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TribLive with State Rep. Larry Taylor (c) and Sen. Tommy Williams (r).

The line to get a driver’s license at one Houston location is so long, according to Tommy Williams, that a guy called in a pizza order, got it delivered to him, and finished eating before he got to the front of the line.

Williams, R-The Woodlands, uses the line in a speech, so it might or might not be precisely accurate. But it sets up his point: "How many of you in this audience would pay an additional $8 every six years (the current price is $24) to hire enough people to get rid of those two-hour lines?"

That got a nice show of hands, even at the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association's annual gathering in Austin, where lobbyists are trained to keep their opinions to themselves and their hands in their pockets.

Senate Finance Chairman Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, talking to that same group, pointed out three big problems facing the state — school finance, the business margins tax and transportation infrastructure — and suggested the only way to solve them is to ask the voters whether they want to spend the money to fix those things or not. Do they want to spend more money on public schools? Would it be alright to extend the state's business tax to partnerships, even if that's construed as an unconstitutional personal income tax on the partners? Would voters accept a higher gasoline tax to build roads?

"It's not important whether they say yes or no — it's just important that they answer the question," he said. 

Ogden is on his way out — he's not seeking another term next year. He's a conservative Republican. He represents a district that stretches from Williamson County, north of Austin, to Bryan and College Station. With suburbs full of state employees, Texas A&M University and a smattering of prisons, his district has more state employees than any other. "Yet they elected me," he said.

The first two of his big issues — money for public schools and the state's business tax — are tangled up in court. The courts might give lawmakers the guidance they're not getting — at least not clearly — from voters.

"School finance litigation will have an effect on what everybody is going to do about tax reform," said Comptroller Susan Combs.

The cases are in front of judges now. The Legislature will be back for a regular session in January 2013 to deal with whatever the courts order.

Meanwhile, Ogden, Williams, and other Republicans are searching for a good reading on what the voters really want. Republican candidates run against taxes and in favor of smaller government; having done so, they're often locked in to a particular set of answers when they reach Austin. And their voters don't, as a group, make much distinction between Austin and Washington. Disdain for the federal government increases disdain for the state government.

What's a legislator to do? "We have to have some honest conversations about what it costs to run government," Williams said. He takes care to say he's not for a general tax increase, and there's nothing in his record to suggest otherwise. But he points out that line of drivers awaiting their licenses. He's got another query along the same lines. "How come the fastest-growing state in the United States has no money to expand its highway system?" he asked. Increasing the state's automobile registration fee to $110 per year — it's now $62 per year — would raise $15 billion for new highway construction. 

Politicians have to be careful how they talk about such things for fear of setting off activists and voters tuned to anything that sounds like a new tax or spending plan, a violation of the current Republican orthodoxies in Texas.

House Speaker Joe Straus has been testing that. He told the El Paso Times that the state has to address its budget problems, including the business tax: "We have no choice, unless we want to continue to try to grow our population and continue to shrink spending significantly. I think at some point you can't cut your way to prosperity."

The no-tax-small-government contingent twittered and emailed and spoke out, attacking him as an apostate. He's used to that; they campaigned against his reelection bid earlier this year and he owes them no loyalty.

For others, it's more difficult. They're playing with the old Milton Friedman line: There is no such thing as a free lunch. Voters clearly want good schools and nice roads and low taxes. It's a political and policy question straight out of a business textbook: What's the right balance of price and quality?

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Michael Morton sits beside his mother, Patricia Morton, during an emotional press conference in October 2011 after a judge agreed to release him on personal bond after he spent nearly 25 years in prison for the murder of his wife. Recently tested DNA indicates another man committed the 1986 killing.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals took some heat off of Gov. Rick Perry when it issued a stay of execution for Hank Skinner this week. And the governor has avoided any link to another case involving two of his appointees and a botched murder prosecution in Williamson County.

Lawmakers, former inmates and others interested in the Texas justice system had called on Perry to intervene and urge the courts to allow DNA testing that Skinner claims could prove his innocence. His execution was scheduled for Wednesday, but the state’s top criminal court postponed it.

Skinner was convicted of the brutal 1993 New Year’s Eve triple murder of his live-in girlfriend and her two sons.

