Yet another moralizing pharmacist

What an outrage.

A pharmacist refused to fill a North Richland Hills woman's prescription for birth-control pills this week, but the woman hopes her experience will provoke an examination of pharmacists' power over patient care.

Julee Lacey, 32, a first-grade teacher and mother of two, ran out of birth-control pills Sunday night and went to her local CVS pharmacy for a last-minute refill. The new pharmacist at the branch told her, "I'm sorry, but I personally do not believe in birth control, so I will not fill your prescription," Mrs. Lacey recalled.

Her husband and the assistant manager could not persuade the pharmacist to change her mind.

When pressed, the pharmacist added that birth-control pills "cause cancer."

"I think my doctor should make these decisions," Mrs. Lacey said. "If they're going to decide not to do birth-control pills, where are they going to draw the line?"

CVS officials could not be reached for comment Tuesday, but a company spokesman told KXAS-TV (Channel 5) that a pharmacist who cannot fill a prescription because of a deeply held belief should ask another pharmacist to do so or call a competing store, if needed.

The incident may stoke a national debate that has put pharmacists on the front lines of the abortion issue.

In January, Eckerd drugstores fired a Denton pharmacist and two co-workers for refusing to sell the "morning-after" emergency contraceptive to a woman identified as a rape victim.

This jerk deserves to get fired just like the Eckerd's idiots did. Here's CVS' corporate contact info if you'd like to help them come to the right decision.

Officials at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, which dispenses contraception and medical care, including abortions, decried what appeared to be "a dangerous trend" and called birth-control pills "basic health care."

But Elizabeth Graham, director of the Houston-based Texas Right to Life Committee, has said pharmacists have a moral right to refuse to fill some prescriptions.

According to the Texas State Board of Pharmacy, pharmacists may decline to fill prescriptions if they might harm patients, but not on moral grounds.

Moral right, my uvula. Would you expect a steakhouse to keep a waiter who refused to serve beef because he believes meat is murder? It's the same damn thing.

One more thing: Anyone want to bet that if Julee Lacey's husband had gone into this CVS to buy a box of condoms, the pharmacist would have rung up the sale without batting an eye?

Via Retrogrouch.

Les Francais, ils aiment McDonalds

Ah, French cuisine. Escargot. Crepes Suzettes. Big Mac and fries.

Call the French snooty, or just demanding, for their attention to good food, good wine, good atmosphere in their restaurants. But the French have a dirty little secret: Of all the people in Europe, they like McDonald's more than anyone else.

Pound for quarter-pound, they eat more of it, more often, than any other nationality on the continent, and the naysayers here who predicted the French would give up their beloved aged cheese before adopting the fried meat patties so often seen as emblematic of America's bad taste, have been proven as wrong as red wine with fish.

Yes, we ate at McDonald's a couple of times while in France last October (something we almost never do here). Sometimes you need a little taste of home, and sometimes you just need to eat cheaply (relatively, anyway - a Big Mac'll set you back over $3.50). We also ate lots of good French food, so don't get all indignant on me.

My theory for why the French love Mickey D's: The fries. Pommes frites are a common side dish over there, at least at the restaurants we visited, which included some pretty fancy ones. Ever have fries with veal medallions in a nice brown gravy? If there's one thing better than french fries, it's french fries with gravy. My arteries are hardening just thinking about it, but boy was it good.

Casey v. Neeley

I've done my share of ragging on Rick Casey, the Chron's hotshot columnist, who by and large hasn't been all that impressive to me. I have to say, though, when he connects he can hit it out of the park. His series on the hype versus the reality for Shirley Neeley, the Galena Park ISD superintendant who was named State Commissioner of Education in January (see Part One and Part Two; Part Three is Friday) is a great read. Check it out.

Doing good works

There's been some good discussion of the theological implications of John Kerry's use of Scripture and Team Bush's fierce response to it. In particular, I suggest you check out Lean Left, Political Aims (Happy Blogiversary, Amy, by the way), Slacktivist, and The Talent Show, who makes use of a Jack Chick tract to illustrate the point of contention. Those of you not familiar with Chick might not realize that the "millions of people who are trusting in their good works" yet are doomed to hell are Catholics - Kevin at Lean Left picked up on the Catholicism of Kerry's remarks, and as a one-time nice Catholic boy myself, they made perfect sense to me as well.

Anyway, some good reading there, so check it out.

Pop ups???

I first saw this in a Kos diary, but without a link I was not willing to believe it. Now that I've done a little Googling, I can see for myself that it's true: The GOP's Internet "strategy" is ludicrous.

In a possible harbinger of future e-campaigns, visitors to websites such as Music.com, Accuweather.com and TVGuide.com in recent days have been greeted by one of the year's first online political attacks.

The banner and pop-up ads placed by the Republican National Committee on about 1,400 sites starting March 19 attacked presumptive Democratic nominee John F. Kerry for his vote last year against spending $87 billion for military operations and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Pop-up ads? POP-UP ADS? Are they on crack? Have they never heard of the X10 camera and the violent hatred those ads inspired? Are they not at all familiar with the range of popup blocking technologies, from Mozilla to Google's Toolbar, from AdSubtract to Earthlink? I was going to make a snarky comment about the GOP's support for Microsoft throughout its antitrust trial, but it turns out that even Internet Explorer will soon have the ability to kill the accursed things. What century are these guys living in?

Of course, as a good Democrat, I heartily cheer this effort. You go, guys! Spread those popups like kudzu!

"It's one more way to reach out to voters, but it's a very new medium," said RNC spokeswoman Christine Iverson. "We're on the frontier right now of figuring out how to use the Internet effectively for political communications."

Take your time. No rush.

UPDATE: Rob Booth and WhiteHouseForSale have various nits to pick with me, which I address in the comments.

DeLay denies indictment reports

Tom DeLay is denying earlier reports that he has taken steps to deal with the possibility of being indicted by a Travis County grand jury in its investigation of TRM/TAB (see here).

"If the law is the standard in the state of Texas, then we have no problems and we don't anticipate a problem," DeLay, R-Sugar Land, said emphatically during a news conference in Washington.

"I have not been notified that I am being investigated; I have not been subpoenaed," he said.

Targets of grand jury investigations aren't always notified, however.

The Houston Chronicle reported last week that DeLay had told a group of Houston supporters March 8 that he may need to raise more money for a legal defense fund. There also have been reports in Washington that DeLay has discussed with some House Republicans a GOP conference rule that requires party leaders to step aside if they are indicted on a felony punishable by at least two years in prison. DeLay is the second-highest-ranking Republican in the House.

"All the reports are wrong. The reports in Washington are particularly wrong," DeLay said. Speculation that he would consider stepping aside is "ridiculous," he added.

DeLay acknowledged that during a recent meeting with financial supporters in Houston, he discussed what he called a political witch hunt by Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, a Democrat. DeLay denied there were discussions about a legal defense fund for this case.

"None of that happened," DeLay said. "I don't have a transcript of everything that I said. Obviously, somebody sitting in that room -- even though he gives me money, does not exactly support me -- ran quickly to the Houston Chronicle. I don't know what he said, and I really don't care what he said."

I'm not quite sure what he meant by that first sentence; as I understand it, the point of the earlier speculation was that Republican Party rules require a temporary abdication of leadership positions for someone who's under indictment. That has nothing to do with Texas law. DeLay is clearly saying that he doesn't expect to be indicted, and he may well be right, but that seems a bit tangential to the subject.

Anyway. New grand jury is in next week, and things ought to pick up from there.

Cuellar takes the lead

Some 300 new ballots have been found in Zapata County, and they have combined to give Henry Cuellar a slim lead in his primary race against Rep. Ciro Rodriguez.

More than 300 votes were discovered during a Zapata County recount in the District 28 congressional battle, giving Laredo's Henry Cuellar a slight lead over U.S. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez.

The votes apparently came from one of the two early vote boxes, according to officials with the Zapata County Elections Department.

It was unclear this afternoon how large Cuellar's lead is.

The discovery of the missing votes is highly suspicious, according to Rodriguez.

“There's no doubt that there's some fraud going on, some illegal activities,” he said today.

Rodriguez is planning to file a lawsuit contesting the recount results, said his Austin-based attorney Buck Wood.

“I've been doing this for over 30 years and I've never seen 300 or so ballots appear suddenly,” said Wood, a former elections director for the Texas secretary of state's office.“To tell you that I'm suspicious and baffled is an understatement.”

Cuellar officials were not immediately available to comment today.Although Cuellar lives in Webb County, his mother lives in Zapata County.

The recount, which began Friday in Atascosa and Wilson counties, came after a hotly contested race in the battle for the seat, which represents 11 counties stretching from Hays in the north to Zapata in the south. Rodriguez, who led at the beginning of the recount by 145 votes, had increased his margin by five votes after recounts in five of the district's 11 counties.

Officials were conducting a recount in Webb County this afternoon and were scheduled to proceed with Bexar County and Hays County on Wednesday.

Well, isn't that special? I wonder if Cuellar has erected an altar to LBJ in his back yard. That's as good an explanation of the newly-discovered ballots as anything I can think of.

This AP report gives Cuellar a 30-vote lead, but the Quorum Report puts it at a 20-vote margin, and makes a slight correction to the E-N story:

Challenger Henry Cuellar has picked up a net gain of 170 votes in Zapata County following this morning's recount, giving him a lead of 30 votes over incumbent Rep. Ciro Rodriguez (D-San Antonio) in the Congressional District 28 Democratic primary.

You may recall that Zapata County's optical scanner machine was programmed wrongly and local high school students had to hand-count the vote all through election night.

The Zapata County vote was completed [just after noon]. The recount provided 304 new votes - not ballots - were found, with 237 going to Cuellar and 67 going to Rodriguez.

The recount in Webb County, Cuellar's base, starts at 2 p.m. today.

According to the AP story, Bexar County (San Antonio) and Hays County (San Marcos) recount on Wednesday, while Guadaloupe (Seguin) and Comal (New Braunfels) do their thing on Thursday. If Rodriguez is going to regain ground, it'll be in those counties. We should have an answer by then, though QR also reports that the Rodriguez camp is ready to file a lawsuit to block the results. So who knows? Stay tuned.

UPDATE: And it just gets weirder:

In a dramatic turnaround certain to add to the lore of South Texas politics, Laredo lawyer Henry Cuellar first took a 197-vote lead over U.S. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez after recounts in Webb and Zapata counties Tuesday.

Then, just a few hours later, state Democratic Party officials said the final recount tally in Webb County showed 115 more votes than there were ballots cast. A re-recount won't be done until Sunday, officials said.

Meanwhile, Bexar and Hays will have their recounts today, and Comal and Guadalupe will conduct theirs Thursday.

[...]

"There will be a shadow over the election almost no matter which one comes ahead now," said Jerry Polinard, a political scientist at the University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg.

It was unclear late Tuesday what the problem was in Webb, but in Zapata, a tabulation error apparently missed 304 early votes, said Zapata Democratic Party Chairman Teo Garza.

Contrary to rumors that new ballots were discovered, Garza stressed that the 304 votes had been counted, but weren't properly recorded.

"There's no funny business going on," said Garza, who's running his first election as party chairman.

If you say so. I'd like to know more about that 115-vote discrepancy before I sign off on that one.

I wasn't the only one thinking of Landslide Lyndon when hearing about this:

The mother of all South Texas corruption stories is the legend of Box 13, a cache of 202 votes found after the 1948 primary with similar handwriting in the same color ink

The votes, which came out of Jim Wells County, put LBJ narrowly over the top and earned him the tongue-in-cheek name "Landslide Lyndon."

But some cautioned against drawing too close a comparison between the ghosts of elections past and the situation in Zapata County.

Short of any clear evidence of corruption, the shift in votes in Zapata is "tiddlywinks" compared to the blatant skullduggery involving Box 13, said Bob Bezdek, a political scientist at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi.

"This is a different era," said Bezdek, who has studied the fabled election. "Box 13 was a blatant attempt to get votes after the election was over. This appears to be minor stuff."

Everything may be on the up and up, but that doesn't mean it isn't about to get very messy. Let's see what happens in Bexar and neighboring counties, but be ready for a lawsuit one way or another when it's all done.

"The Complete Peanuts", Volume One

Mark Evanier reviews the first of the Complete Peanuts volumes and explains why you should spend a few extra bucks and order it straight from the publisher instead of Amazon. Check it out.

Bloglines

I've been migrating all of my regular reads into the Bloglines RSS aggregator. I've been wanting some kind of aggregator for my blogroll for awhile now, and as I've been getting a good number of referrals from Bloglines pages, I figured I'd give it a try. Here are the pros and cons of my experience so far.

Pro:

Blogrolling has a feature that shows when a blog has been updated, but it's never been very useful to me because it doesn't toggle off after you've followed the link. As such, I find myself re-visiting blogs that haven't been updated since the last time I looked, and not getting to all the blogs I want to see on a given day. Bloglines shows me who's updated, how many updates they have, what those updates are, and best of all, it toggles off when I've checked it out. That right there is a big win for me.

I think the biggest benefit here will be from blogs that update very often, and blogs that update infrequently. I can keep up with ever-updated sites like Pandagon, instead of facing a long page of new posts. Or I can find out when a favored low-frequency site like Soundbitten has updated without having to remember to check it on a regular basis. Bottom line: fewer wasted clicks, less compunction to skim.

Another benefit: By being able to see the beginning of each entry, I can if I want simply pick the posts I really want to read. I love Off Wing Opinion, but I'm not a big hockey fan, so rather than click and scroll, I can click over when there's something there that is more interesting to me. Same thing with Unqualified Offerings and his comics blogging (note to Jim: Your Fanboy Free feed has the same URL as your Everything feed.) There's a lot of blogs out there that I want to read, and only so much time during the day. Any efficiency I can squeeze out of the system will help me do what I want to do.

Finally, I can organize and categorize the blogs I read in a more useful-to-me fashion. Yes, I know, Blogrolling has that feature in its paid version. Bloglines has it in the free service. Which would you prefer?

Con:

Not everybody has an RSS feed. Mostly Blogspot and handrolled blogs fall into this bucket, but somewhat to my surprise so does Kos. I'd rather just use one tool for my blogreading if I could, but until I can convince everyone to generate an RSS feed, I'll still have to check some blogs via my blogroll. Note to Blogger users: check out Atom, which can be used on Blogspot. There are other RSS generators out there - drop me a line if you have a question.

Bloglines doesn't see new posts right away. Not a really big deal - most of 'em seem to show up within a few minutes. I have seen some RSS feeds that have either been abandoned or just not updated much, though.

Referral logs won't tell you who that Bloglines visitor is, so my regular reads may see fewer offthekuff.com links in their stats. I swear, I'm visiting - maybe even more often than before! - but I can't prove it by your logs. Sorry about that.

So far, I'm pretty happy with it. I've even added a couple of blogs that were off my main blogroll, on the (possibly deluded) belief that this newfound efficiency will really enable me to get around more. We'll see. Anyone else out there using Bloglines? Let me know what you think about it.

UPDATE: Thanks to Ravi in the comments for pointing out that Kos does too have an RSS feed: http://www.dailykos.com/index.rdf. It's just apparently not published in any way that Bloglines or I could find it, it's pretty skimpy, and of course it exlcudes the diaries. But it's there, and it accomplishes my main goal of knowing when Kos has updated (and I can avoid his open threads if I want to).

One other thing that I forgot to add: Bloglines in conjunction with Mozilla's tabbed browsing really really rocks. Trust me on this.

She got game

Cool.

In what could prove a significant step in the evolution of women's athletics, a high school girls basketball player did more than just compete in a slam dunk contest Monday against five of the nation's best high school boys players.

Candace Parker, a 6-3 17-year-old from Naperville, Ill., won the event, beating a field of male competitors that included at least two who could be playing in the NBA next season.

"I was saying earlier that I hope 10 years from now this isn't a big deal," said Parker, who will play at Tennessee next season. "That would be my dream. That 10 years from now three or four girls enter the dunk contest and it's not a big deal. It's not like, 'Wow, she won.' I hope that happens."

You can catch her winning act on ESPN tomorrow night. Surprising as that was, I'm more amazed by this:

The unlikely winner upstaged, at least for the moment, a highly-anticipated McDonald's All-American boys' game that will include as many as 12 players who could skip college and enter the NBA draft. Some players have likened the game to an NBA tryout that will determine draft positioning and salaries.

Emphasis mine. Gonzaga may have flamed out in the NCAAs this year, but I still believe that their ability to retain players through their senior years is a competitive advantage.

Via Eric McErlain.

BlogAds followup

Martin Frost is the latest candidate to run BlogAds, joining fellow Texan Morris Meyer in tapping this market. I've been wondering ever since Ben Chandler's much-ballyhooed (and now copied) success at running BlogAds how other candidates would do now that there's more of them in the mix and almost none of them are in a high-visibility special election in which their candidacy and fundraising needs have been shilled all around the blog world. So, I took it upon myself to ask all of them campaigns that have run these ads what their opinion of them was. I'm a bit annoyed that I only got three responses - you would think that if a candidate's strategy includes this kind of Internet outreach, they'd be a bit more solicitous about replying to email - but that's the way it goes. I've reproduced the questions and answers below the More link. Short answer: Good news for BlogAds and the candidates who want to use them.

UPDATE: As March comes to a close, you can help all of the BlogAds-buying candidates make their quarterly numbers look better. Kos has all the links.

1. Have you raised more money via BlogAds than you spent on them?

- From Martin Matheny on behalf of Doug Haines:

"Yes, we have recouped our investment and then some."

- From Clay McReynolds on behalf of Morris Meyer:

"Yes, about 10 to 1."

- From Jeff Smith:

"Yes."

2. Have you gotten any other favorable result (volunteers, good publicity, etc) from the ads?

- From Martin Matheny on behalf of Doug Haines:

"The benefits we have received from blogads go far beyond fundraising. Doug Haines is a grassroots candidate, and one thing that we are very serious about is having a real discussion with voters in the 12th District and across the country. Traffic on our blog has increased, especially since Doug has started blogging himself (taking questions and answering them on our blog). From my perspective, we have gotten a number of great stories in the media, both local and national media outlets, actually."

- From Clay McReynolds on behalf of Morris Meyer:

"Yes, both good publicity and volunteers."

- From Jeff Smith:

"A little PR and notoriety."

3. What if anything would you change about the experience?

- From Martin Matheny on behalf of Doug Haines:

"I can't think of anything that we would change about our experience. Honestly, Doug is very pleased with the response we've been getting."

- From Clay McReynolds on behalf of Morris Meyer:

"I would have gotten started sooner. When we first got out there, we were one of a very few. Within weeks, we were part of a crowd."

- From Jeff Smith:

"Better ad placement!"

4. Do you think this is a fad, or do you think BlogAds are here to stay?

- From Martin Matheny on behalf of Doug Haines:

"I do think blogads and blogging in general are here to stay for political candidates. Television had been around for quite awhile before Eisenhower ran the first political ads. I would imagine the same is true of radio. More recently, the web had been around for years before candidates starting putting up their own sites. Blogads are a very good way to reach an informed and engaged electorate, and candidates blogs are another way to talk to voters."

- From Clay McReynolds on behalf of Morris Meyer:

"No fad, but their nature is sure to change over time. They will become more sophisticated."

- From Jeff Smith:

"Here to stay."

Buy-curious

I'll let Julia explain it all to you about Lynne Cheney's hot lesbian Western bodice-ripper. I just wanted to note that I knew some people at Rice who considered it a good time to crack open a few brewskies and do dramatic readings from the pages of Penthouse Forum. Having now sampled some of Mrs. Cheney's prose, I think her book would have made an excellent proxy for those times when the latest issue hadn't arrived in the mail yet. Just remember that you can get totally different shades of meaning depending on whether you use the William Shatner intonation or the "In a world where..." Movie Trailer Voiceover intonation.

How do you say "Opening Day" in Japanese?

The Devil Rays beat the Yankees earlier today by the score of 8-3 in the Tokyo Dome.

The hosts did their best to duplicate the atmosphere of games back home, with some twists, of course.

The Yankees, including Hall of Famers Yogi Berra and Reggie Jackson, were introduced to "New York, New York," while the Devil Rays came out to Anastacia.

Even though New York was the visiting team, the Yankees wore their famous pinstripes -- the Hall of Fame couldn't find any records of them having done that before.

That's cool. Someone will win a bar bet with that trivia question this year.

Women in pink-and-green kimonos presented Torre and Devil Rays manager Lou Piniella with bouquets. Many of the ads on the outfield walls were in Japanese kanji script, and women vendors walked through the aisles selling whiskey.

Hmm. I don't remember whiskey vendors at the game I attended, but then I was at Jingu Stadium and not the Tokyo Dome.

The two teams play again tomorrow, then fly back for the real Opening Day on Sunday. Hope the D-Rays enjoy their temporary stay in first place. I doubt that's gonna last much longer.

Calvin Murphy charged

I'm in shock.

Hall of Fame basketball player and Houston icon Calvin Murphy was charged Monday with sexually molesting five of his daughters more than a decade ago.

Murphy, a television commentator for the Rockets, surrendered to authorities after being charged with three counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child and three counts of indecency with a child, said Lance Long, a Harris County assistant district attorney.

The charges involve five grown daughters who said Murphy sexually abused them between 1988 and 1991, when they were under 17, according to an affidavit by the Texas Rangers.

[...]

"He adamantly denies the charges," Hardin said. "We've investigated these charges for a couple weeks and we are just as convinced it did not happen as the district attorney's office is that it did."

Hardin said Murphy is "absolutely devastated" by the allegations because "he spent his whole life in the public arena and he knows people are going to assume it's true." Hardin said he wished the charges had been presented to a grand jury.

Hardin said the allegations are an attempt to get back at Murphy because he wouldn't give the women money. He said that three daughters wanted retirement money their mother left to Murphy after she died in a car accident. Hardin also said that because of past financial troubles Murphy doesn't have the financial means people assume he has.

[...]

If convicted of the charges, Murphy faces five years to life for the aggravated offenses and two to 20 years for the indecency violations, Long said. Because Murphy doesn't have a criminal history, he could also be eligible for probation if he's convicted, Long added.

District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal said late Monday that Murphy may also face additional charges, but he did not elaborate.

Long would not reveal the origin of the investigation, which he said had been ongoing for several weeks.

Hardin said Murphy, a Sugar Land resident, cooperated with the investigation and that he even escorted witnesses to the district attorney's office for questioning. Hardin said many witnesses, including one of the daughters named in the charges, told authorities the alleged abuses didn't occur.

Hardin questioned why the women are only coming forward 13 years after the most recent incident was alleged to have happened.

I don't know what to say. Whether the charges are true or Rusty Hardin's counterallegation that this is some kind of extortion scheme is true, it's horrible either way. I just hope that justice is done in the end.

Progress yes, consensus no

Over the weekend, our only Governor reported that progress has been made towards a consensus that would allow for him to call for a special session on school finance reform.

Perry, a Republican, said his meeting with about 50 members of the House Republican Caucus at a retreat in nearby Boerne was constructive and "moved the ball forward."

He didn't discuss specifics but said he believes a consensus is developing on how to tackle the state's school finance problem.

One area of agreement among lawmakers, Perry said, appears to be in what he calls his "excellence initiative," which would provide financial rewards for schools that meet certain testing and dropout standards. He also said Republicans and Democrats want property tax relief.

"I have had no Democrats that have come up to me, and send any messages to me, that they want to see property taxes rise," he said. "So, I think there's some clear agreement there."

However, there is no agreement among Perry and the two Republican leaders of the Legislature -- Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and House Speaker Tom Craddick -- on how to replenish money lost through potential property tax valuation caps. The three also do not agree on how to come up with additional money that might be pumped into the school system.

Legislators are divided over whether to overhaul the school finance system now or to make smaller changes with an eye toward replacing it in the future.

I'm giving up trying to read the tea leaves on this one. I have no idea if there'll be a special session or not, and I have no idea if the intent of a special session would be radical overhaul or incremental tinkering. Just keep in mind that even though after all this time nobody has any clue, last year at this time some Republicans were proposing to eliminate the current Robin Hood plan by 2005 without having a replacement plan in the pipe. You may consider working without a net to be a good way to focus on the issue at hand. I consider it a good way to wind up dead on the floor.

More people seem to be thinking that there will be no special session, and some of them are just fine with that idea.

A spokesman for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which has been modeling the impact of tax changes on the Texas economy, said: "Be careful."

"As upset as any of us may be about taxes and education, we don't want things to be made inadvertently worse," Michael Sullivan said. "Simply not calling a special session shouldn't be a bad thing."

School districts, many of them suing the state, fret that lawmakers intent on lower taxes — including Perry's proposal to require voter action if local governments want to outspend inflation and population growth — will neglect education aid.

Catherine Clark of the Texas Association of School Boards favors "the plan where the special session never happens."

Of course, waiting in the wings, is another force to be reckoned with:

Districts have a July 26 trial date for their lawsuit charging a failure to adequately support schools.

They say a World War II-era law limiting local taxes for school maintenance and operations to $1.50 per $100 valuation amounts to a restrictive, unconstitutional statewide property tax.

As of 2003, nearly 500 of the state's 1,000-plus districts were at the cap, including 13 Bexar County districts: Alamo Heights, East Central, Edgewood, Harlandale, Judson, North East, Northside, San Antonio, Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City, Somerset, Southwest, South San Antonio and Southside.

Like others, the judge hearing the suit awaits Perry's decision.

"Are they going to address it?" state District Judge John Dietz of Austin asked. "If the Legislature doesn't speak, then the judiciary is going to have to."

I'm not sure which we should fear more.

Boo Boos in Paradise

Well, thanks to my enforced silence this morning, pretty much everyone else has beaten me to the punch on this excellent deconstruction of David Brooks. I guess I don't have a whole lot more to add to what's already been said (see here, here, and here for a sample), but I will say that I've never quite understood the appeal of arguing by sweeping generalization. Maybe it's just me, but my first reaction whenever I hear someone state a "fact" about a group of people that includes me is almost always "no, that's not what it's like for me". As such, I have a hard time relating to any of the people that Brooks writes about. Of course, since he appears to have made most of it up, perhaps the fault is his and not mine. Anyway, check it out.

UPDATE: Okay, I just said I don't like generalizations, but this is too funny to resist. From CrispyShot's comment here about the difference between Minnesota friendliness and Texas friendliness:

The folks here are very helpful and friendly, but in a more reserved, Germanic, respect-your-personal-space kinda way, at least compared to Texas. Minnesotans say, "Hi, nice to meet you, how do you like it here?" Texans will take you for their best friend immediately: "Hon, how'd you get that scar?"

Naturally, Minnesota was a Blue State in 2000, while Texas is redder than a peck of unpickled peppers. Someone get me Brooksie on the line, I'll bet he can get a whole column out of this.

Pledge the Preamble!

This is my preferred solution to the whole Pledge of Allegiance "under God" situation.

The best solution to this problem -- one that respects both the community's desire to instill patriotism and the conscience of religious dissenters -- is to end recitation not just of the words "under God" but of the entire Pledge of Allegiance. In its place would go a much better statement of our national values: the Preamble to the Constitution.

Damn straight. Extra bonus points to any school board that proposes singing it, which as all of us who grew up in the 70s know is the One True Way to recite the preamble.

Seriously, I love this idea. I've never liked the Pledge (with or without any "ceremonial deism" thrown in), I don't like loyalty oaths, and I think we don't spend nearly enough time in our schools teaching the Constitution. Who could object to this?

And as long as I'm wishing for things that'll never happen, how about teaching the younger kids what the words in the Preamble mean so they'll have some idea what they're saying? (Even growing up doesn't always help those of us who have problems understanding the Pledge.) I don't know about you, but I'd been reciting the Pledge for many years before I even knew what the phrase "I pledge allegiance" meant. Surely we don't still consider rote memorization to be a virtue these days.

Thanks to Hope for finding this.

Wonkiness

Apparently, my webhost is having some mySQL problems today. Slow response and an involuntary morning hiatus are the symptoms, but it appears they are finding a cure. Obviously, since here I am. Right, then.

