COURTS

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision means it could take months before abortion providers’ challenge to the restrictive law returns to a federal court.

Some of the same voting debates underway when Martin Luther King Jr. was alive are still being debated right now in Texas and in Washington, D.C.

The Travis County district attorney, a Democrat, says the Republican attorney general has four days to provide communications, multiple Texas news outlets first reported.

Attorney General Ken Paxton is seeking to claw back Medicaid payments made during the three years that Planned Parenthood was fighting in court to remain as a qualified health care provider.

As Texas’ long-running struggle to find enough placements for foster care children persists, more than 100 kids were sent out of state last year.

The State Commission on Judicial Conduct had admonished Eckhardt in 2020 for her actions as Travis County judge.

The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked a Biden administration rule that ordered businesses with 100 or more employees to require their staff to get vaccinated or get tested for COVID-19 every week. But the high court allowed a vaccine mandate for health care workers to stand.

Challenges to new Texas laws on voting, political districts and abortion are all pending in court, as is the state’s challenge to federal vaccine mandates. But until the courts rule, those laws remain in place — and they provide political fodder for the incumbents who support them.

Lawyers for abortion providers argue the case should go to federal district court rather than the Texas Supreme Court, which could take months to issue a ruling.

In December, the U.S. Supreme Court left the law largely intact, allowing only a challenge against medical licensing officials to proceed. An appeals court will now consider whether to send the case to the Texas Supreme Court.

The new year comes with a new election — and with familiar challenges to the way Texans vote and have their votes counted.

The state has already challenged the federal government’s vaccine orders for big businesses, health care workers and federal contractors.

As 2021 comes to a close, here’s a look back at just some of our favorite images captured by Texas Tribune photographers all over the state — and across the nation — to tell the stories of Texans in a challenging year.

Recent high-profile incidents and lawsuits have led some districts to make their dress code policies more gender- and race-neutral.

A rural Texas landowner is battling Texas Central in a lawsuit that hinges on whether the company can forcibly take parcels needed to connect the state’s two biggest urban areas.

The effort to charge Travis County Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir came at a time when many Texas Republicans questioned the integrity of last year’s election despite there being no evidence of widespread voter fraud.

Just as many legal experts predicted, the enforcement provision in Texas’ new law restricting abortion has become a magnet for other states that want to limit constitutionally protected rights.

The justices allowed the challenge against the law to proceed but mangled abortion providers' legal strategy and set the table for another elongated court fight. Meanwhile, abortion access in the state remains severely restricted.

The 8-1 decision came Wednesday from the all-Republican Court of Criminal Appeals.

Mark Lee Dickson helped Texas towns ban abortion. On Friday, the Supreme Court declined to block a state law modeled on his ordinance. “We can go anywhere now,” he said.

On this week's episode, Matthew and Reese make sense of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision and what it means for abortion in Texas.

Texas, the birthplace of Roe v. Wade, has been at the forefront of major battles over abortion access ever since. Friday’s ruling ensures the state remains on the frontlines.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the majority was straying from the court’s precedent to step in when state laws chill the exercise of constitutional rights while allowing other states to follow suit.

The fate of the statute remains uncertain. An appeal to the ruling is already underway, and an opinion on the law from the U.S. Supreme Court is still pending.

Texas’ population has grown 40% this century, and 91% of the new Texans are people of color. Federal judges now have to decide whether those monumental changes are reflected in the state’s political maps.

Three-judge panel finds no "concrete, or actual or imminent, injury" caused by Abbott's ban on mask mandates.

But some Texas nonprofit groups dedicated to paying for the medical costs of abortion say they have more money than patients to give it to — a likely symptom of fewer people being able to access the procedure because of the new law.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton had called the mandate “an unprecedented federal vaccine decree” on health care workers.

Texas has passed legislation that ensures abortion would be made a felony if Roe v. Wade is overturned “wholly or partly,” as the court considers Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban.

For two months, providers have had to work in a sort of limbo as they wait to see if the new law passes the Supreme Court's review.

The judge said the governor's order impedes children with disabilities from the benefits of public schools’ programs, services and activities, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

They didn't make a majority of Texas voters happy on a single issue, but the Republican majority in the Legislature made most of their own voters happy — and then drew maps that minimize political threats to them in the November general election.

Abortion rights groups are asking the court to declare Texas’ law unconstitutional. It's unclear what the outcome of this latest challenge against the controversial law will be or what weight it could hold overall.

The latest Texas execution protocols forbid spiritual advisers from praying aloud or touching prisoners as the prisoners are killed. Some members of the high court said they feared overturning the rules would lead to a flood of requests for other religious accommodations during executions.

After halting three Texas executions because of limits placed on spiritual advisers in the death chamber, the high court will hear arguments today over what religious rights the state must accord inmates as it kills them.

A Travis County judge temporarily blocked the state from listing delta-8 as a Schedule I drug, which effectively made it illegal. The cannabis extract became popular because users say it produces the “high” effect of marijuana.

Republican incumbents enter their reelection campaigns well ahead of their Republican challengers and with most voters unacquainted with the Democratic challengers in the field, according to the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll.

The move comes a week after Texas filed a separate lawsuit over new vaccination rules for federal contractors.

The elderly, voters with disabilities and voters with limited English proficiency risk disenfranchisement under sweeping legislation Texas Republicans pushed through earlier this year, the justice department argues in its legal challenge to Senate Bill 1.

The migrants were arrested for trespassing, but court documents failed to specify what property they allegedly trespassed upon. It’s the latest misstep in implementation of Greg Abbott’s border initiative, which has seen frequent violations of state law and disregard for due process rights.

The Mexican American Legislative Caucus is arguing that the new state House map violates the Texas Constitution. The lawsuit follows two legal challenges to the state’s new maps previously filed in federal court.

A gun rights group filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in opposition to Texas’ abortion law, fearful that similar statutes could be crafted in other states to target gun ownership.

The proceedings on Monday revealed how attorneys representing abortion providers, Texas and the federal government are defending their cases and opened a window into how the justices might rule.

Anti-abortion groups and reproductive rights activists faced off outside the U.S. Supreme Court as it heard Texas' abortion case.

Young replaces former Justice Eva Guzman, who resigned in June ahead of a campaign for attorney general.

Doubts over Reed’s guilt in the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites have lingered for more than 20 years and gained international attention. But a judge decided against recommending a new trial.

Six justices — including two who voted against blocking Senate Bill 8 when it first went into effect — voiced concern that other states could replicate the controversial law’s enforcement mechanism.

Since 2000, Texas lawmakers have reduced the number of abortions in the state by restricting access to the procedure.

The high court’s proceedings will focus on how Senate Bill 8 is enforced. It’s hard to predict what the court could decide, but its ruling will likely determine the future of abortion care in Texas and shape the legal battles to come.

The U.S. Department of Justice asked the U.S. Supreme Court to step in on the ongoing case, but Texas argues that the federal government lacks the standing necessary to overturn the law.

The court’s conservatives rejected a compromise from the chief justice, raising the stakes for a decisive showdown this fall on a Mississippi abortion law.

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HOUSTON The Texas Supreme Court recently ordered no jury trials or jury selections are to take place before Aug. 1, unless a plan is submitted and approved by the Office of Court Administration. Both prosecutors and defense attorneys agree the system cant handle much more of a back-up and they have got to find a way to get things moving. Thiessen said only 10 people are allowed in a courtroom at a time and that includes court staff. Thiessen and Musick both were quick to say the idea of trial participants wearing masks wont work. The back-up in the courts is also leading to an increase in the population at the Harris County jail.