Closing Time Comes Early

Some of the early voting numbers are high, but it's impossible to know until after the election exactly what's going on. Early voting is sometimes a sign of the interest in an election and indicates a bigger overall turnout. Early voting is sometimes a sign that campaigns are really well organized at getting their folks out before Election Day. Sometimes, it means voters have thought about whether they want to wait — in this year's case, until after a three-day weekend — to go to the polls. We won't know until the votes are counted just how many people voted, and how many of those voted early. 

You have to wait for the autopsy.

More anecdotal information: Polling in selected House races by a loose coalition of lobsters and political wonks seems to show incumbents bouncing back after early worries. More than one person related this, but nobody was willing to show their numbers, so put it in the speculation folder. And the acid test, if this is a low turnout year, will be whether the pollsters in these and other polls made correct assumptions about who will actually vote. 

If everybody was voting, it would be easy.

Here's a new one: CATPAC, short of Conservatives Acting Together Political Action Committee, has pumped $113,646 into ads benefiting Michael Williams, the former Texas Railroad Commission now seeking a congressional seat in CD-25. The group turned up in Federal Election Commission reports in mid-April filed by treasurer Jill Mellinger of Dallas. A later report shows some early donors, all from the Dallas area: Richard Collins, Kyle Stallings, and Gary Griffith.

Rep. Rick Hardcastle, R-Vernon, endorsed Trent McKnight to replace him in the Texas House. Hardcastle isn't seeking another term; McKnight is one of four Republicans wanting to represent that 22-county district.

Gov. Rick Perry endorsed (and visited for public events) Reps. Ralph Sheffield, R-Temple, and Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands. The governor endorsed Don Willett, who is seeking reelection to the Texas Supreme Court. And Perry's making a visit next week to Marshall, where he'll be endorsing Rep. Wayne Christian, R-Center, over the local challenger, Chris Paddie.

Former U.S. Rep. Martin Frost, D-Dallas, endorsed Chris Turner, who is trying to win his way back into the Texas House. Turner and one of his opponents, Paula Hightower Pierson, lost their seats in the 2010 Republican landslide. Now they're vying against each other (and Vickie Barnett) for an open seat in Tarrant County.

Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Terrell, had Forney Mayor Darren Rozell listed as a supporter, but the mayor will be voting for challenger Stuart Spitzer.

Rep. Todd Smith, in a political cage match with Rep. Kelly Hancock for an open Senate seat, got an endorsement from Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price. Hancock countered with an endorsement from former Texas GOP Chairman Tom Pauken and with support from 40 local Republican precinct chairs. The winner of that primary will likely replace Chris Harris in the state Senate.

Rep. David Simpson, R-Longview, pulled out a similar list in his rematch against former Rep. Tommy Merritt, R-Longview. Simpson has "over 40" Republican officials from the district on his endorsement roster.

File for later: Republican voters are looking at five ballot questions that are non-binding but will likely show up in some form or fashion as the party does its new platform. They're all yes/no propositions: government should be prohibited from restricting content of public prayer; government spending growth should be limited to the combination of population growth and inflation, subject to voter approval; the Legislature should redraw political lines "in order to remedy inequities"; the state should fund education by giving the money to the school chosen by the students' parents; and congress should repeal the federal health care law.

Democrats have three yes/no referenda on their ballot: any Texas high school grads with three years residency should be eligible for in-state tuition and should be able to earn legal citizenship status through college work or military service; the Legislature should fund colleges and universities in a way that makes tuition and fees affordable; and the Legislature should allow Texans to vote on casino gaming with the proceeds going to education.

Taking Sides: Charting Election Endorsements

Texas Weekly's Hotlist for 5/21

Early voting is under way and candidates have only a few days left before they get the news: In, Out or Runoff. This is the penultimate list for the primaries. Consultants are in full spin mode. Ads are up. Polls are coming out. It is, finally and mercifully, more than two months late, time for the parties to pick their favorites.

You know the drill: We lifted the color scheme from the inventors of the federal terror watch, ranking districts by the threat to each incumbent, to the incumbent party, or just by the level of interest in and heat generated by a particular race, then assigning each group a garish color.

Yellow means there's trouble on the sidewalk.

Orange is trouble on the front porch.

Red is trouble walking in the door.

Open seats are rated by the apparent margin between top candidates (closer is hotter). 

Incumbents are indicated with this: (i). A printable version is attached as a .pdf file.

This is certainly and intentionally subject to argument, and we'll revise and adjust each week, based on interviews, our reporting and your feedback through the May 29 primary. Let us know what you think.

Changes this week:  Raised CD-16, CD-3, CD-4, HD-2, HD-85. Lowered CD-6, CD-30, HD-5, and HD-77. No additions, no subtractions.

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House Departures Take a Bite Out of Criminal Justice

State Rep. Jerry Madden, R-Plano.
State Rep. Jerry Madden, R-Plano.

