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All Coverage

  • The Signpost Up Ahead: Ethics

    By Ross Ramsey

    The ethics dust-devil whirling around Rep. Tom Craddick, R-Midland, is unlikely to harm his upcoming election as Speaker of the House, but it could make more trouble for him during the legislative session. It has made some House members on his side skittish—not an unnatural state for politicians in a time of change, and not a permanent condition. And it has emboldened and encouraged some of the people who don't want the Republicans to do well in their first session in charge of things since the inventions of such contrivances as telephones, automobiles, income taxes and Velcro. That's not a permanent condition, either. Full Story 

  • The Wrong Kind of Boom

    By Ross Ramsey

    Republican budgeteers missed a shot at limiting the amount of spending to be done by the next Legislature, falling a vote short in their attempt to tie the state budget to a conservative measure of economic growth. And the numbers will have another chance or two to balloon over the next seven months, as lawmakers wrestle with the sputtering economy. Full Story 

  • The Other Big Deal

    By Ross Ramsey

    The state budget is a big deal in Austin and in scattered pockets around the state where people who make their livings by knowing about this stuff are paying attention. But even though the people in the bubble—we include ourselves in that gray world—are certain that the budget and taxes will be the centerpiece of the legislative session, regular people have something else on their minds. Full Story 

  • A Boiling Pot, Full of Lobsters

    By Ross Ramsey

    Former legislators who were lobbying for various businesses last session will be working in or advising top management in the Pink Building during the next legislative session. That happens to some extent every time there's a regime change or a big staff turnover, but the combination of those types of changes has the doors spinning at the state Capitol. Full Story 

  • A Viewers Guide to Election Night

    By Ross Ramsey

    Give the Republicans the edge, but the top four statewide races in Texas are as competitive at the tape as they have been in years. The GOP candidates are telling those who will listen that they've got the U.S. Senate and gubernatorial contests in the bag, but their actions suggest things are closer, with John Cornyn gripping President George W. Bush's coattails (and Bush isn't even on the ballot) and Gov. Rick Perry running the kind of final days Hail Mary ad normally associated with trailing and desperate campaigns. Full Story 

  • Turnout Tales

    By Ross Ramsey

    It's almost impossible to read election results into early turnout numbers, but it's possible to tell whether various efforts to excite voters are working. The trouble is seeing past the political spinners who are trying to get their voters worked up while putting voters on the other side to sleep. Full Story 

  • Showtime

    By Ross Ramsey

    Watch the first four or five days of early voting numbers and you'll have a pretty good notion of who's playing air guitar and who's got a Stratocaster. Democrats have been hyping this moment for more than a year, arguing that a normal turnout–unlike the one in 1998–will help some Democrats win statewide office, and arguing that a new turnout–based on changing demographics–will help more of them get over the hump. Republicans have been playing a different tune, saying the state is increasingly conservative and that Democrats shouldn't assume that new voters of whatever race will automatically favor their candidates. Full Story 

  • Spending His Children's Inheritance

    By Ross Ramsey

    Democrat Tony Sanchez has spent enough money trying to become governor of Texas that he's made the contest a national news item. In the latest financial reports, Sanchez reported spending $26.2 million, a three-month bender that brings his overall total to $57.5 million. Republican Rick Perry spent a measly $10.5 million during the past three months–that's under $120,000 a day, for crying out loud–bringing his total to date to $17.2 million. The national news? Spending in the Texas governor's race has already topped $75 million, putting the contest here on the scale of the California gubernatorial contests that hold most of the records. Full Story 

  • Two Parties Without an Accurate Guest List

    By Ross Ramsey

    Five out of five experts agree: They don't have a consensus on how many Texans will vote this year, or on which Texans will make up that total. That makes it difficult to know where to send mail, what shows to buy commercial time on, who to call when it's time to get Joe and Josephine Sixpack off the couches and out to the polls. It's got the smart people scratching their pointy heads. Full Story 

