Health care

Political parties always have shadow groups that more or less parallel their interests. Labor lines up with Democrats, mostly. Manufacturers line up with Republicans, for some of the same reasons, most of the time. That’s just an example.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and House Speaker Tom Craddick were correct six weeks ago, and now the state has been treated to a live-action demonstration: The Texas Legislature is nowhere near a consensus on how to fix — or even whether to fix — school finance. Gov. Rick Perry’s ambitious gamble fell flat when lawmakers decided the rewards weren’t worth the risks.

Texas lawmakers returned to Austin for school finance, met as two large groups and then promptly adjourned for a week. That stifles legislative mischief while committees meet to talk about taxes and education and nothing else is going on. And it serves to get them out of the way of the nastiest comptroller-governor squabble since Mark White and Bob Bullock formed their mutual admiration society in the mid-1980s.

Take a look at the clock: The next available date for a regular constitutional amendment in Texas is in November. Tax appraisal notices go out in late spring — May or so — and people pay their property taxes — or their mortgage companies pay and then send out escrow notices — in December and January. Most cities and counties and school districts set their property tax rates in mid- to late-summer. And then the cycle starts all over again.

One way to torture public officials is to say or imply negative things about them while taking away their chance to respond. Travis County prosecutors are spreading the net on their investigation of campaign finance practice in the 2002 elections, adding five-dozen subpoenas to the half dozen revealed last week. They’re working with a grand jury that will remain in business through the end of March. And lawyers frown when their clients spit at prosecutors while grand juries are in session.

With Gov. Rick Perry out of the state and U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay on the scene to bridge the gap between lawmakers on either end of the Texas Capitol, Republicans finally ended their 10-month quest for a congressional redistricting map that’s kinder to their candidates.

Everybody in the Pink Building is being sued for stuff they thought they were allowed to do.

If Texas lawmakers and budgeteers make the right dance steps in the next few weeks, they’ll have $800 million available to add to next year’s spending — without a tax or fee increase.

Anything could go wrong or go unexpectedly well at this point in a legislative session. It could have been the budget, or insurance, clean air, or a government reorganization bill. The first mess involved the tort reformers, who went down to the wire with their impasse showing.

Every remaining day of the legislative session is a deadline for something and at the end of Wednesday, May 28, every bill that hasn’t won approval in some form in both chambers is dead. The mop-up that follows will reconcile differences in the bills–or not–and it’ll all be over a week from Monday, maybe for a while and maybe not.