The court stopped the execution to get more time to review Skinner’s DNA testing request based on changes to Texas law that were approved during the legislative session this year. Skinner has been seeking DNA tests for a decade on a number of items, including a rape kit, a man’s jacket and knives found at the crime scene.

The appeals court has twice before denied Skinner’s request, arguing not only that he didn’t meet the requirements under state law to obtain testing but also that the tests couldn’t prove his innocence.

Lawmakers repealed the restrictions the court cited in denying Skinner’s requests, but one big challenge remains for Skinner. He was at the murder scene. DNA tests confirm his blood was there, and he doesn’t deny that he was in the room when the murders happened. He argues, though, that he was on the couch, nearly comatose from a cocktail of vodka and codeine while the attacks happened.

Even if the DNA tests reveal that someone else’s DNA was at the crime scene, that doesn’t eliminate the fact that Skinner was there. And the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has said in its previous rulings no exculpatory test results could prove Skinner’s innocence.

But for Perry the stay and the court’s continued deliberations over DNA testing makes this one issue he doesn’t have to deal with while he is on the campaign trail.

In another DNA-related controversy, Perry so far seems to be unaffected by the ongoing investigation of prosecutors in Williamson County who allegedly suppressed evidence that could have prevented the wrongful conviction of Michael Morton or ended his imprisonment sooner.

Perry appointed Ken Anderson, the former Williamson County district attorney who prosecuted Morton, to the 277th District Court there in 2002. He also appointed John Bradley to replace Anderson as district attorney.

Anderson has denied allegations of wrongdoing in court documents, but others deposed in the investigation by Morton’s lawyers point to him as the primary person responsible for Morton’s trial in 1987 and for controlling the release of evidence to defense lawyers and to the judge. Bradley, who became district attorney in 2001, has come under criticism for resisting DNA testing in Morton’s case for six years and for fighting the release of information in the prosecution’s file to defense lawyers.

Bradley was Perry's appointee to head the Texas Forensic Science Commission, and argued successfully that the commission didn't have the jurisdiction to reopen that case.

Enlarge Gage Skidmore

Before he uttered the now famous "oops" in Thursday's presidential debate, one of the federal agencies Gov. Rick Perry said he wanted to eliminate was the Department of Education. But what exactly would that mean?

The proposal is not new — others in the 2012 GOP field have made the pledge before. Michele Bachmann said as president she would "turn off the lights" and "lock the door" of the department at the October Fox News debate. Ron Paul has long wanted to shutter it. Ronald Reagan was the first presidential candidate to say he wanted to ax the federal agency created during the Jimmy Carter administration, and that was part of the national Republican Party platform from 1980 to 1996. 

Perry isn't a stranger to railing against federal involvement in education, either. Under his leadership, Texas was one of the earliest states to reject Race to the Top money from the Barack Obama administration and remains among the few that have not adopted the national common core curriculum standards. He has referred to the No Child Left Behind Act — a product of the George W. Bush administration — as "a monstrous intrusion into our affairs."

But what complicates cries like Perry's to get rid of the department, says Rick Hess, an education fellow with the conservative American Enterprise Institute, is that they don't say whether they intend to do away with all of those federal programs — or if that would mean simply moving the department's duties elsewhere. (For the record, Paul has said that he wants to do away with the federal programs.) Responsible for administering billions of dollars in federal aid, including grants to college students and public schools serving low-income and special needs children, collecting statistics on the country's more than 13,000 school districts, and enforcing federal education laws, the DOE is the 15th largest federal agency. Before it existed, many of those tasks were accomplished through a now-extinct federal agency called the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

"If you ask a candidate about healthcare reform as enacted last year and they said, 'Well I want to shut down Health and Human Services,' the proper response is okay, but are you going to do away with healthcare reform?" he says, "Because having a cabinet agency is different from all of the programs that go on underneath that agency."

The tax plan that Perry released in late October doesn't zero out DOE funding. It proposes slashing about half of it, which he estimates would save $25 billion in the first year — and sending the rest back to the states. The Perry campaign hasn't offered more details how that money going back to the states should be spent, or whether it means a Perry administration would end programs like Title I funding and Pell grants. 

"Unfortunately, the 'turn the lights out' or 'the agency will be gone' soaks up so much oxygen that these guys haven't really been pushed to be any more specific," Hess says.

