Author: Zach Despart

Zach Despart is an enterprise and investigative reporter focusing on state government. His work on a team investigating the flawed police response to the Uvalde school shooting was awarded the 2024 Collier Prize and was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in explanatory reporting. He led the Tribune’s effort to become the first news organization to determine where Texas has built 50 miles of border wall, a project that also found the state struggles with holdout landowners along the route. He previously covered Harris County for the Houston Chronicle, where he reported on corruption, elections, disaster preparedness and the region’s recovery from Hurricane Harvey. An upstate New York native, he received his bachelor’s degree in political science and film from the University of Vermont.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick Says Legislature Should Clarify Abortion Law to Protect Mothers at Risk

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick on Sunday said the legislature should amend the language of the state’s near-total abortion ban to address confusion over when doctors may terminate pregnancies. Patrick is the first major state elected official to offer support for changing the state’s abortion law in this legislative session.

“I do think we need to clarify any language so that doctors are not in fear of being penalized if they think the life of the mother is at risk,” Patrick said on the WFAA program Inside Texas Politics.