State Government

Give the Republicans the edge, but the top four statewide races in Texas are as competitive at the tape as they have been in years. The GOP candidates are telling those who will listen that they’ve got the U.S. Senate and gubernatorial contests in the bag, but their actions suggest things are closer, with John Cornyn gripping President George W. Bush’s coattails (and Bush isn’t even on the ballot) and Gov. Rick Perry running the kind of final days Hail Mary ad normally associated with trailing and desperate campaigns.

It’s almost impossible to read election results into early turnout numbers, but it’s possible to tell whether various efforts to excite voters are working. The trouble is seeing past the political spinners who are trying to get their voters worked up while putting voters on the other side to sleep.

Watch the first four or five days of early voting numbers and you’ll have a pretty good notion of who’s playing air guitar and who’s got a Stratocaster. Democrats have been hyping this moment for more than a year, arguing that a normal turnout–unlike the one in 1998–will help some Democrats win statewide office, and arguing that a new turnout–based on changing demographics–will help more of them get over the hump. Republicans have been playing a different tune, saying the state is increasingly conservative and that Democrats shouldn’t assume that new voters of whatever race will automatically favor their candidates.

Five out of five experts agree: They don’t have a consensus on how many Texans will vote this year, or on which Texans will make up that total. That makes it difficult to know where to send mail, what shows to buy commercial time on, who to call when it’s time to get Joe and Josephine Sixpack off the couches and out to the polls. It’s got the smart people scratching their pointy heads.

The insurance issue blows up, the second-largest insurer plans to leave the state, more than a half million homeowners could be forced to change insurers during the next year. There’s plenty for regulators and legislators to do next year, but how does that splash in the election pool?

Several months ago, a spokesman for Attorney General John Cornyn popped off about the Democratic “Dream Team,” calling it a racial quota ticket that ultimately wouldn’t work. Cornyn disavowed it right away. Then U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm told Republican Party state delegates that Democrats were trying to divide the state’s voters on the basis of race. Soon after, in a press grab in Washington, D.C., Cornyn said Gramm was right to say race shouldn’t be the basis for the elections.

The well-worn rule is that the political season starts on Labor Day, but we’re doing now what would usually have been done then because of the 9/11 break in the political schedule. The ads are coming back on television now, and candidates who have been keeping a low profile are breaking into their sprints for the last six weeks before the elections.

While everyone is talking about the potential gap between income and spending in the next budget, the state is facing a big problem in the current budget. Put simply, lawmakers will face a combination of spending overruns and revenue shortfalls when they show up for work in January. Annual sales tax revenues have increased every year since 1983. But not last year: The state’s largest single source of tax income dropped by almost $187 million during the fiscal year that ended on August 31. It was supposed to increase by $366 million.

Partisans in Dallas County are gathering for a fight over who will get to vote on Election Day in November and in the early voting that leads up to it. Republicans call it Ballot Security. Democrats call it Voter Education. Both sides refer to what the other side is doing as Voter Intimidation.

The great thing about incumbency is that you control the government agencies you’re seeking to lead. For example, lookit: Gov. Rick Perry started a commercial that touts the fact that the Texas Department of Insurance issued a cease-and-desist order against Farmers Insurance. The ad began running the same day the order from TDI was announced, letting the governor–through the regulators–control what was in the papers at the same time he was starting a political ad reinforcing the message. The trick is getting voters to believe in reforms put in place so close to Election Day.