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Texans for Lawsuit Reform hasn't officially picked a candidate in the race between state Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, and Elizabeth Ames Jones, the Texas Railroad Commissioner who jumped out of the U.S. Senate race and into Wentworth's primary this week. It will be a surprise if they go with the incumbent, though. Wentworth has locked down a solid list of endorsements, including House Speaker Joe Straus (who succeeded Ames Jones in that House seat), U.S. Reps. Lamar Smith and Francisco "Quico" Canseco, and state Reps. Lyle Larson of San Antonio, Doug Miller of New Braunfels and Paul Workman of Austin, whose districts overlap Wentworth's.

But the TLR folks won't be in that pack unless they change their minds. After listing a number of issues that divided the senator and the tort group, spokeswoman Sherry Sylvester adds this: "Texans for Lawsuit Reform has long believed that SD 25 should be represented by a senator who supports the lawsuit reforms that the people of his district and a wide majority of Texans support."

The other Republican in that race, Donna Campbell of New Braunfels, picked up an endorsement from the Texas Right to Life PAC.

Former Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert bolstered his U.S. Senate run with endorsements from a list of mayors he says represent 1.1 million people. The list includes Robert Cluck of Arlington, Joe Adame of Corpus Christi, Mark Burroughs of Denton, Jimmy Thompson of Sugar Land, Brian Loughmiller of McKinney, Bill Glancy of Farmers Branch, John Terrell of Southlake and Joe Cordina of Parker. Ted Cruz, meanwhile, announced a grassroots campaign — he's asking people to join the Cruz Crew. And Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst picked up the endorsement of the Texas Farm Bureau's political action committee, AGFUND.

Bob Craig won't seek another term on the State Board of Education. The Lubbock Republican was first elected in 2002 and served on the Lubbock school board before that. Whoever runs will need gas money; the district includes 75 of the state's 254 counties.

Democrat Neil Burns of The Woodlands is gearing up for a challenge to U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands in CD-8. He's a retired Shell Oil executive.

Ben Bius, who lost a state Senate race last year to Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, will run again. The Huntsville Republican will face state Rep. Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown, in the Republican primary to replace Ogden, who's not seeking another term.

Craig Goldman will make another run for the Texas House in Fort Worth's HD-97. State Rep. Mark Shelton is giving up that seat to run for the Texas Senate against incumbent Democrat Wendy Davis. Goldman ran for that seat in a special election in 2007 and lost.

Jonathan Stickland announced plans to challenge Rep. Todd Smith, R-Euless, in HD-92. He says he's a small business owner, wants to increase the quality of education and won't be asking taxpayers for more money: "Raising taxes is not an option."

Waco businessman and former State Republican Executive Committee member Chris DeCluitt will challenge Rep. Charles "Doc" Anderson, R-Waco, in HD-56, prompting an unusual press release from Anderson. The incumbent announced that he's looking forward to "a lively Republican primary race."

The Texans for Lawsuit Reform PAC endorsed Brent Busby in the race for a spot on the state's 14th Court of Appeals. That PAC also endorsed Rep. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, who's seeking reelection.

State Board of Education member George Clayton says he wants to cut short a rumor campaign about his sexual orientation and sent an email to several news organizations about it. "So as to avoid the tyranny of misinformation and innuendo in this political race, I wish to say that I, in fact, do have a male partner who lives with me in my home in Richardson, Texas... All of us can now move on with discussions concerning education instead of being overly occupied with my personal life." Former SBOE member Geraldine "Tincy" Miller is running against him.

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We put a Rick Perry reboot question at the top of our insiders' survey this week to find out if his remade campaign was getting traction, but a funny thing happened right in the middle of the questioning. So we lopped off the responses that came in before Wednesday night's debate and opened another version of the same question to compare the pre-debate answers with the post-debate answers.

Before Wednesday night, 29 percent of the insiders said the governor would regain his front-runner or near front-runner status in the Republican primaries for governor. After the debate, that fell to 10 percent. The number of naysayers grew from 59 percent before the debate to 83 percent after the governor forgot the third federal agency he wanted to abolish and ended with the quote people will remember: "Oops."