  • You're in Political Hands

    By Ross Ramsey

    The insurance issue blows up, the second-largest insurer plans to leave the state, more than a half million homeowners could be forced to change insurers during the next year. There's plenty for regulators and legislators to do next year, but how does that splash in the election pool? Full Story 

  • Ain't Gonna Study War No More

    By Ross Ramsey

    Several months ago, a spokesman for Attorney General John Cornyn popped off about the Democratic "Dream Team," calling it a racial quota ticket that ultimately wouldn't work. Cornyn disavowed it right away. Then U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm told Republican Party state delegates that Democrats were trying to divide the state's voters on the basis of race. Soon after, in a press grab in Washington, D.C., Cornyn said Gramm was right to say race shouldn't be the basis for the elections. Full Story 

  • Off to the Races

    By Ross Ramsey

    The well-worn rule is that the political season starts on Labor Day, but we're doing now what would usually have been done then because of the 9/11 break in the political schedule. The ads are coming back on television now, and candidates who have been keeping a low profile are breaking into their sprints for the last six weeks before the elections. Full Story 

  • Wasn't There a Lucky-Ducky in the Fable?

    By Ross Ramsey

    While everyone is talking about the potential gap between income and spending in the next budget, the state is facing a big problem in the current budget. Put simply, lawmakers will face a combination of spending overruns and revenue shortfalls when they show up for work in January. Annual sales tax revenues have increased every year since 1983. But not last year: The state's largest single source of tax income dropped by almost $187 million during the fiscal year that ended on August 31. It was supposed to increase by $366 million. Full Story 

  • Florida's Progeny

    By Ross Ramsey

    Partisans in Dallas County are gathering for a fight over who will get to vote on Election Day in November and in the early voting that leads up to it. Republicans call it Ballot Security. Democrats call it Voter Education. Both sides refer to what the other side is doing as Voter Intimidation. Full Story 

  • How Big is the Dump Truck?

    By Ross Ramsey

    With state agencies filing budget requests for the next Legislature, all attention is on the growing demands on state spending. The Austin American-Statesman led the pack, reporting that the differences between available money and spending needs has swollen dramatically, to $7 billion and beyond. Full Story 

  • Risks, Hazards, and Insurance

    By Ross Ramsey

    The great thing about incumbency is that you control the government agencies you're seeking to lead. For example, lookit: Gov. Rick Perry started a commercial that touts the fact that the Texas Department of Insurance issued a cease-and-desist order against Farmers Insurance. The ad began running the same day the order from TDI was announced, letting the governor–through the regulators–control what was in the papers at the same time he was starting a political ad reinforcing the message. The trick is getting voters to believe in reforms put in place so close to Election Day. Full Story 

  • Ka-Blooey!

    By Ross Ramsey

    Gov. Rick Perry pulled the trigger early on the negative ad everyone in Texas politics has been expecting for more than a year, hitting Democrat Tony Sanchez for a drug money scandal that hit a savings and loan that was controlled by the Laredo businessman and his family in the early 1980s. Full Story 

  • Ring and Run

    By Ross Ramsey

    Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tony Sanchez apparently likes answering questions from reporters about as much as Britney Spears likes pimples in the middle of her forehead. And any candidate likes to let things cool a bit before jumping into a hot story. And when one candidate is ducking stories, the opponent is sure to try to capitalize on that. Full Story 

  • The Sweet Smell of Success

    By Ross Ramsey

    Watch the business page and you know why John Cornyn moved his July 13 fundraiser to a ranch owned by oilman/rancher Walter Mize. It was scheduled for the Beaumont Ranch, near Grandview (which is south of Fort Worth), but the owner of that spread is Cornyn supporter Ron Beaumont. Beaumont is also the chief operating officer of WorldCom. Revelations about that company's accounting scandals prompted Cornyn to start up the legal machinery in the attorney general's office–he's launched an investigation–and to move the fundraiser for his bid for U.S. Senate. Full Story