Claims against homeowners' insurance policies in Texas rose to $6.6 billion in 2008, up from $1.8 billion the year before and enough to swamp what insurers charged in premiums last year.

But the industry did well enough in the years leading up to 2008 to come out ahead, according to figures from the Texas Department of Insurance. From 2003 to 2008, the companies collected $28.1 billion from policyholders, and paid out $16.3 billion in losses. When you add in their expenses, they were still head, paying out 93.5 cents on every premium dollar they collected.

The 2008 loss ratio — what they paid out in claims against what they collected in premiums — was the worst in the last 17 years, according to the Texas Department of Insurance. Last year's ratio was 127, meaning they paid out $1.27 in claims for every $1 collected in premiums. That's only the fourth time it's gone over 1.0 in the 17 years the agency reported.

According to another ratio that combines losses and company expenses and compares that to premiums collected, the companies paid $1.65 for every premium dollar they collected.

By accident, at the end of a meeting with the leaders of the Tigua Indians, Rep. Valinda Bolton learned that women can't vote or hold elected positions in that tribe.

That's stirred up some dust in the House, where Bolton and other legislators want to talk to women from the Ysleta Del Sur Pueblo in El Paso and find out more.

Rep. Norma Chavez, D-El Paso, says it's a tribal issue and that she'll back the Tigua women. She says they have twice been offered the right to vote and twice have turned it down. "The white man has been telling the red man what to do for a long time now," Chavez said. "That is a decision that's up to the women of the Tigua tribe — it's not my decision."

This came up as Bolton, D-Austin, was exchanging pleasantries with Tigua Gov. Frank Paiz at the end of a meeting. She said she stands for election every two years; he replied that he stands for election every year by the men of the tribe, and that women can't run and can't vote. "I said 'Really?' and then, 'Okay, see you later.' I needed time to process that one."

Bolton and others say they're interested in empowerment. The Tiguas came to Austin to promote legislation that would allow them to reopen the Speaking Rock Casino closed by the state in 2002.

"I'm not a big proponent of the expansion of gambling," Bolton said. "I have mixed feelings — most of them not good... but I also felt this was a way to help the tribe back to where they had been — they did kind of get messed over."

Indian gaming legislation came up two years ago and the House voted 66-66 on it, marking its failure. Bolton voted with the Tiguas on a record vote that was verified, but added a note to the House Journal saying she was shown voting yes but intended to vote no.

Bolton talked to other legislators in the week-and-a-half since that meeting. She hasn't decided what, if anything, ought to happen. But she and her colleagues are flabbergasted. "It's been a fairly consistent response: 'Wow. Seriously?'" she said.

The Tigua government isn't controlled by state law — tribal regulation, such as it is, is a federal issue. But the Legislature does have something the tribe wants: Bills that would allow them to reopen Speaking Rock. Bolton and other lawmakers want to talk to the tribe's leaders and to women in the tribe. Chavez said they'll all be here next week, when hearings on the legislation they're interested in (she mentioned HJR 108 and HR 1308) is set for committee hearings. The Tiguas had 1,638 "enrolled members" as of January, 54 percent of them female, according to the tribe's website.

"Somehow, this issue needs to come forward," Bolton said. "The full enfranchisement of women is in the state's interest."

Chavez points out the tribe's sovereignty. It's in her legislative district, and she'll stick with her constituents on this one. "I find it very do-gooder of Rep. Bolton to be concerned, however, I will back the Tigua women in whatever they want."

