Campaign Maps, By the Numbers

Redistricting, with just a few exceptions, still has a strong hold on the makeup of the state Senate and the Texas congressional delegation. But several House members continue to confound the mapmakers, winning in districts where, on paper, they shouldn’t.

We pulled the numbers from campaign reports filed with the Texas Ethics Commission and the Federal Election Commission and ranked officeholders and candidates by how much they had in their accounts at mid-year.

Nathan Hecht’s battle over Harriet Miers’ appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court is lasting longer than hers did.

Legal arguments about how the Texas House should run have picked up, but it’s still too early to tell whether Attorney General Greg Abbott will weigh in and whether, if he does, it’ll make any difference in the final outcome.

The state’s biggest phone companies and their competitors are fighting over a fund that subsidizes companies that provide phone service where it would otherwise be unaffordable. AT&T;, the biggest, says the Universal Service Fund doesn’t cover its costs. Competitors say the company gets at least twice what it should.

Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn won’t get a cakewalk in 2008, but neither will the Democrat who faces him a year from November.

Just as state officeholders were racing to stock their election accounts by an end-of-month deadline, the state and federal courts got busy on the subject of campaign finance. The state’s highest criminal court had good news for former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, while the nation’s highest court had good news for corporations and unions and groups that campaign on so-called issue ads in the last week’s before elections.

Gov. Rick Perry finished off a tumultuous session by vetoing 49 bills — well short of record of 82 vetoes he set after his first session as governor — and cutting about $650 million out of the Legislature’s state budget.

Texas Republicans have been licking their chops lately about the prospect of a presidential race with Hillary Clinton topping the Democratic side of the ticket. Their hope? That she turns off Texas voters so badly it’ll help all the Republicans and hurt all the Democrats.