If your campaign plan depends on something that has never happened before, you're a long shot.

The law limiting speech and political contributions in races for Speaker of the Texas House is, in part, unconstitutional, according to a federal judge in Austin.

Kyle Janek isn't in a political race this year, but his money will be. The Houston Republican resigned from the state Senate in mid-term and the special election to replace him is underway.

In seven of the state's 31 Senate districts, more people voted in this year's Democratic primary than voted in the 2006 general election.

Texas Democrats have been recruiting Libertarian candidates into state races for years. The conventional view is that a Libertarian takes more from a Republican than from a Democrat. In a close race, that can make all the difference.

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, raised $1.7 million during the three months ending June 30 and got to the mid-year mark with $9.3 million in the campaign account.

Texas Democrats are doing a tag-team routine on Sen. Kim Brimer, R-Fort Worth, excoriating him for filing a lawsuit to knock Wendy Davis off the ballot and asking the courts to rule against him — and quickly. The courts have answered that request; they set a hearing for July 22.

High gas prices cost the state money, but pump a huge windfall into the treasury, too.

Residents of the Lone Star State aren't happy about the way things are going, with 70 percent saying the country's on the wrong track and 78 percent saying the country is worse off economically than it was a year ago.

Suppose you are a Republican and you're on the ballot and the party's presidential candidate wasn't your first choice and the guy on the Democratic side of the presidential ticket has exhibited a knack for turning out voters and getting people on the Internet to send money.

We kept hearing a question at the state Democratic convention that we haven't heard at Texas Democratic gatherings in a while: Do you think it's turning?

Boyd Richie might get his wish. The head of the Texas Democratic Party has been hoping to start his state convention with a little love at the top of the ticket.

There's one week to go 'til the state convention for the Democrats and some counties are still ironing out what they see as kinks in their delegate selection. The Texas Democrats haven't been so divided about their candidates in decades, so the selection process is about as competitive as the presidential race itself.

Travis County prosecutors have issued subpoenas in their investigation of the so-called Ghost Worker case. The primary House committee investigating that affair has, as a result, pulled up (a second committee hasn't changed course, but could). And the piles of Open Information Requests from politicians, partisans and the press should start yielding some results in the next week or so.

By now, Texas businesses were supposed to have already filed returns and written checks for the newish business margins tax. They got a one-month reprieve from Comptroller Susan Combs, who decided the level of confusion was high enough to give everyone another month to calculate and pay up.