Drought and strong winds mean that the number of wildfires is way up this year. But the Texas Forest Service, the lead fire-fighting agency, is also facing heightened scrutiny in the Legislature — and, of course, budget cuts.

Cutting the budget can be expensive. Something that appears to save money can, on further inspection, cost more. Family planning, for instance.

The betting game has already begun on whether the budget battle between a more moderate Senate and a far stingier House will lead to a standoff — and a special session in the summer. The two budget committee chairmen refuse to say whether one body may have more sway than the other in the final outcome. 

Expect just about every redistricting decision made this year to center on the state's rapidly growing Hispanic population. Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports on how the search for Hispanic-majority districts could affect the re-election chances of some lawmakers.

It's no government shutdown, to be sure, but Texas has run into its own bout of fiscal drama: leaked budget documents.

No time to follow every twist and turn of the Texas Legislature? We've made it easier for you with our weekly recaps of the action under the dome.

Your afternoon reading: Budget cut-induced furor; an ongoing controversy at UT; House approval for school board disclosures.

House Speaker Joe Straus was interviewed eariler this week by Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, government prof and half of the Tribune's polling team, about the session so far, the budget, gambling, rewriting state taxes, federal stimulus money and what he thinks about the tempest over research and teaching at the state's top universities.

Not much, unless you're one of the state's 130,000 civilian federal employees — or you’re scrambling to get your taxes done.

Data don’t lie: Amendments dominated the House floor last Friday as Representatives debated the budget bill. A visualization of the House transcript reveals “amendment” was the most used word.

The U.S. Department of Transportation released preliminary details today on a program that would again open up U.S. roadways to Mexican truckers.