of leading climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe was included in the anthology The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2017.
The Capitol was the site of two dueling press conferences Monday over what could be one of the signature fights of the 2013 session: Medicaid expansion.
By Sonia Smith
A key compromise on SB-11 moves the controversial bill to the full Senate.
By Sonia Smith
The living meme, which has a type of dwarfism and is officially named Tardar Sauce, visited Austin last week.
By Sonia Smith
In a committee hearing Tuesday, the exoneree and newlywed pushed for a bill that would change the statute of limitations for offenses involving prosecutorial misconduct.
By Sonia Smith
With a bill that would bar school districts from using sex education curriculum developed by abortion providers, the culture wars returned to the Capitol.
By Sonia Smith
A full complement of state senators will soon be seated for the first time in the 2013 legislative session.
By Sonia Smith
The race to replace the late Texas State Senator Mario Gallegos.
By Sonia Smith
Our favorite recent items from the Lufkin Daily News’ police blotter.
By Sonia Smith and Texas Monthly
The former field director for the Obama campaign outlined the group's plan to turn Texas blue.
By Sonia Smith and Texas Monthly
A Senate finance committee work group has proposed directing an additional $100 million towards preventative care and family planning.
By Sonia Smith
Lyndon Johnson's dogged pursuit of Lady Bird further revealed in a cache of never-before-seen love letters.
By Sonia Smith
Once again a judge rules that the state’s school finance system in unconstitutional.
By Sonia Smith
Looking back at the last pay-for-play scandal as the call for ethics reforms rises in the 83rd Legislative Session.
By Sonia Smith and Erica Grieder
If so, what is it?Brad Watson of WFAA-TV in Dallas made big news with his report of a potential deal between Perry and Abbott. From the station’s website: In an exclusive WFAA interview Wednesday, [Jan. 31] Gov. Rick Perry said Attorney General Greg Abbott has told him he won’t
By Sonia Smith and Paul Burka
Our favorite recent items from the Lufkin Daily News’ police blotter.
By Sonia Smith and Texas Monthly
Ten years ago, Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over East Texas as it reentered the Earth’s atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts aboard.
By Sonia Smith
Those in the Senate chamber yesterday witnessed the strange ritual of drawing lots to stagger Senate terms after redistricting.
By Sonia Smith
Two questions for Ginger Goodin, of the Texas A&M Transportation Institute.
By Sonia Smith
Thirty-four years after showing his 1979 Chloé collection at Houston's Neiman Marcus, the designer plans to show his Chanel collection in Dallas in 2014.
By Sonia Smith
According to a new report ranking the ten worst mercury-emitting coal plants in the US.
By Sonia Smith
Our favorite recent items from the Lufkin Daily News’ police blotter.
By Sonia Smith
After 18 years in office, the first and only female senator from Texas says goodbye.
By Sonia Smith
The "kidnapper" David Sartin hired to ship his Ukranian mail-order bride in a crate from Kiev to Texas was an ATF officer.
By Sonia Smith
The world will end this Sunday, on the birthday of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. Or so warns the imprisoned polygamist leader of FLDS.
By Sonia Smith
Four Texans received Fs—almost as many Texans as received A+s.
By Sonia Smith
Twelve days after the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, Lyndon Baines Johnson successfully pushed Congress to pass a big gun control bill.
By Sonia Smith
The governor, speaking to a tea party group in a suburb of Fort Worth, held that those with concealed carry permits should be able to bring their guns everywhere.
By Sonia Smith
Southwest Airlines announced that it would start charging fees for no-shows and for third bags on Friday.
By Sonia Smith
Texas executed 15 people in 2012 and sent only nine new inmates to death row.
By Sonia Smith
Crisis pregnancy centers served 17,527 clients last year, and that number will likely only grow.
By Sonia Smith
Texas (and America) finally has an answer to the royal pregnancy.
By Sonia Smith
This time to a black correspondent from the BBC, in an interview about the use of race in college admissions. He'd said similar things at a student forum in 1997.
By Sonia Smith
The new dump for low-level radioactive waste in west Texas will help relieve an overburdened site in Utah, the Salt Lake Tribune reports.
By Sonia Smith
Only $750 million per person. Five things to know about the Golden Spike Company's hopes and plans.
By Sonia Smith
And it wouldn't be the first Islamophobic pig incident for the Houston exurbs either.
By Sonia Smith
The former advisor to Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich penned an op-ed in US News & World Reports urging the party not to abandon its values in a rush towards the center after the election.
By Sonia Smith
Mystery archer killed a third donkey from the same Fort Worth pasture this week.
By Sonia Smith
Our favorite recent items from the Lufkin Daily News’s police blotter.
By Sonia Smith
Armey, who has led FreedomWorks, one of the most influential tea party groups, since 2004, resigned Monday in an email.
By Sonia Smith
Cruz's Thursday speech on "Opportunity Conservatism" gave political journalists yet another, er, opportunity to speculate about his longterm political plans.
By Sonia Smith
New data from the U.S. Department of Education says that Texas is tied for fourth place with a high school graduation rate of 86 percent for the 2010-2011 school year.
By Sonia Smith
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is temporarily suspending the British oil giant's ability to receive contracts from the federal government.
By Sonia Smith
The Oak Cliff apartment fixtures that witnessed the 1962-1963 fights between the assassin and his wife are on sale.
By Sonia Smith
U.S. Citizens are cautioned to avoid the four Mexican states bordering Texas just a week before President Obama is set to meet with incoming Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.
By Sonia Smith
Startling images of the 140-vehicle pileup on Interstate 10 west of Beaumont on Thanksgiving Day.
By Sonia Smith
Pets separated from their owners by Superstorm Sandy got a lift from Southwest Airlines to a no-kill shelter in California.
By Sonia Smith
Crimes against dolphins plague the Gulf of Mexico.
By Sonia Smith
Following a union strike, Irving-based Hostess Brands announced on Friday that it would liquidate its factories.
By Sonia Smith
Preston Hughes III was executed Thursday night for the 1988 slayings of a 15-year-old girl and 3-year-old boy.
By Sonia Smith
Ramon Hernandez, put to death for a 2001 slaying, was also linked to three other murders, prosecutors said.
By Sonia Smith