For years they’ve been the Butch and Sundance of Texas criminal justice policy. Republican Rep. Jerry Madden and Democratic Sen. John Whitmire have helped lead a sea change in the adult and juvenile prison systems that has reduced incarceration, helped drive down the crime rate, saved the state money and become a national model.

But the team is breaking up. Madden, chairman of the House Corrections Committee, is retiring after 10 terms.

“He has been a real partner in accomplishing some of our most useful measures,” said Whitmire, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee. 

Veteran state Rep. Pete Gallego, D-Alpine, chairman of the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee, who helped lead reforms in eyewitness identification procedures and push back the tide of penalty enhancement bills filed each session, won’t be coming back, either. He’s running for a seat in the big House — the one in Washington, D.C.

Their departures leave a major experience void in the Texas House at a time when lawmakers are going to be dealing with some critical criminal justice issues.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice is up for sunset next year and struggling to figure out the best and most cost-effective way to provide health care for its more than 150,000 inmates.

The newly remade Texas Juvenile Justice Department is in yet another crisis that lawmakers and advocates worry puts the 1,200 youths in its custody in danger. Recent reports have revealed startling increases in violence among youths in state facilities and against the staff responsible for guarding them.

Plus, there is a growing chorus among criminal justice advocates for a deeper look at the way Texas deals with prosecutors who are found to have committed misconduct in the wake of Michael Morton’s exoneration after nearly 25 years of wrongful incarceration.

Normally, lawmakers who are reconvening in January, would look to the years of experience Madden and Gallego had with the criminal justice system to find guidance and direction on those issues.  

“Jerry Madden and Pete will be hard to [replace], not just from knowledge-based perspective, but from a knowledge and acting upon that knowledge perspective,” said Ana Yañez Correa, executive director of the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition.

Yañez Correa and Marc Levin, director of the Center for Effective Justice at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, both said their organizations are already beginning education efforts to orient candidates on the state’s complicated criminal justice system.

The advocates mentioned a few names of legislators with criminal justice experience as potential replacements, including veteran Houston Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, Rep. Stefani Carter, R-Dallas, a former prosecutor, and Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon, D-San Antonio, a former juvenile probation officer.

Whitmire and the advocates hope whomever the House Speaker chooses to fill those big shoes should heed the experience of their predecessors and stay on the trajectory of reform that has changed Texas from a tough-on-crime state to a what they believe is now a smart-on-crime trendsetter. And they’ll face a steep learning curve.

“I hope the House members recognize when they get there, we’ve really got pretty good criminal justice system right now,” Whitmire said.

Guest Column: Texas Beaches Are for the Public

When I was Texas land commissioner, I carried on the fight of my predecessor Bob Armstrong, state Rep. Bob Eckhardt, D-Houston, state Sen. A.R. “Babe” Schwartz, D-Galveston, and other dedicated people to ensure that the Texas Open Beaches Act preserves access to our public beaches. It was never hard to know what the people of Texas wanted. In 2009, state Rep. Richard Raymond, D-Laredo, authored a constitutional amendment that guaranteed the permanence and provisions of the Open Beaches Act. With overwhelming majorities, the House and Senate each passed the amendment and submitted it to voters for their final approval or rejection. That summer, voters approved the amendment with 76.9 percent of the vote. I thought the battle was won. Little did I know that ideological politics and an outburst of judicial activism would seek to revoke 200 years of Texas heritage and law, the clear will and direction of the Legislature and the voters, and the constitutional rights of all Texans to use and enjoy the public beaches, for all time.

On March 30, five justices on the Texas Supreme Court affirmed an earlier ruling that the 53-year-old Open Beaches Act does not apply to three properties on the West Beach of Galveston Island that were then owned by an absentee landowner, a California lawyer named Carol Severance. She has since sold the properties. Severance was backed in her lawsuit by the California-based Pacific Freedom Foundation, which favors itself with the slogan “Rescuing Liberty from Coast to Coast.” The ruling means that the subsequent owners and some neighbors on the west end of Galveston Island can now fence off the dry beach and deny public access. It could well mean that litigious chaos ensues along our 367-mile shoreline and the Open Beaches Act perishes trial by trial, the proverbial death of a thousand cuts.

The state owns the submerged lands out to 12 miles in the Gulf of Mexico. Our continual use of the beaches throughout Texas history and an abundance of case law holds that private individuals can own beachfront property up to the “mean high tide,” or the seaward vegetation line of the sand dunes; however, a historically recognized public easement reserves the dry beach for public use and enjoyment. The crux of this issue is what happens when the shoreline is drastically altered by “avulsion” — violent storms such as hurricanes. (The legal term also applies to inland water and property law, as in rivers changing their courses.)

