Texas Supreme Court

15 Texas restaurants have received a coveted Michelin star rating

The Texas Supreme Court remains firmly in Republican hands after the election. What that means for cases the court will decide.
For the first time, Michelin has awarded its coveted stars – along with other designations – to restaurants in the Lone Star State.
Texas is in the wake of a solar panel boom. But not everyone who’s had them installed on their roof is happy about the decision.
Amid soaring childcare costs, voters approved a tax rate increase to help pay for it in Central Texas.
And: A new research project at the International Space Station examines the impact of microgravity on human heart tissue.

The untold history of the Texas Farm Workers Union

Over a span of 13 years, federal Judge Janis Jack repeatedly demanded that state officials do more to fix Texas’ troubled foster care system. Now, she’s been ordered off the case.
As Election Day nears, political polls are everywhere. Many are done by phone. But with so many people ignoring calls labeled “political survey,” who’s actually participating?
And: We’re kicking off a three-part series that dives into the history of the Texas Farm Workers Union – a group that existed only briefly but played a key role in the fight for farmworker justice. The Standard’s Raul Alonzo has the story.

KUT Afternoon Newscast for October 1, 2024

Central Texas top stories for October 1, 2024. The City of Austin has unveiled its most detailed vision yet for the I-35 caps. The federal government is giving borrowers who have defaulted on their student loans extra time to apply for a program that will return them to good standing. A longstanding legal battle over the environmental impact of development in Dripping Springs arrived at the Texas State Supreme Court today. Hays County is a step closer to establishing its own animal center. On the ballot in this fall’s election are half of Austin’s 10 city council seats and the mayor’s office. TxDOT is warning about the increased risk to pedestrians from drivers less able to see them as the days get shorter.

Hindu voters in Texas weigh in as political ties grow stronger

New questions about Attorney General Ken Paxton and his properties not disclosed in financial statements. Investigative reporter Lauren McGaughy of The Texas Newsroom with more on what she’s found looking into the property disclosures of the state’s top lawyer.
State lawmakers hear testimony about the investigation into what caused the largest wildfire in Texas history earlier this year.
Also, the rising political power of Texas’ growing Hindu community in our series on the intersection of religion and politics, the NFL’s Houston Texans surprising the doubters, and much more.

KUT Morning Newscast for January 31, 2024

Central Texas top stories for January 31, 2024. Latest lawsuit stemming from the 2021 Texas blackout. Lawsuit in the Texas Supreme Court challenges the state’s ban on gender-affirming care for trans minors. University of Texas at Austin is launching a new initiative to support early-career teachers. How to claim your unpaid wages from the U.S. Department of Labor.

KUT Afternoon Newscast for January 30, 2024

Central Texas top stories for January 30, 2024. Texas Supreme Court hears arguments on the latest lawsuit stemming from the 2021 blackout. The city of Austin is considering changing euthanasia rules for dangerous dogs. Austin State Hospital now has an estimated opening day. Researchers at the University of Texas announce opioid alternative breakthrough. A million more Texans now have health insurance through the affordable care act. Gas prices are on the rise.

Unpacking the Southwest Airlines holiday meltdown

Millions of dollars in tax incentives for renewable energy are now in limbo with a decision from the Texas Supreme Court. A flood of applications for millions of dollars in tax breaks overwhelmed the system before a New Years deadline. We look at what happens to all those unprocessed applications now that the state Supreme Court has said it won’t force the state to process them. Also how many voters in Harris country were prevented from casting a ballot due to problems at the polls? A new report that leaves many critical questions unanswered. And why warning signs were ignored before the chaos of Southwest Airline’s big holiday meltdown. Those stories and much more today on the Texas Standard:

Texas Standard: July 11, 2022

How hot is it? Hot enough for ERCOT to ask the state to dial back its power use at temperatures climb back into the triple digits. We’ll have the latest. Also a recent pipe burst in Odessa left the city’s hundred thousand plus residents without water for days. Now comes a warning for lots of small to midsized cities about a ticking time bomb of aging pipes and underground stressors. We’ll hear more. Also a new effort aimed at tracking drug overdoses, most of which go non-reported. And a comeback for the Guadalupe bass. And Texas versus Volkswagen: how the carmakers novel defense could put millions of dollars at stake. Those stories and much more today on the Texas Standard:

Texas Standard: May 13, 2022

White house flags ordered to half staff as the U.S. reaches what President Biden marks as a tragic milestone in the pandemic. As public health efforts against COVID-19 continue to scale back, deaths from COVID-19 in the US approach the 1 million mark, and Texas has the second highest number of those deaths among the 50 states. We’ll take a closer look. Also the Texas Supreme Court overturns the statewide injunction on investigations of parents providing gender affirming care to transgender youth. We’ll have the latest. Plus a Texan’s journey into the kitchens of Mexico becomes a rapturous revelation. And the effort to give an endangered Texas toad a fighting chance at survival. Those stories and more today on the Texas Standard:

Texas Standard: July 12, 2021

As some Texas Democratic lawmakers make their way back to Texas are there signs that the special session quorum break may be breaking up? How much longer can Texas democrats hold out? Also what some are calling a constitutional crisis looming over the budget. And with the rapid spread of the Delta Covid variant and back to school pressures, what we know and what we don’t know about the spread among kids. And more listener parents weigh in on what they plan to do about the return to school. All of that and then some today on the Texas Standard:

Texas Standard: May 28, 2020

The Texas Supreme Court rules fear of contracting Coronavirus is not a disability under election law. We’ll have more on the decision in the vote-by mail controversy and why it may not prove to be the final word on the subject. Also as institutions of higher ed struggle over how to move forward, we talk to the presidents of two historically black colleges about how best to help the communities they serve, especially hard hit by COVID-19. Plus Dr. Fred Campbell takes more listener questions about the Coronavirus and much more today on the Texas Standard:

The Impeachment and Conviction of Texas Governor Jim Ferguson

It’s hard not to like the down-home folksy style that made Texas Governor Jim Ferguson so enormously popular 100 years ago. After all, he was known as “Farmer Jim.” He often said, “Civilization begins and ends with the plow.” Ferguson was a mesmerizing speaker and storyteller and was splendidly fluent in the dialects of rural Texas. Texas was blue, then, really indigo. To be the democratic nominee for governor was the same as being elected governor.

As historian Cortez Ewing pointed out, Ferguson was the “voice of the people,” and with his 6th grade education, he promoted the idea that he had not “suffered the damages” of higher degrees. He liked to say he was no “city slicker” and no  “college dude.” A government doesn’t require “educated fools” to run properly. Ferguson would often call into question the value of a college diploma, saying it was “book learning gone to seed.” He said some professors took three years to learn “you couldn’t grow wool on an armadillo.” His constituency, he claimed, “resided where the creeks forked” and he felt they were getting short-changed by not getting enough basic education while the kids at UT were getting too much of it. He said those kids go up to Austin for four years and return home with nothing but “a mandolin and liver damage.” As my brother Redneck Dave would say, “That right there is funny. I don’t care who you are.”

He did some good things. I suppose the best of them was substantially increasing the funding for public education in Texas, particularly benefitting rural Texas, and creating a Texas Highway Department, even though he later raided the funds with impunity.

As much as one might appreciate Ferguson’s homey aphorisms, a word he’d likely have found objectionable because of its academic taint, his style loses its charm when you learn all that was revealed at his impeachment. In sum, his down-home authenticity faded away to reveal a man who was mostly a fraud. He claimed to be a successful business man; he was not. He claimed to be painstakingly honest; he was an embezzler. He was an avowed enemy of the KKK, but to hear him talk about black people you’d have thought he had earned his hood.   He said the governor served the people, but he used the power of the office to reward his friends and crush not just his political enemies, but good servants of the state whose only offense was not voting for him. Farmer Jim wasn’t even much of a farmer, though he owned a few farms and was incredibly loyal to farmers.

There were two major parts to the impeachment charges brought against him in 1917. The first had to do with his abuse of power while attempting to micromanage the University of Texas. The second had to do with his utilization of the Temple Bank he had controlling interest in as his personal slush fund.

The UT battle was the one he should have avoided. It proved his undoing. Basically he wanted 5 professors fired for the unstated reason that they had spoken out publicly against his candidacy for governor. He told the UT President, Dr. Robert E. Vinson, he wanted them fired. Vinson asked what they had done to deserve it and he said, “I don’t need a reason, I’m the Governor.” He told Vinson that he fought him on this “he was in for the biggest bear fight in Texas history.” That fairly summarized his attitude about his power. It was, in his mind,  absolute. When Vinson refused to fire the professors, he went after the Board of Regents to get them to do his bidding. When they wouldn’t, he started replacing them one by one and withheld state funding from the university to force the university to obey his orders. This led to a special session being called by the legislature itself to press for Ferguson’s impeachment.

Here’s where Ferguson made his first greatest legal blunder. The legislature cannot call itself into special session. Only the governor can do that. So to prove this to them HE called a special session to consider UT funding he could sign. While there, legislators legally took up another matter, impeachment. The house sent 21 articles of impeachment to the Senate. And here Ferguson made his second blunder. He showed up most every day to his own trial, invited or not, with two armed Texas Rangers as escorts. He gave a speech in his own defense and blamed the charges on that “N-word loving Senator from the north, Senator Johnson” (not Lyndon – I’ve cleaned that up for you). Hearing the gasps in the chamber, he immediately asked to strike the comment.  He took the stand on his behalf and was mostly a weak and contradictory witness, unable to explain discrepancies. The fact is that he had parked state funds in his bank for personal gain and he had run his bank as a one man Ponzi scheme. He loaned himself so much money that he practically bankrupted his own bank.  He blamed his directors for running a shoddy operation.

The Senate found him guilty on five charges relating to mishandling of public funds and abuse of power in relation to the university. The vote was 25-3. Even his former political allies couldn’t find him innocent in the face of such damning evidence – and his own indefensible behavior. But the day before the conviction was certain to come down, Ferguson cleverly resigned, claiming then that they couldn’t uphold an impeachment for someone who wasn’t actually in office. This was a vital point to him because the impeachment barred him from running for any office in Texas for life. He later ran anyway claiming that he had resigned before he was convicted. The Texas Supreme Court disagreed – so he had his wife run in his place. And she won.

One final note of incredulity. In her first term, Miriam “Ma” Ferguson, as she was known, had a law passed that gave amnesty to all Texas officials formerly impeached. Of course, her husband was the only one the amnesty applied to. She even used the word “Christian” in the law implying that Christian forgiveness was appropriate here.

 

Ewing, Cortez “The Impeachment of James E. Ferguson.” Political Science Quarterly, 48 (June 1933), 184-210.

Wilson, Carol O. In the Governor’s Shadow: the true story of Ma and Pa Ferguson. University of North Texas Press, Denton, 2014.