One week to go

Opening Day for the Timbergrove Little League is this coming Saturday. We'll finally get to play on the brand-new fields that were supposed to be ready for last year's season but were delayed due to drainage problems. We were able to practice there last Tuesday, and with two batting cages we were able to really multitask effectively. Gary worked with pitchers and catchers while rotating everyone through for a few swings while I hit grounders and fly balls for some defensive drills. It was really sweet.

There have been a couple of bumps and bruises in recent practices, thanks to some bad hops and some bad glove-holding technique. The former can't be avoided, but I'm hoping that the latter will help convince some of the kids who hold their gloves pocket-side up all the time that there's a better way. We made it through last year without anyone getting really dinged up, and I hope that continues this year.

One of the mothers approached me after Thursday's practice to ask if we were going to work with the kids on how to slide. That's something I didn't do last year, and truth be told it's not a really high priority this year, not when the basics of throwing and catching are still big needs. Besides, though I've not forgotten how to do it, I'm not sure how easily I'll get back up after demonstrating a slide. Seeing a coach injure himself will surely leave an impression, though it may not be the impression you want to leave.

We definitely have some pitching power this year - four guys who can throw fastballs that will be hard for the average kid to hit. Defense is always a shaky thing for any team, so the more Ks you can rack up, the better your odds will be. The catchers will come from this same group of kids, so we might also be able to control the running game a bit. The rule is that you can't leave a base until the ball passes the batter. For the most part, if the pitch is caught by the catcher, runners stay put. Our guys will have a chance at making a play at least some of the time when they don't catch the ball cleanly.

We've had good weather karma so far - no practices lost to rain as yet. Fridays are the designated rain days during the season. I hope we don't need them.

Six days to go. I'm getting excited.

Let us all now join together

This is what Democratic unity looks like.

John Kerry is getting fund-raising and message-making help from his former Democratic primary foes, some of whom are potential running mates and big financial draws in important parts of the country.

Missouri Rep. Richard Gephardt, Florida Sen. Bob Graham, retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark and North Carolina Sen. John Edwards are opening doors and wallets for Kerry as he tries to raise $80 million for his presidential campaign by midsummer.

Kerry began this month $5 million in the hole, but he's raised about $1 million a day on the Internet for the past 10 days. However, he still lags far behind President Bush, who has $108 million on hand and is expected to raise as much as $200 million by the end of summer.

Nevertheless, the speed with which Kerry has recruited his former rivals as allies has stunned many Democrats and unsettled Republicans, who worry that the Democrats' animosity to Bush, doubts about the war in Iraq and fears about the economy are helping Kerry unite his often fractious party.

"This is the only time that I can remember where all of the groups that make up the Democratic Party, everyone has said, you don't have to be with us 100 percent," said Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del.

The money and the willingness to give are there - Atrios would now be a John Kerry Pioneer if Kerry were into giving out nicknames and decoder rings. It's Joe Biden's line about not having to be with us 100% that really gets me fired up, though. We can reconvene the circular firing squads after November if we want to, but for now we're focused, and it's a beautiful thing.

Kerry's former rivals are starting to ramp up their roles. Gephardt will campaign with Kerry in Missouri on Saturday. Clark and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean are tapping their Internet networks and soliciting help for Kerry. Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut is expected to campaign for Kerry soon in Florida. Edwards, a former trial lawyer who's been on vacation, has told Kerry aides that he's ready to hit the stump and has made his extensive contacts among deep-pocketed lawyers available to Kerry.

"They've all offered to do both money and surrogate stuff," said Steve Elmendorf, Kerry's deputy campaign manager. "We'll be utilizing them a lot."

Just wanted to note that last bit for those who might have wondered why not all of the candidates were mentioned in the opening grafs. Yes, even Lieberman is helping out, and Florida is one place he can really make a difference. Those of you who spit when you hear his name should keep that in mind.

More commuter rail considered

Another day, another commuter rail study.

Harris County is casting its eye on five additional corridors to study for potential commuter rail lines.

Commissioners Court is expected next Tuesday to tell the county's Public Infrastructure Department to begin negotiations with a consultant to conduct a preliminary study of existing freight lines along Texas 3, Mykawa Road, FM 521, Hardy Road and U.S. 59 North.

The consultant, DMJM+Harris, already has performed a preliminary assessment of potential commuter rail corridors along U.S. 290, Texas 249 and U.S. 90A.

That study, completed last December, concluded that by using existing freight lines, the county could get more than 80 miles of commuter rail in northwest Harris County at a cost of about $295 million, or about $3.5 million per mile.

Since then, Eckels and Commissioners Court have said they wanted to look at other potential corridors. Eckels and Commissioner Steve Radack have championed the idea of commuter rail, arguing that it would be cheaper to implement than the Metropolitan Transit Authority's $5.8 billion rail plan.

Eckels, who could not be reached for comment Friday, has said he believes the county could have as much as 100 miles of commuter rail within five years.

I know that being not-Metro is one of the things that's motivating Robert Eckels here, but if the end result is commuter rail, then I don't care what his reasons are. It's the right thing to do and that's what really matters. Now if someone could only convince him that rail along the I-10 corridor would have more riders and would do more to relieve traffic congestion than any three of those five new lines under consideration combined likely would, then we'd really be getting somewhere.

David Crossley, head of the Gulf Coast Institute, said he favors all the planning and study the region can get on transportation issues. But he questioned whether the new corridors identified by the county would interfere with Metro's rail plans.

Crossley also questioned how commuter lines would be integrated into other mass transit options and whether the proposed corridors would be suitable for stations serving new or existing neighborhoods.

"All we're really doing is encouraging people to move much further out," Crossley said. "It's just a matter of fact that commuter rail needs to be looked at carefully because commuter rail is one of the precursors to sprawl."

David, I love you and all, but let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good here. Cheap housing and the perception of better schools is what encourages people to live farther out. The option of commuter rail into downtown may someday make the top ten list of reasons to live in exurbia, but I'm not holding my breath. Sprawl is going to happen whether commuter rail is there or not. Why not put in a hedge against the insatiable highway-construction monster?

Wildflowers

It's been a good spring for wildflowers.

Colonies of bluebonnets have claimed embankments in Memorial Park and gardens in the Heights. The blooms, densely packed on 1-foot stems, quietly herald the wildflower season.

Follow the showy pink primroses, dropped like petals from a flower girl's basket, west on U.S. 290, and the wildflower revelry grows louder.

Droves of Sunday drivers travel Texas roadways to ooh and aah at the spring flowers March through May.

Mother Nature is promising a stellar season in many areas of the state, having mixed the right proportions of cold and rain, followed by warm, sunny days and cool nights to color roadsides and fields in the weeks to come.

Washington and Waller counties should have an above-average crop of bluebonnets, the state flower. And if the rains continue, it will be an abundant wildflower season overall, said Ben Bowers, Texas Department of Transportation's vegetation manager.

Just drive along 290 outside of Houston for a good, colorful look at springtime in Texas. Brenham is a prime location, or you can go visit the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin. Erica is usually on top of all things flowery as well.

You may have heard it's illegal to pick wild bluebonnets in Texas. That's not true, but I wouldn't do it anyway.

The TxDOT Travel Division receives enough queries on the subject each year that they've compiled an information sheet. Joe Slocum, voice of the TxDOT Travel Division's Wildflower Information Hotline and fan of Texas Twisted, shared this passage: "From a purely legal standpoint, there is no law currently existing which establishes picking wildflowers as a criminal offense."

Tela Mange, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, confirmed the statement. "It's bad karma to pick them," she said, "but it's not illegal." She added, "I know at least one state trooper who says it's state law … and every time we run into each other, I hand him a law book and say, 'Come on, show me.' And he's not able to find it."

Bad karma indeed. Go back to that Chron story and be sure to check out their wildflower slideshow for some good karma to counteract it.

A pounding from the people

Looks like Governor Perry's Bahamian getaway was not appreciated by some Texans who weren't afraid to tell him about it.

"With all due respect, have you LOST YOUR MIND?" asked a Lockhart woman in an e-mail to Perry. "This little trip to the Bahamas ... has convinced a long-term, middle-aged conservative to vote you out of office."

[...]

A San Angelo woman wrote that she was disappointed over the campaign fund use.

"My husband and I work hard for our money, and we don't have time to take vacations, much less trips to the Bahamas," she wrote. "I have contacted the Republican Party of Texas with instructions to remove us from their mailing/phone lists. We will no longer contribute to the Republican Party of Texas as long as you are in office."

The possibility that publicly funded vouchers for private school tuition might have been discussed drew concern from a woman identified as a Dallas-area PTA leader. Perry, Leininger, the Texas Public Policy Foundation and Norquist have supported vouchers.

"Richardson Independent School District is broke, and you are being sweet talked into ... diverting money to vouchers!" the woman wrote. "Wake up and smell the coffee, governor."

A Richardson man said: "A select few seem to have your ear."

A woman identifying herself as a Houston teacher wrote: "Thank you for humiliating the teachers of this city with such an extravagantly made-up way to spend money in the name of all underpaid educators. Oh, and just in case there are extra funds for the study of educational finance, I myself would be willing to go to the Bahamas and discuss reform with you."

You can sign me up for that trip, too. I'll even play shuffleboard with Grover Norquist if it'll help.

Rules are for the other guy

News of the potential indictment and step-aside of Tom DeLay has hit the Chron, and it seems that DeLay has reacted to his situation the way he reacts to pretty much everything else: Cry "partisanship" and raise funds.

U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay apparently is preparing for the possibility that a Travis County grand jury may indict him on charges of violating state campaign finance laws.

DeLay, R-Sugar Land, told a group of Houston supporters earlier this month he may need to raise more money for a legal defense fund.

[...]

DeLay and an aide in a March 8 private meeting at the Omni Houston Hotel talked to Houston supporters about the possible need to pay for a legal defense in connection with the grand jury investigation, according to two people who attended the meeting.

The meeting at the Omni was part of a regular event DeLay holds every three months for supporters called the "Congressional Quarterly Luncheon." The two people interviewed by the Chronicle spoke on condition of anonymity.

DeLay talked about the grand jury investigation only after being asked about it by one of the 40 to 50 people in attendance, sources told the Chronicle.

DeLay talked briefly about a legal defense and then had an unidentified aide discuss the possible need for raising money for a legal defense fund.

One of those interviewed quoted DeLay as saying, "I fully anticipate being indicted."

The other person did not remember hearing DeLay say anything like that, "but I gathered the money he might raise would be for him," he said.

The Chronicle attempted to contact others who are known to have been at the meeting, but none responded.

Grella said neither DeLay nor the aide talked about setting up a new fund or of having any expectation of needing one.

Grella said the aide, whom he declined to name, explained to the crowd that a legal defense can be expensive. He said DeLay found that out when the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sued him for racketeering in 2000, a lawsuit that was later dropped.

"One staffer discussed the Democrats' previous frivolous lawsuit that was thrown out of court, but didn't discuss a new legal defense fund," Grella said.

The Tom Delay Legal Expense Trust was set up in July 2000, according to the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call. Through November 2001 it had paid out $320,222 -- about half the legal bill owed to the Houston law firm of Bracewell & Patterson to defend DeLay in the lawsuit.

Make of that what you will. Meanwhile, Roll Call is now reporting (via TAPPED) that DeLay may not step aside if he's indicted after all.

Republican Conference rules state that a member of the elected leadership who has been indicted on a felony carrying a penalty of at least two years in prison must temporarily step down from the post. He or she may return to the job if found not guilty or if the charges are reduced below a felony or dismissed.

Texas Rep. John Carter (R), a former Williamson County district judge, said an indictment “is not intended to be a declaration of guilt” and that it would be “pretty rough” if DeLay had to relinquish the Majority Leader post without having been convicted of anything.

Repeating a well-known legal adage, Carter said, “A DA can indict a ham sandwich given the opportunity.”

It's way too early to say what could happen - this is all speculation on top of speculation. As a new grand jury get empanelled, things ought to pick up shortly. So stay tuned.

UPDATE: Missed this story in The Hill, which suggests DeLay may have another Democratic prosecutor sniffing around him, in this case because of his sham charity, Celebrations for Children.

[Common Cause] recently made inquiries with Eliot Spitzer, New York attorney general, to determine whether the charity was properly registered. That may lead to a formal request for an investigation.

[They] allege that DeLay plans to use the charity improperly to fund political activities in New York City during the 2004 Republican National Convention.

[...]

Common Cause has made inquiries about DeLay’s charity with Spitzer (D) that may lead to a formal request by the group for his office investigate the charity.

An official at Common Cause said: “We’ve had contact with the office, and they are aware of the situation. The New York attorney general is one of the most aggressive enforcers of charities in the country.”

Spitzer, who would arguably have jurisdiction over the matter because DeLay’s charity would raise money in New York during the convention, which begins Aug. 29, could imperil the majority leader’s plans.

Spitzer has made a reputation by aggressively pursuing allegations of corporate crime when other government enforcement agencies have tread carefully. And many political observers believe he wants to run for governor some day.

More fun to look forward to. Via New Democrats Online.

Woodland Heights Home Tour

A little plug for my neighborhood here, which is hosting a Home Tour this weekend. Come on down and see some interesting houses built before evil soulless developers like Bob Perry got his hooks into Houston. You can buy tickets ($15) at these locations and get a preview of the featured houses here. I believe Metro trolleys will be running to take you to each house. I've taken these tours before, and they're always a lot of fun. Hope to see you there!

Governor steps into Ellis County mess

Governor Perry waded into the pollution controversy around cement plants in Ellis County and their effect on the Dallas/Fort Worth area's nonattainment status for clean air, and managed to piss off everyone involved. First, here's what our only governor proposed:

The plan being considered by Perry and Mike Leavitt, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, would group the heavily industrial northwest corner of Ellis County with the Metroplex. Industries there would have to significantly reduce pollution, but the rest of the mostly rural county would be shielded from severe sanctions, including the loss of millions in federal highway transportation dollars.

[...]

Perry says his goal is to solve the debate about whether Ellis County should be considered part of the Metroplex when tough new ozone regulations take effect. U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Ennis, chairman of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, has lobbied the EPA to not include his home county, but leaders in Tarrant, Dallas, Collin and Denton counties insist that the region might never comply if pollution in Ellis County is not significantly curtailed.

"The storm over whether Ellis County must be designated might be calmed if only the industrial part of Ellis County is designated as nonattainment," Perry wrote in a Feb. 25 letter to Leavitt. "Such an approach that is based on science and common sense is likely to be recognized as the best solution by all concerned."

Basically, what Perry is suggesting is that since it's only one part of Ellis County (namely, the part where all of the smoke-belching cement plants are) that's degrading DFW's air, then that part of Ellis County should be thrown in with the other counties that are subject to EPA sanctions, while the rest of it gets exempted. On the surface, this makes some sense. The problem, though, is that the counties that are adversely affected by the Ellis polluters don't have any direct jurisdictional control over them, and thus they would have no stick to use to get them to do their fair share of the cleanup that will be needed to get DFW into compliance. Only by making all of Ellis County accountable can pressure be brought to bear on their pollution scofflaws.

And as noted, no one liked the Governor's "solution":

"It's outrageous that it's just one small portion of the county, and it allows the rest of the county to be developed," said Tom "Smitty" Smith, director of the Texas office of Public Citizen, a government watchdog group in Austin. "The state has consistently failed to require Ellis County to do its fair share to clean the air."

Collin County Judge Ron Harris said all of Ellis County needs to be included in any plan to improve air quality. If not, he said, Dallas-Fort Worth leaders must consider suing the EPA.

"We think all of Ellis County needs to be in," Harris said. "We have reason to question why the governor would consider a special treatment for Ellis County."

Ellis County Judge Chad Adams gave the proposal a lukewarm endorsement, saying he wants more details. But Ellis County industrial leaders aren't pleased. They say it's unfair to single out the county's cement kilns and power plants for increased enforcement.

"Ellis County should not be included at all in the nonattainment zone," said Keith Depew, plant manager at the Holcim cement plant in Midlothian.

Barton's office said Thursday that the plan is not an acceptable compromise.

"His position remains that the county should not be included," said Samantha Jordan, Barton's deputy chief of staff.

Barton and Ellis County officials say that the county contributes only a small amount of ozone-producing pollutants to the region. But a preliminary report released last month by an environmental consulting firm found that industrial pollution from the county is at least partly to blame for some of the highest concentrations of ozone measured in the Metroplex.

Smokey Joe's position is that since Ellis County itself is in compliance, the rest of the Metroplex can go pound sand. Apparently, he believes that Ellis County's pollution doesn't travel past the county line. One wonders how he'd feel if he had a neighbor whose trashy yard was reducing his own property values.

One other thing to note about Perry's suggestion is that it's been made before and hasn't been accepted yet:

State leaders in North Carolina and South Carolina have attempted, and thus far failed, to persuade the EPA to designate only parts of counties.

[EPA Region 6 Administrator Richard] Greene said federal regulators are reviewing partial nonattainment in other areas across the country, including North and South Carolina, Ohio and Mississippi.

"If EPA does a partial designation in some counties in one state, say Texas, but nowhere else, we certainly wouldn't think they're dealing with us in an evenhanded way," said Tom Mather, a spokesman for the North Carolina Department of Environment & Natural Resources.

Indeed. Of course, given the general track record of the Bush administration, I fear the solution will be to make less strict rules the norm. Wouldn't surprise me at all if Smokey Joe has floated that idea to someone higher up.

Top 25, baby

Houston has cracked Travel & Leisure's list of America's 25 Favorite Cities for the first time. We may be at the bottom of that list, but by Gawd we're on it. You can see the list and how we fared here.

It's funny, but as much as I like Houston I think of it more as a good place to live rather than a good place to visit. There's certainly plenty of stuff to see and do if you're visiting, but some of the best attractions (such as Johnson Space Center and the Battleship Texas) are outside of town, and just about everything requires a car. I've already mentioned what I like about this place, and I think if you've flown here to visit with friends or family who can take you around to their favorite places to eat, drink, and shop, you'll have an excellent time. If you're here staying in a hotel downtown or in the Galleria area, there's also plenty of stuff to see and do nearby. Beyond that, you need to be adventurous, especially behind the wheel of your rental car.

For the record, I've visited all of the cities listed except for Minneapolis/St Paul, Phoenix (though I have been to Tucson), and Honolulu. San Juan only counts as a technicality, as the Windjammer cruise we took for our honeymoon embarked from there. It's a tough call, but I'd probably pick Chicago as my favorite place among those 25 to visit, with San Diego a close second. I'm not counting New York since I grew up there and don't consider myself a visitor in the traditional sense when I'm there.

Around the blogs

Some days there's just a ton of stuff to look at, so let's get started.

The College Democrats have a blog, which among other things tells us that one of their own is a candidate for the State House in Texas this fall.

Also in college-related news, Andrew Dobbs of the Burnt Orange Report joined up with the Young Conservatives of Texas to give the prestigious "Enemy of Higher Education Award" to House Speaker Tom Craddick for his role in passing tuition deregulation. Way to go, Andrew!

Moving up to graduate school, Jonathan Ichikawa discovers that the Georgia House has taken an intense interest in women's genitals.

Whatever you do, don't piss Julia off. She's mightier than you are.

The AFL-CIO is embarking on a cross-country Show Us The Jobs tour and is blogging about it for your convenience.

Morat finds a discrepancy in the AP story on Richard Clarke's testimony.

Blah, blah, blah, blogcakes is a new blog from Sue, who's a recent transplant to Houston and quite clearly a fan of Television Without Pity, based on her chosen title.

Greg is already looking ahead to the 2006 elections here.

I'm sure you're already reading A Perfectly Cromulent Blog, so you don't need me to tell you that Pete is your main source for zombie movie criticism, but I will anyway just to be on the safe side.

A blog called American Amnesia has some interesting interviews to check out.

John Scalzi is a much better writer than I am. Not that he cares what I think. Via Making Light.

The Panda's Thumb is a group blog of mostly science types who are dedicated to beating back stoopid anti-evolution arguments, something which is sadly a full-time multi-person task. It's Crooked Timber for the lab rats.

Finally, MIT's Technology Review blog points to this story about how the musical landscape may change now that downloading is so prevalent.

Tulia prosecutor may face sanctions

This seems appropriate to me.

State Bar of Texas officials announced Tuesday they will file a lawsuit seeking sanctions against the prosecutor from the controversial 1999 Tulia drug bust.

The case against 64th District Attorney Terry McEachern will be heard in a Panhandle district court and could result in anything from a public reprimand to McEachern losing his law license if convicted, according to Dawn Miller, chief disciplinary counsel with the State Bar of Texas.

The case is in a sort of legal limbo between the previously secret State Bar investigation and the upcoming public trial, so Miller was limited in the amount of information she could provide about the matter.

"Without going into any details, you can assume that if a case has gotten to a point where a lawyer has elected to have the case heard in district court, that means an investigative panel of a grievance committee found just cause to believe a lawyer had committed misconduct," Miller said.

McEachern said he could not comment about the suit due to secrecy rules, but he still believes in the cases he prosecuted.

"I still feel the same way I did back then," McEachern said. "Of course, looking back, I would have done some things differently. But it's easy playing Monday morning quarterback."

[...]

The action against McEachern is still secret enough that Miller could not confirm it was related to Tulia, but it has been public knowledge since August that McEachern was fighting a State Bar grievance in the Tulia matter.

McEachern's opponents have said he unethically withheld evidence about misdeeds in Coleman's background during the trials, a charge McEachern has repeatedly denied.

Miller said most State Bar grievances are worked out through an agreement with the attorney and the grievance committee. With no agreement, McEachern chose to go with a civil suit in district court, rather than a hearing in front of the grievance committee.

State Bar attorneys will file suit with the Texas Supreme Court in the next couple of weeks, Miller said.

The high court usually takes about two months to assign a judge from outside the district, then the case will be filed in McEachern's home county, meaning Swisher or Hale counties.

A trial will be conducted in which the judge or a jury, if requested, will decide if a preponderance of the evidence shows McEachern committed misconduct.

If the answer is yes, the judge will then decide what sanctions to hand down.

It should be noted that Terry McEachern has already lost his job, as voters turned him out in the Republican primary last month. If he's cleared of these charges, then I'd say that's enough, but if not, losing his law license is a small price to pay.

McEachern does get some sympathy from a somewhat unlikely source.

Amarillo lawyer Jeff Blackburn said he and his fellow lawyers were seeking to clear their clients not to personally harm anyone from the other side.

But Blackburn said the trial could have a positive outcome if it results in a reaffirmation of the ideal that district attorneys must not yield to public pressure to secure convictions at all costs, even in a part of the state where people believe deeply in law and order.

"Prosecutors are charged under our laws with seeking justice, not just convictions," Blackburn said. "One of the problems in Tulia was that this law was broken and that the prosecution just got caught up in the desire to convict.

"On the other hand, I understand the pressures somebody like Mr. McEachern comes under. But a lot of times, the district attorney has to be the person who stands up for the law and against popular sentiment."

That's a more generous response than what McEachern got from his county commissioners.

Embattled district attorney Terry McEachern asked the Swisher County commission for help fighting a State Bar of Texas grievance Thursday, but county officials said they had to turn him down.

Swisher County Judge Harold Keeter said McEachern requested a special session Thursday to ask the commission to help pay for the legal cost of fighting a grievance based on McEachern's role in the controversial 1999 Tulia drug sting. The board voted unanimously to deny the request.

"This is strictly a personal grievance against the district attorney and his law license," Keeter said. "It's not directed at Swisher County. We have no standing in the grievance and no stake in it."

That article has a bit more on the specific charges McEachern is likely to be facing, based on the findings of fact by visiting Judge Ron Chapman, who recommended that all of the convictions be vacated back in May:

The findings of fact allege McEachern committed the following questionable acts:

- The state knew or should have known at the time of the trials Coleman "had a reputation for dishonesty, for disobeying the law, and for abdicating his duties and responsibilities as a peace officer in multiple communities."

- The state "did not disclose to defense counsel that Coleman committed crimes of dishonesty in Cochran County, namely theft and abuse of official capacity."

- McEachern in several trials made statements about Coleman's record to the jury that would tend to bolster the agent's credibility when McEachern knew Coleman had been indicted on charges from Cochran County.

- At the trial of William Cash Love, McEachern said he was willing to sign an affidavit that he did not know about Coleman's charges prior to that trial. McEachern then said in an affidavit preceding the findings of fact he knew about Coleman's arrest before any of the arrests happened in 1999.

Like I said, if he's found guilty, merely losing his license is a small price to pay.

More immigration division

Yet another Texas poll shows that there's a roughly even split of opinion over President Bush's immigration reform plan.

Forty-eight percent of the 1,000 Texans surveyed randomly by telephone endorsed Bush's plan, 45 percent opposed it and 7 percent declined to give an opinion. The proposal drew the most support among Hispanics -- 55 percent -- compared with 49 percent among Anglos and 37 percent among black people.

[...]

In addition to underscoring the polarized views on Bush's proposal, the Texas Poll also showed that Texans are increasingly frustrated with the flow of undocumented immigrants across the border. As many as 700,000 undocumented workers are believed to be living in Texas.

The poll was conducted by the Scripps Howard media organization Feb. 12-March 3 for the Star-Telegram and several other Texas news outlets. The margin of error due to sampling is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Sixty-nine percent of Texans say the government is not doing enough to stop unauthorized immigration, an 11-point increase from August 2001. An almost identical percentage -- 68 percent -- said the U.S. government should not make it easier for undocumented residents to obtain U.S. citizenship.

The survey also shows strikingly different racial and ethnic attitudes on virtually every category. Hispanics, constituting the nation's biggest and fastest growing minority, tended to be more sympathetic toward undocumented immigrants, though there was sharp disagreement within that group as well.

I'd love to know how the breakdown was across party lines, but oh well. I've talked about this before, and while this is clearly an opportunity for Bush and the Republicans to gain some ground among Hispanic voters, I think it won't mean anything if they don't actually succeed in passing some form of legislation; in fact, I believe their failure to do so after making such a public pronouncement of their intentions will do them more harm than passage would have done them good. That's the thing about controlling both houses of Congress and the Presidency - if you really want to make something happen, you don't have any excuse if you fail.

And what are the odds of something passing this year?

At a joint news conference during the visit, Bush expressed hope that Congress would pass the measure but conceded that "there's no telling what's going to happen in an election year." Lawmakers in both parties have issued the same assessment.

"The prospects for legislation this year are pretty dim," said Dan Griswold, an immigration expert at the Cato Institute in Washington.

More on that from Sen. John Cornyn, who has his own immigration reform legislation in the pipe.

Sen. John Cornyn conceded Tuesday that immigration reform, and a proposal to extend the length of stay of Mexican visitors to the United States, are receiving opposition in Congress during a heated election year.

Cornyn, R-Texas, told border business leaders that changes to current laws face an uphill battle because "political extremists" dominate the debate.

"We are having to educate people in Congress and elsewhere," Cornyn told the Border Trade Alliance conference at the Watergate Hotel.

The senator's comments came an hour before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on immigration policy and U.S.-Mexico relations.

Yglesias thinks Bush deserves some credit for his immigration reform proposal, and I suppose he does. However short of perfection it may fall, it is an improvement over the status quo, and it's always good to see immigration and immigrants treated as something other than a menace to the American way of life, again something on which Bush has a good track record. But I'll say it again: It doesn't mean diddly until Bush puts some actual political capital on the line and whips his own party into shape on this.

The president's proposal has received opposition from House Republicans who have characterized citizenship and guest worker programs as amnesty to undocumented workers.

Democrats say the president's proposal falls far short of providing significant protections for immigrant laborers and workers, and accuse Bush of using the issue as an election-year pitch to Hispanic voters.

Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., argued that if Bush were serious about immigration reform, he'd use the White House to push his proposal through the House over Republican opposition.

Senator Dodd is exactly right. You get partial credit for bringing the issue to the table in the first place, but you don't get a passing grade unless you act like you really mean it.

And hey, you don't even have to push for the whole legislative enchilada to call yourself a success. You can advocate for non-controversial things like implementing the proper technology so already-instituted programs can do what they're supposed to. How're we doing on that score?

A new entry/exit system to track visitors to the United States is part of the US-VISIT program and must be implemented at 50 land ports by Jan. 1, 2005.