Texas is outperforming the rest of the country economically, but that's no credit to Gov. Rick Perry, his chief Republican rival told a roomful of newspaper executives in Austin. U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison said the state has formidable problems, including high property taxes, high dropout and high levels of uninsured children. That's why, she said, "it's so important that we have a competition" in the 2010 governor's race.Hutchison said the state's strengths are location, weather, right to work laws that limit unions, and the lack of a state income tax. She gives credit for that last one to herself, claiming she was "the only state official" who was against the idea when it arose in the early 1990s. Perry attributes the state's relative prosperity to "low taxes, controlled government spending, and a fair legal system," all of which he has promoted as governor. "Ultimately, I think those decisions that we have made over the last five, six, seven years in particular, will allow us to work quickly to resume our progress and our lead as we go forward," he said. Hutchison told the Texas Daily Newspaper Association audience that Republicans haven't had much input into the federal answers to the recession and decried the stimulus package as too much, too early. She said only a third of the package will stimulate the economy and says the government should have stabilized the banking and housing industries before starting the stimulus spending. Hutchison told the newspaper people she's in favor of a federal shield law protecting journalists, as long as they can show "real journalistic intent." That's a pet issue of many news execs. With the lines between traditional and nontraditional journalists and bloggers growing more vague, she said, "it's very important we have the ability to discern when a journalist is a journalist." And then she did a riff on the governor's race in 2010. Here's that bit:

The elephant in the room today -- actually there are two elephants in the room today, or will be -- right now there's one. I want to say a little bit about the governor's race for 2010. Becuase I haven't started the real campaign. I haven't make a formal announcement. But I do want you to understand why I am looking at this so carefully, and am organizing in order to make a run. The governor is going to be here today, later. He's going to tell you that Texas is in good shape, that we're in better shape than most other states. I would agree with him. We are in better shape that most other states. But it's not because he's handing out $5 million checks to companies to move here. Every governor is going to have an enterprise fund, and that is a legitimate fund for bringing people in, maybe making that last pitch. The reason Texas is in good shape today is because of the attributes that we have that neither the governor nor I produced. One is our location in the country. We have more Fortune 500 companies here because we're in the middle of hte country and we have good weather and we have good air service... I didn't have a thing to do with it. Neither did anybody else except, looking at God on high. Number two, we are a right to work state. This was established by our early leaders. And when I talk to the people who have moved their businesses here, this is reason number one. We are not a state dominated by unions and this is a very important attribute, because there is a better business climate here. Number three, we don't have a state income tax. Now I'm going to take some credit for that because I was the only state official that stood up against the governor and the lieutenant governor in 1991 when they decided it was time for Texas to look at an income tax. And they formed a commission, and the commission voted that it was time for Texas to have an income tax. I was the only state official that stood up and wrote op-ed pieces against Bob Bullock, all over the state, saying we should not have a state income tax and why it was important. And the outcry was so overwhelming that it caused us to have a constitutional amendment against a state income tax. This is a big attribute for our state. There are only seven states that don't have one, and it is good for Texas. But there are clouds on the horizon and this is why I think it's so important that we have a competition. Texas has the highest property taxes of any state in America. That has been shown just in the last year by the property rights association. In fact, some of the CEOs tell me that that is a downside of coming to Texas. Because they realize that in some parts of our state, property taxes are confiscatory. Number two. We have one of the highest high school dropout rates of any state in our nation. This is unacceptable. We have high dropout rates at a time when we are importing people to do good-paying jobs, which shows a disconnect in our K-12, K-14, and K-16 education system. I know that I am being asked every year to recapture visas so we can import nurses because of the nursing shortage in our state and our nation. We are importing engineers. We are importing scientists. We are importing technology jobs. We should be training our own young people for those jobs and we should be doing it instead of allowing our young people to drop out of high school. We should be putting them into programs that give them a future, whether it be a community college that gives them training or a four-year college that puts them on an engineer or degree track. Number three. We have one of the highest rates of health care uninsured in America. I do not think we are using our dollars wisely. I know we are not using our federal dollars wisely. And I think we can do better. If we increase the number of people and children covered, so they can be treated in doctor's offices instead of emergency rooms, it will be the best humanitarian way to treat these children, but it will also be the best use of our tax dollars, and again, our property tax dollars. I'm very concerned about our unemployment fund. I am concerned that we are going to see a tax on business come January because our unemployment fund is going to go under the level at which we are going to have to put a tax on business that would be added to what we have now. I'm very concerned about this. So, I want you to know that I am not idly looking at this decision, that there are reasons that Texas must take the next step if we are going to remain the greatest state in our nation.

