Updated with the latest issues, Brown/Langenegger/Garcia/Biles/Reyna/Huerta/Farmer-Neal/Altema McNeely's PRACTICING TEXAS POLITICS, ENHANCED, 18th EDITION, gives you an insider's look at how public-policy making is conducted in the Lone Star State. It includes a special focus on the role of a growing Latino population in all aspects of Texas government, actions of the 88th Regular Legislative Session, effects of the 2022 elections, the COVID-19 pandemic, the historic February 2021 winter storm and the impact of the oil and gas industry on state finances. Throughout the text, critical thinking, communication, social responsibility and other state competency skill designations are specifically identified -- helping you maximize your study time and course success. With the MindTap online homework solution, Infuse, and Cengage Read mobile app, you can easily fit learning into your day -- anywhere, anytime.

Everyone knows that President George W. Bush is from Texas. But few of us know the role his home state plays in his presidency, and in our country. In this dual biography of man and state, Michael Lind confronts the chief crises of Bush's presidency--the economy, the Middle East, and religious fundamentalism--and traces their roots back to Texas, a state, Lind argues, that yields salient clues to the future course of our country.Widely praised as an iconoclastic and brilliant political observer, Lind, a fifth generation Texan, chronicles the ethnic clash that produced modern Texas, the well-known plundering of the state's natural resources at the hands of its elites, and finally the deep strain of "Old Testament religiosity" which, having originated in Texas, now reaches all over the globe in the form of Bush's foreign policy.In the tradition of Gary Wills's Reagan's America, Made in Texas provides a wholly original cultural history that should change the way we understand not just our president, but our country.

Mike Collier knew he was fighting an uphill battle. A retired PwC partner and a CPA with 25 years of experience, Mike was the logical choice for Texas State Comptroller--the chief financial officer of the second largest state in America. But he stood on principle and quit the Republican Party to run as a corruption-fighting Texas Democrat in a state that only elects Republicans. Because he dislikes intolerance and overreach, Mike successfully reached across the aisle and garnered support from Republicans and Democrats alike by campaigning on fiscal responsibility. But he lost the election to a rice farmer who was hand picked by the Republican Party, a political machine whose bad-for-Texas antics Mike brings to life through his stories from the campaign trail. IPPY Award Winner Out of Comptrol details the difficult but exhilarating path of a modern political campaign, from the decision to try to make a difference to fundraising, stump speaking, and TV jitters. With personality and humor, Mike offers first an outsider's and then a tenacious insider's view of Texas politics. His excitement and frustration make Mike's experience a story you won't forget. Updated in 2019 with his take on the close race for lieutenant governor!

Recent changes in the Texas court system are described herein. There is an account of recent developments in state constitution-making in Texas.

Texas pride, like everything else in the state, is larger than life. So, too, perhaps, are the state’s challenges. Lone Star Tarnished approaches public policy in the nation’s most populous "red state" from historical, comparative, and critical perspectives. The historical perspective provides the scope for asking how various policy domains have developed in Texas history, regularly reaching back to the state’s founding and with substantial data for the period 1950 to the present. In each chapter, Cal Jillson compares Texas public policy choices and results with those of other states and the United States in general. Finally, the critical perspective allows us to question the balance of benefits and costs attendant to what is often referred to as "the Texas way" or "the Texas model." Jillson delves deeply into seven substantive policy chapters, covering the most important policy areas in which state governments are active. Through his lively and lucid prose, students are well equipped to analyze how Texas has done and is doing compared to selected states and the national average over time and today. Readers will also come away with the necessary tools to assess the many claims of Texas’s exceptionalism.