Texas is a big state with a growing, diverse population and as the population grows, the issues and challenges facing its residents multiply. Texas Matters is a statewide news program that spends half an hour each week looking at the issues and culture of Texas.
Texas Matters: AG Paxton's office in disarray
Today on Texas Matters: Turmoil in the attorney general’s office is ripping apart the AG Medicaid Fraud Division.With Abortion on the ballot Annie’s List sees 2024 as a big year to elect progressive women. And money is running out for the Affordable Connectivity Program.
2/4/2024 • 29 minutes, 26 seconds
Texas Matters: Unfair school finance and Golden Pennies
Many Texas families have been fighting for school funding equity for 50 years. But wide disparities in funding still exist. Texas Public Radio's education reporter, Camille Phillips, explains the problem and why it's been difficult to solve.
1/26/2024 • 29 minutes, 28 seconds
Texas Matters: The COVID surge, border buoys and hidden treasure
This week on Texas Matters: Covid cases are on the rise. How Texans can protect themselves with a vaccination.What does it mean that the Texas buoys are still in the Rio Grande? The Texas Tribune launches a pro-democracy reporting project. And there’s a million-dollar treasure hidden somewhere in Texas or New Mexico. Are you smart enough to find it?
1/19/2024 • 29 minutes, 29 seconds
Texas Matters: Obamacare surges and tacos take over America
Today on Texas Matters— Obamacare is seeing a surge in Texas and across the nation. Why is the Affordable Care Act succeeding despite claims from the right?And Mexican food is now American food. How tacos conquered the United States.
1/12/2024 • 29 minutes, 30 seconds
Texas Matters: Toxic politics on the border and how football helped Uvalde heal
Today on Texas Matters—Politics takes center stage over the mass migration at the border. And how high school football helped Uvalde heal.
1/5/2024 • 29 minutes, 28 seconds
Texas Matters: Planes, Trains and Automobiles: Evading the Texas Abortion Ban
A documentary report on how people in Texas are forced to travel to other states for abortions and exploring the challenges, costs and repercusions of the journey.
12/29/2023 • 29 minutes, 30 seconds
Texas Matters: Hand counting GOP 2024 primary ballots could be inaccurate, slow and costly
This week on Texas Matters: A Texas county will hold its Republican primary election old school. The vote-counting will all be done by hand. Why are they doing this and what are the concerns? There are a lot of guns in Texas—but what does that mean for reducing life expectancy?And the story of a legendary Texas wrestling family comes to the big screen. But is it fact or fiction?
12/22/2023 • 29 minutes, 29 seconds
Texas Matters: SB4 and Abbott's border power play
What’s in SB 4 and how does it fit into Governor Abbott’s plan to challenge the power of the federal government?
12/15/2023 • 29 minutes, 27 seconds
Texas Matters: Which states are making voting too hard?
Today on Texas Matters—How suppressed are the voters of Texas? A new book breaks down which states make voting too hard.How are families impacted by the Uvalde massacre living with the grief and the aftermath?Some school districts have programs to teach kids how to protect themselves from abuse, but there is a problem.
12/8/2023 • 29 minutes, 27 seconds
Texas Matters: Is the grid winter-ready? How SB4 will impact children of the undocumented; and the greed behind the book bans.
Today on Texas Matters—Should we be worried about the grid? How a tough winter could mean blackouts again in Texas. Also, what the SB4 "Show me Your Papers Law" means for children of the undocumented in Texas. AND how a school board meeting in Texas exposes the greed behind the outrage over schoolbooks.
12/1/2023 • 29 minutes, 26 seconds
Texas Matters: 'The Common' and writing from the farm worker community
11/25/2023 • 29 minutes, 28 seconds
Texas Matters: Uvalde and the deadly power of the AR-15 exposed
This week on Texas Matters: Why are horrible photos from Uvalde and other mass shootings being published? Despite what the Supreme Court ruled, homosexuality is still against the law in Texas. And how is the new Texas “show me your papers law” going to impact the state?
11/17/2023 • 29 minutes, 26 seconds
Texas Matters: Why is Texas violent?
Is Texas an ultraviolent state? Why are certain types of violence more common in Texas than in other parts of the industrialized world?
11/10/2023 • 29 minutes, 29 seconds
Texas Matters: Will Brent Brewer be executed based on junk science?
