Texas House Democrats sent a letter to Governor Greg Abbott urging him to declare a state of emergency and fund SNAP benefits for 3.5 million Texans who will lose food assistance in November due to the government shutdown.
Democrats say Abbott has used his authority during COVID-19, the Uvalde shooting and border operations to free up emergency funds.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott released a statement to KPRC 2, calling for the Democrats in the senate to approve legislation to bring an end to the government shutdown that has lasted nearly a month.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has posted a notice on its website saying federal food aid will not go out Nov. 1 as the government shutdown drags on.
Democrats in Virginia are joining the national redistricting battle over U.S. House seats.
Nearly 900,000 residents across ten Houston-area counties could lose their essential food assistance if the government shutdown extends beyond October 27th, creating what local advocates are calling an unprecedented hunger crisis.
Democrats have rallied against a proposed U.S. House map by North Carolina Republicans in Raleigh.
Former President Barack Obama will campaign alongside Democrats Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill in the final stretch of their statewide campaigns for governor in Virginia and New Jersey.
Senate Republicans projected a unified front at the White House Rose Garden Tuesday, arriving at President Donald Trump’s invitation as they refuse to yield to Democratic demands for health care funds into the fourth week of the government shutdown.
Senate Democrats are rejecting for the 10th time a stopgap spending bill that would reopen the government.
Federal workers furloughed or working without pay are feeling the financial squeeze and fear being swept up in the Trump administration's layoffs.
Officials from Dallas’ two major airports said the video runs afoul of their policies that prohibit political advertising.
Airports around the country are saying they won’t play a video with a message from Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in which she blames Democrats for the federal government shutdown and its impacts on operations to screen travelers.
The two leading Senate Democratic candidates have made it a point to spend time along the border early in the cycle, a sign of the region’s importance in 2026.
President Donald Trump says he's directed the Defense Department to use “all available funds” to ensure that U.S. troops are paid on Wednesday despite the government shutdown.
House members' absence during the government shutdown is creating a political dilemma for Republican Speaker Mike Johnson and is testing his leadership.
The Texas GOP will vote Saturday to possibly bar some state legislators from running in the 2026 primary, despite repeated Texas Supreme Court rulings saying they cannot.
Attorney General Pam Bondi goes before the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday morning as federal agents surge into cities across the U.S. She's facing growing questions about political influence over a Justice Department that has already criminally charged one of President Donald Trump’s longtime foes and is facing intense White House pressure to prosecute others.
Attorney General Pam Bondi has repeatedly deflected questions while seeking to defend herself during a combative congressional hearing in the face of growing criticism that she's turning the law enforcement agency into a weapon to seek vengeance against President Donald Trump’s political opponents.
A Georgia special state Senate committee plans to question Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis next month.
A new poll conducted just prior to the current government shutdown showed most Americans wanted Congress to extend tax credits that could expire at the end of the year.
Senate Democrats kept their promise to reject any Republican spending bill that didn’t extend or restore health care benefits, choosing instead to force a government shutdown.
President Donald Trump got a significant amount of blame during the last partial government shutdown, which took place toward the end of his first term after he forced a shutdown over border wall funding — but with Democrats embracing the shutdown fight this time, the outcome could be different.
The Trump administration is using government communications to blame Democrats for a potential U.S. government shutdown.
Senate Democrats have voted down a Republican bill to keep funding the government, putting it on a path to a shutdown after midnight Wednesday.
Party insiders said the way the move was handled undercuts Chair Kendall Scudder’s rhetoric about winning back working class voters, who lurched to the right in 2024.
A new report finds the Department of Government Efficiency’s remaking of the federal workforce has battered the Washington job market and put more households in the metropolitan area in financial distress.
A government watchdog has raised concerns about high administrative costs in Georgia's Medicaid program.
The Austin lawmaker says his faith fuels his vision of a Democratic Party that “fights back” against billionaires. Republican critics say his stances are at odds with Scripture.
