The head of the Texas Republican Party, convinced lawmakers in her own party are trying to bury an appeal of the election that unseated a 22-year veteran legislator, is pushing voters to phone Austin to help overturn that result.Republican Chairman Tina Benkiser is sending daily emails to citizens of the GOP persuasion, asking them to contact their state representatives and offering a countdown to next week's committee hearing on Talmadge Heflin's challenge of his election defeat. The emails are written to stir the furies: Benkiser began with a message on MLK day -- government was mostly closed -- that referred to "double and triple voting, vote buying, ballot box stuffing and fraudulent election practices." Republican Talmadge Heflin of Houston was knocked out of the House -- and the chairmanship of appropriations -- by Democrat Hubert Vo. Heflin lost by less than three dozen votes out of more than 41,000 cast. He's challenging the result. (Quick recap: To challenge a legislative election, the losing candidate appeals not to a court but to the Legislature. One member -- that's Rep. Will Harnett, R-Dallas? is appointed to manage the contest and act as a judicial figure. A committee is appointed to govern the process, and that committee makes a recommendation to the full House. If the House can determine a winner, that guy gets the seat; otherwise, the House would order a new election to let voters sort it out.) The hearing in the Heflin case is set for Thursday, January 27. In December, Hartnett sent a letter to House members cautioning them against talking to the lawyers involved in challenges to elections that would be heard by the full House. Heflin's is the only such challenge left, now that Eric Opiela has joined Jack Stick in tossing his towel into the ring, and the lawyers and House members are apparently being good kids and staying out of touch with each other. Texans sent 87 Republicans to the House in November; Heflin would be the 88th if he prevails. Hartnett doesn't have the control on anyone else he's got on lawyers and House members, so he's not jumping into this fight. "I'm being guided solely by the law and the facts -- not by political parties -- as has been the precedent in previous election contests," he says. "I'm going by the book." Benkiser isn't one of the lawyers in the case and isn't directly lobbying the decision-makers. She's just asking Republicans around the state to express their desires to their public servants. Benkiser's first message after the government holiday called on Republicans to come to the meeting next week and gave the time and the place for it. Her email countdown started ten days out, with an assertion that "we have definite proof from this election of votes being cast against Republican candidates by voters long dead, votes being cast from out of district, individuals voting up to 80 times, cash payments being giving in exchange for votes, etc." Her email said the practices are a hangover from Democratic dominance in Texas, but added that "some Republican lawmakers are already urging that these incidents be swept under the rug. They are afraid of what the press will say if the elections are reversed." A spokeswoman for the GOP declined to name any of those chickens. The email urged readers to contact their state rep to push for the evidence in the Vo-Heflin race to be presented to the full House, and gave a link to help people contact their legislators. Day 9's email named Hartnett and the members of the committee that will hear the case. Day 8 included allegations that "ten people cast 800 illegal ballots in this election!" and that "they were paid to do it." That allegation was part of the challenge Opiela dropped last week. It's still under criminal investigation by local officials in Jim Wells County and by the state attorney general's office, but it's not an issue the House will be considering in the Houston race.

