News

With less than three weeks left in the 87th Texas legislative session, proposed bills are moving fast through the Capitol and lawmakers are doing everything they can to fast track legislation on issues they are prioritizing. While all eyes may be on the movement of bills regarding issues like...

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...

June 13, 2012

WTF? Texas Republican Party Voices Support for Guest-Worker Program

Hot Topics

Immigration

Texas Republicans have made a change to their official party platform : they have called for a national guest-worker program. The question we have to ask ourselves now is, are they doing this for the right reasons, or is this simply a ploy to gain the...

June 13, 2012

A Hopeful Outlook for LGBT Texans

LGBTQIA+

Last weekend at the Texas Democratic Party (TDP) and the Republican Party of Texas (RPT) state conventions small but significant progress was made regarding marriage equality here in Texas. Prior to the 2012 TDP Convention the words gay, lesbian, bisexual...