A Senate committee is approving the nomination of White House economic adviser Stephen Miran to the Fed’s board of governors, setting up a likely approval by the full Senate, which would make Miran the third Trump appointee to the seven-member board.
A former public school teacher, Talarico has emerged as one of Texas Democrats’ strongest communicators. He joins Colin Allred and Terry Virts in the primary.
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have released a sexually suggestive letter to Jeffrey Epstein purportedly signed by President Donald Trump.
President Donald Trump is swiftly implementing his vision of the military as an all-powerful tool for his policy goals.
Boston voters will narrow the field of candidates for mayor in a municipal primary that pits incumbent Michelle Wu against Josh Kraft, son of billionaire New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.
House Bill 8 scraps the unpopular exam for three shorter tests at the beginning, middle and end of the year starting in the 2027-28 school year.
As Congress returns for a busy fall stretch, President Donald Trump is reaching into the affairs of the legislative branch, chiseling away at the separation of powers.
House Bill 7, which would allow people to sue manufacturers and distributors of the drug, is one vote away from Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk.
The House Oversight Committee has publicly posted the files it has received from the Justice Department on the sex trafficking investigations into Jeffrey Epstein and his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell.
House members who freeze future legislation by fleeing Texas will face steeper fines, loss of seniority and committee posts, and limits on political fundraising.
A faction of Hidalgo County Democrats has raised concerns over how the party is spending money and blocking the group from doing business for several months.
The Democratic National Committee is seriously considering scrambling the party’s next presidential primary calendar.
Democrats say recent changes to the bill give too much power to the TEA and fall short of meaningfully easing the pressures of standardized testing.
Democrats said the walkout inspired a national protest against GOP redistricting. But it also greased the path for other bills they oppose and unified Texas Republicans.
The governor announced he was expanding his special session agenda shortly after the Texas House passed a congressional map that Democrats had delayed by leaving the state.
The order bars Paxton from prosecuting O’Rourke’s nonprofit or otherwise bringing legal action aimed at revoking Powered by People’s charter.
Texas’ Democrats have returned to the state, ending their two-week-long boycott of Governor Greg Abbott’s special legislative session.
After a two-week walkout, enough Texas House Democrats have returned to the Capitol to restore a quorum, allowing the second special session to begin. The return follows intense protest over Republicans’ mid-decade congressional redistricting effort.
Texas lawmakers redrew congressional districts in a partisan bid to give Republicans five additional U.S. House seats. The move set off a bipartisan war across the U.S.
After two weeks out of state, Democratic lawmakers returned to Austin, paving the way for Republicans to pass their proposed congressional map.
The federal budget deficits caused by President Donald Trump’s tax and spending law could trigger automatic cuts to Medicare if Congress does not act, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called for another Texas Legislature’s special session after the first session was adjourned Friday morning after failing to make a quorum.
The second session is set to consider the same agenda that stalled in the first, with redistricting and disaster response at the top of the governor’s priorities.
In a statement, the House Democratic Caucus said its lawyers had advised returning “to build a strong public legislative record for the upcoming legal battle” against the GOP’s map.
With Democrats’ walkout over redistricting bringing the House to a standstill, both parties are accusing each other of abandoning Central Texas flood victims.
Democrats' absence has halted work in the Texas House, which must also approve the new boundaries, for more than a week.
In a dramatic turn of events, Texas Senate Democrats staged a walkout on Tuesday, challenging Governor Greg Abbott’s decision to prioritize redistricting over urgent flood relief for the state’s devastated communities.
The leaders of both chambers said they would adjourn for the session Friday if Democrats do not return, while the governor said he might add more items to his agenda.
Paxton sued O’Rourke and his political group, Powered by People, last week, arguing that the group was deceptively fundraising for and illegally supporting Texas Democrats’ walkout.
The governor and attorney general have asked the court to find that Democratic lawmakers abandoned their seats when they left Texas to delay a new congressional map.
