State Government

It probably tickles the Yankees when a little ice shuts down the Texas government this way, but until the cabin fever set in, it offered a nice break from the head-banging that went on during the first week of the legislative session.

Gov. Rick Perry starts the session with higher education, health care, border security, appraisals and the state budget on his list of things to do. The governor, who’ll be sworn in for his second full four-year term next week, lived through a day of serial interviews with reporters, taking small bunches for a half-hour at a time. You’ll see varied reports depending on what he said to which group and what they thought was important. Some high points from our interview:

One of the rules of political reporting: Don’t predict the future.

Democrat Ciro Rodriguez soundly beat U.S. Rep. Henry Bonilla, R-San Antonio in an election triggered by redrawn congressional districts.

While business groups were trying to temper efforts to seal the border between the U.S. and Mexico this week, and Gov. Rick Perry was puncturing anti-immigrant proposals from the Legislature, the state’s chief financial officer was saying undocumented immigrants are a pretty good deal for Texas.

We’ll have to wait a month or more to see how state legislative leaders handle a budget that’s bound to grow 30 percent or more.

It often happens in races for the Texas House and the Texas Senate: Losers spend more than winners in tight races. Not always, but often enough to make this exercise interesting.

The blue wave that swept the country on Election Day wasn’t as obvious in Texas, where Republicans won all of the statewide offices on the ballot and held all but a couple of seats in the congressional delegation and the state Senate.

Face it: This is a political off year. There’s one race at the top of the ballot, and the polls, if they’re right, have been remarkably stagnant for a long time. There’s movement back there in the race for second, but the overall outlook is a lot like it was months ago. There’s one race in the Legislature that could change how things operate — it’s in the Senate — and a handful of races in the House that look to change the partisan makeup only slightly. Most of the statewide races are yawners, though it’s a nervous time for Republicans at the low end of the statewide ballot.

Without Houston lawyer John O’Quinn, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Chris Bell wouldn’t be on television during the last three weeks of this election cycle.