Asked after her speech, Hutchison said she doesn't agree with the governor's approach to the unemployment insurance stimulus money. But like Perry, she doesn't like the attached federal strings. And she doesn't like the idea of leaving $556 million from the feds on the table if it means Texas businesses will have to pay that amount in taxes to shore up UI. She told reporters she'd be looking for ways to get the federal money without saddling business with new and more expensive UI rules. Legislators are working on that now, and Perry left himself room to take the money if the state isn't stuck with higher costs after the federal money runs out. "I hope that he is looking for innovative ways not to dock the taxpayers of Texas with $550 million turned down, without looking at all of the avenues to produce the right result but without all the mandates that the federal government should not have put on," she said. "And I think that there might be a way to do that, and I hope so." Perry, talking to that same audience, and later, to reporters, repeated his objections to the UI stimulus and the changes it would require here. "I think most Texans look at Washington, D.C. today and see what's going on up there, and they're like, 'Listen, the last thing we want is Washington coming down here to Texas and telling us how to run our state,'" he said. "We have a system in place that works," Perry said. "The people who lose their jobs by no fault of their own are going to be covered, and so, the fact of the matter is, it's working in Texas." Quick math catchup: The stimulus would require the state to change its eligibility rules in a way that would add an estimated $70 million to $80 million to the annual cost of the program. There's a provision that prevents the state from reverting later to its current standards. But that latter provision might have some holes in it; that's where the policy hackers are concentrating their efforts. Here's another report on the proceedings from the Houston Chronicle's R.G. Ratcliffe.

The regular legislative session is more than halfway over now with little to show for it, and if you believe bloggers, this one could go into overtime. Other topics of interest on the Internet this week include the GOP heavyweight showdown casting a shadow over the Legislature, the thousands of bills that have not been considered by the House and revelations that public servants like to have a good time, too. Wrapping it up are a few unrelated posts, including one blog's hard look at a state senator and school bonds.

* * * * *

Special Order

Texas Politics, the Houston Chronicle's blog, relays secondhand information that Gov. Rick Perry brought up the possibility of a special session to a group of conservatives: "If it (the budget) grows unacceptably... I'll keep them (lawmakers) here all summer," Perry said, allegedly.

Some lawmakers are telling KVUE's Political Junkie that a special session is necessary, and some are saying it's not. BurkaBlog finds statistics supporting folks' concerns about a special session, saying the Senate and House are both way behind the pace set in 2007. But Rep. Burt Solomons, R-Carrollton, tells KUT's Notes from the Lege that the House can make up that gap in a week or two.

Postcards from the Lege, the Austin American-Statesman's blog, has a video progress report for the Lege, and Junkie has a wrap up here.

* * * * *

Governating

Postcards camped outside a Round Rock fundraiser for U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison to get footage of the gubernatorial aspirant. They failed to obtain similar video of the incumbent Gov. Perry, but not for a lack of trying.

Showing even more dedication to the cause, arguably, Notes from the Lege went up in a World War II-era B-24 bomber with Perry and talked to him about stimulus strings. Meanwhile, on the ground, Burka wonders about the accuracy of a University of Texas poll Perry has been touting against Hutchison. The pollsters wondered why Burka didn't call before he whizzed on their fire hydrant.

A couple of blogs have sprung up specifically to cover the Perry-Hutchison conflict — Rick vs. Kay (by an anonymous blogger) and Kay vs. Rick (which has multiple writers, apparently).

* * * * *

Introductions Necessary

Bay Area Houston looks at bills related to ethics reform and homebuilders, while Texas Politics spotlights a specific campaign ethics bill by Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston.