Border business leaders are concerned the new program will bottleneck traffic for Mexican nationals who own property in the United States and shop at American retail stores.

Cornyn has urged the administration to complete technology and infrastructure requirements, and to make sure the program will not harm border economies, before implementing US-VISIT.

"It is bad policy, it is a mistake, to implement a program before we know how it is going to impact the economy," Cornyn said. "That is what we are risking if we implement US-VISIT on our border before we know what we are doing."

Cornyn said the Homeland Security Department has yet to determine specifications, plans and costs for implementing the program at most border ports of entry.

"That worries me a great deal," Cornyn said. "I can assure you we are not going to implement the US-VISIT program in such a haphazard way."

These are your opportunities, Mr. President. What are you going to do with them?

Blog Maverick

Mark Cuban, the hyperactive owner of the Dallas Mavericks, has a blog. It's actually pretty good, and it's very much in line with the general blog philosophy of "a place for one's ramblings". He's busy flogging his hobbyhorses of officiating and the media, and doing so with some style. Check out this entry for a look at some context to a quote attributed to him. Interesting stuff. Via David Pinto.

Escalation on another DeLay front

Byron points to this WaPo article in which watchdog groups call for a House ethics investigation of another Tom DeLay moneymaking machine, in this case one masquerading as a charitable organization.

Democracy 21 contends that the charity, Celebrations for Children Inc., is a political scheme established to let DeLay raise huge sums from interest groups and supporters to host lavish parties at this summer's Republican National Convention.

DeLay spokesman Jonathan Grella said at least three-fourths of the charity's income will go to needy children, with the remainder paying for dinners, a golf tournament, a rock concert, Broadway tickets and the other fundraising events DeLay plans to host at the convention in New York City.

House ethics committee rules prohibit investigations based solely on an outside group's complaint. But a complaint is deemed to be lodged if any House member forwards an outsider's allegations with a letter saying the information is filed in good faith and warrants a review.

Democracy 21's action is meant to put each House member on the spot -- either challenge DeLay's operation or silently condone it -- said the group's president, veteran open-government advocate Fred Wertheimer.

Wertheimer's group had complained about Celebrations for Children in a Jan. 28 letter to the ethics panel, formally called the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. "There is no public information, however, indicating that the Ethics Committee is pursuing this matter," says Wertheimer's latest letter to the panel.

Yesterday, he sent a copy to all 434 House members (one seat is vacant), saying, in part, "If just one House member is willing to act to defend the institutional integrity of the House, the Ethics Committee will be forced to proceed with an inquiry."

House rules prohibit behavior by members or staffers that fails to "reflect creditably" on the House. Federal laws governing tax-exempt charities allow no more than an insubstantial portion of a group's revenue to be spent on activities other than the charity's main stated purpose.

Celebrations for Children fails both tests, alleges Wertheimer's complaint.

"Tax-exempt charitable organizations are not supposed to be used as political playthings by Members of Congress," his letter says. "The DeLay scheme will allow House members to attend, free of charge, such events as Broadway shows, golfing tournaments, yacht cruises, dinners, parties and other events, with the events being paid for by a 'charitable' organization and funded by big donors to the 'charity,' many of whom are likely to have important interests pending in Congress."

Here is Democracy 21's press release, which appears to be a followup to this statement decrying the lack of such an investigation as yet. The formal complaint is here (PDF). I've blogged on Celebrations for Children and the complaints surrounding it before (see here and here).

Shockingly, there are straws in the wind that DeLay might step down from his leadership position, as reported by Roll Call:

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) has begun quiet discussions with a handful of colleagues about the possibility that he will have to step down from his leadership post temporarily if he is indicted by a Texas grand jury investigating alleged campaign finance abuses.

...Republican Conference rules state that a member of the elected leadership who has been indicted on a felony carrying a penalty of at least two years in prison must temporarily step down from the post.

Could it be that DeLay really fears the TAB/TRM investigations in Austin? The ferocious response from the GOP here, ranging from a blizzard of open record requests to a petition to move the Public Integrity Unit to the Attorney General's office, suggest they feel the need to be vigilant. I still never thought DeLay would blink, though. On the other hand, he's smart enough to know that grand juries often deliver for prosecutors, and he ought to have a Plan B in hand. So this is probably just pragmatism and not trepidation.

The possible implications are staggering. For sure, a big cog in the GOP's fundraising machine would be gummed up. DeLay might even find himself in some electoral trouble, though it'd probably take a conviction to really do him in. Of course, if he's forced to drop out of the race, would the GOP be able to field a backup candidate? I can't quite figure out what the state law has to say. Whatever the case, you can of course give a hand to Richard Morrison, who will hopefully get a boost from all this.

Wow. Stay tuned.

The trickle down effect, Perry-style

Here's an example of how that "no tax increase" pledge from the last legislative session works in real life, from Lubbock.

Cuts in Medicaid and a state insurance program for children as well as decreases in private employee insurance are contributing to a health care "crisis" in Texas, University Medical Center president James Courtney said Monday.

UMC is expected to lose $17.8 million throughout the current two-year state budget cycle, mostly because of Medicaid cuts, the Lubbock County Hospital Board heard Monday. Cost control measures and a tax increase have helped UMC absorb the blow.

Of the $8.9 million UMC expects to lose a year, the biggest hits are $3.5 million lost because of more stringent Medicaid eligibility and $2.7 million in Medicaid funds to pay for resident physicians, also known as graduate medical education (GME).

Dr. Richard Homan, dean of Texas Tech School of Medicine, said he plans to testify before the state House Appropria tions Committee today with officials from the University of Texas and Texas A&M in an effort to restore GME funds.

Cuts to the Children's Health Insurance Program and the loss of private insurance among patients are placing great strains on public teaching hospitals in Texas, Court ney said.

"I believe these cuts disproportionately are affecting our types of organizations," Court ney said. "The health care system in the state of Texas is in a state of crisis."

Many employers are dropping commercial insurance for their employees because of high costs, UMC officials said.

The loss of insurance appears to be driving more unpaid visits to UMC's emergency room.

So far in 2004, the percentage of nonpaying emergency room visits at UMC is 33.2 percent, up from 32 percent last year. The percentage of nonpaying inpatient and out patient services so far in 2004 are 19.2, up from 17.5 percent in 2003.

"We're seeing people drop their coverage," said David Allison, UMC's chief executive officer. "We're seeing people, just in general, not being covered. We're seeing that decrease in our financial mix."

So because the state refused to fund CHIP, federal dollars that would have helped to cover public hospital costs were left on the table. It's up to the cities and counties to foot the bill for those who would have been covered before but aren't covered now. Add in the people who've lost private health insurance, and you can see why Perry's proposed property tax appraisal cap is such an anathema in municipal government. Just another success story from the 78th Lege.

"Dream Team 2: Senate Boogaloo"

Cara Morris has been beating the drums lately for the Democrats' enhanced electoral prospects in the Senate. She quotes from this Roll Call article in which DSCC Chair Jon Corzine talks about promoting some of their candidates as a package deal.

Senate Democrats will send out an e-mail fundraising appeal today to more than 90,000 donors aimed at capitalizing on the growing diversity of their 2004 recruiting class.

"The dream team is here," Donna Brazile, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee Voting Rights Institute, writes in the missive. "The emergence of Barack Obama, Ken Salazar and Congressman Brad Carson ... makes ours the most diverse class of U.S. Senate candidates in history."

Obama, a black state Senator, cruised to the Democratic nomination in Illinois last Tuesday, while Salazar, the Hispanic state attorney general, has emerged as the establishment's choice in the race to replace Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.). Carson is a member of the Cherokee Nation and is essentially unopposed for the Democratic nomination in Oklahoma.

Obama would be only the third black Senator since Reconstruction; no Hispanic has served in the Senate in the last 27 years. Carson is one of the eight American Indians to serve in Congress.

"The historic opportunity to increase diversity in the U.S. Senate, and thus the diversity of views, background and cultures ... is an opportunity we cannot afford to miss," writes Brazile, who is also a contributing writer to Roll Call.

Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee officials hinted that the fundraising appeal is the first in a series of events aimed at creating a "national story" around their candidates.

"We are going to have a class that I would like to sell as a group because of the strength of their credentials," said DSCC Chairman Jon Corzine (N.J.). "We can take this crew on the road to help us on the financial side."

Nationalizing the fundraising and promoting these three terrific candidates is a fine idea, but seeing the words "Dream Team" in this context makes me wince a bit. You may recall the reason why:

[S]ome Democrats warned of the impact of grouping candidates like Obama, Salazar and Carson, pointing out that much the same pitch was made on behalf of former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk (D) in the 2002 Texas Senate race -- to no avail.

Kirk, who is black, was part of the so-called Texas dream team comprised of himself and Hispanic businessman Tony Sanchez, the Democratic candidate for governor.

The former Dallas mayor became a staple on the Democratic fundraising circuit, raising and spending more than $9 million. Sanchez spent freely from his own pocket, eventually donating $67 million to the campaign.

On Election Day 2002, however, neither candidate came close to winning or turning out the record black and Hispanic vote that was predicted.

Kirk lost to then-state Attorney General John Cornyn (R) 55 percent to 43 percent; Sanchez was defeated by Gov. Rick Perry (R) 58 percent to 40 percent.

In a recent interview, Kirk said Texas turned into "much more of a national race than a local race," adding that the best advice he could give Obama is to find "a message that resonates much broader than the African-American community."

"He's got to make the issue about Illinois," Kirk said.

Couple points: First, the third member of the "Dream Team" in 2002 was John Sharp, the Anglo in that rainbow coalition. He lost a close race to David Dewhurst for Lt. Governor. Second, given the GOP trend of the state, the high popularity of President Bush, and the whole runup to Iraq that characterized the 2002 elections, and it's hard to say that Ron Kirk could have done all that much better. Finally, and this is important, Tony Sanchez was a lousy candidate who not only didn't pull his weight on the top of the ticket, he was more of a liability than an asset.

That said, whatever factors may have affected the 2002 race, the "Dream Team" concept was basically a flop. Way too much attention was paid early on to Ron Kirk as "the black candidate" who was one-third of this black/white/brown ticket, and not nearly enough attention was paid to the fact that Kirk was an excellent and well-qualified candidate with a strong track record in public service. He was more of a symbol than a person, and it served him poorly. The end result what that Kirk got only about 30% of the Anglo vote statewide, which was not nearly enough.

Therefore, it's my sincere hope that if the DSCC takes Obama, Salazar, and Carson on the road, it's to tout their credentials as shining examples of smart, hard-working, and dedicated people who will make the Senate a better place. That they also come from varied racial and ethnic backgrounds is nothing more than what one should expect from a party that truly reflects and represents all of America. Kirk has it exactly right: These races should be about what's best for everyone in their states. That's how they'll win.

The return of the blocker bill

If we do in fact have a special session on school finance reform, the blocker bill and its 2/3 majority requirement for bringing a bill to the Senate floor for debate will be in effect, according to Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst.

Dewhurst said the Senate would require a two-thirds vote to debate all legislation. As presiding officer, he set that requirement aside during the highly charged partisan debate over redistricting last summer, prompting 11 Democratic senators to shut down Senate business by fleeing to New Mexico.

Some major education initiatives, including part of Perry's property tax limitation plan, would require constitutional amendments and two-thirds votes in the House and the Senate regardless of the procedural change.

But a blanket two-thirds vote hurdle in the Senate would potentially give the Democratic minority more influence over changes in public school funding and legislation affecting teachers and classrooms. It could block any effort to allow tax dollars to be spent on private school vouchers, an idea that Perry and many Republican lawmakers support but most Democratic legislators oppose.

[...]

Dewhurst has been working privately with senators on revisions to a school finance plan approved unanimously by the Senate last year.

"It's my intention to continue its use as long as our senators continue to come together and work for what's best here in Texas," he said of the two-thirds tradition.

Dewhurst, a Republican, drew a distinction between a special session on school finance -- which Perry has said he will call if lawmakers can agree on a new funding plan -- and last summer's sessions on redistricting.

Redistricting is partisan and public education shouldn't be, he said.

"The blocker bill and the resulting two-thirds tradition have historically been a legislative tool of the lieutenant governor. It historically has not been used in special sessions involving redistricting because redistricting is obviously not a bipartisan issue," Dewhurst added, repeating his explanation for bypassing the tradition last summer.

(deep breath) I'm gonna let that one go. You all know my opinion on the subject.

Given that any major change would require a 2/3 vote of each chamber plus a statewide vote on a Constitutional amendment, this is a lesser thing than it appears in terms of legislative advantage, at least for this special session. I'd guess it's more of a signal that Dewhurst the Good Cop will be back in the house after last year's unpleasantness. It's a smart move on his part, since now any grudge-carrying by the Dems can be characterized as bad manners on their part. And hey, who knows, maybe he's actually sincere. Stranger things have happened.

A further signal that there may not be anything worth going to the mat over comes from State Rep. David Swinford (R, Dumas), who was there the last time we went through all this.

"Somebody needs to do something, and everybody knows it," Swinford said. "But I've been meeting on the select committee in the House, and we had over 200 hours of testimony on this. To tell you I had a clear vision of where we're going, I'd be lying."

[...]

Swinford said he doesn't foresee a massive overhaul of the tax and school finance systems. Instead, the likely outcome will be a series of bandages that will keep the system limping along.

"I don't see the political will to trash this tax system," Swinford said. "Instead, we'll probably jick here and jack there and come up with 20 different things all wrapped together."

One thing Swinford sees as a certainty is the impending demise of Robin Hood, the state's effort to find equality between rich and poor districts.

You mean "this specific effort to find equality between rich and poor districts". Unless the court ruling that led to Robin Hood in the first place is no longer operative, some form of fund transfer from rich districts to poor ones will take its place. Lasso, from whom I got the above link, says it thusly:

The courts have ruled (and will rule again and again) that all children must have a public education that is supported by substantially equal funding. The only way for this to happen is to have money transferred from rich places to poor.

It really doesn't matter that the money is washed through the state. After all, if the property tax was collected by the state instead of the local districts and then redistributed you could SAY Robin Hood was dead. But the money would be taken from the same people and given to the same people as before. No difference.

And that's the way it's going to be. Changing to a sales tax won't make a difference (or much of a difference). Rich districts will still subsidize the poor. As it should be. Robin Hood was a good guy, right?

Indeed.

DeLay supported TTM

Quelle surprise: Tom DeLay gave PAC money to Texans for True Mobility.

Two political action committees controlled by DeLay gave $30,000 to Texans for True Mobility, which spearheaded a high-dollar effort against Metro's proposal to expand its light rail beyond the Main Street line.

DeLay's donations came as Texans for True Mobility was scrambling to maintain an advertising campaign a day before the Nov. 4 referendum, which passed narrowly.

Campaign finance reports indicate that on Nov. 3, DeLay's congressional campaign committee and his Americans for a Republican Majority each donated $15,000 to Texans for True Mobility.

Well, the good news is that since the referendum passed, that was all a waste of money for DeLay. In that sense, I wish he'd given more.

Metro board Chairman David Wolff said he does not believe DeLay's contributions raise questions about his commitment to get money for Houston rail.

"I think that he has come a long way, and I look forward to working with him," Wolff said. "He wanted there to be a referendum.

"He said he would respect the wishes of the voters. Now, they have spoken and I believe he will honor what they said. I have no reason to believe otherwise."

You have way more faith than I do, but I guess you pretty much have to play nice. Talk to me again in a year and we'll see how it goes.

Harris County Democratic Party Chairman Gerry Birnberg said he is not surprised that DeLay and Americans for a Republican Majority would spend money to defeat the rail referendum. "It looks like Congressman DeLay was fully committed to defeat rail," he said.

But Birnberg said the disclosure of the contributions is further evidence that he and two other plaintiffs should move forward with a lawsuit they filed to force Texans for True Mobility to disclose the names of its donors.

The civil suit alleges that Texans for True Mobility broke the law when it concealed the identity of contributors who underwrote advertisements bashing Metro's transit expansion plan. The lawsuit seeks damages of twice the amount of money the group collected.

The DeLay-related donations showed up in his PACs' required financial disclosure documents, filed earlier this year.

"DeLay has ultimately had to disclose that he contributed to the anti-rail campaign, but that information is learned long after the election," Birnberg said. "Who are the other people who contributed to that effort?"

Yep. I believe that above a certain amount - say, $250 or $500 - there should be no such thing as an anonymous political donation, and that all donations should be fully disclosed before whatever election it is that they're being used for. Given that our idiot DA bought TTM's baloney about it being an "educational" organization and thus exempt from normal campaign rules, I don't expect to see this happen any time soon.

Undead lobsters!

Some things just defy embellishment.

Call it cryonics for crustaceans.

A Connecticut company says its frozen lobsters sometimes come back to life when thawed.

Trufresh began freezing lobsters with a technique it used for years on salmon after an offhand suggestion by some workers. It found that some lobsters revived after their subzero sojourns.

Now, Trufresh is looking for partners to begin selling the lobsters commercially. The company was scheduled to attend the International Boston Seafood Show, which began Sunday, armed with video showing two undead lobsters squirming around after being frozen stiff in a minus-40 degree chemical brine for several minutes.

Company chairman Barnet L. Liberman acknowledged its lobster testing is limited and only about 12 of roughly 200 healthy, hard shell lobsters survived the freezing. In addition, the company hasn't researched how long a frozen lobster can survive - overnight is the longest period so far.

Liberman emphasized the company's goal isn't to provide customers with lobsters that always come back to life. He just wants to supply tasty lobsters.

I'm glad we cleared that last bit up. I was beginning to wonder what kind of marketing strategy they'd employ.

Such a tease

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison continues to be coy about her future.

Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and former Democratic Gov. Ann Richards don't agree on much.

But they both feel like it's time to return to Texas and get a dog.

For Ms. Hutchison, a longtime senator who has recently adopted two children, returning home could mean taking on Republican Gov. Rick Perry in 2006.

On Friday she told more than 200 women gathered at the Women's Museum for a conversation between her and Ms. Richards that she was considering a 2006 campaign for governor.

The comments were yet another indication that she is aiming for the governor's mansion.

"I haven't made a decision. I'm looking at all options – one of which is to make money," she said.

"There's something very satisfying in that," Ms. Richards said about making money.

Ms. Richards, who lives in New York, shared the stage with the senator.

She gave Ms. Hutchison tips about living as governor.

"Let me tell you something about the governor's mansion: It is really old," she said. "Raising those two little kids in the governor's mansion, you're going to have to put something over the furniture. It's very fragile and very delicate."

Ms. Hutchison said her children would impact her decision.

"It has changed my life," she said. "Maybe it's time for me to come home and get a dog."

While everyone gets in a lather about KBH potentially challenging Rick Perry in a gubernatorial primary in 2006, I think there's at least as good a chance that she may just quit and find a nice cushy high-paying private sector job. She's 60, she's got two kids now, she may be thinking it's time to ease back on the throttle, cash in on her fame and connections, and raise a few bucks for retirement and their college fund. Just a thought.

Special Session: Still no consensus

Governor Perry has promised to call a special session on school finance reform as soon as "consensus" is reached on how to replace the Robin Hood system. A quick look around is all you need to see that there's a whole lot of no-consensus going on.

From the Chron:

"It is still the governor's intention to call a special session this spring. No date has been set. He and his staff are working daily toward that end," said Robert Black, a spokesman for Perry.

But so far, legislative leaders have failed to agree on a politically acceptable solution that also will continue to fund schools equitably. Without a consensus, some key lawmakers are wondering whether a special session would be worth it.

Sen. Todd Staples, R-Palestine, is among those expressing doubt.

Staples is a member of a legislative committee that last week released recommendations on how to revamp the current system. But he said the proposals would not close the gap between rich and poor districts.

Only five of the 88 school districts in his East Texas senatorial district must give up some of their revenue under the share-the-wealth provisions of the school finance law known as Robin Hood.

"Ensuring five school districts excel while 83 cannot make the grade is not victory," Staples said. "Every child must have access to a quality education, and quality must not be dependent on their ZIP code."

[...]

Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, co-chairman of the committee that issued the report, said she is disappointed with such criticisms.

"Everyone knows that I have said in no uncertain terms and very clearly this will be an equitable system," Shapiro said.

Shapiro supports collecting school property taxes on a statewide basis and then distributing them equitably.

But the Texas Constitution bans a statewide property tax. An amendment to allow such a tax would require a two-thirds vote of each chamber to put the issue before voters.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Talmadge Heflin said he doesn't think there are 100 votes in the House to pass it.

"It would take a small miracle," Heflin, R-Houston, said. "But we've seen things turn before, so you never know."

Heflin said it's also doubtful supporters of expanded gambling could get support in the House to put that issue before voters. Video slot machines at racetracks are an oft-mentioned way to raise about $1 billion.

From the Statesman:

A new "split tax roll" that would provide relief for homeowners is one of the few ways to replace the state's school finance system without raising taxes, Gov. Rick Perry said Monday.

A split roll allows officials to set different tax rates for business and residential properties.

Business leaders fear it would be too easy to increase taxes on businesses while leaving rates low for residential property.

For weeks officials from the governor's office have distanced Perry from the idea, first floated by his chief of staff, Mike Toomey.

In Round Rock on Monday, Perry called the plan a "great idea" that could lead to replacing the state's share-the-wealth school finance system, called Robin Hood by some.

"I happen to think that a split tax roll is one of the only ways that you can get rid of Robin Hood without raising a plethora of new taxes in this state," the governor said.

Perry did not provide details on how such a plan would work. He said he will talk more about a revenue proposal soon.

Perry also defended his proposal to cap property tax appraisal increases; several Texas mayors have said such a cap would hinder their ability to pay for police, trash removal and other basic services.

The idea of a split tax roll hasn't been popular among business-friendly Republican lawmakers. And Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst has predicted its failure in the Legislature.

From the Morning News:

[Governor Perry] has proposed a 3 percent annual cap on homestead appraisal increases and new limits on spending by school districts, cities and counties. The restrictions could only be waived with voter approval.

City and county officials already are mounting a counter-offensive against such a cap, saying that it would severely handicap local governments and potentially force them into elections that could cost as much as the new money the entities are asking voters to approve.

Frank Sturzl, executive director of the Texas Municipal League, said the governor's proposed cap would result in a tremendous loss of services for many cities.

"City councils won't go every year to the voters to ask for another $1,000 for a fire plug. They'll cut services," he said.

Shifting revenues, capping property taxes and creating rewards for certain schools and teachers are ideas that all have their enemies, conceded Mike Toomey, the governor's chief of staff.

"This is not easy," he said during a hastily called news conference last week to defend the governor's property tax relief plans against criticism from a host of city and county officials.

Mr. Toomey said it is possible that all or some of the initiatives could fail in a special session. "There's a lot of factors that everybody has to consider and where the votes come from is number one," he said.

More on that counteroffensive from cities and counties:

"Robin Hood lives in the school house, not City Hall," the mayors said in a statement Friday of the current share-the-wealth method of paying for public education. "Plans being discussed to cap or freeze city property taxes as a part of the discussions on public school financing, we believe, are misplaced."

[...]

The municipal league, which represents more than 1,000 Texas cities, and the Texas Association of Counties say an appraisal cap would hurt the quality of life in their cities.

"When your trash isn't picked up, you don't call the governor. When the pothole isn't fixed, it's not the governor you call, and when your water comes out yellow, you don't call the president," said Corpus Christi Mayor Loyd Neal Jr. "You call my listed number in the Corpus Christi phone book at 3 in the morning."

And from the Star Telegram:

Noting the lack of consensus at this point, Perry said that the potential for disagreement goes beyond which taxes might have to be raised to pay for reform.

"There are multiple places where a consensus could break down, not just on the revenue side," Perry said. "There are a number of places that the Legislature must become comfortable that this is where we're going to go before a special session will be called."

As Perry spoke, representatives from cities and school districts across Tarrant County were making plans to meet today about how Perry's proposal to cap property taxes might affect their financial futures.

The meeting comes just days after two Tarrant County Commissioners publicly criticized the proposal, saying it would bring cuts to governments already strapped by unfunded state mandates.

The proposal would cap the amount of money local taxing entities such as cities, counties and school districts could raise each year. The limit would depend on the amount of money raised the previous year as well as growth and inflation, but could be raised with voter approval.

Commissioner Glen Whitley said today's meeting will be an information exchange and preliminary strategy session. But he criticized the governor for trying to make local elected officials look like "the bad guys" and wondered aloud why Perry isn't proposing to cap the revenue he presides over instead of what local governments spend.

"The governor is not talking about a state revenue cap, he is just concluding that we are the enemies in this deal," Whitley said. "He has not addressed state revenue or state expenditures."

Looks like we've got a way to go yet. Perry has mostly gotten his way when he's made something a priority - his "no tax increases" pledge before the start of the 78th Lege, redistricting, tort "reform". Will he care enough about this to throw his weight around, or will he let it slide and go on the assumption that he can still try again before the voters get another crack at him? We'll see. I'd say it's even money at this point, but that could change quickly.

UH apparently hires Penders

I'll be damned.

University of Houston officials have called a news conference for this afternoon, presumably to name Tom Penders as the Cougars' new head basketball coach.

UH officials said Monday night the new coach will be introduced at 4:30 p.m., followed by a 5 p.m. gathering at the UH athletics/alumni center that will be open to the public.

All indications are that the new coach will be Penders, 58, the former University of Texas coach whose Longhorns supplanted the Cougars in the 1990s as the state's flagship basketball program.

Penders said Monday night he had not been officially offered the job by UH athletic director Dave Maggard. If and when the job is offered, however, Penders said he is prepared to accept it.

"Yes, I would accept it," Penders said. "I've spent my whole career rebuilding programs that were down. I don't want to take over a program that's winning."

Maggard declined comment on Monday night.

It's hard for me to be objective about this transaction, because I really hated Tom Penders when he was the UT coach. He could be Bob Knight lite, or he could be Clyde Drexler redux. I just know that I'll scream myself hoarse from my vantage point behind the visitor's bench at Autry Court when he's in the house. John Lopez has an uncharacteristically good perspective on the whole thing.

Smokey Joe and the cement plants

Byron points to this article about "Smokey Joe" Barton and his efforts to exempt a couple of cement plants from stricter EPA rules. I'll leave most of the story for you to read - it's worth your while - but I want to take a look at the money involved.

U.S. Rep. Joe Barton's push to exempt Ellis County from the toughest smog rules could directly benefit two corporations linked to Barton campaign donations – corporations now seeking state permits to boost allowed emissions of smog-causing pollution.

Mr. Barton's effort, if successful, would help cement makers Holcim (U.S.) Inc. and Texas Industries Inc. avoid stricter permit requirements and possibly much higher pollution-control costs that would come if Ellis County is designated a smog-violation area, documents and interviews show.

Mr. Barton, R-Ennis, has been working for at least five months to block that listing, saying it is not scientifically justified or economically sensible. The Environmental Protection Agency, which has backed including Ellis County and its heavy industries, is to decide on nationwide listings by April 15.

The EPA's final ruling will determine whether Holcim and TXI must meet the lesser environmental requirements that now apply in Ellis County or the tougher ones that would come with a smog-violator designation, according to a technical review prepared by the EPA.

The ruling would affect any Ellis County industry that seeks an air-pollution permit in the future.

Although most of Ellis County is rural, it is North Texas' center of heavy industry, accounting for about 40 percent of the region's industrial emissions. Altogether, 94 percent of Ellis County's industrial emissions come from a half-dozen cement, manufacturing, energy or waste-disposal corporations whose political action committees have contributed to Mr. Barton's campaigns, a Dallas Morning News comparison of Texas environmental records and federal campaign files shows.

Their donations to Mr. Barton since the 1998 election cycle total $74,500, according to Federal Election Commission reports. That includes $26,500 in either PAC or individual donations from TXI executives and $6,500 from Holcim's PAC.

Mr. Barton also got $27,500 during that period from cement industry PACs to which Holcim's or TXI's political committees donated.

Mr. Barton, a nine-term congressman and the new chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a statement that campaign donations from Ellis County industries played no role in his drive to limit smog rules there. Spokesmen for Holcim and TXI also denied any link and said they haven't discussed their permits with Mr. Barton.

