Poll showing close race in Texas for U.S. Senate, if most Texans voted

You probably saw the new Texas political survey from Quinnipiac released last week - the one that had Democrat Beto O'Rourke running just a few percentage points behind Republican Ted Cruz in this year's U.S. Senate race. It's from a highly regarded polling operation, but there are a couple of caveats that ought to figure into your jubilation/trepidation.

Our Views: Let voters decide fate of jury rule

Calvin Duncan poses for a photo with two stacks of legal paperwork filed under "Notification of Direct Appeal Decision" and Non-unanimous Jury Verdict issues" in his Central Business District office in New Orleans, La., Friday, Feb. 23, 2018. Duncan is a former Angola inmate who is pushing the United States Supreme Court, through repeated petitions on behalf of inmates convicted on non-unanimous jury counts, to overturn the state's unusual law allowing murder convictions of a 10 to 2 jury serious felony cases.

Where are the conservatives we need?

But in a well-ordered democratic system, those who fight on behalf of competing parties, interests and ideas can usually find some room for mutual esteem and even occasionally try to profit intellectually from each other. It's when politics becomes unhinged that we squander the gift of social learning through reasoned argument.

Congress seeking to reclaim war oversight

Congress has a constitutional role in determining the use of U.S. military force, but there are two characteristic forms of error that go with it: Either lawmakers let the president do whatever he wants, without legal authorization, or they micromanage the commander in chief to the point that he cannot take necessary action, at least not openly.

It’s hard enough for detained immigrants to get legal advice. Trump might make it worse.

A woman who is seeking asylum has her fingerprints taken by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer at a pedestrian port of entry from Mexico to the United States, in McAllen, Tex., on May 10, 2017. UNLIKE DEFENDANTS charged with crimes, illegal immigrants under threat of deportation - a civil proceeding - have no right to a lawyer.

America is still unprepared for a Russian attack on our elections

AS THIS year's midterm elections approach, the country is still unprepared for another Russian attack on the vote, and President Trump continues to send mixed signals - at best - about what he would do if the Kremlin launched an even more aggressive interference campaign than the one that roiled the 2016 presidential race. In last month's omnibus spending bill, Congress set aside more than $300 million for states to invest in hardening their election infrastructure.

Sound Off for April 22: Start judging people on their views, not their party

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi review notes before a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 22, 2018. The House on Thursday gave swift approval to a $1.3 trillion spending bill that would fund the government through September, shaking off the objections of its most conservative members and voting less than 24 hours after the 2,232-page document was unveiled.

Fusion GPS Op-ed: Mueller Probing Corruption Connections

FBI special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into the 2016 election might not have anything to do with the election any longer but instead where his business financing had come from, the Fusion GPS Founders' wrote in The New York Times op-ed Saturday titled "The Business Deals That Could Imperil Trump." The premise of Fusion GPS founders Peter Fritsch and Glenn R. Simpson's op-ed is Trump needed cash after his business bankruptcies ruled out American funding and forced him to some sketchy, wealthy foreign sources, including Russians, who "might have been entangled in foreign corruption."

Anthony Gonzalez in the Republican primary for the 16th Congressional …

Congress agreed to a rare adjournment until after the 2000 election in this Nov. 1, 2000 file photo. This year, an open congressional seat in the 16th District in Northeast Ohio has drawn three Republican May 8 primary contenders hoping to retain the seat now held by U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci for the GOP.

The ghost of Brownback appears

The specter of Sam Brownback haunted the Kansas statehouse last week in the form of a proposition that would place unchecked power for funding public schools in the Legislature's hands. Beginning with his election as governor in 2010, Brownback and his allies blamed the Kansas Supreme Court for the state's financial distress.