The Week in the Rearview Mirror

The Texas Senate approved a $195.5 billion budget Wednesday that even supporters called an intermediate step toward a final spending plan for the next two years. The $193.8 billion budget approved by the House Appropriations Committee Thursday includes an extra $2.5 billion for public education. The bill is smaller than the Senate budget by about $1.7 billion.

Longtime employees of the University of Texas System could not recall a split vote on the board of regents, which has traditionally settled differences behind closed doors and presented a unified front. That changed on Wednesday, when the board voted to review relations between UT-Austin and the UT Law School Foundation.

Wichita Falls is the largest city in Texas in danger of running out of water. According to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the city of more than 100,000 could run out of water in less than six months.

Legislation that could lead to term limits on statewide officeholders made its way through the Senate this week; if approved by the House and then by voters, it would limit non-judicial statewide officeholders to two four-year terms.

As recently as 2003, the president of the Greater Fort Bend County Tea Party had a different title: director of propaganda for the American Fascist Party. James Ives says he was working undercover doing research for a book he never wrote.