Insults and jive, for a good causeLt. Gov. David Dewhurst is getting roasted by Gov. Rick Perry and a panel of senators and reporters to raise money for a journalism scholarship fund named for late political reporter Sam Attlesey. They're expecting several statewide elected officials to show up to watch. Presidential adviser Karen Hughes lent her name to the event, and Sens. Florence Shapiro, John Whitmire and Judith Zaffirini, and Austin bureau chiefs Christi Hoppe of The Dallas Morning News and Clay Robison of the Houston Chronicle will help with the roasting. Until his death two years ago, Attlesey was the Dallas paper's chief political writer and one of the best and best-liked reporters in Texas politics. His family and friends set up the scholarship fund in 2003, and the goal of the fundraiser is to boost the size, number, and prestige of the scholarships. They're coordinating contributions and tickets and such through the College of Communications at UT, or you can click here for a copy of the invitation. The roast is on March 16 at the Austin Club in Austin.

Picture this day in the Texas House: A major education overhaul, a new business tax (and several other taxes) to pay for it, a vote on property appraisal caps, another on a statewide property tax, and a vote on expanding gaming in Texas to allow high-tech slot machines and dog and horse tracks.Attribute that vision to Tom Craddick. The Speaker of the House wants to move the two elephants in the room to the other end of the building, sending education reform and school finance and taxes along to the Senate before mid-March. He's got his tax chefs trying to find a way to make taxes palatable to a conservative Legislature, and his education team now has its plans unveiled. The Senate's education package is working on the other end of the building, but tax bills have to start in the House and the two issues are linked. The House strategy is a kind of "how much reform can you stand?" While the tax guys are asking members what they'll do and won't do (see below), the education folks are offering up a bill that includes everything from lower property taxes to a later start for the school year. Rep. Kent Grusendorf, R-Arlington, says his legislation would raise the state's share of the cost of education from the current 38 percent to 60 percent -- a shift that would cost around $6 billion. He wants to add $3.2 billion in new funding for education above and beyond what's already in the proposed state budget for enrollment and other growth items. He'd lower local property taxes to $1 per $100 in valuation, and allow districts some room to raise local funds. It wouldn't end Robin Hood -- the fund transfers from rich school districts to poor ones, but it would cut the dollar amounts from $1.2 billion a year to about $145 million (a number that would grow each year). Grusendorf's bill would reinstate $1,000 payments to teachers for health insurance and other expenses. The legislation, he said, would raise accountability standards and make it easier to close bad schools. High performing campuses would be freed from some state regulations. The state would pay for college entrance exams for high schoolers. School districts wouldn't start classes before Labor Day each year. Districts would get money to pay bonuses to their best teachers, and they'd have to provide "transparent" reporting of their spending, so everybody could see how money is spent on a district and even a campus basis. School board elections would be moved to November -- when state officials are on the ballot -- and trustees would serve four-year terms. The education wonks around the state are chewing on the latest stab at a school finance solution, and they'll dribble out their reactions over the next few days. They posted preliminary numbers that show what would happen in each of the state's school districts, at www.house.state.tx.us. And before you read those, we'll pass along a caveat offered by one of the chefs for those numbers: "You'll notice that this sheet has the word 'estimated' on it in at least seven places."

Washington political experience is valuable in some states, but Texas voters have not been kind to members of their congressional delegation who seek statewide office.Without regard to party or to popularity in Washington, D.C., or in their home districts, the voters usually treat past and present Persons of Congress as also-rans. Among the state's 11 non-judicial statewide officeholders, none has served in Congress. Only two, Kay Bailey Hutchison and Carole Keeton Strayhorn, ever even ran for the U.S. House. Both failed, and both got over it and eventually ran successful statewide campaigns. Former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm made the jump from the House, but had a national reputation as a result of his efforts to help then-President Ronald Reagan from the Democratic side of the congressional aisle. He also got a huge boost for his well publicized party switch, when he resigned the seat he won as a Democrat and then won the resulting special election as a Republican. A contemporary with a similar reputation -- Kent Hance -- won a spot on the Texas Railroad Commission after losing the Senate race and then hit the wall when he ran for governor in 1990. And there's a good-sized list of pols who discovered the historical difficulty of converting popularity in one Texas congressional district into statewide success. Six have tried in the last decade or so: Mike Andrews, D-Houston; Joe Barton, R-Ennis; Ken Bentsen, D-Houston; John Bryant, D-Dallas; Jim Chapman, D-Sulphur Springs; and Jack Fields, R-Humble. Each ran for Senate and only Barton, who lost in a special election and thus didn't risk his House seat, remained in Congress after losing statewide.