"There is no amount of money that any group, corporation or individual could contribute that would influence any of my votes on any subject at any time," Mr. Barton said in his statement.

"It is completely absurd to suggest that I would allow any campaign donation whatsoever to impact my ability to ensure that my own children and grandchildren are breathing the cleanest possible air," he said.

Do you believe that? Because in all honesty, I don't. Oh, I could believe that Barton would vote for Holcim and TXI regardless because that's the way he thinks, and I could believe that they would support Barton because they think, as one of their spokesbeings put it later on in the article, that Barton "tends to support reasonable taxes on businesses and individuals that can keep our economy prosperous". But does anyone truly believe that there is "no amount of money that any group, corporation or individual could contribute that would influence any of [his] votes on any subject at any time"? Even a little bit?

I've brought this point up before, and I'll say it again: If what Barton says is really true, then why should any rational, profit-maximizing, accountable-to-the-shareholders corporation give him money? If he's going to vote their way anyway, isn't it just a waste of their funds? You could make a case for their generosity if he were going to be in a close election with an opponent who is sure to vote against them and the marginal value of their donations could help him win, but he's in a strongly Republican district and he's got a million dollars more than Morris Meyer does. So what's the point? How else can their contributions be explained?

I think there's only one conclusion that you can draw, and that's that Holcim and TXI expect to benefit from their donations. Whether you believe that's of consequence or not is the real question.

UPDATE: The Blue Skies Alliance has a ton of stuff on Smokey Joe - check out this report (PDF) (summarized here) for all of the dirty details. Thanks to JD for the catch.

Cuellar calls for recount

The Cuellar-Rodriguez race in the Democratic primary for CD 28 is going into overtime as Cueller has formally asked for a recount.

Henry Cuellar, the Laredo lawyer who narrowly lost to incumbent U.S. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez in the Democratic primary, called for a recount today an hour before the deadline.

He was scheduled to have a 4:30 news conference at his Laredo headquarters to announce the development.

The recount is the latest twist in a dramatic race between two former Texas House colleagues that saw some prickly campaigning over the past few months. Cuellar accused Rodriguez, a San Antonio native, of doing little for the district during his seven-year tenure while Rodriguez painted a portrait of an opportunistic party-hopper willing to sell his political soul for elected office.

District 28 includes 11 counties and runs from Hays County in the north to Zapata County in the south. More than 48,500 votes were cast in the race.

The final canvass by the Texas Democratic Primary on Saturday revealed a 145-vote margin in Rodriguez’s favor.

That total has bounced between 126 and 170 since the polls closed and absentee ballots were counted. I'm not sure why there was an adjustment downwards from the previous total of 170.

Because the contest took place during a primary, the Texas Democratic Party will conduct the recount. Recounts arising out of a general election are handled by the Texas secretary of state’s office.

Party officials have two days to review Cuellar’s petition and ensure its accuracy. Once the petition is approved, the recount must begin within seven days, said Jim Boynton, primary director for the Texas Democratic Party.

Each county involved in the recount will be contacted and a time scheduled for the recount. Both Cuellar and Rodriguez have the right to be present with one or more representatives at each recount site, Boynton said.

The recount will likely be completed early next month, before the runoff election on April 13, he said.

[...]

Boynton said he hasn’t seen a recount requested in a race this size since 1988 in an appellate court race. The original election was not overturned that time.

“It’s sort of a process,” Boynton said. “It’s time consuming and it’s hard to get everybody to make the times fit together.”

I don't mean to disparage, but I can't recall any recent election in which a recount resulted in a different outcome. Any help out there? Offhand, I wouldn't bet anything on Cuellar's chances, but I guess you never know.

The Station Fund

The editor of Blah3 performed at a benefit concert for the victims of the Station fire in Rhode Island, and he's got some things to say about the experience. Check it out, and also check out this Rolling Stone article on the plight of the survivors.

Clarke on "60 Minutes"

I didn't watch "60 Minutes" last night. Just wasn't feeling up to it. Of course, it's not exactly a grand revelation to me that Team Bush had a severe cranial-anal inversion regarding Iraq and al Qaeda, and it's not exactly breaking news that they discounted the threat of terrorism prior to 9/11. (Don't believe me. See for yourself what Condi Rice thought of the issue back in 2000. Or read this annotated timeline of Team Bush's actions during its first months in office.) It was pretty sweet to see the "Who says President Bush dropped the ball?" teasers during the basketball games, though. That's an image that I hope stays with people for some time.

What won't be staying is the Chron's reprint of this WaPo story, which was on page A3 of the print edition but which appears to have vanished from their web page as of now. Of course, you can get the story of Team Bush's response. We know what's important.

Perry secrecy watch

Want to know where our globetrotting Governor is? Don't bother checking his official schedule 'cause it won't tell you.

Defending a trip he took to the Bahamas with a group that included campaign donors, Gov. Rick Perry suggested Texans can decide what's right.

"Where I go and who I talk with is, you know — it's a pretty open piece of information that the people of the state of Texas by and large make a decision," Perry told reporters when asked about the trip.

"You know, was it appropriate for me to go and stay at the White House the following week and talk to the president? I think so."

But Perry's travels are made public selectively.

His campaign-financed Bahamas trip — which included Grover Norquist, president of the conservative Americans for Tax Reform, and donors Jim Leininger and John Nau — wasn't announced by his office.

It didn't appear on copies of his schedule released under the state Public Information Act.

Neither did his overnight stay at the White House, though his schedule noted a dinner there.

Nor did his trip to Texas fund-raisers with President Bush.

The schedule Perry makes public is his "state schedule," which doesn't include his political schedule or, said spokeswoman Kathy Walt, personal items or "spur-of-the-moment activities, or activities for which he needed no schedule."

Emphasis mine. This is why you wouldn't have known about his little powwow in the Bahamas with Grover Norquist and James Leininger had he not been accidentally spotted by some noseybody on a boat. Add this to his Double Secret Budget Ideas and you begin to wonder if there's anything he isn't reluctant to disclose.

All in how you look at it

The latest Texas poll on the economy can be summed up as follows: It still stinks, but not quite as bad as the last time you asked.

A year ago, 76 percent of those polled rated the U.S. economy as fair or poor. This year, the Texas Poll found that those with a gloomy outlook fell to 65 percent.

"It's moving in the right direction, but it's not where you want it to be," Tim Hopper, senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank in Houston, said in reference to the U.S. economy.

Texans are feeling more optimistic about their personal lives as well, with 35 percent reporting they're better off today than they were a year ago. That's an improvement over the 28 percent who made that claim a year ago.

[...]

[T]he Houston economy, which remains highly dependent on the energy industry, still hasn't benefited from the upturn in energy prices. Energy companies are still reluctant to beef up exploration and production because many worry the high prices may not be sustainable.

Though job growth -- both in the state and nationally -- is nothing to brag about, other national economic indicators such as gross domestic product, industrial production or the manufacturing index of inventories and sales appear to be moving rapidly in the right direction, said Hopper.

At some point, job growth will improve, something Hopper believes will occur later this year. Increased productivity can only go so far until manufacturers hire extra people to fill the extra orders they're selling, he said.

I suppose that job growth will eventually improve, but we've been hearing it for awhile now. I still know too many people who are out of work or who had to move elsewhere to find it to feel personally optimistic. There's a quote later on that says the more-upbeat mood may come from surviving last year: "If I can make it through 2003 and I'm still working, I can make it through almost anything." Maybe, but it seems to me there's another edge to this sword - if things don't get appreciably better soon, people may start to feel desperate.

You can find the full survey, with historical trends, here (PDF). If you look, you'll notice that the real improvement occurred between spring and fall of 2003:

How would you rate economic conditions in this country today -- 

excellent, good, only fair, or poor?


Winter 2004 % (N= 1,000)

Excellent 4

Good     30 34 (excellent/good)

Fair     41

Poor     24 65 (fair/poor)

DK/NA     1

Fall 2003 % (N=1,000) 

Excellent 3

Good     29 32 (excellent/good)

Fair     38

Poor     29 67 (fair/poor)

DK/NA     1

Winter (February) 2003 (N=1,000)

Excellent 2

Good     21 23 (excellent/good)

Fair     41

Poor     35 76 (fair/poor)

DK/NA     1

Make of that what you will.

The silliest spin on this I've heard came from the newsreader on KHPT radio this morning, who chirped that 71% of people thought things were "good or fair". I guess no one explained to him what "fair" means in this context.

On the receiving end of obsession

In the past couple of hours, I appear to have gotten several hundred referrals from search engine queries for some variation on Diane Zamora. I presume someone's running a bot rather than doing this manually, unless they have amazingly fast keyboard and mouse abilities. Whoever you are, what is it you're looking for that you didn't find the first 300 times? Or is today National Google Diane Zamora Day and I just missed it on my calendar?

Sunday school finance op-eds

State Rep. Scott Hochberg (D, Houston) makes some good points in this piece in which he defends the much-maligned and marked for death Robin Hood system of distributing property tax revenues to school districts. Here's something you probably didn't know:

Robin Hood has been blamed so many times for district budget problems that many taxpayers believe their Houston Independent School District taxes are being sent to some other district.

They aren’t. HISD is one of the 889 districts that receives money from the state. Only 132 districts, with less than 12 percent of the state’s public school students, give up any money raised locally.

132 out of 1021 districts give up local money under Robin Hood. You'd think with those numbers it'd be more of a third rail than Social Security, but you'd be wrong. I wonder how many new Republican state reps were elected on a platform that included revamping Robin Hood from districts that receive its funds. I'm not saying there aren't still reasons to want to overhaul the system - pretty much everyone agrees that it isn't working well enough to meet the state's needs - but I'll bet a lot of people voted against their own interests without fully realizing it.

Sure, those 132 districts want to keep all the property taxes they raise. And the leadership in Austin desperately wants to let them do that, because it is great politics. But even after they make their Robin Hood payments, those districts have at least $600 more to spend on each comparable student than does HISD or any of the other districts receiving state funds. That’s already a huge advantage in hiring teachers, setting class sizes and offering programs.

Eliminate Robin Hood payments by those districts, as some have recommended, and their advantage, on average, goes up to $2,600 per student, at a cost to the rest of us of $1 billion per year. Some solution!

Equity among the districts, the reason for Robin Hood in the first place, will still need to be addressed by whatever replaces it. There are indications that Republicans whose constituents are mostly in property-poor districts, such as State Sen. Todd Staples, recognize its importance and may cross the aisle to work with Democrats on a compromise. Governor Perry better doublecheck his math before he calls that special session.

Meanwhile, Clay Robison notes the study by Stuart Greenfield that the Quorum Report funded and fills in a couple of details.

If you own an average valued house of $150,000 and pay the average property tax rate of $1.46 per $100 valuation, a one-third cut would reduce your annual property tax bill by about $750, Greenfield says.

He warns that the reduced property tax deduction also would raise your federal income taxes by $113. The lost tax break couldn't be recouped from higher sales taxes because sales taxes aren't deductible from your federal return. A state income tax would be deductible.

What's more, Greenfield adds, the higher the value of your house -- which is the single biggest federal tax deduction for most Texas filers -- the bigger your net loss as property taxes are reduced and sales taxes or any other form of taxation (other than a state income tax) is increased or imposed.

There also is talk, for example, of increasing the state cigarette tax or creating a new, broad-based business activity tax. Whatever the merits of those proposals, they also wouldn't provide a replacement federal tax deduction for individual filers.

Many Texans who don't file itemized federal tax returns are renters, and they wouldn't necessarily realize the full benefits of property tax cuts or other tax breaks that their landlords might receive. But they certainly would pay any higher sales tax or, if business taxes were increased, would see higher costs for some goods and services.

The annual per capita sales tax load in Texas is $642. But since even the youngest children are included in that calculation, the average taxpayer actually pays more, a load that would be significantly increased if the Legislature either raises the tax rate or expands coverage to additional goods and services.

Obviously, $113 is a long way off from $750, so the final numbers will depend heavily on the kind of taxes that are imposed to replace the property tax revenue. The point, which I noted as well, is simply that whatever those taxes are, they won't be deductible. You won't be getting any of that back no matter what.

TypeKey

The folks at Six Apart, makers of MovableType, are getting close to releasing a new version of theit software that will allow blog owners to deal with unwanted comments (comment spam and anonymous drive-by abusives) in an integrated fashion with a service called TypeKey. I'm going to have to take a close look at it when it comes out, but I like the general idea. Jay Allen, the guy who gave us MT Blacklist, is sufficiently excited that he thinks MT 3.0 and TypeKey means that MT Blacklist's days are numbered. Not everyone is as sanguine as he is, but for now count me in the looking-forward-to-it camp.

That so-called liberal media

Good grief. I had no idea about this. Read it and be amazed.

Hoops update

Well, I got 22 out of a possible 32 in the first round of the NCAAs, putting me a solid 8th out of 9 in the BAN Hoops Contest. My sincere thanks to Jack for doing worse than I did. The WestPhoenix Regional was the least kind to me - I was only 4 for 8 there. Oh, well. There's a lot of basketball left to be played, we're gonna take it one day at a time and give 110%, we're just happy to be here...did I forget anything?

UPDATE: The definition of a mixed blessing during March Madness is when a team from your favorite conference wins an upset that shreds one of your brackets. Congrats to Nevada for manhandling Gonzaga. At least I wasn't in any danger of contending in this tournament anyway. Maybe Trent Johnson ought to be the hot coaching property coming out of the WAC this year instead of Billy Gillespie. Don't anyone tell Texas A&M that, though.

UPDATE: Et tu, Stanford? At least I only had Gonzaga losing in the Elite Eight. Stanford was my pick to win it all. It's official: I suck.

CD 32 tightening up

Byron points to this NYT article which notes that the race between Martin Frost and Pete Sessions in the new 32nd CD is tightening up, at least according to Congressional Quarterly.

Eight months before Election Day, the two candidates have raised more than $2.3 million between them. Similar attention is being paid to the other unusual incumbent-against-incumbent race in the state created by redistricting, which was promoted by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay with the expectation it could produce seven more GOP seats in Congress this fall. That contest is in West Texas between Charles W. Stenholm, like Frost a Democrat in the House since 1979, and freshman Republican Randy Neugebauer. (Story, p. 11)

"I will be campaigning in the district every waking moment I am not here in Washington," Frost said. "If Tom DeLay wants these districts so badly he is going to have to win them the old-fashioned way, at the ballot box."

The intensity of Frost's campaign in recent weeks has led Congressional Quarterly to now rate the contest as Leans Republican, meaning Sessions appears to have an edge but the race could go either way. CQ had rated it Republican Favored, which meant a Frost win would be a major upset.

That's all a matter of opinion, of course - as with any contest, all that will ultimately matter is the final score. Nonetheless, this is encouraging news, and I think with sufficient attention will draw a lot of fundraising that will help all of the endangered Democrats.

Just a thought here: It was mighty nice of the GOP to draw a childs-play district for State Rep. Kenny Marchant, who faces the plucky but unknown Gary Page in the new 24th CD. One wonders why a four-term incumbent like Sessions was left with the short straw and the real possibility of being ousted. Oh, I know, Frost was gonna run somewhere (though Jim Turner chose not to), and surely Sessions will get all the help he wants from DeLay's moneymaking machine. But still. Why'd Marchant rate and Sessions didn't? Makes you wonder.

Anyway. Keep your eye on this one. The better Frost does, the better the Democrats overall ought to do.

They liked us! They really (mostly) liked us!

About 70% of Super Bowl visitors polled said they would recommend the city to others based on their experiences during their visit.

Jordy Tollett, the president of the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau, said he commissioned the survey to gauge "what people think we are, what they like about us and what we should tout."

The Super Bowl Image Study, conducted by TouchPoll Solutions of Kingwood, questioned 820 non-Houstonians at Bush Intercontinental Airport and hotels around the city.

Poll results show visitors' opinions of Houston were generally favorable to begin with and increased by 10 percentage points during their stay. After their stay, 30 percent of those polled said Houston was very attractive and an equal share rated it somewhat attractive.

Roughly the same percentages said their overall experience in Houston left them very satisfied or somewhat satisfied. Asked if they would recommend the city to others, 71 percent said yes and 8 percent no, with the rest undecided.

"It was a tremendous turnaround," said TouchPoll owner Bobby Hollis.

Hollis attributes that turnaround to Houstonians' friendliness and the depth of organized events offered in the week leading up to the Super Bowl.

The poll found that visitors tended to be upper-income, diverse and well-traveled, Hollis said. Most said they take two to seven vacation trips a year.

Three of five respondents were male, and two of three were visiting Houston for the first time.

About 40 percent of those polled said they rode the MetroRail line. Although they were not asked to rate its performance, two of three said mobility in Houston was equal to, or better than, that of most cities.

"There were numerous verbal responses praising the friendliness of Houstonians and the cleanliness of the downtown area," the report's introduction said.

Activities most cited by the visitors were dining (47 percent) and shopping (41 percent). Only 6 percent made it to the beach, and 12 percent visited a museum.

Sounds pretty good to me. The print issue mentions things like a lack of cabs in the Galleria and the general spread-out-ness of the Super Bowl events as some of the negative things cited.

One can only speculate what visitors might have said had the Super Bowl been played in midsummer. The impact of the climate may be better gauged when Major League Baseball holds its All-Star Game at Minute Maid Park in July. Tollett said he wants TouchPoll to conduct another survey then.

I've wondered the same thing myself. Let's hope most of those visitors stay downtown and discover the air-conditioned tunnel system.

It's official: The tech boom is over

Anyone remember DotComGuy? Would you believe he's been DotComGuy for five years now? But not for much longer.

Mitch Maddox, who legally changed his name to DotComGuy in 1999 and got lots of media attention because of a yearlong Internet stunt, is selling his trademark name.

"I've taken it as far as I can go," Maddox said Tuesday.

I believe that was true about five seconds after you made the announcement, but that's just me.

In 2000, the 30-year-old Dallas native moved into an empty house and survived for a year solely off purchases made on the Internet. Viewers could watch Maddox 24 hours a day via a streaming Webcast on his Web site, www.dotcomguy.com.

Maddox began an auction Tuesday on his site for the trademark, DotComGuy, and the domain name www.dotcomguy.com.

"It's an asset I've had lying around, and I think it can really benefit someone else," Maddox said.

Yes, because venture capitalists are really hot to fund the next big Internet gimmick. Let's face it: if Jennicam is no longer with us, the DotComGuy webcam is not exactly going to be a cash cow.

Media outlets worldwide covered Maddox's online stunt. The promotion garnered sponsorships from several major companies including UPS and peapod.com, an online grocer.

Maddox was visited by celebrities and performers including Ed McMahon and the rock band Incubus.

Ed McMahon, peapod.com, and the rock band Incubus. I don't think I can possibly add to that.

After his yearlong commitment expired, Maddox faded from the public eye. In the interim, he took some time off, traveled the world and made speeches.

"After"?

In November 2002, he married Anne Rehfeldt, a Fort Worth native he met through the online dating service Match.com.

The marriage license says Rehfeldt married DotComGuy, Maddox said.

Maddox said he will be happy to retake his family name as well as allow his wife to take his last name.

Once again, I don't think I can add anything to that.

Eckels shills for Perry's property tax cap

Harris County Judge Robert Eckels is going to bat for Governor Perry's proposed property tax rate increase cap.

Eckels, who joined two state legislators on a three-city tour organized by the governor's staff, said Perry has taken a "courageous stand" against rising property taxes.

"The governor's plan protects local governments from unfunded state mandates that force local property tax increases and hides the true cost of state government programs," Eckels said. "It makes government accountable to the taxpayer."

But opponents believe Perry's plan would severely restrict local governments' ability to raise tax revenues to pay for basic services.

Interestingly, one of those opponents is that hotbed of Democratic liberalism Collin County.

Collin County Commissioners' Court on Thursday unanimously approved a resolution opposing Gov. Rick Perry's plan to limit property-appraisal increases and cap the amount of money raised from property taxes as part of so-called "Robin Hood" school-finance changes.

County Judge Ron Harris said the court stands behind local control and is concerned about the potential financial impact Perry's plan might have.

"We feel the vast number of Texas cities have been very prudent," said Harris, who chairs the court. "We have to face citizens for re-election. They've got the last say anyway."

[...]

County Administrator Bill Bilyeu said county officials are concerned that if the proposal is adopted, they would not be able to expand services enough to provide for a rapidly growing population because the rate set by the Legislature might be less than the growth.

"It's a cap on how much your operating budget can go up, regardless of how many new people moved in, new homes, mandates," Bilyeu said.

On average, about 76 people move into Collin County a day, outpacing the growth of most of the state's 254 counties, he said. While population growth across the state is roughly 2 percent, Collin County, at about 5 percent, is among several counties along Interstate 35 that are bursting at the seams.

The growth of Collin County's operations is not because of increasing values for existing homes.

"Our growth is new buildings, new houses on the ground," he said.

The expanded tax base pays for the new roads, jails and sheriff's deputies need to serve the county's new residents.

[...]

"I maintain what brought school financing to a head is not really the taxes," Harris said. "It is the fact it's hit the cap ... It's just not good policy to handicap local governments. You'll have to make some cuts. The first thing that will be cut is your infrastructure."

Counties must maintain jails and courts. In cities, residents want their children to get the right education, and they want police and fire service and their trash picked up, he said.

"We have to pay for what we get," Harris said.

"We've been able to hold the tax rate, allowing growth, the increased tax based, to fund itself."

County residents seem happy with the commissioners' court. Two of its members, Commissioners Phyllis Cole and Joe Jaynes, received more than 60 percent of the vote for re-election in last week's primary.

No Democrats filed to run for commissioner.

[...]

"We're empowering Commissioner Cole, who is chair of a conference of urban counties, to represent that Collin County is absolutely opposed to the plan coming out of the governor's office," Harris said.

These guys are right. What this cap will do is essentially force counties to choose between schools, roads, hospitals, law enforcement, or flood control. Can someone give me a reason why any one of these things is less critical and less expected by the people who pay for them than any other? Cause I can't. But apparently Robert Eckels can, though of course he'll never tell you that.

One last thing, from the Chron story:

Republican Reps. Dwayne Bohac of Houston and Elizabeth Ames Jones of San Antonio joined Eckels on the tax cap promotion tour.

Bohac sponsored similar legislation last year that would have capped appraisal increases at 5 percent a year. He said the governor's plan was better and would stop "appraisal creep." At present, appraisal increases are capped at 10 percent a year.

[...]

Rep. Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said Bohac and Jones voted against Democratic amendments in 2003 that would have lowered the appraisal cap in Bohac's bill from 5 percent to 3 percent.

"How can these folks keep a straight face while pretending to support something they voted against last session?" Dunnam asked.

Practice, Jim. Lots of practice.

Plano Star Courier link via Southpaw.

Final settlement in Tulia lawsuit near

Now that the city of Amarillo has reached a $5 million settlement agreement in the federal lawsuit filed by the unjustly imprisoned Tulia defendants, a group of other counties and cities in the Panhandle are close to negotiating their own settlement.

Sources near the negotiations have indicated the remaining 30 counties and cities named in the federal lawsuit likely will settle for substantially less than the $5 million Amarillo paid last week for its part in the suit.

Several sources with varying degrees of involvement in the negotiations have confirmed that the overall settlement for all the remaining municipalities combined is in the area of $1 million. Counties and cities would pay amounts ranging from a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands of dollars under the agreement, which has not been finalized.

Attorneys from both sides of the suit said they couldn't talk about the details of the negotiations, but they confirmed talks were ongoing.

"We are continuing to negotiate, and we hope we can reach a settlement," said Amarillo attorney Jeff Blackburn, who represents the Tulia defendants. "We're eager to settle this case so that the entire Panhandle can put this nightmare behind them, like Amarillo did last week."

The settlement, if finalized, would bring an end to a federal lawsuit that was filed in connection with the controversial 1999 Tulia drug bust.

Again, I'm glad to see this get resolved. Just for the record, for the 44 Tulia defendants who are plaintiffs in this lawsuit, I figure after attorneys's fees and whatnot, they'll net about $10,000 each. Before anyone complains about lawsuits and the taxpayers footing the bill and so on, ask yourself a simple question: Would you willingly go through what any of those 44 people went through in return for ten grand? The people responsible for this debacle got off very, very cheaply.

Here's a look at how the city of Amarillo will pay its share of the settlement.

The $5 million payment to settle Amarillo's liability in the Tulia drug sting won't receive official approval from the Amarillo City Commission.

The commission gave city attorneys authority to reach a settlement amount on its behalf, and a 1987 ordinance gives a committee of department heads the authority to administer the payment.

State law requires the city commission to approve bid contracts of $25,000 or more, but that standard doesn't apply to the $5 million settlement, a different kind of transaction altogether.

The settlement will be paid as an insurance claim, and potentially all of it will come from the city's risk management fund, the fund through which the city insures itself for liability claims.

The ordinance creating the fund authorized a risk management board to administer the claims, which usually are too routine to need city commission attention. That board's authority applies even in the case of an exceptionally large claim such as the $5 million Tulia lawsuit settlement.

[...]

Briefing the commission also was appropriate because the settlement amount was likely to be greater than $50,000, said City Manager John Ward, also a member of the risk management board. That dollar amount is a benchmark, Ward said, for when the board would bring a pending insurance-fund claim to the commission's attention.

But even though the Tulia settlement amount would dwarf all other insurance claims the city has paid in the past 12 years, the commission still didn't have to take official action because it wasn't required by the ordinance that created the risk management fund. Nor would such action have been practical, Ward said.

When the commission gave authority to its lawyers before the mediation, the settlement amount wasn't known, so it couldn't have approved an amount, Ward said. And after the mediation, the judge wouldn't have been receptive to the city changing its offer.

"You could stick these settlements on (the commission's) agenda and they rubber-stamp them, but it really serves no purpose because it's too late to vote against it," Ward said. "The city is committed."

In the case of Tulia, however, the commission will conduct one vote related to the $5 million settlement. The risk management fund's ordinance limits aggregate payments for general liability to $3 million per year. So the commission on Tuesday will consider granting the program some kind of flexibility so the payment can proceed, Ward said.

Among the commission's options are to amend the ordinance so that it allows for certain exceptions to the limitation, or to authorize a one-time exception in this case alone, Ward said.

The fund may not even have to pay the full $5 million for the Tulia settlement. The city is exploring options to supplement self-insurance funds with money seized by the task force that was involved in the sting.

But using those funds depends on state approval, Ward said.

I can't think of a more appropriate use for that money than to help pay the settlement to the victims. Let's hope newly elected State Senator Kel Seliger brings this up at his first opportunity. Feel free to drop him a line or give him a call at one of his offices and encourage him to do so.

Bell makes peace with Green

I'm glad to see this.

Houston Rep. Chris Bell is attempting to mend a rift among House Democrats that grew out of the racially divisive election he lost to Al Green earlier this month.

Bell met this week with Democratic House leaders who were angered by members of the Congressional Black Caucus who sided with Green against the first-term lawmaker in the party's March 9 primary.

Bell plans to meet today with Green and invite the former NAACP leader to Washington to meet with the Democratic caucus in an effort to heal any wounds left from the election.

"There's some significant anger on the part of some members that colleagues would back an opponent, and I don't think that serves us at all," Bell said.

House members traditionally support incumbent members of their own party -- or remain neutral -- in primary elections, no matter who the challenger is.

Rep. Harold Ford, D-Tenn., criticized fellow members of the Congressional Black Caucus for taking sides against Bell. "You have an incumbent, and you don't support the incumbent? It was inappropriate," Ford told Congressional Quarterly.

Bell met Wednesday with House Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi, of California; Steny Hoyer, of Maryland; and Bob Menendez, of Maryland, urging them to put aside any rancor with the Black Caucus over his defeat.

"The last thing I want is to be is the poster boy for racial discord," Bell said.

This was both the smart and appropriate thing for Bell to do, and I applaud him for it. He's right to not give any further victories to Tom DeLay's divisive tactics. He's also only 44 and needs to consider his own political future, assuming he wants one. I know what office I'd like to see him run for next.

UPDATE: Greg adds some thoughts.