With the Republicans in the primary split on ideological lines and with a significant number of Democrats dissatisfied with the incumbent, we asked the insiders about the possibility that a third-party candidate will be a serious challenger in the general election. Three in five say it won't happen, but 23 percent think a conservative third-party candidate will play a role; only 2 percent think a liberal will emerge.

The federal judges looking at redistricting in Texas are now drawing maps. Eleven percent of the insiders think those will be about the same as the maps drawn by the Legislature; 2 percent expect more Republican districts in the court maps; 34 percent think Democrats will get more seats; and 48 percent think there will be more minority seats.

Finally, we asked about the influence of the Tea Party in the next cycle of legislative races. Most — 59 percent — say the movement will have a minor effect, while 34 percent say they'll have a major effect.

As always, we've attached the full set of comments to our questions; here's a sampling:

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Will Gov. Rick Perry regain his front-runner or near front-runner position in the Republican presidential primary? (Before the debate)

• "What are you smoking?"

• "Newt is next. If he folds quickly enough, Rick will have another day in the sun. If Newt has more staying power, he may be the anti-Mitt."

• "Perry's ship has sailed."

• "Cain will flame and Perry will edge out Gingrich as the conservative alternative to Romney."

• "...And I have at least 17 million reasons to say so..."

• "He's shown clearly he is not ready to be president and never will be."

• "That soufflé will not rise a second time."

• "You never want to count Rick Perry out in a political contest, but it is getting harder and harder to see the road back to the top."

Now that you've had a chance to see or read about Gov. Rick Perry's 'oops' moment in last night's debate, will the governor regain his front-runner or near front-runner position in the Republican presidential primary?

• "Nor will he ever run for office again."

• "Please make him stop. Laughingstock is too kind a word. Horror-stock is more like it."

• "That memory lapse will go down in history as one of the major blunders that have sunk political campaigns ... 'Who am I and why am I here' ... 'You're no Jack Kennedy'"

• "He's cooked. Put a fork in him."

• "At least we now know who the governor will be during the 2013 Session."

• "No before, and emphatically no afterwards"

• "You didn't provide a 'hell no' option."

• "Painful moment . . . on the biggest stage. Can't help but feel empathy for the Governor. Must be pretty rough to know that you've just provided material for the opening skit on SNL."

• "Last night's debate was proof positive that prior mistakes were not aberrations but instead were indicative of major unpreparedness for the nation's highest office."

• "Hell no, he can't even deliver his own talking points. Sad. Rick Perry has never been tested in Texas and it now painfully shows on the national scene."

• "At most a 10% chance. The problem is it played into the existing narrative that he's stupid and will be unable to compete w/ Obama in a debate."

• "Probably a little soon to throw dirt on his grave, but he's certainly running out of toes to shoot off."

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Will a third-party candidate for president gain significant support next year and if so, from what part of the political spectrum?

• "Tea party won't support Romney."

• "Third-party candidates will be relegated to last paragraph of a few election stories as 'other candidates receiving a small percentage of the vote.'"

• "Romney is not motivating the grass roots. They will want an alternative."

• "The time is near when a viable third party moderate will gain traction, but it won't happen in 2012."

• "A third party candidate will not gain 'significant' support in the 2012 campaign cycle, but the political system is simmering toward the formation of a third party. The rise of the Tea Parties and Occupy Wall Street point in that direction; the 'wrong track' numbers in polling, as well as the low opinion of the President and Congress suggest the level of frustration and disgust with Washington and the two major parties could enable a third party to emerge."

• "Anti-Obama-ism will keep the right together, despite the leftist media's best attempts to splinter his opposition."

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Now that the federal courts are doing the drawing, what will the new redistricting maps look like?

• "Congressional and House; Senate map won't change much."

• "More minority districts = more democratic districts"

• "More minority districts for sure. Whether or not they elect Democrats is a less certain; it depends on how discouraged their voters are."

• "(CONGRESS) Dallas-Metro finally gets an Hispanic seat; The Lucios will hate that Nueces County is once again attached to Cameron County; Doggett lives and Castro finds a new seat. (STATE) Mike Jackson runs for re-election to senate; Larry Taylor says Dude, you stole my wave; The Bonnens go postal against the world; Veronica Gonzalez gets a new district in the shape of Christ; Pena just can't get a break; Wendy Davis will complain regardless of the new map;"

• "Hopefully will keep communities of interest intact, rather than create minority-opportunity districts that contort district lines at the expense of communities."