Since Democratic lawmakers left Texas to delay Republicans’ new map, state leaders have challenged the limits of traditional democratic norms to break the impasse.
With no sign of Texas Democrats returning soon, Gov. Greg Abbott is threatening to call a series of special legislative sessions. He says he is authorized to call these sessions every 30 days.
Texas Republicans have escalated the penalties against Democrats as they enter a second week camped out in states across the country to block new U.S. House maps pushed for by President Donald Trump to win more seats ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
The order came at the request of Attorney General Ken Paxton, who O’Rourke accused in a separate lawsuit of going on a “fishing expedition, constitutional rights be damned.”
Gov. Greg Abbott previously asked the court to expel Rep. Gene Wu, the House Democratic leader. Paxton disputed the governor’s authority to make the request.
At the core of the fight in Texas over redrawing the state’s congressional districts is a debate over a time-honored right spelled out in the Constitution: Every two years, “the People” get to pick someone to represent their interests in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Democrats concede there’s only so much they can do to keep Texas from redrawing its maps. But they want to encourage blue states to retaliate.
The attorney general is calling on the “full faith and credit” clause of the U.S. Constitution, which says states should typically honor each other’s judicial proceedings.
In response to Texas Democrats blocking the quorum needed for redistricting, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, House Speaker Dustin Burrows, and Attorney General Ken Paxton are turning up the heat—threatening legal action and seeking federal help to bring the lawmakers back.
"We cannot allow these rogue legislators to avoid their constitutional responsibilities," U.S. Senator John Cornyn said in a statement.
The Texas Supreme Court said in 2021 the Constitution allows members to thwart legislation by leaving the state. Abbott wants them to reconsider.
Texas Democratic lawmakers who left the state to block a Republican plan for congressional redistricting are pleading for donations to help cover their costs.
“Is Gene Wu back in China?” state Sen. Mayes Middleton, a Galveston Republican, posted on X on Monday — the first day the House did not reach a quorum due to the absent Democrats.
While the Democrats could technically derail the GOP’s redistricting map, such efforts have been largely symbolic and had limited success blocking past legislation, experts say.
While the Democrats could technically derail the GOP’s redistricting map, such efforts have been largely symbolic and had limited success blocking past legislation, experts say.
Chair Rep. Gene Wu and his colleagues reassure their supporters: "We are safe, we are secure, and we are undeterred."
In this week’s episode, Matthew and Eleanor speak with state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, D-Austin, about her and her colleagues’ decision to flee the state, the potential financial and criminal penalties and her opposition to the state’s proposed new congressional map.
As a political chess match wages on against Texas lawmakers and an attempt to block a vote on a “rigged” congressional redistricting map, officials with the Democratic National Convention are joining the effort in Illinois.
Texas and California are at the center of a national political power struggle that could reshape Trump's second presidency.
Texas Republicans are trying to redraw congressional districts to pick up five additional U.S. House seats. Democrats face financial and political risk in their bid to block the GOP plan.
Democrats fled the state to stop Republicans’ attempt to redraw congressional districts, but bills aimed at everything from a THC product ban to bolstering flood response are now in doubt.
Dozens of Democratic state lawmakers in Texas have scattered across the country in a last-ditch effort to prevent Republicans from adopting U.S. House maps that President Donald Trump wants in place before the 2026 midterm elections.
Sunday night, Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued a heated statement warning of legal consequences for Democratic members of the Texas House who chose to leave the state to break quorum and block Republican-backed legislation earlier in the day.
As Texas House Democrats once again deny quorum over Republican-led redistricting efforts, marking the first Democratic walkout in more than four years.
In a dramatic escalation of opposition to redistricting efforts led by Republicans in Texas, the Texas Senate Democratic Caucus have expressed strong support for their House counterparts, who have denied quorum in protest of a proposed congressional map they call “rigged” and disenfranchising.
Texas Democrats have fled the state in an effort to keep Republicans from approving a new U.S. House map that could boost their slim congressional majority next year.
