The Midday Brief: Top Texas Headlines for March 1, 2011

Your afternoon reading:

• "Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said he plans to begin talking to senators to see if he can break a partisan block to John Bradley’s nomination to the Forensic Science Commission." — Dewhurst to lobby for Bradley nomination, Postcards

• "Today, the Senate Health and Human Services Committee takes up the bill by Dallas GOP Sen. John Carona, which would create an advisory committee and a Choose Life account that would benefit adoption resources and the 'crisis pregnancy centers,' which advocate against abortion." — Choose Life plates: Pedal to the metal, Trail Blazers

• "Sen. John Cornyn grilled Education Secretary Arne Duncan about the federal government's efforts to distribute $830 million in education funding to Texas schools during a Tuesday Senate Budget Committee hearing." — Cornyn grills Education Secretary about $830 million for Texas schools, Trail Blazers

• "Texas officially joined the Confederacy on March 1, 1861, and within days it was organizing representatives, resources and troops for the new Southern nation. So far out west, Texas would never be a central theater of the Civil War. Yet from the very beginning it played an unusually outsized role in the conflict." — The Lone Star State Turns South, The New York Times

New in The Texas Tribune:

• "Disability advocates gathered at the Capitol today to call on lawmakers to use the Rainy Day Fund, to raise new revenue and above all else to not cut community-based services for the disabled. Over and over again the crowd chanted, 'No cuts! No cuts!'" — Disability Advocates: "No Cuts! No Cuts!"

• "The voter ID bill came before House lawmakers this morning — and it was a tense scene. Even supporters of the measure had to grapple with testimony from people who endorse the bill on anti-illegal immigration grounds." — Voter ID Gets Tense Hearing

• "The Obama administration’s 2012 education budget includes $900 million for the Race to the Top program. And this time around, there’s a twist: Individual districts — as opposed to states — can apply for the funds. For Texas districts, that could mean access to new federal money. It could also have them wading into a longstanding struggle between the state and the federal government over the implementation of national curriculum standards." — Do Grants Offer Local Control, or Strings?