• "The GOP got greedy and will pay the price, though the price will be relatively small in terms of the actual number of seats. We're likely to see both more minority districts as well as more Democratic districts."

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After this round of federal elections will the Tea Party be a major or minor factor in the next cycle of Texas legislative races?

• "(I assume that when you say 'this round' you are referring to the 2012 cycle and by 'next cycle' you mean the 2014 cycle.) Regardless, I am sure that the 'tea party' will continue to heavily influence Republicans primaries and legislative policy positions taken by Republican legislators. 'Tea party' groups are very well-funded have used that funding to build considerable infrastructure in Texas and elsewhere."

• "The major effect will be to drive reasonable independent voters and seniors to the Democratic side. We are giddy with anticipation."

• "The numbers don't support this perception that the Tea Party was a major force. Their candidates only won in primary run-offs when voter turnout is low. The General Election was anti-Obama, not pro-Tea Party."

• "The Texas Republican Party is majority Tea Party."

• "General election voters will start participating in primaries. They will be the grown-ups."

• "Tea Party has been largely absorbed by the GOP, and is losing altitude rapidly as an independent force."

• "They are here to stay. Get used to it."

• "Just because tea is hot doesn't mean it's strong."

Our thanks to this week's participants: Gene Acuna, Cathie Adams, Brandon Aghamalian, Victor Alcorta, Clyde Alexander, George Allen, Doc Arnold, Jay Arnold, Charles Bailey, Tom Banning, Reggie Bashur, Walt Baum, Eric Bearse, Leland Beatty, Dave Beckwith, Rebecca Bernhardt, Andrew Biar, Allen Blakemore, Tom Blanton, Richard Bluntzer, Hugh Brady, Chris Britton, Lydia Camarillo, Kerry Cammack, Marc Campos, Snapper Carr, William Chapman, Elizabeth Christian, George Cofer, Rick Cofer, Lawrence Collins, John Colyandro, Harold Cook, Hector De Leon, June Deadrick, Tom Duffy, David Dunn, Richard Dyer, Jeff Eller, Jack Erskine, Alan Erwin, Gay Erwin, John Esparza, Charles Evans, Jon Fisher, Kyle Frazier, Dominic Giarratani, Bruce Gibson, Scott Gilmore, Eric Glenn, Kinnan Golemon, Thomas Graham, John Greytok, Clint Hackney, Anthony Haley, Billy Hamilton, Bill Hammond, Sandy Haverlah, Albert Hawkins, Adam Haynes, Jim Henson, Ken Hodges, Steve Holzheauser, Billy Howe, Laura Huffman, Shanna Igo, Deborah Ingersoll, Carl Isett, Cal Jillson, Jason Johnson, Mark Jones, Robert Kepple, Richard Khouri, Ramey Ko, Nick Lampson, Pete Laney, Dick Lavine, James LeBas, Donald Lee, Luke Legate, Leslie Lemon, Richard Levy, Ruben Longoria, Vilma Luna, Matt Mackowiak, Luke Marchant, Matt Matthews, Patricia McCandless, Dan McClung, Parker McCollough, Robert Miller, Lynn Moak, Bee Moorhead, Craig Murphy, Keats Norfleet, Pat Nugent, Sylvia Nugent, Todd Olsen, Nef Partida, Gardner Pate, Tom Phillips, Wayne Pierce, John Pitts, Royce Poinsett, Kraege Polan, Jay Propes, Ted Melina Raab, Bill Ratliff, Karen Reagan, Tim Reeves, Carl Richie, Kim Ross, Jeff Rotkoff, Jason Sabo, Luis Saenz, Mark Sanders, Andy Sansom, Jim Sartwelle, Stan Schlueter, Bruce Scott, Steve Scurlock, Dan Shelley, Christopher Shields, David Sibley, Ed Small, Martha Smiley, Todd Smith, Larry Soward, Dennis Speight, Jason Stanford, Bob Strauser, Colin Strother, Michael Quinn Sullivan, Sherry Sylvester, Russ Tidwell, Bruce Todd, Trent Townsend, Trey Trainor, Ware Wendell, Ken Whalen, Darren Whitehurst, Christopher Williston, Michael Wilt, Seth Winick, Alex Winslow, Lee Woods, Peck Young, Angelo Zottarelli.