February traffic report

I don't really know how much traffic I had in February thanks to the sudden and inexplicable death of my Sitemeter counter early on in the month. After a couple days of ruling out every other possibility, I decided it had to be specific to that one account. I bit the bullet and switched everything over to the counter that I had (and thankfully still remembered the logon/password details for) on my old Blogspot site. I know I got about 21,000 hits since that was configured on Feb 11, so let's say I got 32,000 hits. I got a lot of referrals from my post about Howard Stern getting dropped by Clear Channel while they were picking up Michael Savage, which helped drive that total.

By the way, I never did get an answer from the Sitemeter folks about my account. You do get what you pay for.

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Those prison blues

I've harped on the correlation between our lock 'em up mentality in this state and our recent budget shortfalls (see here, here, here, and here for earlier installments). Slowly but surely, that idea is taking hold to the Lege.

"I don't think there's anyone in the state of Texas now who thinks that the smart thing to do is build thousands of more prison units," said House Corrections Committee Chairman Ray Allen, R-Grand Prairie. "We need to have a better-funded system of probation."

Rep. Jack Stick, R-Austin, a member of the Corrections Committee and its designee on the Appropriations Committee, was among several lawmakers who quizzed Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials about whether many people are on parole who might not need to be, whether probation programs get enough money to be a realistic alternative to prison and whether new technology should cause Texas to rethink its decade-old parole and probation policies.

Such suggestions could have drawn derision at the Capitol just a few years ago during an era when new prisons and getting tougher on criminals were politically popular. During a five-year period starting in 1991, Texas tripled the size of its prison system to become the largest in the free world as it slashed the parole rate and sentenced felons to longer terms.

But the costs to operate such a system proved huge, and parole, probation, drug treatment, education, job training and other rehabilitation programs for prisoners were cut to make ends meet. Last year, the criminal justice agency, which oversees prisons and parole programs and financially supports county-run probation programs statewide, had to cut $240 million out of its $5.2 billion budget.

"My sense is that we may have about the same amount of funding available during the next biennium, but any new initiatives whatsoever will have to be paid for through savings," Allen said after a Tuesday hearing during which businesses proposed options that could save state money by privatizing some corrections services.

On Wednesday, a legislative hearing explored how to improve parole and probation programs to save money. State budget officials noted that the basic cost of keeping someone on probation is 97 cents a day, compared with $2.30 for parole and $44 for prison.

Lawmakers are discussing whether satellite-tracking technology could be used more extensively to better keep track of the 76,000 parolees and 450,000 probationers -- more than 3 percent of all adult Texans -- and whether other technology and revamped supervision policies could allow many more felons to serve their time outside prisons so they could pay taxes and stay with their families.

"Do we have people on parole in Texas for 14 years because they need to be on parole or because that is how we have always done it?" asked Stick, a former prosecutor.

Stick suggested that some people might be released from parole early if they were proven to be rehabilitated.

"Maybe we have an antiquated system we need to look at," he said.

Yeah, maybe we do. I realize there's a certain only-Nixon-could-go-to-China aspect to Republican state legislators looking into alternatives to the prison industry, but now would be an excellent time for some Democrats to make we-told-you-so noises and to trot out whatever good ideas they may have. They won't get official credit for whatever legislation may result, but they might plant the notion in the media and in the public consciousness that they were on the right side of the issue all along.

UPDATE: Kevin thinks this is bad news.

Your regular TRMPAC briefing

The state Republican Part continues its efforts to smear Travis County DA Ronnie Earle by claiming that he has a double standard because he didn't go after former Attorney General Dan Morales.

Earle said he did not investigate Morales because federal officials were doing it.

"The federal authorities did an outstanding job in that case, and it would have been inappropriate for me to intervene in their ongoing investigation," Earle said. "Justice was done."

Morales last year pleaded guilty to federal charges of mail fraud and filing a false income tax return in connection with his attempt to fraudulently secure $520 million in legal fees for a friend in the state's $17 billion tobacco lawsuit settlement.

You know, I admit to being as much a partisan in this squabble as anyone, but that sure seems like a reasonable explanation to me. It's not like Morales is off in the Caymans with a boatload of ill-gotten gains thumbing his nose at all of us. I don't recall ever hearing complaints that the feds were overstepping their jurisdiction in this case, at least not from Republicans. I also don't ever recall hearing any complaints from Republicans about who was or wasn't prosecuting Morales during the leadup to his guilty plea in federal court, or when he was working for and endorsing Governor Perry back in 2002. I guess it wasn't convenient back then.

I should note that then-Attorney General John Cornyn did some of the early heavy lifting in unravelling Morales' crimes. There was some speculation that Cornyn was dogged in pursuit of Morales because he was still seen as a potential threat to win an election for Governor or Senate in 2002. That Cornyn may have been motivated in part by partisan goals doesn't diminish the fact that he had a legitimate reason for his investigation. Given the facts of the TRM/TAB case that have come to light so far, I'd say the same is true of Ronnie Earle.

I've pointed to several overviews of the TRM/TAB investigation before, but I really recommend this one in the AusChron, which looks at the individual pieces and players and how they all fit together, rather than doing a chronological narrative. Your understanding of the subject will definitely be enhanced by it.

ChevronTexaco closes the sale

After all that hoo-hah, ChevronTexaco went ahead and bought the Enron Building anyway, without the tax abatement from Harris County.

Houston City Council had already agreed to give ChevronTexaco a tax break on $64 million in building improvements and furnishings, reducing the California company's tax payments to the city by $350,000 a year over 10 years.

Doubts about the deal arose after ChevronTexaco indicated it also expected tax incentives from a reluctant county government.

It was unclear how the county's position affected negotiations for the purchase of the gleaming new building, completed by Enron shortly after its collapse into bankruptcy.

Plans now call for consolidating ChevronTexaco's 4,700 workers and 500 workers from outside Texas at the new facility at 1500 Louisiana. The current work force in Houston is now in seven buildings.

The oil giant would still have to pay taxes on the building's current assessed value of $79.3 million, which would bring the city $520,000 a year.

If I'm understanding this correctly, CT still gets a break from the city on planned improvements to the building, but not from the county. Hard to argue the assertion of the County Commissioners' Court at this point that there was no need for them to kick in, as the sale clearly did not hinge on it. This may still be seen as a screwup on Mayor White's part (though again I can't say for sure if the Commissioners squeezed him a bit), but it looks like it'll be a pretty small ding on his record.

Rodriguez increases lead, and other news

Rep. Ciro Rodriguez has increased his lead over primary challenger Henry Cuellar now that provisional and overseas ballots have been counted. Forty-four votes were added to his margin, which now stands at 170.

Although the results are unofficial until the Texas Democratic Party conducts the formal canvass March 20, Rodriguez's campaign staff was heartened by the increase in the incumbent's lead from 126 votes on election night.

"Now that the provisional and overseas ballots have been counted, every vote has been counted," said Rodriguez spokesman John Puder. "Any hope that the Cuellar campaign had that those votes would help close the gap has vanished."

Cuellar may still ask for a recount, but one would think that he's not as well-positioned for it as he was before. The difference is still small, though, so his chances are still reasonable.

Meanwhile, in CD10, the money keeps flowing in the runoff between Ben Streusand and Mike McCaul.

As of Feb. 18, Streusand had contributed more of his own money than any other congressional candidate -- $1.34 million, or 96 percent of the $1.4 million he has raised.

McCaul, meanwhile, was the third biggest personal spender at $647,000, or 70 percent of the $929,000 he raised.

Such contributions have helped make this the costliest congressional race in the country to date, with more than $2.6 million being spent, according to campaign finance reports.

And there is an expensive April 13 runoff to come between the two candidates. Streusand won 28 percent and McCaul 24 percent in eliminating six others in the March 9 primary.

[...]

The geometry of the 10th District, which stretches from Houston to Austin, helps explain why the race is so expensive, said GOP political consultant Allen Blakemore.

Last year, the GOP-controlled Texas Legislature changed the boundaries of the 10th District to give Republicans a better chance of winning the seat last held by U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin. Doggett decided to run in the 25th District, which was moved to South Central Texas, and the 10th became an open seat with a 64 percent Republican voting history.

"To win, you have to advertise in two television markets, Austin and Houston," said Blakemore, who does not work for either candidate. "And there are three radio markets including Brenham.

"If you're (U.S. Reps.) Tom DeLay or John Culberson, you only have to buy in the Houston market," he said. "That's what makes this race so expensive to compete in."

It also greatly raises the bar for a Democratic candidate who might get into the race, probably as good a reason as any why Gus Garcia was the only one to even contemplate it. Sadly, any serious challenger in this bastardized district will almost surely have to be someone with his or her own money to burn on it.

Big spending on political races has not always worked in the Houston area.

Two years ago, Republican businessman Tom Reiser spent $1.76 million on his losing campaign for the 25th Congressional District. GOP businessman Peter Wareing spent $1.2 million on his losing primary race for the 31st Congressional District.

Reiser and Wareing were part of a wave of 14 congressional candidates in 2002 who spent large sums of their own money on their campaigns only to lose their elections.

I had to go to the Secretary of State page to remind myself about Peter Wareing. I had forgotten that he'd tried again after his expensive failure in 2000 in CD07 against John Culberson. Some people are just gluttons for punishment, I guess.

Among those supporting McCaul are former Gov. William P. Clements; U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas; and Republican state Reps. Todd Baxter, Jack Stick and Terry Keel.

Speaking of Stick and Baxter, the AusChron notes that Democratic primary turnout in their State House districts may spell trouble for them in November.

Both of their Dem challengers – Mark Strama and Kelly White, respectively – ran unopposed in districts designed to lean Republican. But both Strama and White still got more votes last week than did the incumbents.

The article suggests this election may not be like the ones of the recent past, and that the Dems may have blown a chance to make some gains or at least hold some losses down.

Last week's results suggest forces that are working more deeply and broadly than many observers, including me, may have initially concluded on Election Night. Yes, it's true that U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, facing what just days before had seemed (to many, including him) a neck-and-neck battle for survival, poured on a get-out-the-vote effort that helped buoy the high D turnout. But only a third of Travis Co. lies within Doggett's new CD 25, and while Dem turnout in East and Southeast Austin was indeed much higher than normal, and much higher than most anywhere else, those precincts always prefer the D's by several orders of magnitude. (Central and East Austin have kept Dems in power at the courthouse for at least the last two election cycles.)

But Democrats outpaced GOP turnout in all three of Travis' congressional districts, two of which were uncontested on the D side; in all six of its House districts, none of which was contested on the D side; and the precincts of all four county commissioners, two of whom weren't even on the ballot. Certainly, the countywide races – for sheriff and especially for 200th District Court – offered their share of voter interest, but the GOP had some of those, too.

Indeed, the turnout may be making some local Dems question their willingness to write off without a fight the races for CD 10 and CD 21, for Terry Keel's House District 47, and for Gerald Daugherty's Precinct 3 seat on the Commissioners Court. The GOP was unwilling to write off CD 25, but Becky Armendariz Klein has a row to hoe almost as long and narrow as the district itself. Despite her glib assertions on Election Night that she could pick up the Hinojosa (that is, Hispanic) vote, at least in Travis Co., Doggett outpolled Hinojosa and Klein combined by a factor of 4.7-to-1.

Something else is apparently at work, something that suggests the cynical hubris of the GOP leadership may now be touched by nemesis. Faced with effective disenfranchisement and supposed irrelevance, Travis Co. Democrats did not go play Frisbee with their dogs; they stormed the polls to send a message – about redistricting, about Tom DeLay, and about Bush and his reign of error, more so than about the choices actually before them on this ballot. Some of this reflects the Zeitgeist of a revitalized national Democratic Party (particularly here, where Howard Dean still came in third, even after exiting the race before the start of early voting); people made time to vote in the same way, and for the same reason, that they stood in the pouring rain for an hour to see anti-GOP documentaries like Bush's Brain and The Hunting of the President at SXSW. Democrats care about what's happening in politics, right now, in a way that hasn't been true locally since Ann Richards' 1990 triumph.

The second paragraph is a bit misleading, in that two of the three Congressional districts had no Democratic primary candidates, not unopposed primary candidates. However you slice it, though, it would appear that Travis County Dems are more fired up than anyone, including the party leaders, would have thought. I'm not sure what their secret is, but I do wish they'd share it with Harris County.

Finally, getting back to CD 10 for a minute, those who care about that sort of thing will be pleased to note that McCaul has picked up the Poppy Bush endorsement. I will note the following from the Streusand campaign:

Marc Cowart, Streusand's campaign manager, said the Bush event shows that McCaul is the candidate of "the Republican establishment."

"The feedback we hear from voters and grass roots is they don't want the Washington establishment telling them how to vote," Cowart said. "They want to make a decision based on facts, issues and backgrounds."

If one believes Mr. Cowart, then a possible interpretation of his words is that Republican voters are not very happy with Republican officeholders right now, at least not happy enough to consider an endorsement from them to be a good thing. Make of that what you will.

You can have my beer bong when you pry it from my cold, hungover fingers

Spring break has many traditions associated with it. Lately, it seems that one of those traditions is for a City Council person somewhere to lose touch with reality and propose a stupid rule in order to keep those damn kids off their lawn.

NEW BRAUNFELS — Last summer, City Councilman Ken Valentine saw a young woman on the bank of the Comal River being fed beer through a "beer bong." Minutes later she fell and received a serious cut.

Valentine is now proposing that the devices be banned from the Comal and Guadalupe rivers inside the city limits and that police confiscate them when found.

"I want the beer bongs off the river," Valentine said at a City Council workshop Monday night. "Their only purpose is to get someone drunk as a skunk as quickly as possible."

Valentine promised to put a call for a beer bong ban on an upcoming City Council agenda.

A beer bong is a long section of flexible tubing attached to a large funnel. The user puts the tube in his or her mouth while another person dumps beer into the funnel. They are a common sight among college-age drinkers on the Comal and Guadalupe rivers when thousands float the waterways on summer weekends.

"The user". I love that. Makes it sound like a piece of software.

New Braunfels Police Chief Russell Johnson said he doubts a policy to ban beer bongs would pass legal muster.

"If we break the law, we are no better than they are," he said.

Councilman Lee Rodriguez said he doesn't like the idea either.

"Ken is wanting to bend the rules," he said. "I appreciate his passion about what goes on on the river, but we have to draw the line somewhere. We have to be careful about violating people's rights."

Concerns about personal freedoms led the council to defeat a proposal last year to ban radios from the rivers, and instead adopt a stricter citywide noise ordinance.

Rodriguez said he "was kind of upset" with Valentine because "he keeps putting out a bad message about our rivers," which could keep well-behaved families away.

The public perception that river tourism constitutes an alcohol-fueled wild party will simply draw more rowdy tourists, Rodriguez said.

Many city and Comal County officials believe behavior on the rivers has improved substantially in recent years, as stepped-up law enforcement has created a more family friendly atmosphere.

Congratulations, Ken "No Bong" Valentine of New Braunfels! You have officially joined Martha "No Thong" Wong in the pantheon of City Council frivolity. Remember, no problem is too important to be put aside for a crusade against college students having the kind of fun you don't approve of. That's the American way.

County plays hardball on Enron building

When last we met, the County Commissioner's Court was wreaking havoc on the proposed sale of the Enron building to ChevronTexaco by playing coy about a tax abatement for improvements. We see today that they haven't changed their tune.

Harris County commissioners didn't discuss a policy on tax incentives at a Tuesday meeting, signaling ChevronTexaco may not get the tax break it wants in exchange for buying the newer of the Enron buildings.

The commission was expected to discuss its policy on granting tax breaks to businesses and perhaps whether to give the California-based company a break, just as the city did. But it put off any discussion after its staff recommended not giving the tax break.

"We're going to take that to mean they are not going to address it. So with something like that, we're left in limbo," ChevronTexaco spokesman Mickey Driver said. "We have to move ahead, so right now we're looking at our options."

Moving forward with buying the 40-story building could mean renegotiating closing requirements for the deal, said Driver, who would not say what any new negotiations would involve.

[...]

Houston City Council has agreed to give ChevronTexaco a tax break on $64 million in building improvements and furnishings, reducing the company's payments to the city by $350,000 a year for 10 years.

The company would still have to pay full taxes on the building's current assessed value of $79.3 million, which would bring the city $520,000 a year.

"I am confident that our community will do what it takes to bring more jobs to Houston. I and other civic leaders should get this deal done," Mayor Bill White said through a spokesman.

Driver praised the city's efforts to facilitate the deal but said the county was not so accommodating.

"We're not mad at the county or the commissioners. We just found it very, very difficult to work with county staff," Driver said, adding that "to this minute we don't understand what we did wrong."

David Turkel, the county's director of community and economic development, said his office had again reviewed ChevronTexaco's application and still is recommending against granting the oil giant a tax break.

[...]

Commissioners didn't actually consider ChevronTexaco's request for a tax incentive Tuesday.

Such a request would make it to the court's agenda only if Turkel's staff recommends approval.

The commissioners did direct Turkel to review the county's criteria and policies on tax breaks, with particular attention to the way requests are coordinated with other local governments.

During the discussion of the guidelines, Commissioner Steve Radack suggested that Harris County consider buying the downtown tower if ChevronTexaco backed out.

It was clearly intended to send a message to ChevronTexaco that Radack, for one, did not care if the company pulled out of the real estate deal.

You know, I'm still not sure if the Commissioner's Court is sticking it to the new Mayor, or if he genuinely screwed up by jumping the gun and/or not following known protocol correctly. I did a search through the Chron archives "Harris County Commissioners" and either "tax break" or "tax abatement", and found two examples of tax abatement denials, one in 1997 when a chemical plant was turned down (at least at the time) for being a polluter, and once in 1996 when Albertson's grocery stores was rejected for being unfair to existing grocers - the full story is beneath the More link for those who are curious.

It would seem, therefore, that denying such a request is unusual; at least, it would seem unusual enough to be newsworthy. What I don't know is if this type of request is itself unusual. It's not the kind of abatement request that was created in 1987 to lure businesses - it appears to be more discretionary. Looking around more, it appears that any taxing agency can grant such a requst, then other taxing agencies who have a piece of the action have 90 days to decide whether or not to go along.

Anyway, for what it's worth, my gut says the following:

1. The denial of a tax abatement requested in this fashion is uncommon, though perhaps not as a percentage of the request total.

2. The Commissioner's Court is playing hardball, but it's more of a turf thing than a partisan thing, since neither El Franco Lee nor Sylvia Garcia seem particularly upset.

3. Mayor White probably screwed up, though it doesn't appear to be terribly damaging to him so far and it may have been more in reading the Court than in dotting I's and crossing T's. I'll bet he never makes this mistake again.

Probably more than you wanted to know. Sorry about that. Got a bit carried away.

HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Date: WED 03/01/95
Section: A
Page: 16
Edition: 2 STAR

County court votes down tax deal for Albertson's

By JOE STINEBAKER
Staff

Harris County Commissioners Court voted 3 -2 Tuesday afternoon to deny a $45 million tax abatement to Albertson's Inc., signaling its disenchantment with the tax -abatement program.

County Judge Robert Eckels said after the vote that the issue shows the need for a review of the policy for granting tax concessions to businesses considering moving here.

"I think we probably will change our criteria," he said, adding that commissioners will begin discussing tightening up the program by mid-year.

Albertson's, a large grocery chain based in Idaho, had asked that the county for a tax abatement on an 800,000-square-foot distribution center planned at the Katy Freeway and Grand Parkway. Company officials said the center would employ 350 people by the end of the century.

Robert K. Banks, Albertson's vice president for real estate, told commissioners the abatement would be a "significant factor" in Albertson's decision on whether to build the distribution center in Harris County . Company officials have said that, without an abatement , they may consider building in some other South Texas county . And regardless of the decision, he said, Albertson's planned to build as many as a dozen stores in the Harris County area.

But at least a dozen opponents, led by grocery chains already doing business in the area, told commissioners the abatement would be an unfair advantage in a saturated, highly competitive market.

Commissioners El Franco Lee, Jim Fonteno and Steve Radack voted against granting the abatement ; Eckels and Commissioner Jerry Eversole voted for it.

Albertson's officials refused comment after Tuesday's vote on whether the abatement rejection would alter plans to build the center in Harris County .

If the court tightens the criteria, it will be heading in the opposite direction from the City of Houston, where Mayor Bob Lanier has proposed an easing of abatement criteria.

Felo de spam

Here's a new variant on malevolent email that I at least haven't seen before:

Dear user of "Offthekuff.com" mailing system,

Your e-mail account has been temporary disabled because of unauthorized access.

Advanced details can be found in attached file.

Have a good day,

The Offthekuff.com team

Now, obviously, if my email account had been disabled, I wouldn't be able to log in and see this message. Plus, all the stuff from my webhost is very clearly identifiable as coming from them, and more specifically from their domain. Still, it took me a second because the message is a bit shocking, and it's not like I've never experienced mail issues before.

The attachment is a PIF file, which those of you who don't remember the Win 3.1/DOS days may not realize is basically a command file for DOS. I didn't bother looking too closely, but it probably does something pleasant like delete a bunch of files or some such. Many corporate email servers block PIFs because of this.

So consider this a public service warning. You've probably heard it often enough to block it out completely, but never open an attachment in email unless you know what it is and why it was sent to you. Don't be the cause of your PC's implosion.

Whoever said snarkiness couldn't be a force for good?

The Poor Man has decided to harness the power of honest competition and good old fashioned trash talking for the purpose of raising funds for John Kerry. Dean and Clark supporters in particular should take note. Check it out.

Select Committee report

The Select Committee on School Finance has issued its final report (PDF) for your perusal. Individual pages load really really slowly for me, so I haven't given it more than a quick glance as yet. I will note, as the Quorum Report did, that none of the Democrats on the committee, not even Ron Wilson, signed the thing. More on that in a bit.

There's some news coverage of the report now. First, from the Star Telegram.

A joint committee of House and Senate members worked on the report for more than six months. But Sen. Eddie Lucio of Brownsville, one of four Democratic lawmakers on the panel, said the report still leaves too many questions unanswered. "In terms of eliminating Robin Hood -- we are concerned about what system is going to take its place," Lucio said. "Will we have as much or more equity as what we have now? The direction we're going is vague. It has not given me enough information."

Committee co-chairwoman Rep. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, said the report represents a road map -- not a final destination. Over the months, she said, panel members managed to eliminate some taxing options while focusing attention on others.

"I would have liked for us to be much more specific in our proposals, but I think we needed to be general," she said. "I think the specificity needs to come from the Legislature itself when we create the new system."

In other words, the report is basically another recapitulation of the problem and some general hand-waving at solutions, but no actual policy recommendations. We're still a long way off from anything resembling consensus, let alone legislation.

The report by the Joint Select Committee on Public School Finance calls for a reduction in local property taxes and an end to the share-the-wealth school finance system that redistributes tax revenue from property-wealthy districts to property-poor ones.

It said that the state should increase its share of funding for education and that lawmakers should consider cutting local property taxes in half. Such a move would require the state to find another $7 billion in annual revenue, Shapiro said.

The report does not state how to accomplish those goals, but it restates various funding options that have been considered for months.

Among them: increasing the sales tax, expanding the sales tax to include various services, creating a statewide property tax, creating separate tax rates for individuals and businesses, increasing taxes on cigarettes, and allowing video lottery terminals at horse and dog tracks.

None of that is anything like new information.

More reasons why the Democrats demurred in the DMN:

Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, said the report very forcefully called for elimination of "Robin Hood" provisions in the current finance law but was less specific on what will be used to preserve equity once Robin Hood is gone.

"I have problems with making Robin Hood the villain when more than 80 percent of our students in the state benefit from that requirement," she said. "The committee should have outlined an equity standard in its goals."

The senator also said she had concerns about proposed relaxation of class-size limits in elementary schools and the possibility that one recommendation could be used to justify a new voucher program for private schools.

Rep. Vilma Luna, D-Corpus Christi, said she was unhappy with a funding adequacy study done for the committee that was based on a standard of 55 percent of students passing the state achievement test.

"One of the things we need to do is boost student performance across the board," she said. "We need to look at the full spectrum of students."

The DMN also gives some numbers:

Of the various revenue options, there has been widespread support for raising the state cigarette tax – now 41 cents a pack – and authorizing video gaming at racetracks. A $1 increase in the cigarette tax would raise an additional $1 billion a year, and the new gambling option would raise another $600 million.

Those two revenue-raising proposals were the only ones listed in the report as sources of new funding for schools. The others, such as higher sales taxes, would be used to replace revenue lost through a reduction in school property taxes of up to 50 percent.

A spokesman for low-wealth school districts questioned whether the $1.6 billion in new money would be enough.

"It will not generate enough money to do what needs to be done," said Wayne Pierce of the Equity Center, which represents hundreds of low and medium-wealth districts.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Cigarette taxes and gambling are just too volatile to be dependable annual revenue sources. Haven't we learned anything from the history of our state Lottery?

The Longview Journal has some more specifics on the numbers, while the Tyler Morning Telegraph has an interview with Sen. Todd Staples on the report. Check out the Telegraph's headline, which really doesn't fit the story they actually print at all.

Getting back to QR, it also has this interesting nugget:

Last week, Governor Rick Perry laid a proposal on the table capping local property tax appraisals at 3% a year. The cap barely covers the historical rate of inflation.

We asked Stuart Greenfield, Ph. D. to comment on the current effort to address the various proposals facing a likely special session of the Legislature. Greenfield brings excellent credentials to the table. He was the Chief Revenue and Economic Forecaster for the Comptroller's office from 1977-1986. He returned to the Comptroller's office in the 1990's to work on the Texas Performance Reviews.

Two of Greenfield's more startling conclusions are that property tax cuts could actually result in higher taxes for most homeowners and rather than the rich subsidizing the poor, most of the proposals currently on the table would have the middle class subsidizing the rich.

I presume that it's a combination of a reduced property tax, which necessarily means a smaller federal income tax deduction, plus an increased and/or expanded sales tax, which generates the higher tax burden overall. I'm a little too lazy to work through the math on the effect of just the property tax reduction, but I have a hard time believing that the concurrent increase in one's income taxes would completely offset it.

And before anyone asks, the reason the rich make out better in these proposed schemes is simple: They spend less of their money percentage-wise on items that fall under the sales tax than the rest of us do. Combine that with a proportionally bigger break on property taxes, and voila.

Thanks again to Brandy for the heads-up on the report.

Off to Washington Monthly

Kevin Drum has made his move over to Washington Monthly, where he will be blogging under the title "Political Animal". (Is it just me, or is anyone else surprised to realize that no one else had claimed that moniker before now?) Anyway, I've put that link under the Pros on the sidebar. I'm keeping the old Calpundit link on the main blogroll for now, since he says he'll still post there occasionally. Update your links as you wish.

The Chron still doesn't get this whole "blog" thing

The Chronicle now has a spring training "blog", continuing the great tradition of "blogs" that it started with Rachel Graves in Crawford. This is what, their fourth or fifth try at it and they still haven't figured out that real blogs, the kind that I refer to without scare quotes, have permalinks and archives. I'll let them off with just a warning on things like blogrolls and RSS feeds since these efforts are always designed to be temporary, but that still doesn't excuse the other items.

And as long as I'm engaging in a little gratuitous Chron-bashing this morning, would someone please tell whoever compiles their weekly TV guide that HBO and Encore haven't been channels 66 and 68 for, like, months now? I know that AOLTimeWarnerOfBorg moves channels around like a Martha Stewart wannabe on speed rearranges her living room, but this isn't a recent change. Get with the program, guys.

Barack Obama

Congratulations to Barack Obama, the clear winner of the Democratic primary for Senate and presumptive favorite in the general election. He overcame opponents who were well-connected and well-funded, not to mention his own unusual name (a nontrivial handicap in Illinois Democratic primaries) and scored a much bigger victory than the Republican nominee did in his primary. Obama's a bright, young, respected lawmaker with a great bio, and I think he's going to be a star. It would not surprise me at all if he's a contender for President or Vice-President in 2012 or 2016.

