News

With less than a month left in the Texas legislative session, lawmakers are still working to solve the energy crisis that crippled our state just two months ago. Our energy system has been showing cracks for decades, but in February, those cracks finally gave way. As our state was plunged into...

June 20, 2012

Women's Health Care Under Attack in Texas: 50 Votes in 10 Years

Abortion Access

Health Care

Fifty votes in ten years is no accident - it's intentional. Over the last 10 years, Texas conservatives in the State House of Representatives have cast at least 50 record votes against women's health care . Original research by Progress Texas shows that...

June 19, 2012

Texas Unprepared If Supreme Court Upholds Affordable Care Act

Justice

Health Care

Texas is waiting for the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Affordable Care Act with bated breath, because Texas politicians have been dragging their feet in passing legislation compatible with the Affordable Care Act. The state is fundamentally unprepared if...

June 18, 2012

Doubling of Student Loans Will Put Texas Students $400 Million in Debt

Hot Topics

Doubling the interest rate on subsidized Stafford student loans would be detrimental for Texas students. The end of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007 would thrust debt-racked students into the sluggish job market wholly unprepared to...

June 18, 2012

This 5th grader is adorable AND informed

LGBTQIA+

New York fifth-grader Kameron Slade won a class competition to deliver a speech as part of a school-wide competition but was banned from delivering it by the principal becasue of its controversal topic - marrage equality. Slade ended up delivering the...

June 17, 2012

Water Conservation in Texas Highlights Woes of Small Government

Hot Topics

When there is a shared limited resource and individuals act in their own self-interest in consuming that resource, the resource will eventually be depleted. This situation, the tragedy of the commons, underscores one of the many problems of small...

June 16, 2012

Conservative Legislators to Texans: "How Do I Economy?"

Hot Topics

In a biennial “exercise,” state agencies have been ordered by the Legislature to cut 10 percent from current budgets when preparing their proposals for the next two fiscal years. While no programs or services are being cut as of yet, it is not much of a...

June 15, 2012

The Dreams of a Million Youth Are Answered

Hot Topics

Immigration

Today, President Obama announced a new policy that would end the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Hispanic youth from our country. The policy itself is being widely hailed, and it could be the determining factor in gaining full support from the...

June 14, 2012

What I Learned On My Summer Vacation at Netroots Nation

Hot Topics

Last week, Mark Corcoran and I went to Providence, RI for the 7th annual Netroots Nation conference ( #NN12 <). If you followed us on Twitter ( @ProgressTX you probably heard all about our conference. Mark already wrote about our first days last week...

June 14, 2012

Senate Republicans Now Blockading Every Single Appeals Court Nominee

Justice

Blog post originally appeared at Think Progress . For most of President Obama’s time in office, Senate Republicans engaged in such an aggressive campaign to hold up his judicial nominees that even their fellow Republican Chief Justice John Roberts urged...