I’m originally from Virginia. Over the fifty years that I’ve been in Texas, when I tell people that I’m originally from Virginia, at least half of them reflexively repeat back to me, “West Virginia.” Sometimes it’s in the form of a question; other times it’s not. I...
Well, we took a few weeks break from publishing here at the Austin Independent, but we’re back. Let’s take a look at some of the things that happened while we were gone. First of all, our vacation corresponded with the first few weeks of the City Council’s six...
This week’s good news is that the Texas Legislature adjourned. The bad news is that they will be coming back later this year. Oh yeah and some more bad news is what the Legislature did while they were here. United Democrats did manage to kill the voter...
Governor Greg Abbott last week signed the so called fetal heartbeat bill into law in Texas. The bill outlaws abortion the moment a fetal heartbeat is detected. That is often around the six-week mark and before many women even know they are pregnant. In signing the...
The Prop B results have rightly gotten almost all the post election attention and analysis since the May 1 election. (Prop B was the reversal of the Council’s June 2019 repeal of the public camping ban.) That has been the case here at the Austin Independent as well as...
Let’s start by checking in on Governor Greg Abbott, who we haven’t discussed in a while. Abbott is actually an Austin voter and he took time after voting early on Tuesday April 20 to tell waiting media that he voted for Proposition B. That is the proposed reversal of...
It’s refreshing some times when veteran politicians show they are still capable of naïveté and even hopeless optimism. That thought came to mind when watching a March 23 joint Austin City Council-Travis County Commissioners Court briefing on local coronavirus efforts....
Let’s hit a few points not covered in the accompanying article. First, a lot of questions were raised yesterday about why downtown Austin was still lit up while adjacent East Austin was almost totally dark — as were many other parts of town. Austin Energy responded...
You won’t hear this from me very often, if ever again, but Democrats in Washington need to learn from and follow the example of Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. In the Texas Senate, which Patrick leads, until very recently it took support from 19 of the 31...
Despite the violent insurrection in Washington D.C., local and regional news has not slowed down. Here are a few quick highlights. The Texas Legislature is back in town. The Austin area has reached a dangerous new level in the COVID-19 pandemic. The group conducting...
