Latest Contributions

• Will This Travel?

  By Ross Ramsey Feb. 20, 2006

  Austin Republican Ben Bentzin started his latest attempt to win a seat in the statehouse with every advantage: Help from high state officials; a district drawn for a Republican; a special election called by a Republican governor for a date that was presumably to the advantage of his own party; a successful effort at keeping other Republicans out of the race; two Democrats splitting votes on their side and supposedly bettering his chances in a special election; and a huge financial advantage over everyone else in the field. Full Story 

• Headhunters, A Side

  By Ross Ramsey Feb. 13, 2006

  Never shoot a bear unless you're sure to kill it. If it lives, it might eat you. Dr. James Leininger and a political action committee he's funding (very, very generously) are on the hunt for five of the Republicans who broke ranks to vote against publicly funded vouchers for private schools. If they win, they'll scare the liquids out of legislators who defy them. If they lose, though, the lesson will be that it's safe to oppose them. Plus, there'll be all those bears walking around. Full Story 

• Dirty Words

  By Ross Ramsey Feb. 6, 2006

  Some things in government, as at the pharmacy, are contraindicated. For instance, you can say INCOME or PAYROLL or GROSS RECEIPTS, but you can't use any of those terms in close proximity to the word TAX. Just look at what happened to John Sharp, head of the governor's tax reform panel, who had to back out of too close an encounter between TAX and GROSS RECEIPTS in his comments after a speech to a trade group. Full Story 

• High Overhead

  By Ross Ramsey Jan. 30, 2006

  Sherry Boyles, a former statewide candidate and co-founder of a Democratic PAC that supports female candidates, left that group earlier this month to pursue other opportunities. She's leaving an organization that spent 81 percent of the money it raised in 2005, even though that was a political off year with only one election. Full Story 

• Insufficient Funds

  By Ross Ramsey Jan. 23, 2006

  Felix Alvarado's filing check bounced back to the Texas Democratic Party, and he's apparently off the March ballot for governor. Full Story 

• Where the Wild Things Are (and Aren't)

  By Ross Ramsey Jan. 16, 2006

  The party primaries include five congressional races, five in the state Senate, and 53 in the Texas House. In other words, it's a slow to normal election year. Full Story 

• Switch Now, Fight Later

  By Ross Ramsey Jan. 9, 2006

  Hardly anyone who's not employed by Carole Keeton Strayhorn thinks she would win a Republican primary in nine weeks against Gov. Rick Perry. It's more his audience than hers. He can match her dollar for dollar and then some, and she's based her campaign all along on the idea that she needs swing voters in addition to moderate Republicans to wrest the Mansion away from the current occupant. Full Story 

• Will She or Won't She?

  By Ross Ramsey Dec. 19, 2005

  Saying that you're a Republican, and that you're a candidate for governor, or even that you're a Republican candidate for governor, is not the same as saying you'll seek the GOP's nomination for that office in 2006. And that's why the state's scribbling scrum of political reporters won't close the door on speculation that Carole Keeton Strayhorn will run as an independent next year. Full Story 

• Running Shoes

  By Ross Ramsey Dec. 12, 2005

  Former House Speaker Pete Laney, D-Hale Center, surprised the political villagers by announcing he won't run again, but most of the pre-election news so far has come from people who are running for office after all. Full Story 

• The Middle-Finger Primary

  By Ross Ramsey Dec. 5, 2005

  Kinky Friedman has to have almost 50,000 signatures to get on the ballot as an independent candidate for governor next year. His campaign folks are aiming higher, hoping to get two or four times that many — 100,000 to 200,000 signatures — to show outsiders how serious they are. Full Story