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To paraphrase the very model of the modern Dr. Strangelove, Donald Rumsfeld, "Would the world come to an end if we stopped using the term, 'illegal immigrant?' Answer: No." Neither would the world end if the news media kept right on using it forever, as the Associated Press prefers. It may not be all that important, in the scheme of things, but words do matter, and people do take sides on this issue, so here's my take.

The adjective "illegal" generates pejorative, negative reactions in the listener or reader. As Keith Cunningham-Parmeter explains, "human beings view the world in metaphoric terms... through metaphor, the immigrant becomes the alien, the alien becomes the illegal, and the illegal becomes the Mexican. ...[R]eferring to ... people as "illegal aliens" is equivalent to referring to defendants awaiting trial as 'convicted criminals.'"

To the question, What part of "illegal" don't you understand? I answer, every bit of it, including the distinction between jaywalking and murder, between littering and grand theft; in short, between malum prohibitum and malum in se, that is, the things we've decided to regulate vs. the things we all agree are evil.

Let's apply a little nuance and ask ourselves: Is the frail asylum-seeker fleeing political oppression in her home country just as much an illegal alien as the tough guy who has been deported three times for violent criminal convictions? How about the Japanese business executive who overstays his visitor's visa by one day? By a week? By a year? "[N]early half of all people described as 'illegal aliens' obtained their 'illegal' status by overstaying valid visas — a civil immigration violation that involves no criminal conduct whatsoever," Cunningham-Parmeter writes. Or how about the green card holder who has lived the life of the model immigrant for twenty or thirty years, only to pick up a single speeding ticket? Does the speeding ticket instantly and magically transform her into an evil 'illegal alien?' The state of Alabama has just enacted the toughest local immigration law on the books, and following its provisions some utility companies have begun to deny water and electric service to unauthorized immigrants. But why stop there? Why not enact a law to deny service to every adult in Alabama ever convicted of domestic violence? After all, what part of "illegal" don't you understand? Wouldn't driving the wife beaters from Alabama do more good than banishing its tomato pickers?

You'll notice I used the term "unauthorized." I prefer that to "undocumented" because, to be honest, many unauthorized aliens do indeed have documents — fake ones. Plus, unauthorized sends a clear message that something is wrong, without diving into the lake of punitive, pejorative metaphors. "[M]etaphors that attempt to capture the essence of immigrants will inevitably miss the mark and therefore distort," Cunningham-Parmeter writes. And, perhaps most importantly, "unauthorized" suggests the possibility of change, the ability of an authority (Congress) to change the legal status of the migrant. Even under today's statute, an unauthorized migrant may, through court order or agency decision, be granted relief from deportation through such means as asylum, cancellation of removal, and T and U visa statuses. From illegal to legal by the stroke of a pen.

Interestingly, in a break with some of my liberal kin, I don't mind the use of the word alien, for two reasons: it's part of the statute (a term of art, as we lawyers say) and I'm old enough to remember a time before space travel, when alien simply meant foreigner, rather than a dangerous green being from another galaxy. Also, I had the good fortune to learn a second language (Spanish) at a very early age, and my family traveled often to Mexico; foreign was not alien to me. Travel abroad and second language learning are excellent ways of defusing the otherness bug.

In the end, whether we use the word illegal or unauthorized, alien or migrant, or whether we "call it a banana," the only thing that matters is whether, and when, we enact meaningful, and comprehensive, immigration reform. Toward that end, let's use language that's helpful rather than harmful.

Daniel M. Kowalski has been practicing immigration law since 1985. He edits Bender's Immigration Bulletin and curates the LexisNexis Immigration Law Community, a free daily blog.

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Jose Aliseda

I have been asked how to refer to people who are in this country illegally — as illegal aliens or by a softer term such as undocumented immigrants. I suppose as a legal immigrant to this country at the age of four, I might have a different perspective than someone who has not had at least part of those terms applied to them during their life. I remember growing up being referred to as a green card alien or a registered alien and being somewhat embarrassed by the term “alien” as if I was a little green man.