A friend of mean rachel's posts her opinion about the pre-abortion ultrasound bill. Pollabear says that if lawmakers are so worried about preventing abortions, they should be promoting non-abstinence-only sex education in schools.

WhosPlayin isn't a fan of HB 4441 by Rep. Yvonne Gonzalez Toureilles, D-Alice, saying cities should have control over urban pipelines. And UrbanGrounds is calling all battle stations to thwart legislation by Rep. Elliott Naishtat, D-Austin, that would abolish the death penalty in Texas. The blogger also looks at bills about guns and motorcycle lane-splitting.

A Keyboard and a .45 looks at gun bills he likes, including Senate Bill 730 by Sen. Glenn Hegar, R-Katy, making parking lots a safe place for firearms. Meanwhile, NewspaperTree.com Blog has the latest on bills filed by El Paso's Sen. Eliot Shapleigh and Rep. Marisa Marquez. And the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's PoliTex explains why an open source document bill by Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth, has Microsoft riled up again.

Williamson Republic looks at bills by local Reps. Dan Gattis, R-Georgetown, and Diana Maldonado, D-Round Rock. Mike Falick's Blog posts the blogger's public testimony on school accountability legislation. Rep. Ryan Guillen, D-McAllen, writes on his El Wiri Wiri Blog about the dozen or so bills he has scheduled for hearings this week.

* * * * *

Fiddlin' Around

UrbanGrounds spots Railroad Commissioner Michael Willams partaking in a conservative happy hour at SXSW in Austin. Trail Blazers has the dish on a virtual bowling tournament among state legislators. And Rep. Guillen picks North Carolina to win the NCAA men's basketball tournament. (Here's his bracket.)

A concert in Austin put Texas "Off the Record" into a Proustian frame of mind, and he reminisces about seeing future former Gov. Pappy Lee O'Daniel, Bob Wills and the Light Crust Doughboys in Fort Worth when ice wagons existed.

If there really is a conspiracy to oust House Speaker Joe Straus, it's not being masterminded by Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, he says in his Poli-Tex blog. Meanwhile, Texas Politics reports that Martinez Fischer and other Democratic House leaders received invitations for drinks last week with Straus in the Speaker's Apartment. And Martinez Fischer announces that he and lobbyist Phil Wilson have made peace, avoiding a political beat down that the state rep warned was in the works for the former Texas Secretary of State and Perry chief of staff.

Headline of the Week Award goes to ABC-13's Political Blog for an entry with the potential to make many people feel obsolete, called, "You're not a politician if you don't Facebook."

* * * * *

Finishing Touches

Here's something: Texas Watchdog alleges that the firm employing Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, stands to gain from a $805 million school bond proposal he backed in 2007. Ellis responds by issuing a statement to Texas Politics, saying that he follows the law. Watchdog responds with a list of questions for Ellis. Texas Politics has more. (And in the spirit of bipartisanship, Watchdog raises questions about Republican Ray Hutchison, too.

Burnt Orange Report leaks a sneak peek of an interview with Tom Schieffer, potential Democratic gubernatorial candidate. And Pink Dome returns to the blogosphere.

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This edition of Out There was compiled and written by Patrick Brendel, who hails from Victoria but is semi-settled in Austin. We cherry-pick the state's political blogs each week, looking for news, info, gossip, and new jokes. The opinions here belong (mostly) to the bloggers, and we're including their links so you can hunt them down if you wish. Our blogroll — the list of Texas blogs we watch — is on our links page, and if you know of a Texas political blog that ought to be on it, just shoot us a note. Please send comments, suggestions, gripes or retorts to Texas Weekly editor Ross Ramsey.

It's okay for the Texas Democratic Party to require candidates to swear they'll support the winner of the party primary in the general election, according to a federal appeals court.

In a case filed by U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with lower courts on the loyalty oath and said it is constitutional.