Guided by English and American common law, a history of continual public use, the 1959 Open Beaches Act, a 1964 Supreme Court ruling, numerous supportive rulings and the 2009 Texas constitutional amendment, the General Land Office maintains that the law provides for a “rolling easement” of the public’s dry beach: If a landowner assumes the well-known risk of building on a beachfront property and a storm shoves the vegetation landward, their structures cannot impede or endanger access to the public beach. For example, if I sell my neighbor a tract of land behind mine, and my neighbor has no access to use and enjoy his property, the neighbor will have an implied easement to cross my land. In the same way, throughout our history Texans have understood that they can roam up and down the beachfront, so anyone purchasing beachfront property should not be surprised that the right to roam the beachfront must “roll” with avulsive changes, and an easement is implied to serve the public good.

In 1987, when I was land commissioner, Tropical Storm Frances resulted in the Land Office’s determination that 107 beachfront homes had been relocated on the public beach, seaward of the vegetation line. The structure at issue in this case was one of those beachfront homes. In 2004, Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson and his Land Office staff again determined that the property on Kennedy Drive on West Beach was “wholly or in part” on the dry beach, but they did not yet believe it was a safety hazard, and it was subject to the agency’s two-year moratorium on orders to move privately owned structures back behind the vegetation line. In 2005, Severance purchased three properties on West Beach, including the house and lot on Kennedy Drive. When she bought the property she signed a real estate contract that by law, under the Open Beaches Act, required her to acknowledge disclosure to her that shoreline erosion might result in her structure winding up on the public beach, and the state was empowered to remove it, if necessary. Later that year, Hurricane Rita battered the island, and in 2006 the Land Office informed Ms. Severance that her property was now entirely seaward of the vegetation line and that the Land Office might take action to remove it. Later in 2006, when the Land Office’s moratorium expired, Severance received two letters informing her that the Kennedy Drive home had to be removed from the dry beach; one offered her $40,000 if she acted before October of that year. She and the Pacific Freedom Foundation then sued Commissioner Patterson and the state on grounds that the Open Beaches Act and the Land Office order violated her private property rights under the 4th, 5th, and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

The litigants pressed these constitutional issues in federal court, and the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals certified the “rolling easement” question to the Texas Supreme Court. The case was first argued before the Supreme Court in 2009, and it ruled in her favor in 2010. On rehearing and after Ms. Severance had sold the properties in question, five of our eight Supreme Court justices (one did not participate) definitively ruled that a rolling beach easement does not exist under Texas law, and that in November 1840 the Republic of Texas surrendered any and all claims to the West Beach when it sold the “Jones & Hall Grant.” Two of the three West Beach properties at issue in this case lie within that land grant. Writing the majority opinion, Justice Dale Wainwright asserted “there is no support presented for the proposition that, during the time of the Republic of Texas or the inception of our State, the State reserved the oceanfront for public use.”

Nothing could be further from the truth.

After Eckhardt won election to Congress in 1966, Sen. Schwartz and his staff took the lead on Texas coastal policy and codified provisions of the Open Beaches Act. Schwartz exclaimed that the Severance ruling “ignores common law dating to the Justinian Code, including the Bible, where Peter dried his nets on the shore.” The precedent is certainly rooted in English common law. What was an English common? Well, it was a public place in each township where all citizens could mingle and converse, and no individual however wealthy or titled could turn them away. The same legal tenet applies to Texans’ rights to use and enjoy unobstructed Gulf Coast beaches.

Writing the dissenting opinion, Justice David Medina correctly cited the Supreme Court ruling in Seaway Co. v. Attorney General in 1964. Empowered by the recently enacted Open Beaches Act, Attorney General Will Wilson and his staff of attorneys ordered Seaway’s barriers removed from the beach, prevailed in a jury trial in district court, and four years later won again when Seaway and its backing title company appealed to the Supreme Court. The Attorney General proved the beaches’ continued public use by presenting historical evidence ignored by these five Supreme Court justices in 2012. In 1916 an authoritative historian, Dr. J. O. Dyer, recorded that as early as 1836 a ferry ran west from Galveston Island across San Luis Pass, and in 1838 the Congress of the Republic authorized establishment of a mail route that utilized the beach and ran every two weeks from Quintana to Galveston by way of San Luis. In the course of the Seaway lawsuit, Joe Osborn, an Austin attorney who was then an assistant attorney general under Will Wilson, found in the Galveston’s Rosenberg Library an April 13, 1841 issue of the San Luis Gazette that tells of a stage coach line running from Galveston to Velasco by way of San Luis; the story described the horses’ hooves wetted by sprays from the Gulf and the musical sound of the waves. (San Luis, a town on San Luis Island just west of Galveston Island, vanished with the island in a storm about 1843 that widened San Luis Pass to what it is today. That is avulsion in the extreme.)

