State Government

The “Rebecca” flap at the Texas Railroad Commission is giving outsiders a rationale for campaigns against RRC Chairman Michael Williams and giving insiders a reason to fund those campaigns.

The Tony Sanchez Jr. campaign has its first casualty. The not-yet-declared Democratic gubernatorial candidate hired a veteran migrant political worker—Robin Rorapaugh—as his campaign manager earlier this year. But Rorapaugh, who started here before moving to Florida to work on campaigns there, is heading back to the Sunshine State.

Underneath the talk about how things are going for the new management in Washington, D.C., there is serious turbulence in the new management that was left behind in Austin. And the “Under New Management” sign that figuratively hangs over the Texas Capitol will remain in place for almost two more years.

Message Slip Number One: Sen. David Sibley, the only Republican candidate for lieutenant governor with any legislative experience, dropped out of the race. He said, essentially, that his heart wasn’t in it, but the way he said it was to point out that campaigning for a Senate seat is kind of fun, and campaigning for statewide office isn’t the same. The Waco lawyer hasn’t announced his next step, but he’s got lots of options: Get out of office and get rich as a lawyer/lobbyist with close ties to the top executives in Washington, D.C. (Crawford, Texas, happens to be in Sibley’s district, and he and President George W. Bush are friends), and Austin (after some initial jousting, Sibley and Gov. Rick Perry worked out an alliance that still holds). Sibley could run for reelection. He’s been mentioned as a possible justice for the Texas Supreme Court, which has suddenly become a launch pad for statewide campaigns and federal appointments. He’s been mentioned as a federal judicial appointee, and in fact, took the test for such a position before withdrawing his name so he could run for Lite Guv. Sibley’s announcement leaves former Supreme Court Justice Greg Abbott and Land Commissioner David Dewhurst on the GOP side, and former Comptroller John Sharp and former U.S. Selective Service Director Gil Coronado on the Democratic side.

The upcoming school finance study could be a two-parter, with a special panel looking at everything except taxes and then and only then messing with taxes, and only if they must. That, according to Lt. Gov. Bill Ratliff, would separate the thicket of school funding formulas from the bramble of state taxes. Both are hairy problems, and they are interwoven, but Ratliff says he and House Speaker Pete Laney lean toward starting an interim study on school finance with taxes removed.

Some major legislation was still on the Maybe-Maybe Not list as the governor’s June 17 veto deadline approached. The list included the so-called Penry Bill, which would insert an evaluation of mental retardation into the state’s death penalty process and make it more difficult for the state to execute mentally retarded murderers. Gov. Rick Perry originally said the issue should be left to the courts, since the case involving Johnny Paul Penry was, at the time, pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. That court has since ruled (on a related, but somewhat different point about the judge’s instructions to the jury) and Perry no longer has that excuse. He’s getting advice both ways, both internally and externally, but hadn’t made a decision as of late Thursday.

After an arduous and grueling ten-day campaign (we’re joking, but only a little), Lt. Gov. Bill Ratliff dropped out of the 2002 race for the job he already holds. Ratliff jumped into the race on the last Saturday of the session, surrounded by family and bolstered by the presence of nearly a dozen senators. Less than two weeks later, he was standing in front of a bank of cameras and reporters to say that he wasn’t willing to make the compromises necessary in a successful statewide campaign.

Eight days isn’t much of a cooling off period, but the Legislative Redistricting Board will convene on Wednesday to start up to 60 days of work drawing political boundaries for the 2002 races for Texas House and Texas Senate. That start date puts the deadline for the LRB in the first week of August.

The rural areas are in worse shape than they were expecting. The suburbs are in better shape than they were expecting. The urban areas are in both better and worse shape—maybe it’s just disturbingly different than they expected. There is not a GOP primary for governor on the horizon.

The Texas Legislature is back for a politically interesting and potentially fractious session, but the folks directly involved in the 77th session began with a focus on other things.