James Shannon's archive

TWIA scare, UT Valley and Aggie regents

An item on the meeting agenda for the board of directors of the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA) raised more than a few eyebrows in Austin this week and was seen as cause for potential concern for coastal residents.

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The Education Conundrum

Some 3,000 teachers converged on the state capitol on March 11 from all across Texas to lobby their legislators to restore school funding and talk about issues like high-stakes testing, private-school vouchers, and teacher pensions. The Texas American Federation of Teachers sponsored the rally as AFT members from Brownsville to the Panhandle, from deep East Texas to far West Texas, spent the better part of the day visiting their area lawmakers one by one to make the case for public education.

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Reading Rick Perry tea leaves in State of the State speech

Gov. Rick Perry

It was the usual crowd for Gov. Rick Perry’s annual State of the State address at the capitol – a joint session of the Texas Legislature with House members joined by Senators on chairs set up in the aisle of the House chamber, various state officials, staffers and reporters alongside tourists and various delegations in town for the day, all gathered to hear what the longest-serving governor in Texas history had to say now.

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