The Texas Observer

The Texas Observer, often referred to simply as the Observer, is a nonprofit political news magazine in the United States. It is recognized as a key voice for progressive ideas in Texas. Published on a monthly basis, the magazine operates out of Downtown Austin, Texas.

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Forgotten Crossings at the Edge of Texas

2 weeks ago | texasobserver.org | Joe Nick Patoski

Editor’s Note: Author Richard Parker died early last month, days after publication of his book The Crossing. “My dad was a person that loved learning about the world around him, and we saw that in his writing,” his daughter Olivia told the Albuquerque Journal. He was 61.
The Sordid, Unscientific Story Behind Lethal Injection

2 weeks ago | texasobserver.org | Michelle Pitcher

Texas was the first U.S. state to execute someone by lethal injection, but the idea for the novel method came from Oklahoma. Our northern neighbor was the first to adopt the plan to replace the spectacle of the electric chair with something more palatable for witnesses and the public. Texas was just the first to test it out on a person.
Texas' First Black Woman Poet Laureate Spreads Poems of Praise

2 weeks ago | texasobserver.org | Lise Olsen

Amanda Johnston learned she would become the 2024 Texas poet laureate via an afternoon cell phone call on an otherwise typical workday in her home office. She’d been told that she was among 10 finalists, but she’d forsworn any hope of victory. After all, in the 92 years since Texas first bestowed that honorific, no other Black woman had ever made the cut. She sat stunned at her familiar writing table surrounded by shelves of her favorite books.
The Scientist and the Serial Killer: Cracking the Case of Houston’s ‘Lost Boys’

3 weeks ago | texasobserver.org | Lise Olsen

Editor’s Note: The following is excerpted from The Scientist and the Serial Killer: The Search for Houston’s Lost Boys (Random House, April 2025) by Texas Observer Investigations Editor Lise Olsen.
Congressman Denounces ICE Response About Prosecutor Operating Racist X Account

4 weeks ago | texasobserver.org | Steven Monacelli

Last month, Congressman Marc Veasey, a North Texas Democrat, sent a letter to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Acting Deputy Director Kenneth Genalo demanding a swift investigation into James “Jim” Joseph Rodden, an ICE assistant chief counsel who acts as a prosecutor for ICE in immigration court in Dallas. The letter came in response to a Texas Observer investigative report that identified Rodden as the operator of a white supremacist social media account.
Republican Abortion Laws Are 'Torturing Women.' Can the GOP Fix Its Own Crisis?

4 weeks ago | texasobserver.org | Mary Tuma

Dr. Damla Karsan lives in fear for her patients—and for all pregnant Texans. The Houston OB-GYN has spent the last four years painfully navigating the state’s draconian abortion bans, oftentimes for patients who face severe complications. With vaguely defined exceptions for medical emergencies, the law has forced doctors to either delay or deny life-saving care out of worry they could face lawsuits or prison time for performing pregnancy termination.
How Voucher Vendors Could Make Millions from ‘School Choice’ in Texas

1 month ago | texasobserver.org | Josephine Lee |Justin Miller

In August 2024, the business magazine Inc. released its annual list of the top 5,000 fastest-growing private companies in the United States. At 815th, a burgeoning upstart called ClassWallet cracked the list’s top 20 percent for the third straight year. By expanding its operations managing school voucher programs for states across the country, earnings for the Florida company grew by 610 percent over the previous three years.
What Ever Happened to Ethics Reform?

1 month ago | texasobserver.org | Justin Miller

In the early 1970s, Texas experienced one of the most explosive political scandals in its history. House Speaker Gus Mutscher was convicted, and several other top state officials were implicated for their roles in a bribery scheme in which they received profitable stocks from Houston banker Frank Sharp in exchange for passing favorable legislation in Austin.
David Wood, Set for Execution, Says He Was Never the 'Desert Killer'

1 month ago | texasobserver.org | Michelle Pitcher

Young women had been disappearing from the streets of El Paso for months before the first bodies were discovered in the desert northeast of the city. On September 4, 1987, police found the remains of Karen Baker and Rosa Maria Casio in shallow graves. The search for other missing women stretched into March of 1988, interrupted by nearly two feet of snowfall in December 1987, a weather anomaly still remembered whenever snow falls in West Texas.
Abbott’s Border Disaster Has Created a No-Bid Bonanza for Private Contractors

1 month ago | texasobserver.org | Justin Miller

Forty-five days into President Joe Biden’s first and only term, Governor Greg Abbott announced plans to launch Operation Lone Star (OLS), the latest and most expansive in a long line of Texas border security surges. Just shy of three months later, Abbott signed a declaration of disaster, citing an “ongoing and imminent threat” from migrants crossing into Texas. This state of disaster has since been continuously renewed, even as border apprehensions have fallen precipitously.