This week on Texas Matters: Brent Brewer says he’s sorry for a murder he committed 33 years ago but says junk science is why he's on Texas Death Row.
11/4/2023 • 29 minutes, 27 seconds
Texas Matters: Pirates of the Texas Coast
For centuries, the shoreline between Galveston and Tallahassee was marked by the desperate deeds of men who fought for God, gold, and glory.The Gulf Coast has seen its share of seafaring warriors and miscreants.
10/13/2023 • 29 minutes, 29 seconds
Texas Matters: Building Biden's border wall
Today on Texas Matters: In a major reversal – the border wall is back – now under President Biden. How Texas school children see the banning of books and how an album changed Texas music 50 years ago.
10/6/2023 • 29 minutes, 29 seconds
Texas Matters: DPS delays Uvalde firing, Hill Country water saver and Texas book ban
After the Uvalde school massacre, the slow walking of the firing of a Texas Ranger spotlights the lack of transparency about how the DPS failed. With rapid growth during a record drought, what can be done to keep the Texas Hill Country from running out of water? And book bans in Texas are getting worse.
10/1/2023 • 29 minutes, 29 seconds
Texas Matters: Paxton strikes back and Venezuelans at the border
Today on Texas Matters: Ken Paxton strikes back. After being acquitted from impeachment charges the Texas Attorney General is promising to crush his political enemies. Also, why are Venezuelans coming to the border en masse, and how is TPS going to help many of the Venezuelan asylum seekers?
9/24/2023 • 29 minutes, 29 seconds
Texas Matters: Buoy legal battle, pro-Paxton tweets for sale and Mark Gonzalez takes on Ted Cruz
Today on Texas Matters—The buoys are back – in fact they never left. What is happening with the legal battle over the border barrier? How to get paid for tweeting about Ken Paxton. It could be illegal.And Mark Gonzalez—the Corpus Christi progressive D.A. is now running for Senate.
9/9/2023 • 29 minutes, 28 seconds
Texas Matters: New laws and Paxton on trial
This week on Texas Matters: a look at some of the new laws now in effect in Texas and some of the significant ones that didn’t. And gearing up for the Ken Paxton Senate impeachment trial. Will Texas voters watch and care?
9/1/2023 • 29 minutes, 28 seconds
Texas Matters: Grid worries and why the U.S. shouldn't invade Mexico
Today on Texas Matters: Some scary hours with the Texas grid during the summer heat. What is happening? And Republican candidates for president say they’ll invade Mexico. Why that is a terrible idea?
8/25/2023 • 29 minutes, 28 seconds
Texas Matters: The struggles of life in a border colonia
It's estimated that half a million people live in colonias along the Texas-Mexico border. These communities lack basic needs for the residents, including running water, storm drainage and sewage. What are the challenges of living in a colonia? Who is responsible for improving the substandard conditions?
8/18/2023 • 29 minutes, 29 seconds
Texas Matters: Mexico demands buoys be removed
This week on Texas Matters: Mexico makes it clear they want the buoys out of the Rio Grande. The San Antonio Police Department's use of its mental health unit examined. And records show that the San Antonio Police Department failed in policing its problem cops.
8/14/2023 • 29 minutes, 29 seconds
Texas Matters: Up close to the buoy barrier
This week on Texas Matters—a trip down the Rio Grande to see the buoy barrier and meet with the people it’s supposed to stop. How the Eagle Pass City Council pushed back on Operation Lone Star. And climate change is making water more precious, so will Texans be paying more at the tap.?
8/6/2023 • 29 minutes, 29 seconds
Texas Matters: Operation Lone Star examined
This week on Texas Matters - How Operation Lone Star is being felt in Eagle Pass. Abbott is building his own border wall. Texas is using spyware on the border—and maybe beyond.
7/30/2023 • 29 minutes, 28 seconds
Texas Matters: The historic heat wave scorches the homeless, prisoners and workers
Texas is gripped with extreme heat that’s putting lives at risk. Should President Biden step in to protect Texas outdoor workers? And the Texas GOP makes the voting system less secure and easier to cheat.
7/26/2023 • 29 minutes, 29 seconds
Texas Matters: SAPD lawsuit, mass shooting school bus and Omnibase ticket nightmares
This week on Texas Matters, a school bus tour is highlighting the mass shootings of Texas; with climate change disasters now the norm, some Houston residents are transforming their homes into emergency hubs; and a state program to help people to pay traffic tickets is punishing the low income further into debt.