Two weeks ago, the smart guys were betting there'd be $1 billion to $2 billion in red ink in the state's starting budget.Instead, it's in the black, though it will probably swing from one inkwell to the other in the next few weeks. The Legislative Budget Board's blueprint calls for general revenue spending of $63.5 billion. A few days before that was uncorked, Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn's forecast said the state would have $64.7 billion to spend over those same two years. The numbers are all mushy and subject to politicking and other crises, but the initial cushion of $1.2 billion was encouraging to budgeteers who started this same exercise two years ago with a $10.5 billion shortfall. The LBB also issued its first set of performance reviews. Those were created in the comptroller's office and stripped away from that agency by the Legislature and handed to the budgeteers. Their first effort would redirect and/or save $3.2 billion in general revenue; $1.3 billion of that amount is already included in their draft budget. Both those recommendations and the LBB's starting budget are available on their website: www.lbb.state.tx.us. The revenue side of the puzzle belongs to the comptroller alone, but Strayhorn ventured far enough onto the spending front to say that she thought the starting cushion amounted to $400 million. The Center for Public Policy Priorities did its version of a current services budget and guesstimated the state starts $1.5 billion short of the amount it needs to keep doing what it's doing now. That think tank's list of "improvements and restorations" totaled another $5 billion on top of that. In fact, the budgeteers have some wiggle room. School finance can't be solved without a tax bill or, if you prefer, a "revenue package," and that exercise always makes it easier to write a budget. Even lawmakers who think school finance is destined for a special session later this year say the budget won't be hard to balance. And there's an advantage to doing the budget without doing school finance at the same time. The budget would be set -- that is, taken off the bargaining table -- before the tax bill is in play. That simplifies the trading. Other spending will be locked down early, and public schools will be the only real supplicant in line for money when the tax bill is in play. If school finance gets done first, lawmakers will be tempted to swell the tax bill to feed other pet programs. A few highlights: • The "all funds" total -- which includes federal funds and state funds and everything else -- would be $134.4 billion, up $7.8 billion from the last budget. • Spending in public education (education and health and human services spending dominate the state's budget) would rise 8.3 percent under the LBB draft, from $31.0 billion to $33.6 billion. • Higher education spending would rise, but there's more to that. Spending at health-related schools and at two-year schools would rise while other areas would see cutbacks. • Public school attendance was 4.0 million in FY 2004, and is expected to hit almost 4.3 million in FY 2007. By then, the LBB expects 72 percent of those students to be passing all standardized tests, that half the school districts will be exemplary or recognized, and that 2.9 percent will drop out of school. • The LBB figures 53.5 percent of the state's college kids will be graduating within six years in FY 2007 and that enrollments by then will be 24 percent larger than they were in 2000. • The budgeteers say 61,448 college kids got Texas Grants in 2004 to help pay for school; they would cut that to 19,425 by FY 2007, the second year of the two-year budget they're writing. Funding for the B-on-Time program would be increased by $129.7 million. • Overall employment in health and human services would drop from 46,328 full-time-equivalent employees this year to 41,720 two years from now. • 36 percent of the state budget would go to health-care related appropriations, a total of about $48.6 billion. • State lawmakers are working on a workers' compensation reform in response to rapid rises in premiums; the state's own workers' compensation payments are expected to rise only 4 percent per year. • Client loads at the Department of Aging and Disability Services are rising. For instance, the number of people in Medicaid community care is expected to rise from 125,332 per month now to 149,102 in two years time. • Child protective services investigations are expected to rise from 138,587 in FY 2004 to 170,480 in FY 2007. Investigations in adult protective services would rise from 60,998 to 67,025 in those same years. • The LBB assumes the average number of days per month for foster care would go from 488,060 in FY 2004 to 578,955 in FY 2007. • Legislative budgeteers are assuming CHIP rolls will drop from 409,865 in FY 2004 to 331,132 in FY 2007, that the average number of TANF recipients in that same time frame will go from 253,907 to 215,300, and that Medicaid acute care caseloads will rise from 2.7 million to 3.1 million.

Texas Republicans are inviting everyone but their top vote getter to their biennial dinner party next month.Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, a Republican who's been making trouble for Gov. Rick Perry for the last two years, says through an aide that she wasn't invited to the party's "Fourth Biennial Banquet," and wasn't asked to either be an honoree or sign the invitation with each of the GOP's other non-judicial statewide elected officials. The Republicans are feting Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, and House Speaker Tom Craddick at Austin's Four Seasons Hotel on February 22. "This will be an especially memorable occasion as we begin another legislative session," the invitation says. "Members of the Texas Congressional delegation, Statewide Elected Officials, State Senators and State Representatives will be joining us as we salute Gov. Perry, Lt. Gov. Dewhurst and Speaker Craddick in a special event you will not want to miss." Six officeholders signed the letter: Attorney General Greg Abbott, Agriculture Commissioner Susan Combs, Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, and Railroad Commissioners Victor Carrillo, Michael Williams and Charles Matthews. Less than two weeks ago, Perry's campaign announced it had the support of each of those six officeholders in the governor's bid for reelection in 2006. Strayhorn's name is nowhere to be found on the invite. A spokesman, Mark Sanders, accused the Party of putting the governor's politics first and said his boss wasn't invited to sign the invitation or to attend the Party's party. He said she'd have done both. A spokeswoman for the Republican Party said hired fundraisers put the event together and didn't have an immediate comment on the slight. Strayhorn got 2,862,752 votes in the 2002 election, more than anyone else on either side of the ballot. Combs came in second in that sweepstakes, with 2,621,128, and Perry was third, with 2,617,106.

