About two dozen candidates and political action committees have more than $1 million in their accounts, some of them much more, according to our analysis of midyear filings with the Texas Ethics Commission.
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Political Armories at Midyear
About two dozen candidates and political action committees have more than $1 million in their accounts, some of them much more, according to a Texas Tribune analysis of midyear filings with the Texas Ethics Commission.
Susan Combs: The TT Interview
The state comptroller talks about the flip in her position on abortion, the data breach at her agency this spring, what office she might seek next and how all of the politics of those subjects mix.
Susan Combs: The TT Interview (audio)
Comptroller Susan Combs, on her agency’s data breach, her changed position on abortion, andher political future.
Tracking the Money: Presidential Candidates and Texas
Texans are already opening their pocketbooks to show support for their favorite presidential candidates. The Tribune’s visualizations of data from federal campaign finance reports reveal who has collected and spent the most in Texas.
DPS Can’t Reveal Cost to Protect Perry, Purges Records
State officials said Friday they can’t reveal how much money taxpayers are spending to protect Gov. Rick Perry — and that records of security costs compiled before 2008 have been “purged.”
On the Records: Shifting Unemployment Rates in Texas
New Texas Workforce Commission stats show that Texas has gained more than 220,000 jobs since last year. Check out this visualization of unemployment rates broken down by city for June 2010 and June 2011.
On the Records: Twitter Visual Tool Useful — and Pretty
A new data visualization tool, the Tweet Topic Explorer, makes analyzing a user’s Twitter feed quick, painless and beautiful. Check out what Gov. Rick Perry tweets about most on his personal twitter feed, and see how his tweets compare to others.
TribWeek: In Case You Missed It
An Everybody-in-the-Pool effort on what’s left to do in the special session, Ramshaw on a doozy of a congressional race shaping up, Aguilar on the debate over sanctuary cities and other immigration proposals, M. Smith on the state’s used-up Rainy Day Fund, Grissom on efforts to kick the special interests out of an insurance fight, Dehn and Tan on whether the special session helps or hurts the governor’s national ambitions, Galbraith and KUT Radio team up for a series on the long-term outlook for Central Texas water, Aaronson on government attempts to balance openness and privacy with data releases, yours truly on Amazon’s run at a sales tax break, and Hamilton on an ethnic gap in higher education: The best of our best from June 20 to 24, 2011.
Laws Push Transparency, Protect Privacy
In the wake of high-profile data breaches that left the personal information of millions of state workers exposed, state lawmakers are trying to strike a balance between promoting transparency and protecting records.

