March/April 2022

The Texas Observer

Observing Texas since 1954

The Texas Observer1 min read
The Texas Observer
INTERIM EDITOR IN CHIEF Gabriel Arana MANAGING EDITOR Danielle Lopez CREATIVE DIRECTOR Ivan Armando Flores ASSOCIATE EDITOR Christopher Collins SENIOR WRITER & EDITOR Lise Olsen SENIOR WRITER & ASSISTANT EDITOR Gus Bova SENIOR WRITER Justin Miller PO
The Texas Observer2 min read
Editor’s Note
Hi folks, you probably aren’t familiar with my name, but for the last six months I’ve been serving as the Texas Observ er’s interim editor in chief. While our organization undergoes strategic changes, it has been an honor to work for the state’s flag
The Texas Observer4 min readAmerican Government
The State Of Paxton Vs. Bush
In 2014, under the pall of fraud allegations, then–state Senator Ken Paxton hauled in just under 45 percent of the GOP primary vote as he secured first place against a pair of establishment-aligned opponents in his bid for Texas attorney general. The
The Texas Observer3 min readAmerican Government
The Book Smugglers
Adecade ago, in March 2012, a group of writers, artists, educators, and activists banded together to combat the deplorable actions of Arizona’s state legislature. The state’s lawmakers had recently passed a bill making the teaching of “Ethnic Studies
The Texas Observer1 min readSocial History
Texas Tally
The number of times Governor Greg Abbott said “Trump” in a January speech that lasted six minutes at a Montgomery County rally for the former president, according to the Houston Chronicle. Abbott was fending off two far-right primary challengers. The
The Texas Observer4 min readPolitical Ideologies
Take Back The Vote
Nina Perales has been a civil rights attorney in Texas for 26 years, during which she has litigated two landmark U.S. Supreme Court cases against the state’s efforts to disenfranchise Latino voters through redistricting. She currently oversees severa
The Texas Observer2 min read
Strangest State
The Desoto Hotel, an allegedly haunted building constructed in El Paso in 1905, has gone up in flames. Weekly ghost tours were held, and the place has been featured on TV shows concerning paranormal events, KISS FM reports. Facebook commenters said t
The Texas Observer5 min read
The Guardian Of The Guard
Jason Featherston was in the final month of his 25-year career in the Texas Army National Guard when he heard the news. A text message: John “Kenny” Crutcher, a 45-year-old sergeant in the Guard, had died by suicide on November 12, 2021, leaving behi
The Texas Observer15 min readCrime & Violence
The murderer’s little boy
Stephanie Johnson had never liked her daughter’s volatile second husband, Shaun Hardy. But she didn’t know how dangerous he was until six weeks after the couple’s 2015 divorce, when her daughter messaged to say he’d just beaten and strangled her. “I
The Texas Observer9 min readAmerican Government
Isrupt, Deplete, Destroy
DRESSED IN A BLUE BLAZER AND khaki slacks, with sunglasses hanging from his button-down, Paul Gauthier approached the podium inside a conference center in Leander, a suburban community just northwest of Austin. A local conservative rabble-rouser with
The Texas Observer14 min read
The Battle Of Beaumont
Born and raised in Beaumont, Darrell Kyle first started working for ExxonMobil in the 1990s at the blending and packaging plant, which produces Mobil 1 motor oil. It’s part of the company’s sprawling refinery complex that sits on the banks of the Nec
The Texas Observer9 min read
The Teachers Are Not OK
Starting my career as a public school teacher at Austin Independent School District in the middle of COVID-19 wasn’t the best timing on my part. But after a year of remote instruction, meeting with students via Zoom, and lecturing from my home or emp
The Texas Observer2 min read
Neither Here Nor There
On a concrete pillar beneath an overpass in a gentrifying part of East Austin, someone has written in bright-orange spray paint: “Bad place to camp or do drugs—Leave.” It’s one of few reminders, aside from some orange syringe caps, that a community o
The Texas Observer6 min read
Pandemic Without Borders
An oxidized bronze statue of Tomás Sánchez, the founder of the binational metropolis of Laredo, Texas, and Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Mexico, gazed upon the Presidencia Municipal on a warm sunny day in mid-December. Inside the building, Victor Treviño
The Texas Observer2 min read
Real Estate
Nancy likes to drive around and look into houses at night. Like snow globes. Like contained landscapes. Look at their lamps, she says of one. Ornate. Or they’ve gone extremely modern, she says of another. Horizontal lines. She wants to see how others
The Texas Observer1 min read
Are True Texans
The Texas Observer is our state’s fearless nonprofit newsroom, and we have been speaking truth to power since 1954. Our award-winning investigative journalism, analysis, and photography keep you informed and edified. Our institution is not paid for b

The Texas Observer

More Issues From The Texas Observer