POLITICS Hello, Washington? It’s Texas With a Republican in the White House, Lone Star State officials have a direct line to D.C.

Editor's note: This database was originally published in September 2018. We are continuing to update it as information becomes available via open records laws.

WASHINGTON – When Gov. Greg Abbott traveled to the nation’s capital in October 2017 for a one-day visit, he didn’t check out the National Mall or take a cruise on the Potomac River or attend a concert at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Instead, the Republican attended wall-to-wall meetings with top leaders in the Trump administration and on Capitol Hill.

White House budget director Mick Mulvaney. Then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. White House chief of staff John Kelly. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. House Speaker Paul Ryan. The entire Texas congressional delegation.

Those high-level connections were not an anomaly, either.

Full calendar View the total number of meetings each Texas official has had with prominent federal officials since President Trump took office in January of 2017: Meeting with federal official(s)

Meeting with federal official(s) Includes Trump

A Dallas Morning News review of the official schedules for Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Attorney General Ken Paxton and other statewide elected officials shows that those top Texans have enjoyed easy access to Washington since President Donald Trump took the White House.

That finding is far from perfect, since those officials chronicle their activities in varying degrees of specificity. Campaign-related activities are also typically excluded from these schedules, and campaign finance records often don’t provide much detail.

Check out our database to explore more about top Texas officials’ interactions with their federal counterparts – both in D.C. and back home in the Lone Star State.

Meeting topics: Economy

Education

Environment

Disaster Relief

Immigration

Public Health

Other Filter meetings: According to official schedules, top Texas officials have met with federal officials since Donald Trump became president.