Nonetheless, Josh Marshall notes that there may yet be a downside to Obama's ascension, at least in the short run. He quotes from Charlie Cook's "Off to the Races" column:

Republicans might actually get a bit of a break in Illinois. Jack Ryan, an attractive and wealthy former investment banker who was teaching in an inner-city school until recently, is expected to win the GOP primary. The likely Democratic nominee, state Sen. Barack Obama, is equally, if not more, impressive, yet does not have the personal fortune Ryan has. Blair Hull, the fabulously wealthy Democrat, was expected to win the nomination until revelations about his messy divorce and cocaine use in the 1980s doomed his chances. National Democrats had counted on this seat to be the best of all possible worlds, an easy pickup by a self-funding candidate. Now it is likely to be very close and will have to be funded through more traditional -- read difficult -- means.

The thing is, I'd rather have the right nominee than the rich one. This is just a gut instinct on my part, but I believe that self-bankrolling first-time candidates are way more vulnerable to personal failings on the campaign trail than career politicians are. I think a lot of these guys' appeal comes from their personalities, and when they have trouble withstanding the scrutiny, they have no record of accomplishment in the public sector to fall back on. Look at Blair Hull's implosion and be thankful it happened before the primary.

I also think that Obama won't really need much from the DSCC in order to win in November. Like I said, I believe he's a star, and I don't think he's going to have any trouble raising funds on his own - in fact, he seemed to do that just fine during the primary race. He may wind up giving more help to Jon Corzine than the DSCC gives to him.

Congratulations, Barack Obama. I look forward to seeing you in Washington, DC next year.

UPDATE: For further proof that Obama will raise money easily, I point you to this.

Campaign finance records show U-S Senate candidate Barack Obama got a large contribution from a high-profile citizen -- Michael Jordan.

The basketball superstar donated 10-thousand dollars to Obama's campaign.

Obama says he debated whether to frame the check or cash it.

Since he began campaign fund-raising more than a year ago, Obama has collected about four-point-three (m) million dollars.

Gadflyer Charlton McIlwain, from whom I discovered that tidbit, seems to agree with my thesis:

Expect: A treasure trove of [Jack] Ryan money. We've already seen it, and we'll probably see millions more. I'm not sure what the going price for an Illinois senate seat is these days, but I expect whatever it is, Ryan will pay it.

Don't expect: Obama to lag too far behind to be competitive. We've seen Michael Jordan's 10k already. No doubt he's only the first in a long line of other celebrity, big-money black and other minority donors just itching to help a brotha out.

I fully expect to see more stories like that about Obama's star power. Stay tuned.

Ye shall know us by our photo ops

Ezra is hopping up and down about the following passage in this Time article:

Administration sources tell TIME that employees at the Department of Homeland Security have been asked to keep their eyes open for opportunities to pose the President in settings that might highlight the Administration's efforts to make the nation safer. The goal, they are being told, is to provide Bush with one homeland-security photo-op a month.

Say it with me, brothers and sisters: "Because the appearance of doing something is way more important than actually doing something." It's like he's a summer hire in August whose supervisor has run out of things for him to do. Not that I ever had that experience, mind you.

I'm actually more amused by this bit from earlier in that same paragraph:

Many Bush allies are trying to push up the return of the President's longtime aide Karen Hughes from her semi-retirement in Austin, Texas, to restore the balance in Bush's world between Rove's political instincts, which lean toward tending the party's base, and her more "Mom-in-the-kitchen sense of the country," as an adviser described it. "There is a necessary push-pull between the two of them that can't happen on the phone," says a Bush official. Another puts it more darkly: "The longer they wait for her to get back, the less it will matter." On the other hand, Hughes has already been intimately involved in many of Bush's most controversial moves. She helped craft the poorly received State of the Union address, then closely advised on the much criticized campaign ads that used images of 9/11.

Keep it up, Karen! You're doing great.

"Clams got agendas!"

I skip over the "BC" comic strip in the Chron, as it ceased being funny to me awhile back. (It really was pretty damn funny before it became so didactic. Find an old collection from the 60s or early 70s and see for yourself.) I therefore missed last Sunday's strip (seen on the BC homepage for now; it's from March 14 if you need to check the archives) in which Johnny Hart took a slap at evolution. Thankfully, Greg Morrow was paying attention, and he explains in words simple enough for Hart to understand (though of course he'll never believe) what's wrong with those pictures. Check it out.

(The title, stolen from Michael's comment, is a reference to a recurring joke Hart used back in the day.)

More TRMPAC noise

In response to some Republican whinging, Travis County DA Ronnie Earle released a bunch of documents on Friday related to his grand jury investigation of TAB and TRM.

Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle on Friday denied accusations that he is running a partisan investigation into possible illegal campaign spending by two Republican organizations.

"This investigation is not about Democrats and Republicans. It's about cops and robbers," said Earle, a Democrat. "This is an investigation of a crime."

[...]

Earle on Friday released hundreds of pages of documents sought by Texas Republican Chairwoman Tina Benkiser in an open records request. Benkiser had said the records would show how much money Earle "is wasting on a frivolous investigation and whether he is unfairly leaking information to the media."

Benkiser spokesman Ted Royer said Earle's records release was "inadequate" because it did not give a full explanation for how much the investigation is costing taxpayers.

"We are disappointed that Mr. Earle has refused to provide all the information we requested, and his lack of candor raises questions about what he may be attempting to cover up," Royer said. "Taxpayers deserve to know how much of their money Mr. Earle is wasting on this frivolous and partisan investigation."

The majority of the records were telephone call slips requesting interviews with Earle or responses from him on news conferences held by the Texas Association of Business or by DeLay. There also were copies of news releases Earle has put out at key junctures in the investigation.

The records gave no evidence that Earle gave the news media any grand jury documents that were not public court papers available in the district clerk's office.

In one instance, an Austin print journalist gave Earle a rough draft of a story and asked him to check it for errors. In another, an Austin television journalist provided Earle with public documents that might be helpful to his investigation.

"We don't leak grand jury information. We never have, and I don't know of any reputable reporter who would expect us to," Earle said.

But Royer said the journalists' records indicated Earle is working with the media to run a public relations campaign.

"The revelation that Mr. Earle is so closely coordinating the publication of negative newspaper articles about Republicans only reinforces the belief that the primary purpose of his investigation is to unfairly hang Republicans in the media," Royer said.

Cry me a river, Ted. I'll wait to see what the grand jury says, thankyouverymuch.

Missed this on Saturday, but it's recapped in the Congress Daily from NationalJournal.com:

Meanwhile, the Austin American-Statesman reported on Saturday that [Terry Scarborough, an attorney for TRMPAC] had threatened that Washington-based Jim Ellis -- who has been executive director since late 1998 of DeLay's Americans for a Republican Majority PAC and helped to organize TRMPAC -would fight efforts to force him to testify in the civil lawsuit.

Given the prior non-success of Andy Taylor and his efforts to prevent TAB members from testifying, I expect we'll be hearing from Mr. Ellis sooner or later. Speaking of Taylor, he did a little public whining in response to an earlier op-ed by Fred Lewis.

There have been a lot of strange twists in this saga, but this one is the strangest I've seen yet.

TAB and TRMPAC have questioned the motives of defeated Democrats filing suit — and one attorney's tactics.

An attorney for TAB states in a court filing that an attorney for defeated Democrats tried to recruit two defeated Libertarians to his lawsuit. A footnote states, "It appears the crime of barratry may have been committed," referring to the questionable practice of lawyers soliciting business without cause.

Candidates Rob LeGrand and Michael Badnarik said in affidavits the unsolicited lawyer called them and then sent the lawsuit.

Professor Geary Reamey of St. Mary's University School of Law said suggesting barratry in court is inappropriate unless an attorney has filed a grievance with the State Bar of Texas or complained to a district attorney.

Cris Feldman, the lawyer under fire, said he faces no grievance.

Feldman, denying wrongdoing, said foes "are doing everything possible to divert attention from their clandestine laundering of corporate cash."

Jeez. Maybe if procedure had been followed, there'd be a case against Mr. Feldman. In its absence, I'll accept his explanation that this is just more intimidation.

Finally, the Chron reports on Ben Streusand's connection to the TRMPAC case, something which was noted here a little while ago. What, like I'm surprised that everyone is in everyone else's pockets?

Hoops contest

Retrogrouch over at Barefoot and Naked is running an NCAA Tournament contest, which he's opening up to bloggers and blog readers. I've filled out my bracket, which was ridiculously easy to do within the Yahoo! group. (I used to run a tournament contest among some friends and did everything via an Excel spreadsheet. It was an extraordinary pain in the butt to keep updated, and I gave up after a couple of years because of that. Had I known it'd be this easy, I'd have kept it going.)

Anyway, c'mon in and see if you can do better than me. It's not March without a little tournament action going.

Light sentence for Lea Fastow

The Enron federal prosecutors have asked the judge to give Lea Fastow a five-month sentence as they had promised in return for hubby Andy's testimony.

Enron Task Force prosecutors Linda Lacewell and Andrew Weissmann filed objections to the pre-sentence investigation of Lea Fastow showing how much prosecutors want U.S. District Judge David Hittner to follow the agreed plea bargain.

They list several reasons, including how many millions of dollars the couple forfeited and that her ex-CFO husband has helped them indict two top officials and can help further.

The government says the argument for Lea Fastow's agreed sentence is "strengthened by the fact that ... (she) played an integral role in her husband's decision to plead guilty and cooperate with the government in this ongoing investigation."

Hittner has indicated he may be reluctant to follow the plea bargain.

If he offers Lea Fastow a sentence stiffer than the five months in prison, she may decline, withdraw her guilty plea and ask to go to trial. Her husband cannot get out of his corresponding agreement to cooperate, but the reality of a trial for his wife could obviously dampen his zeal to cooperate.

Apparently, the pre-sentence report is recommending a 10- to 16-month sentence for Lea, not exactly hard time but not what she and the prosecutors agreed to, either.

The prosecutors state that since mid-January when the couple entered guilty pleas to several charges, Andrew Fastow's cooperation has helped lead to the indictment of ex-Enron CEO Jeff Skilling and ex-top accounting officer Rick Causey.

"These are significant advances in the investigation to identify and bring to justice those responsible for perhaps the largest fraud in United States history. Moreover, Andrew Fastow's cooperation is ongoing and is likely to bear additional fruit," the prosecutors say.

Prosecutors have recently stepped up their investigation of ex-Enron Chairman Ken Lay, and it is likely Fastow's testimony may shed light on that possible case as well. Lay has not been charged with any crimes and has maintained that he did nothing wrong. Skilling and Causey have also maintained their innocence.

If that doesn't get your blood pumping, nothing will. I hope Judge Hittner doesn't queer the deal.

Three cheers for Tony Knowles

Kos shows us how a principled progressive can do the right thing on divisive issues. Let's hear it for Tony Knowles, the future junior Senator from Alaska. Atrios says it best:

There's one thing I think many Democrats have forgotten -- that leaders can lead.

Amen. Three cheers for Tony Knowles!

XM radio

Came across this article on XM Radio in a magazine at the gym, and it's pretty interesting. The XM folks went through quite a bit to get where they are. A couple of points of interest, starting with this bit of unfortunate timing:

At last XM was ready to go live. The plan was to premiere in two top-20 markets—Dallas and San Diego—that would be easier to operate in than, say, New York or L.A. XM would then roll out nationwide in a matter of weeks. But the day the service was to launch—Sept. 12, 2001—fell in the aftermath of a shocking event. From XM's broadcast center, employees could see smoke rising from the Pentagon. XM canceled its launch party, which was to include performances by Peter Frampton and Ziggy Marley. The company also immediately pulled its inaugural TV ad, based on the theme "falling stars." The ad featured rapper Snoop Dogg plummeting down from outer space and past an array of skyscrapers—an image eerily similar to what much of the world had just witnessed on the news.

I don't think I need to add anything to that. On a different note, about the future of XM and its sole competitor in satellite radio, Sirius:

However the content wars evolve, XM also faces competition from conventional AM/FM stations. While satellite radio can reach a national audience, analog will always have the advantage of being able to offer local news and local personalities. AM/FM will start to further cut into satellite's advantage as more analog stations begin offering crisp digital signals. The switchover is being driven by iBiquity Digital, a hardware maker based in Columbia, Md., that expects to have converted 600 of the nation's 13,645 stations by the end of 2004.

If we've learned anything from the Clear Channel takeover of the airwaves, it's that local content and personalities mean very little in much of the country, since for much of the country, it's all some dude in a central studio interweaving snippets of local color to make you think you're hearing a DJ in town. There's hardly any local music programming to speak of out there, too, so I don't see the big deal. Actually, given that XM is planning local news/weather/traffic stations for some markets, it's not hard to imagine them creating regional (if not truly local) music channels. Surely there'd be an audience for them.

I'm still not ready to plunk down the money for this service, since I wouldn't get enough out of it right now, but I'll tell you what - my next car will have it.

In Jeopardy!

Note to self: Next time you're at the gym and "Jeopardy!" is on the TV, ask someone to change the channel to something less mentally engaging, like Fox News. It's very embarrassing to realize that everyone is looking at you because you've just shouted "Agamemnon, you idiot! Clytemnestra killed Agamemnon!" at the set.

Support for Iraq invasion dropping in Texas

The latest poll of Texans shows declining support for the invasion of Iraq and not a small amount of cognitive dissonance.

In what analysts called the most striking finding, 58 percent disapproved of the way the war is going for the United States, reflecting apparent concern over continued attacks on U.S. troops and almost daily bombings aimed at derailing attempts to stabilize the country. Thirty-eight percent approved.

While 59 percent of those surveyed believe that Bush was justified in launching the war on March 20, the finding reflects a 13 percent drop over the past nine months. Other survey categories also suggest that support is waning for the president's Iraq policy since the last poll in June.

"What we saw in the poll is declining support for the war in Iraq," said Ty Meighan, director of the Texas Poll. "It's still a high number, but you can see that there is less support for the war. It's very clear that Texans are more concerned about our role in Iraq."

The survey showed growing skepticism over Bush's central justification for launching the war -- ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. In the June survey, 56 percent predicted that the weapons would eventually be found, but only 34 percent made that prediction in the latest poll.

[...]

But, at the same time, 60 percent disagreed that Bush deliberately misled the country. Moreover, an identical percentage believe the war was justified even if weapons of mass destruction are never found, and 66 percent said that Iraq, under Saddam Hussein's regime, posed a threat to the United States.

"I would love for them to find the weapons -- so President Bush could thumb his nose at them [Democratic critics]," said Paula Pruitt, a 51-year-old grandmother in Mansfield, who was among the 1,000 Texans polled in the survey, which was conducted Feb. 12-March 3. "But whether they find them or not," she added, the invasion was necessary to "keep a person like Saddam Hussein from killing and torturing people."

Anyone want to bet this woman watches a lot of Fox News? Just out of curiosity, would you expect the President to say "neener neener" or "nyah nyah nyah" while thumbing his nose at Democrats? Leave your vote in the comments.

Here's a handy chart of the poll results, sent to me by JD from NationalJournal.com:

The Scripps Howard Texas Poll; conducted 2/12-3/3; surveyed 1,000

adults; margin of error +/- 3%.


How Would You Rate The Way Things Are Going For The U.S. In Iraq?

Excellent/good                                                  38%

Fair/poor                                                       58

 

                                                            Yes No

Was The Situation In Iraq Was Worth Going To War?           59% 35%

Think Inspectors Will Find WMDs In Iraq?                    34  55

Is The Iraq War Justified Even If WMDs Are Never Found?     60  35

Think Bush And His Admin Deliberately Mislead The Public

 About Whether Iraq Had WMDs?                               33  60

Did Iraq Pose A Threat To The U.S.?                         66  30

Believe The Capture Of Hussein Has Made The U.S. Safer

 From Terrorism?                                            50  46

The (much shorter) Chron version of this story gives the expected explanation for the numbers:

That assessment [of how things are going in Iraq] was largely split along political party lines. Sixty-two percent of the respondents who identified themselves as Republicans rated the progress "excellent" or "good," while 82 percent of those who identified themselves as Democrats described it as "fair" or "poor." The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

[...]

The much-anticipated capture of Saddam in December led Bush to proclaim that the United States is now safer from terrorism, an assertion with which only half of Texans agree, the poll found.

That belief is also sharply split along political party lines, Meighan said.

Seventy-five percent of respondents identifying themselves as Republicans agreed with the president, while 66 percent of the Democrat respondents disagreed.

So how will this affect the elections here in November? Here's an expert's opinion, from the Star-Telegram article:

National surveys suggest that wavering public support for the war could become a major vulnerability for Bush as he charges into his re-election campaign against Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the presumptive Democratic nominee. Disenchantment over the war was cited as the biggest source of voter anger at Bush in a recent Gallup survey.

Although the former Texas governor is considered unbeatable in his home state, analysts say a noticeable decline in support for the war could prompt Kerry to campaign more aggressively in Texas. Bruce Buchanan, a presidential scholar at the University of Texas, said the Texas Poll's finding that only 38 percent of Texans approve of the way the war is going constitutes a particularly troubling statistic from the Bush perspective.

"The South, including Texas, is sympathetic to the president's role as commander in chief, and that's what makes this number so surprising," Buchanan said.

And here's my non-expert's opinion: It won't mean diddly. Maybe Bush carries Texas by a less overwhelming margin than the 59-38 tally he rang up in 2000, but I doubt it gets any closer than 56-42, and that's only if Democrats turn out in droves while Republicans take a breather. That kind of turnout would help down-ballot Democrats, but otherwise this issue is a zero for them, since they need to convince Republicans to cross the aisle for them. The one place where the Iraq issue, and some campaigning from Kerry, might make a real difference is in the CD 32 race between Frost and Sessions, as it's the only one among the endangered-incumbent races that will be fought on mostly non-rural turf and is thus the most likely place for Kerry to get a decent reception. Beyond that, it's just fodder for us navel-gazers.

The Complete Peanuts

As you may know, Fantagraphics is releasing the first entry in The Complete Peanuts, a 12.5-year, 25-volume oddyssey that will cover the entire body of Charles Schultz' work in the dailies. Mark Evanier has been all over this from the beginning (just click on his Search link and enter "Peanuts" to see his posts on the subject), and I think I need to get in on this. I used to have some Peanuts collections which for the most part haven't survived to this day, but there's a lot of stuff in these books that's not been seen since their original publication:

Scores of Peanuts compilations have been previously issued in 25 languages, but Schulz's earliest strips have never been reproduced in book form. Fantagraphics began discussing the compilation with Schulz in 1997.

"Schulz's initial reaction was: 'Who wants to read that crap?' " [Fantagraphics editor Eric] Reynolds says. "He was an incredibly modest guy who kept the early strips out of collections because they didn't conform with the strip after it hit its stride."

Amazing, huh? You'd think after the megamillions he made, he'd know that people would want just about anything from him that they hadn't seen before.

Even die-hard Peanuts fans may be surprised by the first book. Shermy, who eventually faded into obscurity, is the prime character. Charlie Brown appears in early strips. But like most of the beloved characters, he possesses little of his later existential angst. Chief antagonist Lucy is a toddler, not the mean-spirited, football-grabbing nemesis she evolved into. And Snoopy is just a small, affectionate puppy without his later fantasy life.

Pop quiz: What position did Shermy play on Charlie Brown's baseball team? Answer beneath the More link.

Shermy played first base. Linus was the second baseman and Snoopy was the shortstop, forming what Charlie Brown called "the most unique double-play combination in baseball". I can't swear to it, but I'm pretty sure Pigpen played third. Schroeder was the catcher, of course, and to the best of my knowledge the outfield consisted of Lucy, Violet, and Patty (not Peppermint Patty, the blonde Patty).

It's a bad time to be a political consultant

Boy, how things can change from a year ago when everyone was living high off the hog during that long, expensive mayoral race but now there are hardly any opportunities for a political consultant to make a few bucks.

"There just aren't as many contested races on the horizon for the next two years," said [George] Strong.

"There still will be work, and we have other ways to make money," he said. "There just isn't enough from political races."

[...]

The major culprit? Redistricting and fine-tuned computers that can virtually guarantee which party will win an election, and often can protect a specific incumbent.

As a result, almost all Houston-area races likely to be seriously competitive were fought out in last week's primaries, or will be settled in primary runoffs April 13.

In many cases, one party's nominee will be strongly favored in the fall -- if the candidate faces opposition at all -- because that party dominates the district.

And there were just a handful of competitive primaries. In those, debate on issues took a back seat to discussion about party loyalty or personal backgrounds.

I don't foresee this as being a long-term problem, even if next year's municipal races are likely to be snoozers, with no real challenger to Mayor White and only a handful of open Council seats. There are several scenarios that could play out to make things lively again, even as soon as 2006:

- The US Supreme Court has still yet to rule on the Texas redistricting, as well as the Vieth v. Jubelirir case from Pennsylvania, in which extreme partisanship in map-drawing was challenged. Either one of those cases could cause the new boundaries to be thrown out. The result would be chaos, which is always a boon for consultants.

- However bleak things are for Democrats now in Harris County, demographic changes continue to favor them. Assuming the local party structure gets its act together (sadly, a nontrivial thing), countywide races ought to be more competitive in 2006 and beyond.

- There will always be political ambition. If there are no offices to be taken away from the other team, then people will turn their sights on what else is available. A seat may be safe for a particular party, but that doesn't mean it'll always be safe for the incumbent. Not everyone is going to wait for officeholders to step down (or step in doodoo) for their shot at glory. If neither of the first two options comes true by 2006, look for more contested primaries. No one's getting any younger, and the longer you wait, the greater the chance someone else will sneak in ahead of you.

- Longer term, there's still the chance that State Sen. Jeff Wentworth's bill for a nonpartisan redistricting committee will get passed. That won't affect anyone until 2012 if it does happen, but better late than never. Keep clipping those coupons in the meantime, fellas.

Tourney time

Well, even though the teams I really care about are in the NIT, I'm looking forward as always to the NCAA basketball tournaments. Mostly because just about everyone who has any kind of case to make gets a shot at the championship, I haven't become disgusted with college hoops the way I have with football and its corrupt and greedy BCS system. In a way, I actually think the field is tilting a bit towards the smaller, nontraditional schools. Billy Packer and Dick Enberg sort of get at the reason for this.

As he prepares for his 30th year broadcasting the NCAA Tournament's Final Four, CBS Sports analyst Billy Packer continues his remarkable attitude adjustment. Rather than grousing about the impact the NBA has had on college hoops, he revels in the game's unpredictability.

"There are as many as 25 teams that legitimately could earn their way to the Final Four," Packer said. "Where was Syracuse (the 2003 champion) a year ago? That is where this sport is, and that is why it's so healthy right now. There are so many arenas across this country where people this year could believe that if certain things fell in place, their team could make a run."

Packer has so embraced the new order that Dick Enberg, of all people, is now the most outspoken CBS voice regarding players who leave early for the NBA.

"I say to hell with them," Enberg said. "If they want to play on the pro level, that's terrific. I say let them go do it. ... I think it's just as exciting that, at the end of a championship game, we may have a chemistry major on the floor trying to protect the lead rather than some super one-time All-America who's about to jump as a sophomore to the NBA."

Enberg didn't quite take the next step, which is that being the kind of school that recruits four-year players is a competitive advantage for the Gonzagas of the world. I don't think more than a handful of programs will fall into that bucket, but those that do will put themselves in a very good position.

Today we also learn that the championship game of a couple of conference tournaments occur so late that the seeding committees ignore them. I just love it when these guys trip over their own avarice. Too bad that one of the participants in those games wasn't a school that wouldn't have made the NCAAs without winning their conference tourney. That really would have thrown a spanner into the works - they might have to come up with two brackets, one with and one without the shouldn't-be-there team.

Interesting suggestion from King Kaufman:

The Tournament actually starts Tuesday with the play-in game in Dayton between Florida A&M and Lehigh. The NCAA has to figure out a way to make this play-in deal more interesting and exciting. Maybe there should be a play-in for all four 16 seeds, with all four games happening in one day at one site. It might become kind of a thing, a big day for whacked-out hoops junkies. It could be one last chance for bubble teams that got left out, like Utah State and Notre Dame this year, though they'd have to start the Tournament by playing a No. 1. Not that I care about bubble teams. Got a better idea? Or are you looking forward to that big night in Dayton?

If the NCAAs expanded the play-in game to include the "first eight out" or whatever, it would certainly be interesting, but it would also have a huge impact on the NITs. Would you rather see your team in the play-in game for the right to (most likely) get shelled by a top seed, or would you rather take a shot at the NITs, where you could maybe go the distance? Would the NITs let the losers of these games join in their tournament after the drop out of the Big Dance?

If all of this is making you cover your ears and wish it would go away, the Couch Slouch feels your pain.

Finally, in local news, the University of Houston is reportedly giving former Longhorns coach Tom Penders a long look for their vacancy. I have to say, I don't know why you'd want to hire a guy who left his last two jobs under such a cloud of controversy, but stranger things have happened. Kevin? Greg? Alex? What do you guys think?

Piling on Perry

As he departs for sunny Italy, Governor Perry is getting another pounding in the editorial pages. Here's a little sample to brighten your day.

From the Dallas Morning News:

Gov. Rick Perry's proposal to put a 3 percent annual cap on homestead appraisal increases could lead Texas into its own Cali-hell. The same is true of his proposal to put a tight cap on the amount that counties and cites could raise through property taxes. California suffered mightily after voters passed Proposition 13 and capped the growth in property taxes in 1978. The state's renowned schools coughed, sputtered and collapsed as they gasped for cash. Not until two decades later were Californians able to correct their mistake.

To be sure, the governor's proposals sound tempting. All of our property taxes are high. That's because Texas relies heavily on them to fund schools, build bridges and treat the sick. It's natural to think, hey, leave me alone!

But do we Texans want to choke our schools, counties and cities? It doesn't seem wise. The Amarillos, Dallases and Brownsvilles need some flexibility in the amount they raise for services like roads, schools and mental health care.

The governor argues local voters could vote to lift the 3 percent cap in the growth on homestead appraisals. They also could lift the limit on the amount local governments could raise.

But let's be honest: The governor knows exactly what he's doing. County officials are loath to push for tax hikes. What the governor really is saying is that he wants local governments and schools to have less money to do their work.

From the Waco Tribune:

Fresh from a Bahamas jaunt, Texas' jet-setting governor this month is flying to Italy for an "economic development" trip.

Or maybe he's just trying to get away from poll numbers. A Texas Poll last week found that Rick Perry had only 40 percent job approval. Maybe it's because much of last year he devoted himself to party business (unnecessarily redrawing congressional districts for the second time in two years) rather than the people's business.

But a more important number was shared by the Texas State Teachers Association last week. A poll by a bipartisan team found that 69 percent of Texans believe state funding for schools should be increased. Perry is resistant to that except for funding based on a set of incentives. Since the state's share versus the local share has dropped to 38 percent, Texans seem to know full well that the state is not doing enough across the board.

Maybe the pilot can get a message to the governor.

From the Fort Worth Stae-Telegram:

The governor has laid out a package of proposals on this issue in preparation for an anticipated special legislative session on school finance.

One of the goals of legislative leaders is to gain approval of school property tax cuts during that special session, and Perry says that he doesn't want those cuts to be steadily eaten away by appraisal "creep" or increased taxes from other local bodies.

Central to Perry's plan is a cap on residential property appraisals limiting increases to 3 percent a year. Current law stops gains in taxable values at 10 percent a year.

Both caps are wrong. They distort fair taxation by departing from housing market realities.

That was actually a reasonably favorable piece for him, though like everyone else so far, they think the property tax increase cap is a bad idea.

And a three-fer from the Chron, starting with this unsigned editorial:

The governor says he will call a special session to end the resented Robin Hood system. He insists that the reform be revenue neutral. But it will take billions of additional state tax dollars to take the place of Robin Hood's property tax recapture.

Perry won't say where these new taxes will come from. He doesn't know, yet he wants to take discretion out of the hands of local officials and put it in the hands of the Legislature.

Perry argues that any local government can raise taxes as much as it wants if it holds a vote of the people. In Houston, a vote costs $1 million, money that would be wasted on budgetary matters now handled by elected representatives.

Perry points out that half of the states have revenue caps similar to the ones he proposes. But how many of those states have an income tax that keeps property taxes low? How many finance public schools with state revenue, lightening the burden on homeowners?