The fact that set off this round of dueling Republicans is this: Texas has left $772 million in the federal pot that could have been used on the Children's Health Insurance Program.Some of the money was forfeited by the state's relatively slow startup of CHIP. The federal money was available, but Texas didn't have it's program in place to attract the federal money. After the state got going, it spent less state money on CHIP than the federales allowed, and some of the available federal matching funds went untouched. By federal fiscal year, here's what Texas left on the table: FY98, $133.5 million; FY99, $324.4 million; FY00, $124.6 million; FY01, 85.2 million; and FY02, 104.3 million. That last number just came out, prompting U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison to tsk-tsk about the state's failure to use the money on kids. On the Texas end, aides to Gov. Rick Perry told reporters the federal officials should change the law to give states more time to use the money. There is a federal law that allows states up to three years to draw some or all of the money, but even with that in place, Texas missed more than three-quarters of a billion bucks, according to federal and state officials.

The Texas Women's Political Caucus will roast Carole Keeton Strayhorn, who disagrees with one of that group's key tenets.Texas Comptroller Strayhorn, a Republican who opposes abortion rights, has agreed to headline a fundraising roast for the Texas Women's Political Caucus, a group that describes itself as a promoter of pro-choice women running for political office. The group's invitation says the aim of the February 7 event is to honor the comptroller "for a lifetime of dedication to public service" as a school teacher, school board member, mayor of Austin and Texas railroad commissioner. "Comptroller Strayhorn is the comptroller for all of the people of Texas," said her spokesman, Mark Sanders, when asked about the event. He said the group roasted Sen. Jeff Wentworth, a pro-choice Republican from San Antonio, at a previous event and that Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst -- a pro-life Republican -- was one of the speakers there to tease Wentworth and help the group raise money. Aides to Dewhurst say the Lite Guv did that favor for Wentworth -- not for the group. Strayhorn would outlaw abortion in all but three instances: cases involving rape, or incest, or where a pregnancy imperils the life of the mother. TWPC is an affiliate of the National Women's Political Caucus, which describes itself like this on its website (www.nwpc.org): "The National Women's Political Caucus is a multicultural, intergenerational, and multi-issue grassroots organization dedicated to increasing women's participation in the political process and creating a true women's political power base to achieve equality for all women. NWPC recruits, trains and supports pro-choice women candidates for elected and appointed offices at all levels of government regardless of party affiliation." The local version, from www.txwpc.org: "The purpose of the Texas Women's Political Caucus is to increase women's participation in the political process and to identify, recruit, train and support women for election and appointment to public office. While in pursuit of this goal, TWPC will strive to: win equality for women; ensure reproductive freedom; achieve quality dependent care and eradicate sexism, racism, anti-Semitism, ageism, ableism [sic], violence, poverty and discrimination on the basis of religion or sexual orientation... TWPC is a multi-partisan organization open to all women and men who support our issues." The comptroller is more or less openly considering a run for governor against Rick Perry in 2006, and the two have essentially the same position on abortion rights. Both are pro-life, with those three exceptions. Perry will end this week by speaking at a rally of anti-abortion groups at the Texas Capitol marking the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision. Perry aides wouldn't comment directly on Strayhorn's role as headliner for the TWPC's fundraising event.