The Midday Brief: Sept. 9, 2010

Your afternoon reading:

• "Rick Perry has embraced an unexpected model in the latest turn of his reelection campaign — Ann Richards. In attacking Democrat Bill White for reporting no taxable income one year, the Perry camp is circulating newspaper stories from 20 years ago in which Richards did the same thing." —  Rick Perry's latest role model: Ann Richards?, Trail Blazers

• "The U.S. Department of Education rejected Texas’ request for $830 million in education funding, and U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Austin) is accusing Gov. Rick Perry of deliberately sabotaging the state’s application and delaying federal aid to Texas schools." — Doggett says Gov. Perry deliberately sabotaged Texas’ chances for federal education funding, The Texas Independent

• "Sound familiar? A chief executive appoints a political loyalist to head a transportation agency that contracts with a Spanish company only to find its project in trouble. Not Rick Perry and the Trans-Texas Corridor. It's Bill White and Houston Metro." — Bill White's former Houston Metro in hot water with the feds, Trail Blazers

• "I have always believed that Rick Perry is running for national office. Why else would he run for a third term? More land deals? More budget cuts? Pick A&M’s next football coach? Prepare for a fourth term in 2014? Been there, done that. He has done everything he can do here. The book is perfectly timed, right at the moment that the focus will shift from 2010 to 2012." — Perry book announcement fuels presidential speculation, BurkaBlog

• "Texas’ sales tax collections closed out the fiscal year $1.5 billion — or 7 percent — short of projections for 2010, according to figures released Thursday by Comptroller Susan Combs." — State sales tax collections finish year down 7 percent, Postcards

New in The Texas Tribune:

• "Republican Bill Flores released his first radio spot of the campaign season today in his bid to unseat U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco. In it, Flores enlists the help of former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm, who argues Edwards’ support of President Barack Obama’s stimulus plan is in stark contrast to what the congressman told his constituents earlier this year." — Bill Flores Releases Radio Ad with Phil Gramm

• "The epicenter of the fight over the state's wind power transmission lines is the Hill Country, where landowners are spending lots of money and time to keep the lines from being built. They're trotting out every conceivable argument, and they may just succeed." — Fighting the Power Lines to Protect Hill Country Vistas

• "Almost 157,000 inmates in the Texas prison system were counted by the U.S. Census Bureau as living where they're incarcerated and not as residents of their home counties — a policy that some opponents argue has dire political and economic consequences." — Lawmakers Urge a Change in How Inmates are Counted