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All Coverage

  • Numbers and Letters, Sticks and Stones

    by Ross Ramsey

    Statewide offices are full of ambitious people, and governors of Texas have been historically besieged by people who want their jobs, or their power. Bob Bullock, first as comptroller and then as lieutenant governor, was a special pain in the necks of Gov. Mark White and then Gov. Ann Richards. For Gov. Bill Clements, the bad news regularly arrived from the offices of then-Attorney General Jim Mattox. And for Rick Perry, it would appear that the thorn bush is rooted at the Lyndon B. Johnson State Office Building, headquarters of Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts Carole Keeton Strayhorn. Full Story 

  • Sine Die, and Then What?

    by Ross Ramsey

    This special session of the Legislature never officially convened on the East end of the Capitol, and if the Democrats came back this minute, there wouldn't be time to pass a congressional redistricting plan. The Senate never got a quorum, and could never send bills to committee, much less hear them, amend them, pass them, and all that jazz. Full Story 

  • Why is Everyone Yelling?

    by Ross Ramsey

    You have to wonder how Texas legislators would act if average people were actually paying close attention, or if those voters really, truly, deeply cared about congressional redistricting. The summer battle over new maps has held the state media's attention. It's still common to see seven to nine television cameras at press conferences and stakeouts and group gropes at the Capitol. And the public is certainly aware that Democrats left the state over a political fight. But the issue hasn't even held a dominant spot on talk radio shows, much less in the regular conversations of Texas civilians. The vegetables are right there on the plate, but the diners aren't biting. Full Story 

  • Siege State

    by Ross Ramsey

    Cops, firefighters, crime reporters, habitual criminals and the guys who drive the Roach Coaches to sell sandwiches, donuts, coffee and sodas at crime scenes have all seen things like this before. So have the veterans of maximum-security day care centers. Somebody's holed up in a building making demands. They swear they won't quit until they get what they want. They have hostages and say they'll hold the hostages indefinitely in pursuit of their goal. Nothing is changing from day to day. Full Story 

  • Redistricting Forever

    by Ross Ramsey

    Texas Democrats are considering a challenge to the redistricting plans put in place for the state House and state Senate two years ago. If they sued, they would be seeking a revision based on this summer's U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a Georgia redistricting case. Some Democrats say the logic of that ruling, applied to Texas, could add as many as three Democratic seats to the state Senate and as many as 12 to the state House. Numbers like that, if they proved to be more than fantasy, would move both chambers of the Legislature to near parity between Democrats and Republicans. Full Story 

  • Not So Broke After All

    by Ross Ramsey

    If Texas lawmakers and budgeteers make the right dance steps in the next few weeks, they'll have $800 million available to add to next year's spending — without a tax or fee increase. Full Story 

  • Two Types of Plotting

    by Ross Ramsey

    Ignore the minutiae for a moment and the congressional redistricting tangle has only two apparent dramatic points. Will 21 senators allow the issue to come up for consideration? And if they do, will the courts approve the plan that then passes through the Legislature? Full Story 

  • The Trouble with Incumbents

    by Ross Ramsey

    Gov. Rick Perry officially opened the call of the special session, confining it at the beginning to the subject of congressional redistricting. He can add more at will. Republicans want to redraw the congressional lines because only 15 of the 32 members of the Texas delegation are theirs. It's the last holdout for Democrats, and the GOP wants to break it down. The current districts could accomplish that. But to win, they'll have to squeeze out Democratic incumbents the voters continue to support. Full Story 

  • The Lady in Red

    by Ross Ramsey

    The budget approved by the Legislature last month doesn't balance, and Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn says she won't certify it. This, ladies and germs, is a first. In all the years that the Texas Constitution has called for a balanced budget, the Legislature has spent less than it had. Full Story 

  • Who Needs a Fig Leaf?

    by Ross Ramsey

    The conventional wisdom among legislators and lobbyists is that congressional redistricting will be a "second" issue in a summer special session, since politicians don't want to look like they're spending taxpayer money for a purely political purpose. It's not a baseless theory–some of the smart people have been talking about it right along with the rest of us. Full Story 

  • You Just Don't Know Until You Know

    by Ross Ramsey

    Will there be a special session other than the one on school finance? And will it really start on June 30? And will the subject be government reorganization? The budget? Franchise taxes? The 10 percent rule for college admissions? And is congressional redistricting the only reason to come back, with whatever else just thrown in to provide a cover story for what voters might see as a political session? Full Story 

  • Let's Make a Deal

    by Ross Ramsey

    Anything could go wrong or go unexpectedly well at this point in a legislative session. It could have been the budget, or insurance, clean air, or a government reorganization bill. The first mess involved the tort reformers, who went down to the wire with their impasse showing. Full Story 

  • Springtime in Austin

    by Ross Ramsey

    Every remaining day of the legislative session is a deadline for something and at the end of Wednesday, May 28, every bill that hasn't won approval in some form in both chambers is dead. The mop-up that follows will reconcile differences in the bills–or not–and it'll all be over a week from Monday, maybe for a while and maybe not. Full Story 

  • Several Fast Trains Closing on the Station

    by Ross Ramsey

    The 20-week legislative session is down to its final three weeks. The big legislation with the hard edges and the sharp corners—even the emergency insurance bill—is still pending. The House has only a few more days before its rules block consideration of any legislation that hasn't already been through the Senate. Full Story 

  • What Will You Say When You Get Home?

    by Ross Ramsey

    Imagine you're a House member and the Senate has handed you a chance to vote to cut school property taxes in half, to replace them with a penny-and-a-half addition to the state sales tax and an expansion of that tax to a bunch of stuff that's not taxed now, and to kill the Robin Hood system of finance that's so unpopular with voters. Fast-forward to a town hall meeting after the session. Somebody asks why you didn't fix school finance while you were in Austin. The senator says she voted to kill it and halve property taxes, and then hands the microphone to you. Full Story 

  • Framing the Issues

    by Ross Ramsey

    Now that he's been briefed, Gov. Rick Perry isn't sufficiently impressed with Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst's school finance plan to push it during the regular session. Perry has been putting off the school finance issue since early in the session—he said then that legislative leaders weren't experienced enough to pull it off. Now that Dewhurst is gathering Senate support for a fairly specific plan, Perry says there's not enough time to deal with it during the regular session. Full Story 

  • Let the Big Cats Eat

    by Ross Ramsey

    Democrats in the Texas House are starting to look like the Christians who appeared in the Roman Coliseum–they speak their faith quickly and to an inattentive audience, and then the lions eat them. Full Story