Debate, TribuneFest: ‘PolitiFact sometimes gets it right’
A lot got said this weekend. What should we run through the Texas Truth-O-Meter?
Watch the year’s first gubernatorial debate here. The Texas Tribune has posted video of some of the spotlight interviews from the Texas Tribune Festival here. Through the weekend, we offered up dozens of fact-oriented tweets, right here.
We’ll review the debate and interviews to pin down details. But we think Republican gubernatorial nominee Greg Abbott said during the Friday night debate in the Rio Grande Valley that he’s prosecuted a member of the Islamic State group. He also said a 2011 proposal passed into law with the backing of Democratic nominee Wendy Davis makes it hard for him not to defend the public school funding system in the lawsuit carried by hundreds of school districts.
Saturday and Sunday, Davis and incumbent Gov. Rick Perry were among many elected officials speaking at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin. Our reporting there was supported by student journalists who we asked to corral the most curious and potentially checkable claims, which we’re starting to sift.
Meantime, state Sen. Dan Patrick, the Houston Republican nominated for lieutenant governor, bridled at moderator Evan Smith about our recent Pants on Fire for Patrick’s declaration he led the charge to restore public school aid in the 2013 legislative session.
“PolitiFact sometimes gets it right,” Patrick said, though in this instance, he made clear, we blew it for failing to give him credit for leading two Senate panels that signed off on partial restorations of the $5 billion in aid cut in the 2011 session. “I was instrumental,” Patrick said, Statesman reporter J. David McSwane tells us.
Going forward, Smith asked, “will you be a supporter of putting money back into public education?”
“Yes, but I want it to be spent wisely,” Patrick replied. “We need accountability. We need improvement.”
Perhaps you saw the debate or attended the festival. Anything make you wonder: Could that be so? Write us here.
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