But I am a United States citizen now and I have been a licensed attorney for 28 years. As an attorney, I have been trained that words in the law have meaning and definitions. I have been licensed to practice in federal court for 23 years. I have represented, by court appointment, many persons charged with illegally re-entering this country after deportation. In the United States Code, wherein this nation’s laws are codified, persons who are here illegally are called “illegal aliens.” So it is, for example, that you can have a statute titled “8 U.S.C. § 1365: US Code - Section 1365: Reimbursement of States for costs of incarcerating illegal aliens and certain Cuban nationals.”

Referring to persons, things, and matters in their proper legal terms and common definitions is very important for a lawyer and should be important for a layperson and society as a whole. This is supposed to be a nation of laws after all. That is why, as a conservative, I am extremely frustrated by the liberal political correctness movement, supported by the “style books” of the liberal media, which is devoted to promoting an alternative terminology that seeks to assert a more positive aspect to negative or undesirable qualities. For example, those that are pro-abortion rights are referred to in some publications as “pro-choice.” Or those who are professional political agitators are referred to as “community organizers.”

Make no mistake about it, those political parties, organizations, and persons that sympathize with, exploit, or pander to people illegally in this country are using today’s hyper-politically correct culture to try to change the term “illegal alien” to something that does not contain the negative connotations of the word “illegal.” The word “illegal” is an adjective and means something is prohibited by law and/or involving or being a crime. By slowly removing that term, and to a certain extent the word “alien,” which also carries with it a somewhat negative connotation, from our nation’s vocabulary, and substituting a euphemism such as “undocumented immigrant,” or “undocumented person,” they hope to change the public’s acceptance of persons here illegally.

I, for one, will continue to use the term “illegal alien,” to refer to persons who are unlawfully here, and I hope and pray that American society soon wakes up and rejects the political correctness movement before it blurs all the lines between right and wrong and destroys our country from within.

Jose Aliseda, R-Beeville, represents District 35 in the Texas House of Representatives

Texans headed to the polls this week to vote on 10 constitutional amendments and, in some cities, for mayoral and city council positions. Seven of the 10 constitutional amendments passed, with voters rejecting propositions giving new bonding authority to counties, a conservation district in El Paso and tax breaks for landowners who practice good water stewardship. The dismal turnout, 5.5 percent, was down from 8.1 percent in 2009. The one statewide race on the ballot, a House seat in Brazos County, is headed for a runoff between Republicans Bob Yancy and John Raney. The biggest mayoral contest in the state, though, saw a clear winner — but by a thin margin: Incumbent Annise Parker won with 50.9 percent of the vote, narrowly avoiding a runoff.

Texas redistricting maps for the House, Senate and Congress will be drawn by a panel of federal judges in San Antonio after a Washington court decided to hold a trial before preclearing maps drawn by the Legtislature. Because of the time that will take, the Washington court signaled the Texas to draw legal maps. That gave hope to Democrats and minority organizations that sued the state over the legislative effort, saying it didn't adequately protect minority voting rights.

Travis County tried something new on Election Day, allowing voters to cast their ballots at any polling center, hoping to keep voters from showing up at the wrong places or having to rush to get to their polling places before closing time. The Legislature approved the system this year. To determine the impact of the voting centers, the county hired a Rice University professor to analyze voting day information.

A University of Texas survey has found that one in five Houstonians assess their own health as fair or poor. The survey, led by Stephen Linder of the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston, is designed to get local leaders talking about strategies to address the lack of access to health care and insurance. The survey mapped the city by neighborhood and ethnic group from a randomly selected group of 5,000 households and was conducted by phone, mail-in and website questionnaires. Three languages were used to gather information: English, Spanish and Vietnamese.

At an annual conference, electricity retailers and brokers agreed that electricity rates are sure to go up for Texans in the next couple of years. The Texas Electricity Professionals Association gathered in Dallas and predicted that the high demand, coupled with natural gas cost increases, will lead to rates that are about 10 percent higher in 2012 and 2013.

