Three members of El Paso’s Texas House delegation returned to the Legislature on Monday, signaling Democrats’ efforts to deny a quorum to block controversial voting legislation is coming to an end. State Reps. Joe Moody, ...
Gov. Greg Abbott announced Thursday that a second special session of the Texas Legislature will convene on Saturday with an expanded 17-item agenda. The current special session was waylaid when Texas House Democrats left the ...
State Rep. Joe Moody’s youngest son starts kindergarten Monday, but the El Paso Democrat won’t be there for that milestone. He’ll hear how the day went via an evening phone call from the Washington Plaza ...
Last week El Paso native Isabel Herrera asked a small group of Texas state senators in Austin to think critically about the implications of the legislation they had before them, Senate Bill 3. She was ...
El Paso’s highest-ranking state lawmaker was stripped of his leadership position in the Texas House Thursday, three days after he left Texas for Washington, D.C. in an effort to block the Texas Legislature from passing ...
Every member of the El Paso legislative delegation will join their Democratic colleagues in Washington, D.C., in an effort to stop Republican state lawmakers from passing restrictive voting legislation during the special session. State Reps. Joe ...
Conservative lawmakers wasted no time answering Gov. Greg Abbott’s call to enact further restrictions on how race is taught in relation to the nation’s history in public and charter school classrooms during a special session ...
Multiple bills aimed at police reform introduced during Texas’ 87th Legislature failed to gain traction. while bills aimed to maintain police funding and to protect officers were signed into law. An El Paso City Council ...
Texas’ 2021 regular legislative session ended last month with lawmakers doing something education advocates initially feared wouldn’t happen: they passed a budget that kept the previous session’s funding gains in place.1 That sums up how ...
Emiliana “Emily” Edwards wants El Pasoans to know that she’s a normal kid. The 14-year-old middle schooler loves singing, watching anime, and playing games on her computer. But unlike her cisgender classmates, Emily’s identity as ...
By Eddie Rodriguez Before the COVID-19 pandemic brought our nation to a halt, Texas was on the verge of making transformative changes to our public education system. State lawmakers had just passed school funding reform, ...
Legislation that would categorize gender-affirming care for trans children as “child abuse” was discussed in a Texas Senate committee hearing Monday, drawing a sharp rebuke from an El Pasoan parent. “I’m not an abuser, I’m ...
A controversial bill designed to redistrict and reduce the courts of appeals in Texas has been withdrawn after it drew sharp criticism during a public hearing in Austin last week. Senate Bill 11, filed by ...
An El Paso rabbi’s campaign to make people aware of the importance of charity was on display Wednesday in the Texas House of Representatives. Plastic yellow arks — charity boxes provided by the Chabad Lubavitch ...
An effort to redistrict and reduce courts of appeals in Texas could have major implications for El Pasoans. Texas currently has 14 courts of appeals throughout the state, including the 8th Court of Appeals that ...
The Texas Legislature on Monday will begin an every-10-year redistricting process that could diminish El Paso’s representation in the state House of Representatives. Census estimates through 2019 show that El Paso’s population has stagnated since ...
By David C. Stout This week, our lawmakers in Austin gaveled in another legislative session, a 140-day event certain to be even more unpredictable because of the pandemic. However, counties and cities across Texas can ...
Public education funding will be one of the major issues Texas lawmakers tackle during the 2021 legislative session, which starts Tuesday. The state faces a nearly $1 billion shortfall for the current two-year budget, which ...
State Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, filed paperwork on Election Day seeking to be Texas’ next speaker of the House of Representatives. If he is selected by House colleagues, Moody would be the first Latino ...
By Joe Moody There isn’t an El Pasoan anywhere who can’t tell you where they were and how they felt on Aug. 3, 2019, after the massacre at the Cielo Vista Walmart. I was at ...
Binational News Partnership
A unique binational news collaboration publishing stories about significant issues facing El Paso and Ciudad Juárez.The Puente News Collaborative is: La Verdad in Ciudad Juárez; and ABC 7, El Paso Inc., El Paso Matters, El Paso Times, Univision 26, KTEP public radio and Borderzine.com as part of the multimedia journalism program at UT El Paso.
Migration at the border: Reporting that covers the complex reasons that people migrate, and how governments respond.
Pandemic at the border: In-depth reporting that looks at how the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the resulting restrictions on border crossings has affected life in our region this year.
Borderland Coronavirus Updates
Become a Supporting Member
El Paso needs a nonprofit, member-supported digital news organization that dives into the complex issues shaping our region – and serves as a catalyst for solutions-oriented conversations. You can help by becoming a member of El Paso Matters today.
To donate, go to epcf.org/epmatters.
Tips, Submissions
Do you have a story tip you’d like El Paso Matters to pursue? A press release you’d like to share? A commentary you’d like us to publish? Send your ideas or submissions to news@elpasomatters.org.
By state Sens. César J. Blanco, Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa and Judith Zaffirini Texas Gov. Greg Abbott recently held a press conference to announce his plans for the state of Texas to build a physical border ...