The State Archives revealed nine maps between 1845 and 1874 showing a beach road extending from Galveston, by ferry across San Luis Pass, and then on to Velasco; some extended the beach road as far as Quintana and Matagorda. Based on that history of continued public use, the 1964 Supreme Court upheld the jury verdict which “encompassed an easement in the public to use the area of land adjoining the waters of the Gulf of Mexico from the line of low mean tide to the seaward side of the vegetation for travel and camping and to make use of the area so the members of the public could fully pursue their rights to swim, fish, and boat in and on the Gulf waters.”

Justice Medina, in his dissent to this Court’s ruling, wrote, “Easements may be express or implied. Implied easements are defined by the circumstances that create its implication.” Justice Medina continued, “To apply static real property concepts to beachfront easements is to presume their destruction. Hurricanes and tropical storms frequently batter Texas’s coast. Avulsive events are not uncommon. The Court’s failure to recognize the rolling easement places a costly and unnecessary burden on the state if it is to preserve our heritage of open beaches.” Justice Medina also wrote the dissenting opinion when the Court first ruled in Ms. Severance’s favor in 2010. He stressed the 2009 constitutional amendment that “mirrors the policy and language of the OBA [Open Beaches Act]. The amendment adopts the OBA’s definition of ‘public beach’ and reiterates that the public’s easement is established under Texas common law. It further acknowledges the permanent nature of the easement. To be consistent with the Texas Constitution, these easement must roll with the natural changes of the beach.” In that opinion, he also noted the blistering rebuke of U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Justice Jacques Weiner, who in his dissent questioned the litigants’ motives, writing that the legal maneuvering had the effect of “enlisting the federal courts, and via certification [of the federal court’s questions], the Supreme Court of Texas, as unwitting foot-soldiers in this thinly veiled Libertarian crusade.” Justice Medina concluded in his most recent dissenting opinion, “The right to exclude the public from the dry beach was never in the landowner’s bundle of sticks when she bought the property.”

This is not a partisan issue. All nine of the elected Supreme Court justices are Republicans. Attorney General Greg Abbott, also a Republican, said of the 2010 Court ruling: “With the stroke of a pen, a divided court has effectively eliminated the public’s rights on the dry beach. [T]he majority could only cite — nothing. Not a single case, rule, principle, empirical study, scientific review, or anything else.” Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, another key Republican, warned that the Court’s ruling this March could mean that the Open Beaches Act, at least on Galveston’s West Beach, “is dead. This is truly a sad day.”

What is the result of this judicial fiasco? Patricia Kilday Hart wrote in the Houston Chronicle: “Already, the decision has been disastrous for Galveston. [Commissioner] Patterson halted a $40 million beach re-nourishment project since tax money can’t exactly be spent hauling sand to private beaches. Whether tax money can be spent cleaning up after the next natural disaster remains to be seen.” This all began with three properties by an absentee landowner in California who bet wrong on weather in the Gulf of Mexico, and then engaged the attorneys and resources of a California foundation on a coast-to-coast mission under the banner of private property rights. But whose property rights have been violated? Yours and mine, and our children’s, and our grandchildren’s. If our Supreme Court can overrule two centuries of Texas heritage, numerous common-law and Supreme Court precedents, half a century of definitive legislation, and a constitutional amendment approved by over three-fourths of the voters, what more does it take to define judicial activism? But there are rays of hope in the murk of this ideological arrogance. In the welter of lawsuits sure to come, the five justices may reconsider the overwhelming evidence and Texas tradition and hold that this ruling applies only to lots on Galveston’s West Beach. And if not, well, elected officials do lose elections. I can testify to that. We have to let our voices be heard: that we value our precious Texas Gulf Coast beaches, that this ruling is just plain wrong, and we’re not going to stand for it.

 

Garry Mauro was Texas Land Commissioner from 1983 to 1995. Jan Reid wrote speeches on coastal issues for Commissioner Mauro and is the author of twelve books, among them the forthcoming Let the People In: The Life and Times of Ann Richards.  

Guest Column: Beach Ruling Protects Property Rights

The recent Texas Supreme Court decision in Severance v. Patterson has some worried that the millions of Texans who visit the Texas coast each year will lose access to the state’s public beaches.

Despite such predictions of doom, Texas beaches will remain open and accessible. All the Court did is ensure that private property rights are not trampled by the public on their way to the beach.

After Hurricane Rita slammed into the Texas coast in 2005 and dramatically altered the vegetation line near the shore, Carol Severance found her house suddenly sitting on the beach.

She wasn’t surprised by that because she knew the risk she was taking when she bought property near the beach. She was surprised, however, that the state of Texas intended to claim that her house now sat on the public beach and was potentially subject to uncompensated demolition.

There is no dispute that prior to Rita a public easement allowed access to the beach seaward of Severance’s property. With the former beach under several feet of water, however, the question became whether that easement suddenly “rolled” landward after the hurricane to make Severance’s land the new public beach. A federal court hearing her dispute with the state — which had sought to enforce an easement on her property — asked the Texas Supreme Court for guidance on that question.