"This court need not judge the wisdom or utility of the TDP oath requirement," the judges wrote. "We do affirm, for the foregoing reasons, that it does not violate the Constitution."

Kucinich was running for president when he filed to get on the Texas ballot in 2007. He crossed out the part of the filing form that said he agreed to support the party's candidate in the November general election. The Texas Democrats disqualified him. He sued (with Willie Nelson as his state-resident wingman), failed to get on the ballot, and then moved to get the oath declared unconstitutional. And now he's lost that effort, though he can appeal.

Texas might be able to get $556 million in federal stimulus money without any permanent changes in its unemployment insurance program, according to an advisory letter from the U.S. Department of Labor.

Gov. Rick Perry says the state shouldn't take the money, because it requires changes that would cost the UI program an estimated $70 million to $80 million annually. Those strings, he says, are too high a price for the stimulus money. His chief political rival of the moment, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, agrees but says Perry should be looking for ways to take the money and cut the strings instead of rejecting it outright.

Policymakers from both sides are trying to find a way to take the money without permanently accepting those new federal requirements. With the economy worsening, the fund is expected to have an $800 million deficit by October. That'll have to be made up with an increased tax on employers, and one argument for taking the federal money is that it would cut that tax bill by $556 million. And a letter from the Labor Department might provide the answer they seek:

The memo, written in a question and answer format, includes this bit:

Question. UIPL No. 14-09 provides that applications for incentive payments should only be made under provisions of state laws that are currently in effect as permanent law and not subject to discontinuation. Does this mean that my state may never repeal any of the provisions that qualified it for a UC Modernization payment?

Answer: No. If a state eventually decides to repeal or modify any of these provisions, it may do so, and it will not be required to return any incentive payments. However, in providing the incentive payments, Congress clearly intended to support states that had already adopted certain eligibility provisions and to expand eligibility to additional beneficiaries by encouraging other states to adopt these provisions. By specifying that the provisions must be in effect as permanent law, Congress also made clear its intention that the benefit expansions not be transitory. While states are free to change or repeal the provisions on which modernization payments were based subsequent to receipt of incentive payments, Congress and the Department rely on states' good faith in adopting the eligibility criteria, and the application must attest to this good faith as required by the following Q&A...

They're saying, in essence, that states have the right to come back and change their standards later, but that legislation written to comply with the higher standards cannot include "sunset" provisions on those standards. They can change back later, but can't include that intention in their law at the outset.

"It seems to answer that [objection]," said Rick Levy, legal director of the Texas AFL-CIO. "The Legislature will always be in control of what the laws are like." He and others have talked about creating a commission to look at the state's UI program after the session to decide how it ought to work in the future. But Bill Hammond, a former lawmaker and Texas Workforce commissioner who now heads the Texas Association of Business, still opposes taking the stimulus money. "It's short-term gain and long-term pain," he said. He questions whether the Texas Legislature would change the law back once the new standards are in place, and he doesn't trust the guidance from the Labor Department: "Their guidance conflicts with the statute — it doesn't make any sense."

Q: Name a bill that was filed before Thanksgiving, has bipartisan support with more than two-thirds of the senators signed on as sponsors or co-sponsors, and involving an issue of major interest to the public, and that has not been referred to a committee.

A: College tuition.

All the college tuition bills in the House have been sent to that chamber's higher education committee. But five bills aimed at tuition freezes and filed in the Senate — four in November, one in March — are still sitting in Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst's In Box.

One of those — SB 105 — would require student approval before a university's tuition could rise. Tuition could rise with inflation, but other than that, the bill by Sen. Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa, D-Brownsville, would freeze the rates for two years. Other bills would freeze it indefinitely.

Dewhurst let one bill out, a proposal by Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, that would put a leash on the colleges without freezing tuition. Her version would cap the amounts of their increases at five percent and tie it to other funding from the state. Colleges were allowed to set their own rates because state budgeteers were starving them. Zaffirini's fix would allow them to slow the tuition increases if the Legislature is willing to put some food on the table.