The November election in Houston's HD-149 could be over in a week.The Talmadge Heflin-Hubert Vo election contest comes to a head next week, starting with a report from Rep. Will Hartnett, R-Dallas, who listened to two days of inch-by-inch testimony from the lawyers trying to whittle away at -- or, on the other side, enhance -- the 33-vote margin in that race. Heflin, the chairman of the appropriations committee in the House, lost to Vo in November but contends his opponent rode illegally counted votes to victory. In fact, both sides turned up some hinky votes and the question is whether Hartnett and then the House will see a clear advantage for one candidate or the other. He reports to a committee, which then passes its work to the House. He told the Houston Chronicle that his report will "implicitly state a winner." It's expected on Monday; the committee meets Tuesday.

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House tax wonks are following a strategy laid out by Dr. Seuss in his highly regarded policy tract, Green Eggs and Ham. They've laid out the meal for House members and begun the questions: Would you like it on a boat? Would you eat it with a goat?House Speaker Tom Craddick wants to get something to the floor of the House in early March. Ways & Means Chairman Jim Keffer, R-Eastland, set nine hearings -- each on a different set of taxes -- over the next three weeks. At the end of that exercise, that committee will spit out a bill for House consumption. In the meantime, House leaders are trying to figure out which taxes are viable and which are radioactive. They're not letting the public see the menu of options, but members generally say they're getting peeks at the price tags on various school finance and education fixes, and then looking at the kinds of taxes that would raise enough money to match those price tags. Nothing is dead except for personal income taxes and even that's a limited possibility. Some of the business taxes in the mix would hit people in partnerships and sole-owner companies, and that'll look a lot like personal income taxes to the taxpayers. Discussions on the House side have included almost any taxes and fees you can imagine, including some that have been "dead" in the Lege one or more times: Slot machines (or, if you prefer, video lottery terminals, or VLTs) at horse and dog tracks; business taxes that include taxes on payrolls; split rolls, where property values are capped on residential properties but not business properties; new taxes on alcoholic beverages and ; transfer taxes on real estate and sales taxes on commercial real estate leases; increases in sales taxes and extensions of those taxes to items that are currently tax-free. Craddick and Co. have been talking to some legislators in small groups to see what's palatable and what's not, and to see what's more palatable if it's tied to attractive programs. Keffer's panel starts its slog through the tax thicket next week. The schedule: 2/9, property taxes; 2/10, appraisal issues; 2/16, sales and use taxes; 2/17, sin taxes and motor fuels taxes; 2/22, gambling; 2/23, franchise taxes; 2/24, other business taxes already on the books in Texas; and 2/25, "alternative forms of business taxation."

Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, asked for a title for a talk at the University of Texas at Austin, offered up "The State of the State." An aide says there's nothing to it, that that's the title she always uses for speeches about how Texas is doing. Maybe, but this speech is different: It comes just a week after her nemesis, Gov. Rick Perry, gave his official State of the State speech to legislators.

The Texas congressman has almost a seven-figure defense fundU.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's legal defense fund is close to the $1 million mark, according to Public Citizen. That group says DeLay, R-Sugar Land, raised $439,550 of that amount during 2004. You can see details -- and the group's opinion -- at their website on the subject: www.dethronedelay.org. He's raised $352,500 from other members of Congress. Two Texans are among the top givers in that category: U.S. Rep. Henry Bonilla, R-San Antonio, contributed $15,000, and Lamar Smith, also R-San Antonio, donated $10,000 to the fund. Seven other House members from Texas gave, as did U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who donated $5,000.

Three DeLay associates are under indictment as part of a Travis County inquiry into Republican fundraising and campaign efforts in the 2002 elections. DeLay has not been accused of any wrongdoing in that investigation, which is still going on. Travis County prosecutors dropped charges against another of eight companies indicted in that investigation. Cracker Barrel Old Country Store was charged with making illegal campaign contributions. The company admitted no wrongdoing, but agreed to go forth and sin no more, to post its political contributions over the next two years on its website, and to give $50,000 to the University of Texas for programs in ethics. Sears Roebuck and a third company, Diversified Collections Services, Inc., made a similar deals late last year. Five companies remain under indictment.

The comptroller says she can bring in $435 million if lawmakers will let her keep her tax staff intact.Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn told state budgeteers she could bring in another $435 million in tax money if she's allowed to keep her current budget and, with it, her current staff of tax auditors and enforcement people. The comptroller's office, like most other state agencies, was ordered to show lawmakers what would happen if budgets this time were five percent lower than last time. In Strayhorn's case, the cuts would cost about $420 million more than they would save.