One of us, Bill Peacock, was in 2003-04 the primary official under the land commissioner responsible for the General Land Office’s oversight of Texas beaches.

After touring the beaches numerous times and seeing the effects of both years of continuous erosion and recent storms — including houses on the beach and in the Gulf, it became obvious to him that the idea of public access to the beach suddenly being imposed onto private property after a storm presented major challenges to anyone interested in protecting private property rights.

Fortunately, Mr. Peacock wasn’t required to suspend his support of property rights to properly enforce the law.

Houses have periodically shown up on the public beach since we started building beach houses, yet this hasn’t stopped Texans from enjoying their beaches. People may have to walk around—or under—a house for a bit, but particularly after a major storm the houses quite often “move” back behind the vegetation line as the beaches are naturally replenished.

The Texas Open Beaches Act was adopted in 1959 with this reality in mind. In fact, it merely codified existing common law that ensured public access to already existing public beaches. What it did not do was create public beaches where none existed before. Thus there are miles of beaches along the Texas coast today that are not public.

Specifically, the Act guarantees public access to a beach “if the public has acquired a right of use or easement to or over an area by prescription, dedication, or has retained a right by virtue of continuous right in the public.” An easement, therefore, cannot just be asserted. It has to be proven by prescription, dedication, or custom.

As the Texas Supreme Court reviewed the case, it determined there was simply no evidence in the record of an easement by prescription or dedication on Severance’s land. And it is obvious that when an upland property suddenly becomes part of the beach due to a storm, the public has not had a “continuous right” to use it.

Based on this, the Court ruled (twice) that while the public has acquired the right to access many beaches over time, it does not suddenly acquire the right to access private property that becomes the beach because of a major storm.

The Court’s majority opinion cited legal precedent dating back to William Blackstone to explain that in the history of Anglo-American law it is well-established that the gradual shifting of the beach (through erosion) carries different legal consequences than a sudden shift (through avulsion). There is no authority in Texas for the proposition that an easement rolls inland after avulsion.

Thus it is possible for the public to acquire an easement over time as a beach gradually shifts and the public uses it without interference from property owners. But the law is clear that a beach cannot become public overnight.

Those attacking the Court’s decision are really attacking the body of Texas law that protects property owners from efforts to benefit the public — or some portion of it — at private expense. They are arguing that protecting property rights in this instance will somehow harm the public and therefore the state is justified in restricting those rights.

Texas law, however, already provides the means to put private beaches to a public use. If the public wants more beach access, then the state should pay for it through the use of eminent domain, just as it does when eminent domain is used to acquire land for various parks and recreational facilities throughout the state.

The requirement to pay just compensation for a public use, which is enshrined in both the Texas and U.S. Constitutions, is not just a matter of fairness; it is a way to encourage government accountability.

In a 1988 opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court explained this point by warning about government seizures of private property that could be achieved “off-budget, with relative invisibility and thus relative immunity from normal democratic processes.”

Forcing a government to pay just compensation thus plays a role in maintaining a healthy democratic process. The state presumably had many reasons for desiring a beach easement on Severance’s property, but government accountability is better preserved when the state is forced to present the reasons directly to the public.

Severance’s case, therefore, was not merely a “quixotic adventure” or a “thinly veiled Libertarian crusade” as one federal judge wrote in this dispute. Critics of the Court’s opinion in Severance should be wary of advocating for a doctrine that largely insulates the state from having to pay compensation to property owners along the Gulf, or anywhere in the state for that matter.

We see this type of assault on private property all the time. The Austin McMansion Ordinance is one instance, where homeowners are “protected” from their neighbors who want to build 2,600 square-foot houses. Zoning along Dallas’ Ross Avenue, which has driven out dozens of small businesses to the benefit of upscale urban residents, developers, and the tax collector, is another.

These efforts to subordinate property rights to the public good are seen by many as ways to boost economies and grow local tax bases. However, the opposite is true.

The real harm to society and the economy comes from not protecting private property. We’ve seen that repeatedly as governments across the country have trampled property rights and ruined their economies in the process. New York City in the 1970s and Michigan and California today come to mind.

Texas has taken the opposite path, leading the nation in job creation and economic strength, in large part because it has protected property rights better than almost any other state. This is evident once again in our laws that carefully balance property rights with public access to the beach.

Texans should be thankful we have such laws and that we have a Supreme Court that is willing to uphold them.

 

Bill Peacock is the Vice President for Research and Director for the Center for Economic Freedom at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a non-profit, free-market research institute based in Austin. Vikrant P. Reddy is a policy analyst in the Foundation’s Center for Effective Justice. 

Texas Weekly Newsreel: Early Voting, Endorsements

This week: What's up with early voting turnout, the latest Hotlist, and a quick guide to who is getting which endorsements.

Inside Intelligence: Who's Voting?

