While Texans wait for the courts to determine most of the state's political races, the candidates for U.S. Senate have begun a campaign blitz in the run-up to this spring’s primary. Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports.

The state Legislature heads back to work in less than a year. And as Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports, the state’s improving economy won't likely save legislators from the protracted budget battle that awaits them.

Half of all GOP voters haven't decided who should be their nominee for the U.S. Senate, according to the new University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll.

The easiest way to win an election is to have the votes. The next easiest way is to change the rules of the election. Some political folks, inside and outside the Texas Senate, are looking at the rules.

 Three statewide elected officials have their eyes on the lieutenant governor’s job now that David Dewhurst is running for U.S. Senate. They admit it's early to be maneuvering for an election that’s almost three years away — but they admit it while pressing forward.

The Texas land commissioner on running for lieutenant governor (in an election that's three years off), water and education and other issues facing the state and his potential foes — especially Comptroller Susan Combs.

Who knew, when the 1998 race for lieutenant governor was raging, that the combatants would end up like this: Rick Perry is picking his way across Iowa and New Hampshire with his sights set on the White House, and John Sharp is the chancellor-apparent at the Texas A&M University System.

Whodathunkit?

In which we ask the insiders how the selection of a new lieutenant governor will go, if David Dewhurst moves on to another job after the 2012 elections.

Comptroller Susan Combs isn't a 2014 candidate yet, but she wants you to know that some of the Republican Party's money people are on board and that she's got a pile of cash in her campaign treasury.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst dribbled out his U.S. Senate announcement Tuesday, letting a preview for a relatively small group of supporters and activists slip into wide circulation on the internet before his campaign geared up for a big public show later in the week.

Aguilar on a change in law that affects applications for state-issued IDs, Galbraith on how the drought is taking its toll on wildlife, Hamilton on an outsider's attempt to lower the cost of higher ed, Murphy visualizes the partisanship of House members, Ramsey on who becomes Lite Guv if David Dewhurst takes another job, Ramshaw on life in the colonias and three stories about Rick Perry — Grissom on how his death penalty stance might play in a 2012 presidential race, Root on how he cemented his reputation as one of the state's most powerful governors and Tan on the growing demand for him to speak elsewhere: The best of our best content from July 4 to July 8, 2011.

If Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst moves into another job — and he’s got two ways to do that — the 31 senators will elect one of their own to serve the rest of his four-year term.

At this morning's TribLive conversation, the authors of Texas Monthly's biennial Best and Worst Legislators story explained why they put Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst on the Ten Worst list.

At last Thursday's TribLive conversation, I interviewed Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples about the impact of drug-fueled violence on border farmers and ranchers, what he thinks about the Senate's two-thirds rule, his run for lieutenant governor in 2014 and more.

State Comptroller Susan Combs may test that question. She is considering a run for lieutenant governor in 2014.

The lieutenant governor believes he knows how to save Texas money and improve patient care by overhauling how doctors and hospitals are paid: with carrots, not sticks. In an interview with the Tribune, he talks about what he sees as the root of the health care crisis, and his proposed solutions.

Gov. Rick Perry was sworn in Tuesday for an unprecedented third full term, predicting that historians will look back on this time as the "Texas century."