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All Coverage

  • Easter Bonnets or Hard Hats?

    By Ross Ramsey

    Lawmakers will get ready for the Easter break by kicking the budget out of the House and lining up for copies of the redistricting "working" maps they've been promised by the two chairmen in charge of political cartography. Even without redistricting, the remaining seven weeks of the session will be kinda hairy. Still on the list of things to do: The House-Senate conference on the budget, teacher health insurance, Medicaid funding, campaign finance reform, major water and air bills, a number of Sunset bills affecting major agencies, a handful of controversial criminal justice bills, transportation bills and any number of things we've left off. There's a stack of stuff to do and not much time to do it. But the focus isn't on that stuff: It's on the maps. Full Story 

  • Rain in the Forecast

    By Ross Ramsey

    They say they're not having a political fight, but if Lt. Gov. Bill Ratliff and Comptroller Carole Keeton Rylander were having a political fight, chances are it would look a lot like this. Full Story 

  • The Texas House, Divided

    By Ross Ramsey

    For purposes of redistricting, break the House into seven pieces. Six parts would each be comprised of members from the six largest counties in the state: Harris, Dallas, Tarrant, Bexar, Travis, and El Paso. The seventh group includes representatives from the other 248 counties in the state. Full Story 

  • Seven Days Later and Nothing's the Same

    By Ross Ramsey

    The rural areas are in worse shape than they were expecting. The suburbs are in better shape than they were expecting. The urban areas are in both better and worse shape—maybe it's just disturbingly different than they expected. There is not a GOP primary for governor on the horizon. Full Story 

  • Mass Preoccupation

    By Ross Ramsey

    When Rep. Delwin Jones, R-Lubbock, went to the front microphone in the House to talk about redistricting numbers the other day, you could have heard a pin drop. The chairman of the Redistricting Committee had nothing dramatic to say; he was keeping members up to date on the U.S. Census Bureau's plan to deliver numbers any day. He said it'd take several days to load the data into the computers so that the political cartographers can get to work. He finished; everyone exhaled. Full Story 

  • Nothing Like a Grand Jury to Perk Things Up

    By Ross Ramsey

    The state had a scandal cooking the last time the Legislature worked on redistricting, in 1991, and there was something brewing in 1981, and ten years or so before that. Lawmakers knew they were going to have problems with Medicaid, but had no idea that would involve anything but money. Full Story 

  • Drop the Money and Back Away Slowly

    By Ross Ramsey

    Explain this to your daddy: The State of Texas has $5.2 billion more money to spend over the next two years than it had during the last two years. There is probably enough money available for the state to continue to do the things it already does, even when you factor in inflation and other increases. Full Story 

  • Medicaid: Big and Scary, But Not Surprising

    By Ross Ramsey

    Budget writers have known for months—since they first saw the numbers—that Medicaid and various other insurance and health care programs were going to stink up the next budget and stain the current one. And they even had a fair idea about the size of the odors and the spots. They've been hearing about drug prices and premiums and caseloads for the better part of the last year. The numbers are big and even alarming, but the problem has been on the radar for a while. Full Story 

  • Swapping Potholes for Skylights

    By Ross Ramsey

    Some of the same people who voted to constitutionally limit state borrowing four years ago have found a way to issue hundreds of millions of dollars in new state highway bonds without counting the new debt against that constitutional cap. Each of the three different types of bonds spelled out in current highway funding proposals would punch a skylight into the legal debt ceiling designed to brake the heavy borrowing that began during the prison-building boom of the 1990s. Full Story 

  • A GOP Primary for Governor?

    By Ross Ramsey

    U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is seriously considering entering the race for governor of Texas, according to friends and supporters. That's contrary, mildly, to her 14-month-old pronouncement that she probably would not run against an incumbent governor. But that was during the presidential race. Hutchison herself was up for reelection to the U.S. Senate, and things were more fluid then. There had been no presidential primaries and it wasn't clear that anybody in Texas politics was going anywhere. Full Story 

  • On Your Mark, Get Set, Get Set, Get Set...

    By Ross Ramsey

    The presidential election lasted too long. Then there was a new governor to swear in and a race in the Senate to name a new lieutenant governor and a mini-diaspora to Washington, D.C. Senate committees were named, then House committees, and everyone paused for the inauguration. Gov. Rick Perry will come back and make a State of the State speech this week and then, at last, this contraption will finally be rolling. It's been a weird beginning to what could be a weird year. Full Story 

  • Got Inauguration Tickets?

    By Ross Ramsey

    The Texas Legislature is back for a politically interesting and potentially fractious session, but the folks directly involved in the 77th session began with a focus on other things. Full Story 

  • While You Were Out

    By Ross Ramsey

    Things do pile up when you're away from your desk for a holiday. All that happened during our 17th annual year-end break was the swearing in of a new president and of a new governor of Texas, the election and swearing in of a new lieutenant governor*, a major shakeup (and 24 hours later, an amendment to the shakeup) of Senate committees, and the release of U.S. Census numbers that give Texas two more seats in Congress after the 2002 elections. Oh, yeah, there's a new estimate on how much money will be available for the next two-year budget. And a mess of people changed jobs. Full Story 

  • Like Pouring Syrup on an Anthill

    By Ross Ramsey

    Wow! Live weather metaphors! Just when the television folk ran out of descriptions for the presidential freeze-frame, it got really cold in Austin. It looked possible that it would drizzle and that the drizzle would freeze on the streets. It was dark and stormy and gray. People came to work late. Then the sun broke through, Al Gore resigned, George W. Bush accepted, and Republicans all over the Capital City started smiling again. Full Story 

  • October in December

    By Ross Ramsey

    Not knowing who will be governor is a relatively small problem for state government. Planning can proceed and most of the governor's power during a legislative session is loaded onto the back end anyhow, when vetoes can be delivered after the Legislature is out of time. Full Story 

  • Waiting Out the Florida Hostage Crisis

    By Ross Ramsey

    The occupants of the domed Pink Building on the hill in downtown Austin were supposed to be out of the business of election politics and into the business of government during the week after the election. They were supposed to know whether the big shots should switch offices or whether the Senate should shut down the mostly underground 18-month-old race for lieutenant governor. Full Story 

  • A Truly Fantastic Week for Political Junkies

    By Ross Ramsey

    Okay, okay, so we failed to predict that the Presidency of the United States would be decided by a smaller margin than most races for the Texas House of Representatives. Whodathunkit? The initial Florida margin of 1,784 votes would make for a nail-biter in a major county commissioner's race. Full Story