This week, we took one last look at the primary races, hitting Republicans this time and focusing on Congress. In races with big fields, there's a lot of confusion among the insiders, but they tend to stick with the names they know, and with the incumbent where an incumbent is available.

U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Ennis, was nearly a unanimous pick. In crowded races for open seats, most expect runoffs, and they went with candidates known to the Austin crowd: Rep. Randy Weber in CD-14, former Texas Secretary of State Roger Williams in CD-25 (followed by former Railroad Commissioner Michael Willams), and with Sen. Mike Jackson in CD-36. (Note: Our questions listed all of the candidates, but our charts list only the candidates who got at least one vote from the insiders.)

Most of the insiders expect a fairly low turnout in this delayed primary season, with 42 percent saying 1 to 1.5 million of the state's voters will turn out — somewhere around the 10 percent turnout range. Nearly a quarter think fewer than 1 million voters will show up, and another 22 percent put the number at 1.5 to 2 million.

We also asked when people will vote, and a third of the insiders think the early vote will account for more than half of the total. Another third put it in the 35-45 percent range.

We have attached the full set of verbatim comments; a sampling follows:

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Who do you think will win the CD-6 Republican primary?

• "Not Joe's year to lose, but he definitely did not draw this district for himself."

• "Barton votes too conservatively to be defeated."

• "Being unhappy with an incumbent doesn't mean you can beat him."

• "Value of incumbency will prevail again.... Barton has stayed too long."

• "Joe Barton is a bleeding idjit, but he's their bleeding idjit."

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Who do you think will win the CD-14 Republican primary?

• "July on the Texas Coast...runoff weather!"

• "Randy has the experience and the ability to articulate the issues that the others lack."

• "You mean in July? You should have asked for the likely pairings."

• "Wealth and party service will likely translate into a win for Truncale."

• "Weber and either Truncale or Old in a runoff."

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Who do you think will win the CD-25 Republican primary?

• "Runoff"

• "Williams is the only one with ads on TV, so I'll hedge my bet on him."

• "Feels like a runoff between Roger Williams plus either Dave Garrison or Michael Williams, with Roger winning the runoff."

• "Williams and Garrison in a run-off.  Big unreported story here is total collapse of Michael Williams."

• "Williams vs. Williams in a run-off.  Not talking Serena and Venus. Ultimately, statewide experience (and fundraising prowess?) wins.  The bowtie wins."

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Who do you think will win the CD-36 Republican primary?

• "Crusty, but conservative."

• "District drawn for Jackson"

• "Mike Jackson oozes "Congressman" from every pore of his body."

• "Again, who knows, but Jackson should have some money and name id."

• "My head says Michael Jackson, but my heart says Steve Stockman."

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How many Texans will vote in the two primaries?

• "November will be the MUCH LARGER vote because voters will vote AGAINST BHO."

• "No drama left in presidential race, plus negativity, plus little competition in Demo primary equals low turnout."

• "There is just not much interest this year."

• "There is too much voter confusion around the primary date to expect a robust turnout, though the Senate primary should bring out some motivated voters, especially in the Cruz corner."

• "What genius thought it would be a good idea to hold a primary election the day after Memorial Day?"

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What percentage of voters will vote early?

• "Voters are earnestly seeking a NEW president. We cannot continue with an almost 25% unemployment rate."

• "With the mass confusion of redistricting and the fatigue of back-to-back municipal and primary voting periods, this will be an insider election."

• "One third has become average, but low interest will push early voting percentages up."

• "Originally I thought 60%, now I'm bumping up to 75%."

• "Only the hard core troubadours are voting in this one. Not a lot of walk-up traffic." 

Our thanks to this week's participants: Cathie Adams, Brandon Aghamalian, Jenny Aghamalian, George Allen, Doc Arnold, Jay Arnold, Charles Bailey, Mike Barnett, Walt Baum, Dave Beckwith, Andrew Biar, Allen Blakemore, Tom Blanton, Steve Bresnen, Chris Britton, Andy Brown, Lydia Camarillo, Kerry Cammack, Thure Cannon, Corbin Casteel, Elna Christopher, George Cofer, Harold Cook, Randy Cubriel, Denise Davis, Hector De Leon, June Deadrick, Scott Dunaway, Jeff Eller, Alan Erwin, John Esparza, Jon Fisher, Tom Forbes, Terry Frakes, Wil Galloway, Bruce Gibson, Eric Glenn, Kinnan Golemon, Daniel Gonzalez, Thomas Graham, John Greytok, Clint Hackney, Wayne Hamilton, Bill Hammond, Sandy Haverlah, Adam Haynes, John Heasley, Jim Henson, Ken Hodges, Shanna Igo, Deborah Ingersoll, Jason Johnson, Mark Jones, Walt Jordan, Lisa Kaufman, Richard Khouri, Ramey Ko, Tim Lambert, Pete Laney, James LeBas, Luke Legate, Leslie Lemon, Ruben Longoria, Matt Mackowiak, Luke Marchant, Bryan Mayes, Patricia McCandless, Dan McClung, Parker McCollough, Mike McKinney, Robert Miller, Bee Moorhead, Steve Murdock, Craig Murphy, Keir Murray, Keats Norfleet, Pat Nugent, Sylvia Nugent, Gardner Pate, Tom Phillips, Royce Poinsett, Kraege Polan, Jay Propes, Ted Melina Raab, Bill Ratliff, Karen Reagan, Jeff Rotkoff, Jason Sabo, Mark Sanders, Andy Sansom, Jim Sartwelle, Stan Schlueter, Bruce Scott, Steve Scurlock, Dee Simpson, Ed Small, Todd Smith, Larry Soward, Dennis Speight, Jason Stanford, Bill Stevens, Bob Strauser, Colin Strother, Charles Stuart, Michael Quinn Sullivan, Sherry Sylvester, Jay Thompson, Russ Tidwell, Trent Townsend, Trey Trainor, Ware Wendell, Ken Whalen, Darren Whitehurst, Christopher Williston, Michael Wilt, Seth Winick, Peck Young, Angelo Zottarelli.

