With Labor Day behind us and the finish line on the horizon, at least a dozen Texas House races should be handicapped as serious contests. Mark another nine or so as contests that could turn if conditions change significantly or if an incumbent slips or underestimates the problem. Full Story
Political journalists are often called fight promoters — people who'll try to start a contest where there isn't one — but the state's senior senator and the governor are making the job easy. They're even giving us facts to play with, and starting the fights without much prompting from the likes of us. Full Story
The U.S. Bureau of the Census prefaced the Republican Party's national convention with a bummer of a report that says, among other things, that Texas has the highest percentage of uninsured people of any state and that the median income here dropped during the first years of this decade. Full Story
Rep. Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, is in a pretty safe district for a Democrat, as these things go. In the last election against his current opponent, Jeffrey Hibbs, Dunnam pulled 60.2 percent of the vote. And with the exception of Tony Sanchez Jr., who lost by a little in this House district while losing by a lot statewide, the Democrats running for statewide office in Dunnam's district swept in 2002. Full Story
Here's a question somewhere in the minds of people watching the congressional race between Democrat Chet Edwards of Waco and Republican Arlene Wohlgemuth of Burleson: Is the average voter in Brazos County more likely to vote for an Aggie or a Republican? Full Story
School finance didn't move an inch while we were on summer break. Not an iota. In early July, Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, was showing a plan she hoped would get some support, the idea being that if lawmakers liked it, the Lege could come back to Austin for a quick special session. They'd do something to lower property taxes and increase the state's share of public school funding with a combination of sales, business and tobacco taxes, and could frost that cake with money from slot machines if enough legislators would go along. Full Story
Judging from the reaction to the latest solution to the school finance mess, a special session on the subject would come as a huge surprise to legislators and lobsters alike. Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, is proposing a combination of business, sales, and tobacco taxes to raise money for education and to buy down local school property taxes. If lawmakers and voters are willing, they could increase the size of the property tax cut by allowing slot machines in Texas. Full Story
State auditors say managers of the Children's Health Insurance Program let about $20 million slip away in the form of "unnecessary or excessive payments to Clarendon National Insurance Co.," the company that had a provider contract for CHIP. The payments, the auditors wrote, "constitute an abuse of the commission's fiduciary responsibility to oversee and manage" the contract. CHIP is administered by the Health and Human Services Commission, which is in the midst of a massive reorganization and an investigation of lapses in protective services for adults and children. Full Story
Aides to Gov. Rick Perry tell us he hasn't changed his tune on the likelihood of a special session. Perry told a reporter in Tyler that he doesn't see any reason to call members back if they can't reach a deal in the next few weeks, but didn't back down from his plans to call one if there's any way to do so. By the time that news reached the mainland, it had morphed into a story saying Perry had lowered the alert level on a special session by a couple of notches, and was maybe even leaning against it. Full Story
While the delegates to the state convention in Houston were busy in caucuses and buying buttons and listening to speeches, a small group of Democratic legislators, aides, consultants, and political hacks met privately with the University of Houston's Richard Murray, who talked them through an 11-page memo on what's wrong with the Party and what he thinks they should do about it. Full Story
Texas Democrats are having their moment in the political desert. Hope is thin. Provisions are slight. The opposition is strong. Heroes have not appeared. Full Story
Throw Rick Perry, Kay Bailey Hutchison, and Carole Keeton Strayhorn into one three-day convention, and it doesn't matter how heavy you lay on the religion and an uncomfortably detailed platform: The main subject of conversation is the next Republican primary for governor in 2006. Full Story
Texas Republicans are in a pleasant sort of mess. They control state government. Candidates who want to run for statewide office — or for office in about two-thirds of the congressional and legislative districts in Texas — have little chance of success unless they're running as Republicans. Full Story
Political parties always have shadow groups that more or less parallel their interests. Labor lines up with Democrats, mostly. Manufacturers line up with Republicans, for some of the same reasons, most of the time. That's just an example. Full Story
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and House Speaker Tom Craddick were correct six weeks ago, and now the state has been treated to a live-action demonstration: The Texas Legislature is nowhere near a consensus on how to fix — or even whether to fix — school finance. Gov. Rick Perry's ambitious gamble fell flat when lawmakers decided the rewards weren't worth the risks. Full Story
The Texas Legislature handles tax bills like a finicky relative working the line at Luby's. First they have to look at everything. Then they have to talk about all the things they're allergic to. Then they go on about the things they like and don't like and repeat all the stories about the good times and bad times with food. Then they go indecisive on you. Sometimes their hungers overcome their anxieties and they fill up their tray and move out. Sometimes they don't eat. Full Story
Let's do this backwards, to see where things are and to see what's been proposed in the last week on the theory that no proposals are dead while lawmakers are still working. Particularly when education and taxes are the subjects of the day. Full Story
A week into the special session on school finance, the House countered Gov. Rick Perry's revenue proposals with a combination of state property taxes, new and higher sales taxes, a new tax on payrolls and a $1 dollar surcharge on tickets for movies, sporting events, concerts and other amusements. In return, school property taxes that now average about $1.47 would be capped at $1, and the increasingly unworkable business franchise tax would be eliminated altogether. They raised the estimate of what they think they could raise from new gambling, even as support for slot machines — video lottery terminals, if you prefer — came under fire. Full Story
Texas lawmakers returned to Austin for school finance, met as two large groups and then promptly adjourned for a week. That stifles legislative mischief while committees meet to talk about taxes and education and nothing else is going on. And it serves to get them out of the way of the nastiest comptroller-governor squabble since Mark White and Bob Bullock formed their mutual admiration society in the mid-1980s. Full Story
Gov. Rick Perry wants the Legislature to interrupt its off year for a special session on public school finance, and he says he'll call them back for a second session, and maybe a third, until they solve it. He doesn't have the consensus he wanted, but the threat of a long summer grind might force a fix. Full Story