If the governor had analyzed his proposals more thoroughly, he might not have made them.

And from Clay Robison:

Perhaps the worst problem, though, is that Perry is arbitrarily trying to restrict local budgets -- and unfairly blaming high taxes on local officials -- when many of the programs and services that local governments have to pay for are required by state law and policies set by the Legislature and the governor.

The state has imposed countless requirements on school districts but pays for less than 40 percent of public school costs. Every time the Legislature cuts spending on preventive health care for the poor, as it did last year, county hospital costs will rise. State restrictions on services for the mentally ill and mentally retarded put more people on the streets and into local jails. And the list goes on.

Perry said he wants to assure cities and counties that they won't receive additional unfunded mandates from Austin. But even if he could, how would local governments keep paying for millions of dollars in obligations already on the books?

Which is basically the point I made a few days ago.

And finally, from hotshot columnist Rick Casey:

Gov. Perry says he'll wait for other people to come up with a consensus on how to fund our schools. He can't be bothered with providing leadership on finding a fair way to raise money.

He can only grandstand in saving taxpayers from local politicians.

If we're lucky, in two years Perry will have a new career, on radio.

Maybe he and Ron Wilson can be cohosts. They'd be like the Walton and Johnson of conservative talk radio.

Lazy Sunday

Ever have a Sunday where you didn't feel like doing a damn thing? I'm in the middle of one of those right now, that and a John Sandford novel. Hope your Sunday is going as well as mine.

Kos on CNN

I see the Kos and Josh Marshall got discussed on Wolf Blitzer's show on Friday. The comparison of blogs to talk radio is a bit cliched, but I take great pleasure in this:

Very interesting study out of George Washington says about 15 to 20 million people are now actively using the Internet and these Web logs in particular, sites like Daily Kos and Talking Points Memo. And what's significant here is that Democrats are using this to shape the agenda, because, remember, lots of Washington reporters read these. They're using these to excite their own base, just like conservative talk show radio does.

[...]

The George Washington study says that of the people who they consider online political citizens, not 1 percent, not 2 percent, but 50 percent are considered Democrat. Only 27 percent are considered Republicans.

(Transcript here.) 'Twas a time when everyone agreed that the political blogworld leaned decidedly right. Not any more.

I'm wondering when someone in the mainstream media will notice that in two days, Atrios has raised $42,000 for John Kerry. Though I expect the rate of giving to slow down, it still shouldn't take more than a month or so of "John Kerry Thursdays" to make him the equivalent of a Pioneer, which in that context would mean fabulous prizes and the legislation of his choice. Not too shabby for an anonymous dude on the Internet. Who here thinks that Kos and Atrios (possibly among others) will be honored guests at the Democratic convention this summer? I for one think they deserve it.

Arrividerci, Governor

Well, if he does ever get around to calling a special session, our Governor will certainly be tanned, rested and ready for it.

Fresh from a jaunt to the Bahamas to discuss school finance, Gov. Rick Perry and his wife, Anita, left for Italy on Friday on a trade mission.

Texas exported $592 million in goods to Italy in 2002, ranking Perry's economic development destination 23rd among foreign trade partners, according to the Business and Industry Data Center at the governor's office.

Democrats quickly poked fun at the governor's taste for foreign travel and said they hope he'll find the solution to school finance reform aboard an Italian gondola.

The weeklong trip to drum up economic opportunities for Texas was prompted by a formal invitation from billionaire and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, said Kathy Walt, Perry's spokeswoman.

[...]

"We've got a lot of issues here at home that he could be taking care of. We've got a poll recently that shows Texans want us to focus on education," said Texas Democratic Party spokesman Mike Lavigne.

"One of his meetings is with the minister of productive activity," Lavigne said. "That sounds like a Monty Python sketch. Unfortunately Perry hasn't had any productive activity here in Texas during his entire term."

Hey, it's fine by me that he's going. I just wish he'd stay gone. There's 22 other foreign trade partners that are bigger customers than Italy, Governor. Why not visit them all? You can print tour T-shirts and sell them to raise money for school finance reform. The possibilities are endless.

Practice report

We've had a week of practices so far, and there are many differences between this year's team and last year's at the same point in time. Last year I was still trying to figure out what the kids' skill levels were, but this year it's a lot more apparent. Two of our kids already have their tickets to the All Star Game punched, most of the others are showing various abilities, and there's only one true beginner. Another difference is in hitting. Last year, early batting practice against live pitching involved a lot of swinging and missing. This was especially frustrating because all of them demonstrated they could hit against a pitching machine at the batting cage. This year, just about everyone is making at least some contact, and one or two kids have genuinely surprised me with the bat. We should score some runs this year.

I'm doing well as a second banana, filling whatever role needs to be filled at a given time. I think I'll be spending some extra time with the less experienced kids, working on the basics of throwing and catching. A lot of these kids don't have any instinct for how to hold their gloves when a ball is approaching. They automatically hold them face up, as if to make a basket catch, even on chest-high throws. I'm going to break them of that habit if it drives me (and them) crazy. Throwing is harder to teach, but I keep drilling the same fundamentals - extend your arm, step as you throw, the shoulder drives the action and not the elbow - and I hope it sinks in.

Spring break is this week, so we'll have a smaller crew show up at practices. Gary the head coach will be out of town, so I'll be the interim coach in his absence. At least this time I have some idea what to do.

McCourt memoir

I see that Frank McCourt is dipping into the memoir well once again.

Frank McCourt thought writing a novel would be a liberating experience, but the award-winning author said on Thursday he has abandoned that project in favor of something more familiar -- another memoir.

McCourt, whose 1996 memoir "Angela's Ashes" sold millions of copies and won a Pulitzer Prize, said he was uncomfortable writing fiction and will write about his own experiences in "Teacher Man," which he hopes to complete by November.

"I tried it but it didn't work," McCourt told Reuters in an interview when asked about his planned foray into fiction.

"Reality kept intruding. So it's back to the memoir."

The novel -- intended for Simon & Schuster imprint Scribner -- was going to be based on his 30-year career as a high school teacher in New York.

"I wanted to write a novel because it would give me greater scope to deal with various situations and people," he said, with a trace of disappointment.

"The memoir limits you, because you are dealing with people still alive, so you have to tread cautiously. It's mostly about my experiences in the classroom."

McCourt, 73, who took up writing after his teaching career, said reliving his time in the classroom had proved rewarding.

"I think it's the story of what I learned as a teacher," he said. "While teaching I was discovering myself. If you can have even a bit of that experience you're lucky in this life. It's better than therapy."

He took the title for his new work from his old students.

"'Teacher Man,' that's what the kids used to call me," he said. "A lot of Hispanic kids would call you 'Teacher', or 'Teacher Man', or 'Yo!"' he said with a laugh.

McCourt taught in four different city high schools, starting at McKee Vocational in Staten Island and eventually settling into the academically elite Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, where he taught for 18 years.

I thought "Tis" touched on his teaching experiences, but I guess it left off there. As a Stuy alum and former student of Mr. McCourt's, I'll be very interested to see what names and incidents I might recognize. In particular, I'd love to know what he thought of either of our stuffed-shirt principals. (William? Julia? Anything you'd like to see in this book?)

Oh, hell, it's Friday

I've had my fill of the serious. Time for the strange.

Whatever you do, don't offer to take Norbizness to lunch at Schlotzky's.

Only Larry could find a story like this: Nun Faces Jail For Drunk Tractor Driving. If this isn't turned into an Xtreme Sport reality show on Fox Sports by next week, God will call me home.

Whatever else you do, don't ask Jack what kind of DVDs he's playing in his minivan. (OK, technically he doesn't have a minivan, and those aren't his DVDs. Work with me here.)

Pete proposes his solution to the federal budget crisis. That sounds way more serious than it is, so don't be intimidated.

That's all I got. Happy Friday.

Skilling trial delayed

Apparently, there's a buttload of paperwork that no one particularly feels like wading through about now. Who can blame 'em? It's Friday. Pop open a cold one and relax. We can always do this later.

TRMPAC roundup

All sorts of stuff for your perusal regarding the many interesting activities of Tom DeLay and his band of acolytes. First up is this Salon piece which look at the TRMPAC grand jury investigation and predicts that indictments will be handed down shortly. Get yourself a day pass or sit through the ad if you're not a Premium subscriber and check it out.

Next is this Texas Observer story, which connects the dots between a campaign fundraising tour by Susan Lilly (the consultant who has already admitted to being paid with corporate funds) and Houston Rep. Beverly Woolley, and legislation that got passed last spring which was greatly beneficial to the sources they tapped. Be sure to check out the itinerary and the notes they scribbled about what their benefactors wanted.

Also of interest in that story is this bit about a visit to Charles Hurwitz of Maxxam, who also owns Sam Houston Racetrack Park and has been agitating for an expansion of legalized gambling that would benefit his business.

In a rare defeat for a TRMPAC sugar daddy, efforts in the 78th Texas Legislature to allow video poker at racetracks were introduced with much fanfare and then failed to go anywhere. Interestingly enough, today, as the GOP leadership casts about for a way out of the state’s school finance crisis, gambling is looking ever more alluring. (One strong proponent of legalizing some gambling to pay for public education is Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, who received $50,000 from the Maxxam political action committee in 2003. As recently as January, the comptroller expressed her views on the subject at the Texas Thoroughbred Association’s annual meeting and awards banquet held at Hurwitz’s Sam Houston Race Park.)

I can just see Rick Perry accusing Carole Keeton Strayhorn of being in the clutches of corporate special interests in the 2006 Governor's race. My irony-o-meter is already pegged.

Finally, the Travis County DA's office has subpoenaed records pertaining to previous speaker's races from Pete Laney and Edmund Kuempel. Speaker Tom Craddick's defense team has been floating the "everyone else did it!" argument for his fundraising and disbursing activities, so the DA is looking at what these guys did to see if there's any merit to that. As always, stay tuned. Latter three links via the Quorum Report.

More school finance stuff

If you had any optimism about the potential of a special session on school finance reform to actually improve schools and funding for them, Governor Perry was in town to kill all hope of that.

Perry wants to limit home appraisal increases to 3 percent a year, make elected officials responsible for appraisal values and cap local government tax collections unless voters approve additional taxes.

Perry also promised to decrease school taxes and get rid of the "Robin Hood" system of school tax distribution, which shifts money from rich districts to poor ones. He offered no specifics on how much taxes would be cut or where he would get funding to replace the money lost in the cuts. He said his plan will be "revenue neutral."

"We need more education for our money, not just more money for our education," he told a crowd of hundreds that spilled out of an auditorium at Bayland Community Center in southwest Houston.

[...]

Perry's plan was immediately attacked by local government groups, who called it "potentially dangerous."

Donald Lee, executive director of the Texas Conference of Urban Counties, said the governor's plan "fails to address the root causes behind high property taxes and instead paints all local elected officials as irresponsible. The proposal ignores the fact that tax increases at the local level have been driven by decisions at the state level."

Lee added that a particularly expensive natural disaster could force a city to wait until the next election before having enough money to proceed with recovery plans.

Frank Sturzl, executive director of the Texas Municipal League, urged legislators to avoid hurting city finances as they try to solve the school finance problem.

"Cities collect only 15 percent of property taxes in Texas while schools collect more than 60 percent. The municipal share of all property taxes fell from 20.3 percent to 15.3 percent from 1985 to 2002," he said. "Texas cities hope that lawmakers won't confuse Robin Hood with the folks that fix your potholes."

Houston Mayor Bill White, who faces a budget shortfall and is considering employee layoffs, bristled at Perry's approach and said local governments should have more control over revenues, not less.

"The biggest help we can get out of Austin is fair reallocation of the funds that go from this area to Austin," he said, adding that transportation money is sent to Austin and divvied up.

"If we didn't have that gap ... we could have significant (decrease) of property tax rates," White said.

The mayor did not offer any figures to prove his claim, and a spokesman for the state comptroller said he is not aware of any figures that support White's position.

Perry scoffed at his critics, calling them proponents of big government.

"They're not just thumbing their nose at me," he said. "They're thumbing their nose at you and millions of Texans."

Under Perry's plan, local governments would not be able to collect taxes that exceeded a certain amount based on inflation and population growth unless voters approved higher taxes. The formula for determining the cap has yet to be worked out. If revenues were higher than the allowed amount, the tax rate would automatically be rolled back.

It amazes me that as Houston is in the midst of a fiscal crisis brought on by the artificial statewide imposition of a constraint on its ability to control costs, Perry is proposing the artificial statewide imposition of a constraint on cities' abilities to control revenues. I know what happens to those who forget the past, but what about those who forget current events? Make no mistake, the cities themselves understand what Perry is doing, and what the effect will be on their finances.

Meanwhile, back at the Capital, those who will have to do Perry's dirty work listened to some expert testimony about the actual effects of property tax caps.

Precise elements of tax and funding ideas being mulled by the 14-member Select Committee on Public School Finance remain unresolved — including projected costs.

Once fiscal details are known, "it'll be a rude awakening, I'm afraid," said Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, who leads the panel with Rep. Kent Grusendorf, R-Arlington.

[...]

Rice University economist George Zodrow presented the cost of replacing school and other revenue based on a state estimate of $7.1 billion to cut the 2002 average school M&O tax rate of $1.46 per $100 valuation to 75 cents per $100 valuation and $1.9 billion to eliminate the corporate franchise tax.

Zodrow rated the efficiency, equity, simplicity, stability and deductibility of 10 tax options for the committee, which has a goal of completing its suggestions to lawmakers by next week.

You can read Zodrow's report here (PDF). It's long but readable. I'm about halfway through.

He did not spell out a favored mix of taxes, but Zodrow indicated the economy would benefit from broadening the sales tax to more items purchased by consumers and said that a value-added tax applied to business would be simpler to administer than the franchise tax.

Conceding that creation of a state personal income tax is "anathema to many Texans and to virtually all Texas politicians," Zodrow said it would still prove easy to collect and give taxpayers a deduction on federal income taxes—unlike sales taxes.

Citing research by the Comptroller's Office, Zodrow said a flat personal income tax, including all deductions and exemptions allowed under federal tax law, would yield $3 billion a year for each percentage point of tax. A tax rate of 2.75 percent would raise $8.1 billion a year.

That's a point I've raised before. All academic, of course, but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do.

Shapiro said the final version also should suggest creation of a statewide property tax for education, one element in a Senate-approved plan last year.

She said she would favor expanding the sales tax to consumer services such as haircuts or manicures, but would oppose expanding the sales tax to legal fees and real estate because such changes would "hurt business."

I think that's exactly backwards, but until someone does a price-elasticity study it's just my opinion and hers. I will point out, though, that according to the Comptroller's office, taxing legal services would generate $806 million for 2004-05, taxing new residential construction another $513 million, non-residential construction $310 million, and residential repair and remodeling $158 million. On the other hand, taxing barber and beauty services would generate just $113 million. Seems to me you'd want to go where the money is, but what do I know. See page 22 of this report (PDF - page 15 of the PDF file) for the chart.

More analysis from the Center for Public Policy Priorities can be found here and here. Agendas and meeting handouts from the Joint Select Committee on Public School Finance are here. Major thanks to my friend Brandy, who's been sitting in on these hearings, for the links.

"He was wrong"

You've probably heard that the Senate just passed a rule to require a supermajority for any new tax cut or spending increases that don't have a counterbalance over the next five years. I'd like to call your attention to what Sen. Tom Carper (D, Del) had to say about the reasons for this unusual measure, which drew the support of four Republicans (McCain, Snowe, Collins, and Chafee):

In 2001, the first year I was here, and when George Bush was President, he said:

We can proceed with tax relief without fear of budget deficits.

He was wrong.

He said:

Our budget will run a deficit that will be small and short-term.

He was wrong.

In 2003, he said:

Our current deficit is not large by historical standards and is manageable.

He was wrong.

Now he says:

The deficit will be cut in half over the next 5 years.

He is wrong again.

My friends, our budget deficit this year is going to be about a half trillion dollars. When you actually take away the surplus funds from Social Security that mask the Federal budget deficit, it is even larger than that. While there is a little downtrend starting this year for a couple years in the budget deficits, the real budget deficit, the operating deficit, is about $450 billion. Then it climbs steadily up. The boomers, my generation, will begin to retire, and we are looking at a budget deficit for 2014 of about $785 billion.

That is three-quarters of a trillion dollars. Those are operating deficits, not debt.

Amen. You want fiscal responsibility, you know for whom to vote this year.

Via the NDN blog.

Settlement in Tulia civil suit

All of the still-living Tulia drug bust defendants will share in a $5 million settlement of a civil suit against the city of Amarillo. Amarillo also agreed to disband the multi-agency task force that oversaw Tom Coleman, the lying undercover cop whose uncorroborated testimony was enough to put nearly all of the accused in jail.

"There's no amount of money that could ever compensate the people in Tulia," said attorney Jeff Blackburn at a news conference announcing the settlement. "In our view this was a whole systemic failure."

The agreement with the city of Amarillo disbands the multi-agency task force that oversaw the sting's undercover agent, Tom Coleman, who is white, Blackburn said.

"The law on who is responsible for the task force is very unsettled and the city could not risk a $30-, $50- or $100- million dollar judgment," said Marcus Norris, Amarillo's city attorney.

On July 23, 1999, 44 people -- 37 of whom are black -- were arrested in the busts, which civil rights groups claimed were racially motivated. Coleman worked alone for 18 months and used no audio or video surveillance. Little or no corroborating evidence was introduced during the trials.

Though the settlement involves a civil rights lawsuit filed last summer by Zuri Bossett and Tonya White, two women whose drug charges were dropped after they provided alibis, all but one of the 46 arrested will receive some portion of the settlement. One defendant died before going to trial and is not included in the settlement, Blackburn said. A claims administrator will determine how the funds will be apportioned, taking into account factors like the amount of jail time served.

Norris, who called the settlement the responsible thing to do, said that the city recognizes the "misjustice" done in Tulia by the task force.

"The courts simply have not dealt in a definitive way with who is responsible for a task force operation," said Mike Loftin, an attorney hired to help the city defend itself.

In a move that Norris said is "connected" to the settlement, Amarillo police officers Sgt. Jerry Massengill and Lt. Mike Amos, two of those who had supervised Coleman, will retire before the end of the year.

[...]

The women's suit was filed Aug. 22, the same day Gov. Rick Perry pardoned 35 prosecuted in the Tulia cases. Those 35 defendants spent a combined 80 years in jail.

Norris said that Perry's decision to pardon those cases "had a direct impact on our ability to defend the case."

Following evidentiary hearings in which a judge pronounced Coleman "simply not a credible witness under oath," Swisher County officials approved a $250,000 settlement for those imprisoned on Coleman's word. In exchange, those defendants promised not to sue the county. Bossett and White did not receive any of the settlement because their charges had been dropped.

Coleman is scheduled to stand trial May 24 on perjury charges related to testimony he gave during evidentiary hearings in March 2003.

Good for the city of Amarillo for recognizing that the right thing to do was also the smart thing to do. If this has a chilling effect on enthusiasm for that kind of massive anti-drug task force, so much the better.

Mail problems

If you've sent me email since last night, I'm not ignoring you. My web host is experiencing some technical difficulties, and one of them is affecting webmail. I haven't been able to log in all day. Hopefully this will be fixed soon.

Campaign web sites

I've added links on the sidebar to the Contributions/Donations page for each of the Democratic candidates for Congress this year who a) are not unopposed and b) have a campaign website that I could connect to. Hopefully, this will make it easier for those of you who want to support the Democrat in your district or who want to help out in a high-profile race elsewhere. I'd like to thank the Politics1 folks for saving me a lot of Googling in this endeavor.

Obviously, not all of these candidates and races are equal. Some will be a better investment than others, and some will line up with your views (and mine) better than others. I trust we can all figure out for ourselves what to do.

After looking at some of these web pages, I'm reminded why I wrote a list of dos and don'ts for campaigning on the web. I'll also say again that it would be an outstanding idea for the national and state parties to provide free standardized web templates and secure contribution code, and to strongly encourage candidates - especially ones on a shoestring budget, who I'm guessing are the more likely to roll their own HTML code as a cost-saving measure - to take advantage of them.

Ideally, I'd love to have links to all Democratic candidates' web pages, but they have to have them first. If anyone knows about and can point me towards pages for the following people, I'll add them.

CD01 - Max Sandlin
CD07 - John Martinez
CD11 - Wayne Raasch
CD15 - Ruben Hinojosa
CD16 - Silvestre Reyes
CD18 - Sheila Jackson Lee
CD20 - Charlie Gonzalez
CD23 - Joe Sullivan
CD26 - Lico Reyes
CD27 - Solomon Ortiz
CD28 - Ciro Rodriguez
CD29 - Gene Green
CD30 - Eddie Bernice Johnson

I know that incumbents have their own house.gov web pages, but that's not what I'm looking for. I want campaign sites, with contribution information. Any help is appreciated.

UPDATE: OK, I guess that was a little confusing. I've changed the sidebar links to the main campaign web pages, and where there is a separate contribution/donations page, added a link to that. As before, please do let me know of any additions or corrections.

Survey says

Has this ever happened to you? I got a call on Tuesday night from some outfit that was doing a survey on banks and financial institutions. Midway through the call, my call-waiting chirps. I pick up the other line, and am greeted by some other outfit that wanted to survey me on employment. Are we in the middle of Survey Sweeps Week or something?

For the record, I told Surveyor #2 that now was not a good time. They called back last night and got what they wanted. All I can say about the experiences is that for a guy who spews his viewpoint several times a day in public, I gave a lot of "no opinion" answers to these people. Make of that what you will.

Primary wrapup

The closest race of the primaries may not be over, as challenger Henry Cuellar contemplates asking for a recount in his loss to Rep. Ciro Rodriguez.

The drama surrounding the already spirited race was amplified by election night woes in Zapata County, the southernmost county in the district. Some optical scan equipment broke down and 3,600 ballots had to be counted by hand — a task that took 13 hours to complete.

The problem raised a red flag in Texas Secretary of State Geoff Connor's office.

"I am extremely concerned and disappointed by the reporting of election results in Zapata County," Connor said in a written statement released Wednesday. "My office made repeated requests for a timely processing of election returns and found local officials unresponsive."

A faulty computer chip was blamed for the counting delay.

County Clerk Consuelo Villarreal said the computer efforts were ditched late Tuesday evening.

Four groups of four registered voters each then worked through the night.

Most of the counters were recruited Tuesday when they came to check election results.

Then early Wednesday, a dozen advanced-placement students from Zapata High School came to help.

[...]

Cuellar campaign spokesman Colin Strother said they were looking at all their options before determining whether to request a recount.

"I think it's still too close to call," he said. "We have to ascertain whether or not we're convinced every vote was counted accurately."

In particular, Strother lashed out at Bexar County returns, which he said need to be examined closely.

"Cliff Borofsky hasn't run an election right yet," Strother said.

Borofsky, the Bexar County elections administrator, said Strother is entitled to his opinion.

"I appreciate his candor," Borofsky said. "If he wants to request a recount, he's perfectly entitled to do so."

If conducted throughout the district, a manual recount could cost Cuellar up to $14,000. Or he could focus on specific counties for review.

He could have up until March 23 at 5 p.m. to make up his mind, depending on when the statewide canvass of votes is completed, said Jennifer Waisath, a spokeswoman with the Texas secretary of state's office.

San Antonians are unhappy with Borofsky as well.

Returns showing 100 percent of the vote weren't posted till 3:17 a.m. Wednesday, leading some county commissioners to publicly chastise Borofsky for failing to meet expectations.

"We underestimated the time it would take to read the (mail-in) ballots," Borofsky told commissioners, referring to problems tabulating more than 3,000 vote-by-mail paper ballots cast in Tuesday's primaries.

Those problems didn't delay tabulation of votes cast early or on Tuesday using the county's new $8.5 million touch-screen system.

However, Borofsky also was taken to task for failing to make adequate arrangements for post-election precinct party conventions, failing to follow up on serious complaints against a handful of election judges, and for delays in opening about 10 of the 267 election-day polling sites.

Election results from Bexar County were delayed by more than a full day in 2002; ironically, one of the races that was decided when those results finally came in was Rep. Henry Bonilla's close-shave win over challenger Henry Cuellar. Borofsky pledges to do better in November. Let's hope he's right this time.

Ron Wilson is claiming vindication despite his electoral defeat. I don't particularly feel like quoting from this article, so I'm just going to reiterate what I said yesterday - if the price for booting his sorry ass is the loss of a freshman Congressman, I'll take it. Greg sees it differently.

Of much greater interest is what effect the defeats of Wilson and Glenn Lewis will have on committee memberships. The Quorum Report has been all over this, as according to both House rules and state law, "A duly appointed senator's or representative's membership on the Legislative Budget Board, Legislative Library Board, Legislative Audit Committee, Texas Legislative Council, or any other interim committee terminates if the member: (1) resigns the membership; (2) ceases membership in the legislature for any reason; or (3) fails to be nominated or elected to the legislature for the next term." Wilson and Lewis were on the House Select Committee on School Finance, meaning that replacements for them will have to be found prior to the still-not-yet-called special session. Keep an eye on the people that Tom Craddick picks to fill in.

One last thought on Chris Bell: For your next gig, may I suggest checking out neighborhoods in State Senate District 15 and considering a move there in order to challenge the incumbent in the 2006 primary? I have a feeling you'll get a decent amount of support from the Democratic Party establishment if you do.

Finally, my condolences to Rob Humenik for losing the election for precinct chair. I'd have voted for you if I could!

Avi Rubin as election judge

Avi Rubin, well known for his role as electronic voting machine critic, spent yesterday as an election judge in Baltimore County. He wrote about it here, and came away with a much better understanding of the process and the Diebold machines' flaws. A little taste for you:

In our paper, we described how the smartcards used by these machines had no cryptography on them, and we made the widely criticized claim that a teenager in a garage could manufacture smartcards and use them to vote 20 times. I now believe that this particular attack is not a real threat -- at least not in the primary I worked today. We had 9 judges and 5 machines. Whenever a voter took what seemed to be too long, we always had a judge ask them if they needed help, or if something was wrong. Also, the machines make a loud clicking sound when the smartcard is ejected, and we almost always had a judge standing there waiting to collect the card and give the voter a sticker, as they are ushered out.

In general, multiple voting attacks during the election are not likely to work in a precinct such as the one where I worked. Every hour or so, we counted all of the voter authorization cards (different from the smartcards), which were in an envelope taped to the machine, and compared them to the number of votes counted by the machine so far. I believe that if any voter somehow managed to vote multiple times, that it would be detected within an hour. I have no idea what we would do in that situation. In fact, I think we'd have a serious problem on our hands, but at least we would know it.

[...]

There were also some security issues that I found to be much worse than I expected. All of the tallies are kept on PCMCIA cards. At the end of the election, each of those cards is loaded onto one machine, designated as the zero machine. (I found it interesting that Diebold numbered the machines 0 through n-1, disproving my notion that they don't have anyone on board who knows anything about Computer Science.) The zero machine is then connected to a modem, and the tallies are sent to a central place, where they are incorporated with the tallies of other precincts. In our case, the phone line was not working properly, so we went to the backup plan. The zero machine combined all the tallies from the PCMCIA cards that were loaded one at a time onto the machine. It then printed out the final tallies. One copy of that went onto the outside door of the building where there were talliers and poll watchers eagerly waiting. The other was put into a pouch with all of the PCMCIA cards, each wrapped in a printed tally of the machine to which it corresponds, and that pouch was driven by the two head judges to the board of elections office.

The security risk I saw was that Diebold had designated which machine would be the zero machine, and at one point, all of the vote tallies were loaded onto that one machine in memory. That would be the perfect point to completely change the tallies. There is no need to attack all of the machines at a precinct if someone could tamper with the zero machine. In fact, even when the modem is used, it is only the zero machine that makes the call. In the code we examined, that phone call is not protected correctly with cryptography. Perhaps that has been fixed. I was glad to see that the administrator PIN actually used in the election was not the 1111 that we used in our training, and that we had seen in the code.

