Top Reads, Feb. 28: Abbott gay marriage connection / Patrick undocumented workers connection / Early voting sway

Mike Ward with the Austin American-Statesman reports: “ A second former employee of state Sen. Dan Patrick on Thursday said he hired Mexicans without permission to work in the U.S., quickly igniting the latest round of name-calling in the final days of the Republican primary race for lieutenant governor.”

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott was a law school classmate with one of the plaintiffs suing to strike down the state’s gay marriage ban. KERA has the story here.
“Phariss told KERA Thursday morning that during law school at Vanderbilt, he discussed politics over dinner with Abbott and his wife. Phariss is a Democrat, Abbott a Republican,” Shelley Kofler reports. “Phariss also says he flew to Abbott’s bedside in 1984 when Abbott was hit by a falling tree limb and paralyzed.”

Today is the last day of early voting, and John Reynolds with the Texas Tribune notes here that a small group of people determine what is often the most competitive election, the primaries, in Texas politics.