The Calendar

Saturday, May 19:

  • Reception for U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions; Dallas (9:30 a.m.)

Monday, May 21:

  • Smart.Clean.Energy course in smart grid and clean energy entrepreneurship; Austin (runs through May 25)
  • Texas Association of Business forum featuring state House candidate Cecil Bell Jr.; The Woodlands (11 a.m.)

Wednesday, May 23:

  • Gov. Rick Perry in Marshall to discuss his Texas Budget Compact; 11:15 a.m.
  • Reception for Rep. Tim Kleinschmidt; Austin (4:30 p.m.)

Thursday, May 24:

  • Reception for U.S. House candidate Nick Lampson; Friendswood (5 p.m.)
  • Fundraiser for HD-137 candidate Joseph Carlos Madden; Houston (5:30 p.m.)
 

The Week in the Rearview Mirror

Now that municipal elections are over, the polls are open for the long-awaited Texas primary. Early voting began Monday in advance of the May 29 election. No one knows what turnout will be like for the unprecedentedly late-in-the-season primary. Usually held on Super Tuesday, the primary was delayed as state officials and the courts hammered out an agreement on redistricting maps.

A permit issued by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality facing challenges from environmental groups has been reviewed by a district court judge, who indicated he would send the permit back for review. His misgivings about the energy plan’s permit include worries about the area’s resulting air quality and safety issues surrounding the plant’s fuel source. Judge Stephen Yelenosky, of the 345th District Court, said that worst-case scenarios were not modeled for the Las Brisas plant, planned for the Corpus Christi area, and that more hearings may be needed to determine whether the permit should be revised or revoked.

The long-standing dispute between Amazon and the state of Texas appears to be settled, provided that the legality of the deal doesn’t come into question. The company owed $269 million in back taxes and agreed to start collecting and remitting sales taxes to the state on July 1 for an undisclosed payment made to settle the issue. It also agreed to create 2,500 jobs in Texas and invest $200 million over the course of four years. Austin attorney Buck Wood challenged the deal as unconstitutional, arguing that Comptroller Susan Combs doesn’t have the power to forgive tax debts. Details of the settlement will remain confidential, but local governments or legislators could challenge the issue.

A federal directive designed to protect the offshore environment is having some unintended consequences. The U.S. Department of the Interior issued an order that oil companies should remove nonproducing oil platforms from the Gulf quickly in order to prevent them from becoming shipping hazards or leaking in the aftermath of storms. But the state of Texas is using the abandoned rigs to create habitat in the Gulf, and both Gov. Rick Perry and U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi, have written letters of protest to the agency’s director, Ken Salazar. The Rigs to Reefs program sinks the platforms, using the structures to create artificial reefs. Of the 66 reef sites in the Gulf, 70 percent of them started as oil rigs.

U.S. Rep. Ron Paul announced on Monday that he would not be campaigning further in his race for the presidency. In a public statement, he admitted that trying to compete in upcoming races would cost millions of dollars that his campaign does not have. He urged supporters to continue to stay involved and to “stay tuned” for ways they could help support his strategy.

Texas’ insurer of last resort for coastal residents, the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association, has approved a 5 percent rate hike for next year. The increase is across the board, and for now a decision about determining rates based on the susceptibility of a particular area to storm damage has been tabled. After Hurricane Ike hit the Gulf Coast in 2008, the organization found itself in the red when it not only faced payout of billions of dollars in claims, but also had to spend millions defending itself in court against mishandled claims. The Legislature tried to help TWIA in the last session with a restructuring and as part of that improvement gave the agency the power to adjust its rates based on specific geographic risk. That idea is still being considered and could be approved in the future.