7/17/2023 • 29 minutes, 28 seconds
Texas Matters: Abbott's Floaties, Solar Saves Texas and Banning Forensic Hypnosis
As border communities celebrate a victory against building a border wall, Abbott’s floating river barrier is about to be built. Solar power is saving the Texas grid during the record-breaking heat wave and Texas leaders aren’t happy about that. And how forensic hypnosis was finally banned from Texas Courtrooms.
6/30/2023 • 29 minutes, 29 seconds
Texas Matters: Will Hurd runs for POTUS and Texas school finance is an ugly mess
Former San Antonio Rep Will Hurd is now running for president and taking aim at Donald Trump. We hear from Hurd. And Texas Monthly’s Forrest Wilder is trying to make sense of the mess that is the Texas public school funding system.
6/24/2023 • 29 minutes, 28 seconds
Texas Matters: Can Abbott eliminate property taxes?
Governor Greg Abbott is fully behind a plan to completely eliminate property taxes in Texas. Property taxes fund public services like schools and hospitals. With no state income tax, Texas would have to rely on sales tax which would likely have to increase. Lt. Gov Dan Patrick is calling Abbott’s plan a fantasy.
6/11/2023 • 29 minutes, 28 seconds
Texas Matters: Voting rights and the right to strip
How the Texas legislature dealt with voting rights (it's not all bad news), and a stripper takes on San Antonio's anti-nudity ordinance.
6/4/2023 • 29 minutes, 25 seconds
Texas Matters: Inside Attorney General Ken Paxton's pending impeachment
What’s the latest with Attorney General Ken Paxton, his alleged crimes and possible impeachment? What are the charges? What is the impeachment process? Who could be the next Texas Attorney General?
5/26/2023 • 29 minutes, 29 seconds
Texas Matters: Rep. Colin Allred on challenging Ted Cruz for Senate
Roll Call's "Inside Elections" has changed the rating for Sen. Ted Cruz’s re-election bid from "Solid Republican" to "Battleground." Cruz is now seen as vulnerable, and Dallas Democratic Congressman Colin Allred is running to replace him. We hear from Allred about why he thinks Texas voters will pick him and send Cruz packing. Could the fate of Senate control ride on this election?Also, how Texas is getting ready for electric cars.
5/19/2023 • 29 minutes, 28 seconds
Texas Matters: Senator Gutierrez and a legislative update
The Texas legislative session is getting closer to wrapping up. Is there any progress on gun safety, abortion exceptions and making the grid reliable? And the battleground over Texas History is now at Texas State Historical Association. Can the state turn away from the old Lone Star myths and towards the facts of the state’s founding?
5/13/2023 • 29 minutes, 28 seconds
Texas Matters: The doctor who stood up to SB8
He stood up to Gov. Greg Abbott and SB8 when he performed an illegal abortion, and he dared people to sue him — and they did. Dr. Alan Braid tells his story to TPR's David Martin Davies.
5/4/2023 • 29 minutes, 29 seconds
Texas Matters: State Senator Gutierrez on Legislative Session and taking on Senator Ted Cruz
How making illegal voting a felony is part of a Republican campaign to supress voting. And an update on the developments at the Texas legislature from Democrat State Senator Roland Gutierrez and how he is working on gun safety with the families of Uvalde who lost children in the school shooting. Also Gutierrez sizes up running for Senate against Republican Ted Cruz.
4/30/2023 • 29 minutes, 29 seconds
Texas Matters: Ending Countywide Voting and Stifling Renewable Jobs in Texas
On Texas Matters: The assault continues on free and fair elections by the Texas legislature.Many citizen complaints to the Texas Commission on Evironmental Quality could be ignored in the future.And why Texas could be making big bucks in the new green economy but state leaders are holding it back.
4/21/2023 • 29 minutes, 28 seconds
Texas Matters: The seige at Waco and today's anti-government movement
Remembering what happened at Waco 30 years ago and how it leads to today’s right wing anti-government movement.
4/14/2023 • 29 minutes, 29 seconds
Texas Matters: How the TX-GOP is targeting fair elections
For 20 years a Texas business man has been wining and dining Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas with secret super luxury vacations at the most exotic places on the planet. And how Republican backed bills in the state legislature could end free and fair elections in Texas.