Texas and the feds continue to point fingers at each other over the distribution of hurricane recovery funds. After Texas received a reprimand from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for its sluggishness in allocating the funds for rebuilding, the governor’s office responded by blasting the federal government for its guidelines. Kathy Walt, Gov. Rick Perry’s deputy chief of staff, claimed that HUD rejected the state’s plan for distributing the money in November of 2009 for political reasons. But critics of the state’s policies say that the formula proposed to dole out the funds is flawed. The controversial firm hired to help disburse the funds, HNTB, developed the model, which was based on weather intensity instead of actual storm damage.

An audit of the Texas Railroad Commission showed that natural gas pipelines are inspected by the agency at a rate of just 65 percent. Texas has about 270,000 miles of pipeline, the largest network in the country. The Fort Worth League of Neighborhoods has taken the lead on monitoring the impact of the pipelines and hired two researchers to study the more than 900 miles of pipes in the area. The researchers found good and bad news in the state’s report, criticizing regulatory loopholes but praising city and state rules safeguarding pipelines.

Bexar County Democrats were gratified to close the door on the embezzlement trial of former party treasurer Dwayne Adams, who was convicted on charges of theft and misapplication of fiduciary property. Adams received a six-year sentence for stealing money in the party’s bank account that was intended to pay for the 2008 primary. The party has since raised the money to pay back the county for the debt it incurred to finance the primary. Prosecutors asked that Adams be ordered to pay restitution, but the judge did not immediately rule on that request.

Ann McGeehan, the director of the elections division at the Texas Secretary of State and a master of the arcana of state election law, is leaving the department after more than 22 years to take a position at the Texas County and District Retirement Systems. The move comes at a time when the state is in the throes of a controversy over the contentious voter ID bill that was passed out of the Texas Legislature earlier this year. The U.S. Department of Justice has put the state’s request for preclearance of the measure on hold, alleging Texas election officials need to provide more information to the federal agency to prove that the law, which would require that most voters furnish an photo ID in order to cast a ballot, does not infringe on the rights of minority voters.

Rich Parsons, the Secretary of State’s communications director, said McGeehan’s departure has nothing to do with the current demands of the DOJ and the allegations by Democrats that the law will disenfranchise some voters.

“She’s been here for 22 years, and she just decided it was time to see what else what’s going on out there,” he said, adding that the department has a very “dedicated and professional legal staff” that will continue working on the voter ID issue.

She's leaving right after the constitutional amendment elections and right before the state has to pull together plans for primary elections under maps (for House, Senate and Congress) that are even now being drawn by a panel of federal judges in San Antonio. Candidates will be filing for election under those maps starting in just over two weeks, on November 28.

Elizabeth Winn, whom Parsons said has been the department’s legal director since 1995, will be the interim director of the elections division.

Erica Stick is the new veep for government relations in Texas at Amerigroup, a Medicaid managed care outfit. she's replacing Merideth Delk, who got a promotion to senior vice president for government affairs. Stick was previous at the state's Health and Human Services Commission.

WGU Texas, a new nonprofit, online university established by the state of Texas, appointed Mark Milliron as its first Chancellor. Milliron previously served as Deputy Director for Postsecondary Improvement at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Gov. Rick Perry appointed 13 members to the Texas Juvenile Justice Board, and named Scott Fisher of Bedford chair of the board. Fisher is senior pastor of Metroplex Chapel of Euless.

The others include John Brieden III of Brenham is county judge of Washington County; Joseph Brown of Sherman is criminal district attorney of Grayson County; Carol Bush of Waxahachie is the Ellis County judge, and a former Ellis County court at law judge; Jane Anderson King of Canyon is chief juvenile probation officer for the Randall County Juvenile Probation Department; Rob Kyker of Richardson is owner of R&D Sales and Leasing; Michael Meade of Simonton is director and chief juvenile probation officer of the Fort Bend County Juvenile Probation Department; Mary Lou Mendoza of San Antonio is an elementary school principal in the Northside Independent School District; Rene Olvera of San Antonio is head psychiatrist liaison for the UT Health Science Center Psychiatric Department and Bexar County Juvenile Probation Correctional Services, and an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio; Laura Parker of San Antonio is judge of the 386th Juvenile District Court in Bexar County; Jimmy Smith is a Midland County commissioner; Calvin Stephens of Dallas is president of SSP Consulting; and Melissa Weiss of Bellville is chief juvenile probation officer for the Austin County Juvenile Probation Department.