Zaffirini's Higher Education Committee will hear that bill on April Fool's Day, and she's got 19 co-authors on board. But none of the proposals to freeze tuition will be on the agenda; they haven't even been referred by the Lite Guv to that or any other committee.

It's not partisan: 13 of the 22 signers on Hinojosa's bill are Republicans. And if you include the authors of similar legislation — Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, and Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio — 25 of the Senate's 31 members are officially on board with Hinojosa.

But most of those are also signed onto Zaffirini's version.

Aides say Dewhurst isn't blocking the issue. They don't know when or whether he'll send the remaining bills to committee, but they say it could happen soon or it could take a while. Really, they said that.

The House is a couple of weeks away from this particular melee. Their Higher Education Committee, chaired by Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas, will look at specialty college tuition bills (cuts for veterans, good students, etc.) next week and general bills with freezes and limits a week later.

Unemployment, eco devo, Pre-K, guns, and some miscellany

State unemployment rose to 6.5 percent in February, up from 4.5 percent in the same month last year, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. The state lost 46,100 non-agricultural jobs last month; over the last 12 months, Texas is down 62,600 jobs.

• Look next week for the public launch of Innovate Texas, an Austin-based nonprofit tasked with helping Texans commercialize new technologies. Ryan Confer, former investment manager of the Texas Emerging Technology Fund, says they'll be connecting researchers with entrepreneurs, connecting entrepreneurs with researchers and assisting fledgling high-tech companies who've been weaned off ETF money. Innovate Texas was created in mid-2008 using a federal Wagner-Pizer grant coming through the Texas Workforce Commission, Confer said. Other folks connected to the new think tank include Austin attorney and eco devo guru Pike Powers and serial entrepreneur David Nance. The closest thing around to Innovate Texas is the Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, Confer said, but his organization's initial focus will be exclusively on Texas.

• More than half the members of the Texas House have signed their support for full-day pre-kindergarten in the state, moving that a notch forward. The Pre-K bill got a hearing in Senate Education but hasn't come to a vote there. In the House, it's got 79 signatures (of 150 members), but hasn't yet had a hearing. The legislation would expand part-time Pre-K programs, on a local option basis, to full-time. And school districts would be allowed to pay private programs to handle the load. The main hangup? The cost: $300 million per year.

• The Senate-approved "take your gun to work" bill includes an out for public, private and charter schools. It lets people keep their legal guns in their cars, even in the company parking lot or garage, and indemnifies the companies, in most instances, against whatever happens as a result. But it doesn't apply to educators and their colleagues. They have to leave the guns at home.

• The first thing out of the House this year was Rep. Dawnna Dukes' legislation allowing the state to spend money luring movie-makers to Texas. Funding is still up for grabs. Some conservatives took potshots at the bill, saying the state shouldn't be spending tax money on such things; only six House members voted against it... The Senate struck first on the top 10 rule that required state universities to show preference for applicants from the top 10 percent of their high school classes. The fix, from Sen. Florence Shapiro, as amended: Only the first 60 percent of each incoming class would be subject to the top 10 rule. An add-on would provide $1,000 scholarships to some of those students, limited by the charity of the state's budgeteers... College tuition is up in the Senate's Higher Education Committee next week; Voter ID's set for its debut in House Elections week after next.

The Texas Education Agency is using Twitter to make announcements and such. And now they're doing quickie surveys, too. These five tweets arrived in quick succession on Friday afternoon:

We would like your input on how the Texas Education Agency should use its stimulus funds to address 4 areas of education. Questions to come: Stimulus Q1: What are some innovative or promising practices that could be used to achieve rigorous post-secondary standards? Stimulus Q2: How do you think teachers should be evaluated? Stimulus Q3: What constitutes teacher effectiveness? Stimulus Q4: What types or kinds of interventions would you like to see the state fund to help low-performing schools improve?