Local Government When Government Lobbies Itself: Why Texas Should Ban Taxpayer-Funded Lobbying Texas local governments use taxpayer dollars to hire lobbyists to influence state legislation—creating conflicts of interest, distorting democratic accountability, and undermining the interests of Texas taxpayers. Key points: Taxpayer-funded lobbying expenditures more than doubled from the 85th to the 89th Legislature, now reaching as high as $111.5 million. Taxpayer-funded lobbyists consistently opposed legislation involving property... April 6, 2026
Energy & Environment Fool Me Twice: Why the Texas Grid is Still Vulnerable to Winter Storms | Part 3: How Texas Can Solve Its Winter Reliability Problem Part 3: How Texas Can Solve Its Winter Reliability Problem Five years after Winter Storm Uri, the ERCOT grid is still not ready for the next major winter storm. The first two installments of this series showed that demand has grown more than 20% since 2021 while firm generation capacity has barely budged, and the... February 12, 2026
Taxes & Spending May 2026’s Top 10 Most Expensive School Bonds Next month, independent school districts (ISDs) will, again, ask voters to approve massive new borrowing schemes that threaten to unleash a wave of tax hikes and bigger bureaucracies. These fiscal excesses appear widespread too. Taxpayers in nearly 60 different counties will decide on one or more of the 109 individual propositions up for a vote this election cycle, according to the Texas Bond Review Board’s (BRB’s) bond election database. If these measures are entirely successful,... April 21, 2026