For the second time, Texas’ Higher Education Coordinating Board has released an almanac detailing results of public colleges and universities across the state. The almanac includes information such as average tuition and fees, how long it takes students to earn their degrees and the particulars of their budgets. Commissioner of Higher Education Raymund Paredes instituted the publication of the almanac last year when he decided that making the information available online wasn’t enough. This year, he hopes to show the progress that’s been made and highlight what still needs to be done.

Texas’ death penalty again drew national scrutiny this week when a Columbia University study released claimed that Texas executed an innocent man. Columbia Law professor James Liebman led a team of students in investigating the case of Carlos DeLuna, put to death in late 1989 for the 1983 stabbing death of Wanda Lopez. Liebman and his team started their research on the case in 2004, and have produced a 436-page treatise on the case, published in the Columbia Human Rights Law Review.

The U.S. House showed a little bipartisan cooperation in passing a bill outlawing tunneling along the U.S.-Mexico border. Current laws didn’t specifically address the construction or financing of tunnels, and lawmakers wanted to close any loopholes allowing the building or use of tunnels. U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-El Paso, worked with Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, to author the House version of the bill, which passed with a vote of 416 to 4. The Senate passed a version of it earlier this year, and it now heads to the president’s desk for his signature. 

Political People and their Moves

State Rep. Veronica Gonzales, D-McAllen, is leaving the Legislature early, allowing her to take a job at UT-Pan American as vice president for university advancement. Gonzales had already decided against another term in the House, where she's served since 2005. She starts the new job July 1 and has to resign to accept it. That sets up a special election for her seat; Gov. Rick Perry could set that as late as the general election date. The contenders for her spot in the regular election are Democrat Bobby Guerra and Republican Miriam Martinez.

President Obama nominated Gary Blankinship to serve as United States Marshal for the Southern District of Texas. He has been employed by the Houston Police Department, where he worked his way through the ranks to the position of senior police officer, since 1982.

Karen Amacker is leaving the Texas Department of Transportation, where she was director of media relations to spend more time at home. She was at the agency for nearly four years and at the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault before that. 

Scott Stewart, most recently with Rep. Jim Murphy, R-Houston, is joining the Texas Lobby Group (Richard Evans' shop) to work on government affairs. 

Anne Brown has been selected as executive director of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation, the official nonprofit partner of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Since 2002, she has been with National Audubon Society.

Gov. Rick Perry appointed William “Bill” Heine III of Austin and Dennis L. Lewis of Texarkana to the Texas Military Preparedness Commission. Heine is CEO and president of American Constructors. Lewis is a military advisor and liaison to the Texarkana College Red River Army Depot.

The governor appointed Gary Aber, a Simonton veterinarian, to the Texas Racing Commission.

Baylor University announced that it received a major gift from Sheila and Walter Umphrey, of Beaumont, for Baylor Stadium, the university’s new on-campus football stadium.

Deaths: S.M. True of Plainview, who led the Texas Farm Bureau from 1982-93, died in an accident on his Hale County farm. He was 88.

Quotes of the Week

I don’t endorse people until I get asked.

Gov. Rick Perry when asked Wednesday whether he would endorse Speaker Joe Straus

Describing a 41-year-old African American male as a boy, in any context, is unacceptable and offensive.

Rep. Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas, in a statement asking Domingo Garcia, a Democratic candidate for Congressional District 33, to apologize for calling primary challenger Marc Veasey, who is black, an "errand boy"

If it's not part of a secret deal with Romney, it's merely utter idiocy.

Ron Paul biographer Brian Doherty to Slate on Paul's announcement this week that he would stop actively campaigning for president

In the coming days, my campaign leadership will lay out to you our delegate strategy and what you can do to help, so please stay tuned.

Ron Paul to supporters in an announcement Monday

If I were to have a 12-step process for recovering Democratic representatives, step one wouldn’t be running as a Republican. That would be step 12.

Bill Wilson II, a GOP challenger looking to unseat freshman state J.M. Lozano, R-Kingsville, who switched parties in March

Anyone who claims they know what this weird, late May 29 primary is going to do for voter turnout is making stuff up.

Conservative activist Michael Quinn Sullivan to The Associated Press

I don't think is this about getting re-elected. This is about what is morally right.

San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro to the San Antonio Express-News on President Obama's recent endorsement of gay marriage

If I am not successful, it won’t be because of race.

Rep. James White, currently in a primary contest against Rep. Mike Hamilton, on campaigning as a black Republican in deep Southeast Texas

My real opponent is me, in a sense. I'm a long-term incumbent, there's a lot of dissatisfaction with the job Congress is or isn't doing. My record is a central issue in the campaign.

U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Ennis, on his re-election bid

I had to get used to a much faster pace, a greater sense of urgency, a sense of not accepting the status quo and being as innovative as you can. I think he's doing a great job.

University of Texas System Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa on working with UT Board of Regents Chairman Gene Powell