One thing absolutely amazed me. With very few exceptions, the voters really LOVED the machines. They raved about them to us judges. The most common comment was "That was so easy." I can see why people take so much offense at the notion that the machines are completely insecure. Given my role today, I just smiled and nodded. I was not about to tell voters that the machines they had just voted on were so insecure. I was curious that voters did not seem to question how their votes were recorded. The voter verifiability that I find so precious did not seem to be on the minds of these voters. One woman did come up to Joy and complain that she wanted a paper ballot to verify. But, Joy managed to convince her that these machines were state of the art and that there was nothing to worry about, which was followed by a smile and a wink in my direction. I just kept quiet, given the circumstances. As an election judge, my job is to make the election work as well as possible, and creating doubts in the voters' minds at the polls does not figure into my idea of responsible behavior. Perhaps the lightest moment in the day came when one voter standing at his machine asked in the most deadpan voice, "What do I do if it says it is rebooting?" Head judge Marie turned white, and Joy's mouth dropped. My heart started to beat quickly, when he laughed and said "just kidding." There was about a two second pause of silence followed by roaring laughter from everyone.

I found the reaction to that joke interesting. Everybody was willing to believe that this had happened, and yet when it became clear that it didn't, we all felt relief. I'm sure that the other judges would have claimed that this was impossible, and yet, for a brief instant, they all thought it had happened.

The first bit echoes a point Rob has made before, which is that the integrity of the election judges is a big deterrent to attacks on the system. Still, it's clear that we're putting a lot of trust into black boxes, and we may never know if someone manages to compromise them. It will be interesting to see how Rubin modifies his criticisms of Diebold now that he has this firsthand experience. Via the Technology Review blog.

UPDATE: Urk. Rubin did his thing last week, on Super Tuesday, not yesterday. My bad. Thanks to Morat for the catch.

Viacom v. EchoStar

It's another consolidated media catfight.

DISH Network owner EchoStar says it will do "whatever it takes" to soon resolve a fee dispute with Viacom that has darkened several channels for its as many as 9 million satellite TV customers in all 50 states.

EchoStar Communications Corp. pulled the plug on CBS programs in more than a dozen cities Tuesday and also dropped Viacom's cable channels -- including MTV, Nickelodeon and VH1 -- from its satellite network.

Though both companies publicly assailed each other after the impasse continued beyond an already extended contract deadline, EchoStar chairman and CEO Charles Ergen said they were still talking.

"We certainly are having negotiations with Viacom," Ergen said in a conference aired on DISH.

"We had more discussion today. I hope we can get your channels back. We'll work really hard, nights, weekends, whatever it takes," he said.

The dispute also left as many as 2 million customers without CBS shows, meaning they could miss the upcoming NCAA men's basketball tournament carried by Viacom-owned CBS.

"We have customers who are calling and asking, 'Where's my CBS?'" EchoStar spokesman Marc Lumpkin said. "It's understandable that you would be upset if you lose your CBS channel."

Customers hoping to watch the disrupted channels instead saw a message accusing Viacom of asking for an unreasonable rate increase that would result in higher monthly satellite bills for EchoStar customers.

The disruption is the largest since 2000, when a similar dispute between Time Warner cable and ABC blacked out service to 3.5 million cable customers.

Man, I remember that epic battle. Talk about a Hobson's choice - who ya gonna root for, AOLTimeWarnerOfBorg, or Disney? I could get away with not giving a rat's behind now, but back then I was taping "The Practice" and was pretty pissed about the whole thing. At least this time it's not my provider that's involved, unlike Pete, who's getting deprived of "The Daily Show" even as we speak.

UPDATE: The two sides have now kissed and made up, so no one will be deprived of the NCAA Tournament or any other of life's essentials.

Rodriguez wins squeaker

The final tally is in, and Rep. Ciro Rodriguez has held on to win his hard-fought primary race with Henry Cuellar. This Express News story says the difference is 151 votes, but the SOS page has it at 126, with Rodriguez winning by the tiny margin of 24,334 to 24,208, or 50.13% to 49.87%. No word yet on whether Cuellar might call for a recount.

Looking at the county totals, turnout in Webb County, which Cuellar won 12,713 to 2429, was nearly enough to swamp Rodriguez. Bexar County (San Antonio), cast about 2000 fewer votes in this race (Rodriguez won there by 10,803 to 2733). Overall turnout in Bexar County was 5.66%, compared to Webb's 28.95%. Lack of a meaningful Presidential primary surely cost Rodriguez, while the prospect of sending a Laredoan to DC boosted Cuellar. Thanks to the primary date moving back a week, Rodriguez was nearly an unanticipated victim of the redistricting fight.

Rodriguez will still have to face a Republican in November (the CD 28 primary there is headed to a runoff between James Hopson and Francisco Canseco), but with nearly five times as many Democratic primary voters as Republican, I'd expect that race to be a lot less close.

Overall turnout was 6.86% on the Democratic side and 5.58% on the GOP side, a bit less than predicted by the SOS for the Dems and about on target for the Reps. As in 2002, when Democratic primary turnout (PDF) was significantly higher than Republican primary turnout (PDF), that won't mean a thing in November.

UPDATE: Apparently, the SOS is upset about what went down in Zapata County, the last county to report results from this race.

Statement from Secretary of State Geoff Connor regarding reporting of election results in Zapata County:
For Immediate Release
March 10, 2004 Contact: Jennifer Waisath
(512) 463-9981

"I am extremely concerned and disappointed by the reporting of election results in Zapata County. My office made repeated requests for a timely processing of election returns and found local officials unresponsive. While other counties experienced some difficulties with equipment and their vote counts, they were still responsive to our requests for information.

Throughout this process, my office remained in contact not only with local officials but with the Attorney General's Office.

Of paramount concern is that election results are reported accurately, completely and in a timely fashion so as to ensure confidence in the integrity of our elections."

The Quorum Report has a bit more:

Sources tell us that the Quorum Report was not the only organization to know the results of the election before the Office of the Secretary of State. That is one of the reasons they have consulted with the AG's office. Apparently Connor was or is on the verge of requesting Texas Rangers be sent to the county.

Damn. This isn't over yet. Stay tuned.

Money bridge followup

First, a correction to my earlier post about the money bridge studio in Houston. I received an email from Betty Freedman yesterday who informed me that regular customers settle their tabs monthly rather than at the end of each session, something which makes it easier to pop in and play for an hour. Like pretty much every other bridge entity in the US nowadays, it's also a smoke-free establishment. I remember when bridge clubs and tournaments had smoking and non-smoking sections, and as with airplanes and restaurants, the distinction was mostly artificial. Anyway, there you have it.

As for poker, I'm afraid it's bad news. I called the Harris County District Attorney's office this morning and spoke to a woman who had already fielded a question about poker tournaments. As with Lubbock, a tournament that charged entry fees and awarded prizes to winners would be illegal in Harris County. Don't despair too much, though. Given the multiple attempts to expand the scope of legal gambling in Texas last spring and the obvious need of more revenue sources, both for school finance reform and general state funding, I will not be at all surprised if this becomes available in a few years.

Baby booming

Texas is the fastest growing state for people under 18.

The new data show that Texas added more than 350,000 residents under 18 between 2000 and 2003, 75,000 more than Florida and 183,000 more than California, the next two fastest-growing states for young people.

Texas' fastest growth was among children under 5 and between 5 and 13 -- it led the nation in both categories. It ranked third in the increase of children between 14 and 17.

"This shows how young Texas is becoming," said Steve Murdock, state demographer and head of the Texas State Data Center. "I think it's safe to say we can expect the demand for educational services will be particularly acute in the years ahead."

Just another thing to keep in mind when and if that special session on school finance reform gets called.

Doggett wins, Bell and Wilson lose

Lots of stuff happening from yesterday's primaries. Let's go to the videotape.

The big local news is that Rep. Chris Bell lost to former JP Al Green by a fairly substantial margin.

With all votes counted in the primary for the 9th Congressional District, Green had 66 percent of the vote to 31 percent for Bell in a race that was fought along racial lines. A third candidate -- lawyer Beverly Spencer -- had 2 percent.

Democrats are already trying to heal the wounds caused by the primary that became contested when Bell was moved into a new district that Republican legislators created last year in hopes of forcing Bell into a race with a strong black Democratic candidate.

Green is the former president of the Houston chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

I'm much more surprised by the margin than by the result. I believed it would be a close race, but clearly that wasn't the case. Congratulations to Judge Green and best of luck in Washington. (Yes, I know, he has a Republican challenger. I'm not the least bit worried about that.)

I'm sorry to see Chris Bell go, but if the tradeoff is seeing Ron Wilson get booted, it's more than worth it.

For the first time in almost 30 years, District 131 in Houston will have a new representative in the Texas Legislature after Alma Allen upset longtime incumbent Democratic state Rep. Ron Wilson, an often controversial figure who most recently drew fire after siding with Republicans in last year's acrimonious battle over redistricting.

With all precincts reporting, Allen, a member of the State Board of Education, beat Wilson by a margin of 55 percent to 44 percent.

Allen will face no Republican opposition in the November general election.

According to one of his fellow Democratic state representatives, Wilson lost the seat he has held for the past 27 years because he lost touch with the needs of the people of his district. "I think Ron moved out of step with his district and started representing (Republican Speaker of the House) Tom Craddick instead of Tom Jones in his district," said state Rep. Garnet Colemen.

Coleman's comments were a reference to the fact that Wilson was one of the few Democrats to side with Craddick and other Republicans in a redistricting plan designed to give the GOP the majority of Texas congressional seats. It was a sentiment echoed by Wilson's challenger.

"I think redistricting was the key issue in the race," Allen said. "We're very excited and we're looking forward to new leadership and new ideas in the district."

Wilson was not available for comment late Tuesday.

Excellent. Good luck finding a job, Ron. You can always take the GOP Career Plan and become a highly-paid lobbyist for business interests.

In other contested Congressional primaries, Rep. Lloyd Doggett won easily over Judge Leticia Hinojosa, while Rep. Ciro Rodriguez appears to have beaten back a strong challenge from Henry Cuellar. On the Doggett race:

With 90 percent of the district's precincts reporting, Doggett, of Austin, was beating Hinojosa, of McAllen, by 64 percent to 35 percent.

In Austin, Doggett cruised with 88 percent of the vote. But he also nosed ahead in the narrow district's southern anchor, Hidalgo County, leading by fewer than 100 out of more than 15,000 votes there with 53 of 54 precincts reporting.

Running even in the Valley was the key for Doggett. The Quorum Report, which had noted the high early voting totals in Hidalgo County and which took that as a likely sign of trouble for Doggett, expressed surprise at the result. They also quoted Hinojosa's campaign as acknowledging her need to get 60% of the vote there, something which she failed to do.

As for Rodriguez, the Secretary of State shows him leading 23,546 to 22,089 with 261 of 269 precincts counted. Given that there's an average of 170 voters per precinct, and that Cuellar would have to win the remaining 8 precincts by an average of 183 votes per precinct, I think we can call this one for the incumbent.

Other Democratic news: State Sen. Mario Gallegos won his primary against Yolanda Navarro Flores, Richard Morrison won the right to take on Tom DeLay, and oh yeah, John Kerry won easily, too.

On the GOP side, former judge Ted Poe easily won the CD 02 race and will challenge Rep. Nick Lampson in November. In CD 10, the nutball Ben Streusand and the sane-by-comparison Mike McCaul advanced to the runoff, while the same fate awaits Arlene Wohlgemuth and Dot Snyder in CD 17 and Louie Gohmert and John Graves in CD 01. The McCaul/Streusand winner gets a free pass in November, while the Wohlgemuth/Snyder winner will face Rep. Chet Edwards and the Gohmert/Graves winner gets Rep. Max Sandlin. Finally, in statewide races, State Supreme Court judge Steven Wayne Smith got ousted while Railroad Commish Victor Carillo will be in a runoff.

UPDATE: Still not over in CD 28. One more precinct has reported, and it's now 24,004 to 23,169 for Ciro Rodriguez. That means the 262nd precinct was won by Cuellar by a 1080-458 margin. Obviously, that "average of 170 votes per precinct" methodology has some holes in it. The latest story from the Express News says

Rodriguez, of San Antonio, was leading Laredoan Cuellar by just more than 1,000 votes at 7 this morning. But several thousand votes in Zapata County were still being hand-counted, and officials with the county Sheriff's Department were unsure when results would be available.

There was no answer this morning at the Zapata County Elections Department.

Both campaigns had staffers anxiously awaiting results in Zapata County, which is adjacent to Webb County in the district's southern portion.

Rodriguez spokesman John Puder said he was confident that Rodriguez would emerge victorious.

"We only need 30 percent in Zapata," he said. "We don't need to take it -- it's just a matter of not getting killed down there."

Cuellar spokesman Colin Strother said he was equally sure that Cuellar would win Zapata.

"Henry's mother is from Zapata, he was baptized in Zapata and he has a very strong following there among elected officials and voters," Strother said.

Stay tuned.

The case for paper ballots, as if you needed more ammo

From the LA Times:

Poll workers struggling with a new electronic voting system in last week's election gave thousands of Orange County voters the wrong ballots, according to a Times analysis of election records. In 21 precincts where the problem was most acute, there were more ballots cast than registered voters.

[...]

David Hart, chairman of Texas-based Hart InterCivic, which manufactured Orange County's voting system, said it would be impossible to identify which voters cast ballots in the wrong precincts because of steps the company had taken to ensure voter secrecy. For this reason, an exact account of miscast ballots is impossible.

Hart InterCivic, of course, is the manufacturer of eSlate, which is the gadget we use here in Houston. It rather goes without saying that had they produced paper ballots, they would at least know how many people had voted for incorrect candidates. They might even have caught the problem in time to do something about it. Oh, well. Better luck next time. Via Soon To Be Big Media Kevin.

It's the School Finance Reform Tango

The ongoing will-they-or-won't-they tango on school finance reform took another step closer towards that dreaded special session.

Talk at the Capitol finally turns to taxes this week, the remaining piece in a school finance puzzle that could lead to a special session as early as March 29.

Lawmakers studiously avoided discussion of taxes during the primary election season. There are 45 contested primary races for House seats and five for the Senate.

On Wednesday the Joint Select Committee on Public School Finance will discuss tax options for replacing a portion of local school property taxes. One member of that committee, House Appropriations Chairman Talmadge Heflin, said last week that behind-the-scenes talks among lawmakers are showing progress.

"I think we're beginning to see some strong consensus statements, probably surfacing shortly after the primary. I'm a little reluctant to say a whole lot until then. This is a political group, you know," said Heflin, a Houston Republican who doesn't have a primary opponent.

Gov. Rick Perry also may begin publicly talking about tax issues this week. Several weeks ago, Perry promised to soon lay out proposals to lower and cap property taxes.

[...]

Despite the perils of opening a discussion on the complex issues of education finance and taxes, many Capitol observers now believe a session is inevitable because of the months-long buildup. Political pollsters also say that Perry needs a victory on school finance to improve his declining job approval ratings.

Another driver for a special session is the July trial of a lawsuit filed by dozens of school districts, alleging that the current finance system is constitutionally inadequate.

Achieving success in a school finance special session will not be easy. Lawmakers want to overhaul the $27 billion school finance system and end the more onerous provisions that require high property-wealthy districts to share $1.1 billion with lower-wealth districts. But they must replace that money to retain equity among districts.

The Legislature also will have to come up with revenue to offset lower property taxes. Legislation passed by the Senate during the 2003 regular session would have cut school property taxes in half and replaced the $8 billion in lost revenue by raising the sales tax and adding it to many services.

Lawmakers now are looking at a smaller cut, perhaps one-third, and replacing the money with a mix of sales, cigarette and business taxes.

Points to remember as we go forward:

- The Lege failed to close the franchise tax loophole during the regular session, despite Governor Perry's claim that it was a "major priority". It will very likely be on the agenda this time around. Note that the Lege had all but given up on closing this loophole before the Ardmore walkout occurred, by the way.

- If some sort of cigarette tax is enacted, the credit for it (or blame, depending on your perspective) goes to Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, who floated the idea during the regular session only to have Governor Perry reject it out of hand. To be fair, Perry rejected this as a means of balancing the budget, not as a vehicle for funding schools, so a change in position on his part is not exactly a flipflop.

- Property tax reductions, a subject that nearly caused a riot last year, will probably be the really hot potato. Property taxes can't be reduced or capped enough for the truly zealous, but reductions there will have to be made up elsewhere, mostly in the form of higher and/or expanded sales taxes. I predict that if there's going to be a major roadblock, this will be it.

- I believe the odds are at least as good that the end result of this as-yet-still-uncalled session will be no increase in Governor Perry's approval ratings as they are for a significant increase.

We'll know where we stand when Perry returns from Italy. Stay tuned.

Houston wilderness

This is a pretty neat site for those who think it's nothing but a concrete jungle around here. Be sure to check their little Flash movie about what you can find near here, too.

Now of course, the 24-county area it covers is a lot bigger than just Houston, but everything here is within a two-hour or so drive, and there are ten different kinds of wilderness areas described on their interactive map. The idea of this site is modelled after that of Chicago Wilderness. Check it out.

Money bridge

I'm going to try to get a statement out of the Harris County DA's office regarding poker tournaments, but in the meantime I can confirm that playing bridge for money is indeed an option here in Houston. As I recall, the rule is that the house can only charge a table fee - it cannot get a cut from individual hands played. The stakes are among the players themselves, and as you'd expect are settled up at the end.

For those who don't play bridge, the stakes are for points earned or lost on a given hand. Probably about half the time, 100 to 200 points are at risk, but up to about 2200 points can be available on normal hands. As such, even in the one-cent game, the totals can add up quickly. Lots of good bridge players have made a living doing this sort of thing.

Votacion Hoy

At long last, it's primary day in Texas, and there are some rumblings that a few incumbents might be in trouble in their primaries. The Quorum Report is suggesting that early voting is favoring Judge Leticia Hinojosa in her race against Rep. Lloyd Doggett in the new 25th CD, while Henry Cuellar appears to be getting a boost from Webb County in his race against Rep. Ciro Rodriguez in the 28th. That race is especially fierce given Rodriguez's support of Cuellar in 2002 when he came close to unseating Republican Henry Bonilla.

Mr. Rodriguez, 57, says he feels betrayed by Mr. Cuellar's entry in the race.

After all, he says, they served in the Texas House together for more than a decade, and he helped raise money and secure endorsements for Mr. Cuellar's first run for Congress in 2002 – a nearly successful bid to knock off Republican Henry Bonilla.

"When I first heard about it, I thought it was just rumors," Mr. Rodriguez said. "I never expected it. ... I thought I knew him, but apparently not."

Mr. Cuellar, 48, was readying himself for another shot at Mr. Bonilla this year when GOP-led redistricting split Laredo, one of the state's most reliable Democratic strongholds.

Half stayed in Mr. Bonilla's 23rd District, which was also reinforced with Republican voters in San Antonio's well-to-do northern suburbs. The other half went to Mr. Rodriguez.

Mr. Cuellar, a 14-year lawmaker who served briefly as Texas secretary of state under Republican Gov. Rick Perry, said he agonized over whether to run against Mr. Rodriguez. But once he made the decision, he went for the incumbent's jugular.

"He's a very nice man, but what has he done for the district?" Mr. Cuellar asked while campaigning recently in a working-class neighborhood in San Antonio. The race "is not about him or me. It's about providing public service to the community."

Mr. Cuellar also accuses Mr. Rodriguez of telling only part of a story that dates to 1987, when the pair went into the Legislature together.

He said he helped Mr. Rodriguez get state money for his district, and he "never threw it back in his face."

Mr. Rodriguez says he has served his district well. He says he helped lure the new Toyota truck plant to his district and secured money for higher education, veterans health and public transit programs and a large jail in Pearsall.

As chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Mr. Rodriguez says he's also been active on border and trade issues important to his constituents.

The CHC is firmly behind Ciro Rodriguez. CHC Chair Bob Menendez was quoted in NationalJournal.com as follows:

"[Cuellar's challenge to Rodriguez] is a huge disappointment. So many of us supported him, and his biggest advocate, the biggest fighter when he was running against Bonilla, in raising money and getting out the vote, was Ciro Rodriguez. There is a certain requirement, I think, of being thankful...[Rodriguez is] an exceptional member of the Democratic caucus and an exceptional leader in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus."

The Express News confirms that early turnout in Bexar County was not overwhelming.

Turnout is typically higher than normal during presidential years, as voters are inundated with campaign materials and become more politically aware.

Nearly 22,000 people cast early votes in Bexar County this year, compared with about 35,000 in 2002 and about 49,000 in 2000, the last presidential election year.

Another 50,000 are likely to hit the polls today, for a total turnout of about 72,000, or about 8.5 percent of registered voters, said Christian Anderson, who monitors local voting patterns for Election Support Services.

Most of that turnout has been driven by Democratic voters who have cast ballots at more than twice the rate of Republican voters.

There were contested primaries for Governor in 2002, and of course for President in 2000, so there isn't a straight apples-to-apples comparison. Nonetheless, Rodriguez better hope that today's turnout beats expectations.

It may or may not make any difference, but Cuellar came under fire late last week for claiming a union endorsement that he later retracted.

"Let me state this in no uncertain terms," Texas AFL-CIO President Emmett Sheppard said Friday in a news release. "Ciro Rodriguez has a stellar record of support for the working people in his district."

The Cuellar campaign Web site had listed the Communications Workers of America (CWA) as an endorsing organization.

The CWA is affiliated with the AFL-CIO.

Cuellar spokesman Colin Strother acknowledged that the mistake was his.

"They're right," Strother said. "We had a meeting with all the CWA members in Laredo and they indicated that they support Henry.

"I mistook that as an endorsement and erroneously posted it on the Web site."

Strother said when he was made aware of the error, he immediately removed the group's name from the list Friday afternoon.

"We don't want to confuse anyone," he said.

Meanwhile, over in CD 25, it's not been quite as nasty, but recent ads may be making up for that.

In ads that began airing late this week, an old man questions whether Doggett lives in the newly created, overwhelmingly Hispanic district and how someone who doesn't speak Spanish expects to represent it.

District 25 snakes from East Austin 350 miles south to the Mexican border.

In the 60-second radio commercial and a 30-second TV version, Hinojosa questions "whether he will run in another district if there is a redistricting effort next election."

Doggett almost immediately fired back with ads that declare, "The people who know her the best have supported her the least — that's why every single Hidalgo County official who has endorsed in the race has endorsed me."

Doggett has said he is a resident of the newly configured district, which contains about one-third of the population that was in his old Austin district.

A Republican-dominated Legislature last year redrew the state's 32 congressional districts, targeting Doggett and five other Anglo Democratic U.S. House incumbents for extinction.

Doggett accused her of characterizing him as a rich Anglo.

"It's ironic that she's saying I'm a rich Anglo when she was relying on a small group of Anglo power brokers to crown her campaign," he said.

Hinojosa denied any racial or ill intent and said she was justified in "raising those issues because it is what voters are asking me about him."

There's one small consolation to these races, as well as with the Bell-Green battle in CD09, and that's that these districts will remain Democratic regardless of who wins the primaries. I'd hate to see a bunch of seniority get flushed, but in the end we'll all get on with our lives. Oh, and there shouldn't be any runoffs in these races, either. That's always good news.

Now for some Republican hijinx. As noted by a Kos diarist, the NRCC tried to brass-knuckle a challenger to Ralph Hall in CD 04 and made themselves look like idiots in the process. I particularly enjoyed Larry Telford's up-is-down denial of what he was recorded saying. And of course, the fact that the attempted pistol-whipping was of a no-name with no money, and not the challenger who had actual experience and funding.

Last but not least, also from NationalJournal.com (it's a subscription service; I was sent some excerpts): When in doubt, invoke the Clenis:

A last-minute attack mailer sent by "Citizens for Education" seeks to tie mortgage co. exec. Ben Streusand (R) and atty. Michael McCaul (R) to ex-Pres. Bill Clinton and ex-AG Janet Reno, "even going so far as to allege that McCaul had something to do with Clinton donor Johnny Chung getting probation instead of jail time." The piece "also tries to connect Streusand" with ex-Reps. Bob Gammage (D) and Ken Bensten (D), "and tries to link McCaul to the hate crimes law and questions his positions on home schooling."

McCaul was a career DOJ prosecutor in several admins, and says he made several recommendations to his superiors about follow-up prosecutions on the Clinton fundraising scandal, but they were ignored. No one, "including the other candidates, is willing to own up to sending the mailer. (All have denied it.) And we can find no records on who the Citizens for Education is."

"Quote of the week:" McCaul spokesperson Ted Delisi, on the attack mailer: "This mailer is full of falsehoods and half-truths. The only half that's true is the part about Streusand."

Heh. I didn't find anything useful from a Google search on "Citizens for Education", which is about as phony a "grass roots" name as you'll find. Once again, as with the BS attacks on Adrian Garcia, the perpetrators (who are very likely violating some campaign law or another) will spread their slime and get away scott-free. They seem to be as hard to trace as spammers, and no DA's office has the money or the inclination to do anything about it. I don't really care who wins the CD 10 race, but I find this sort of behavior objectionable no matter who the victim is.

Thanks to reader JD for the NationalJournal excerpts.

UPDATE: Check the comments for a little more info on "Citizens for Education", courtesy of AJ.

USA Today on Metro Rail

I was doing a little channel surfing last night before Tiffany and I headed out to childbirth class, and one of the Happy Talk Local News anchors popped up on my screen to say something like "MetroRail slammed by national publication! Details tonight!" Lovely, I thought. Just what we needed.

I didn't bother to stay up and watch the broadcast of their story, but I found it today.

The Bayou City's light-rail system made national headlines Monday.

A USA Today article titled, "Houston's Crash Course In Light Rail," addressed the number of accidents that have occurred since the system began its test runs in November.

The article said the system has had almost as many accident in three months as Dallas during the entire 2003 year.

The story said part of the problem is that Houston's light-rail system is at street level, instead of above of below ground, and that most Houstonians are drivers.

According to Stephen Klineberg, a sociology professor at Rice University, Houston is the most auto-dependent city in the nation.

That's it? Where's the slam? Here's the article the culled the story from. Maybe I'm getting addlepated, but if there was any slamming going on in that story, it was of our town's drivers.

For a full year, Houston tried to prepare its drivers to share the streets with the city's new light-rail transit system.

There were public service announcements, community forums and safety classes to educate drivers. The sleek trains were equipped with strobe lights, horns, bells and whistles to warn motorists.

A test of the safety campaign didn't fare well. An average of five drivers on Houston's streets each day plowed into trains while the system was working out its kinks before the Jan. 1 opening. Worried transit officials immediately launched more television ads. One had Metro Police Chief Tom Lambert growling, "So, what part of safety do we not understand?"

Nobody really knows the answer to that question. But since the MetroRail trains began running full time Jan. 1, there have been 15 more collisions. No one has died in the accidents. Police blame motorists in all of them. "It's not a rail problem," says Ken Connaughton of the Metropolitan Transit Authority. "It's a driver problem."

While I agree with that assessment, I'm scratching my head about that "average of five drivers on Houston's streets each day plowed into trains while the system was working out its kinks before the Jan. 1 opening" bit. We've had 23 accidents total, 15 of which have come after January 1, so unless the author meant to imply that the "before Jan. 1" period is exactly 1.6 days long, there's some seriously fuzzy math going on here.

As it happens, the Chron today has a story which notes that a review of the MetroRail design found no systemic flaws.

Metropolitan Transit Authority officials have reviewed part of the report's draft, scheduled to be released at a news conference Thursday. Experts at the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University are expected to recommend minor adjustments to signal timing and signage. Those suggestions will be in addition to changes Metro already has implemented during the monthlong study, including using train horns only in emergencies.

[...]

Metro had planned on increasing train frequencies and adjusting bus routes to better tie in to the new rail line starting Feb. 15 but postponed the changes until TTI's review was completed. There have been 23 train/vehicle crashes in the past four months, a rate far exceeding that of any other new light rail line in the United States.

Metro police cited 22 of the vehicle drivers for traffic infractions that caused the wrecks, including illegal left and right turns, running red lights and failing to yield the right of way when pulling out of a driveway or intersection. Police blamed the other crash on a Union Pacific Railroad employee who bypassed a flashing crossing arm on the test track, but they are still reviewing what type of citation, if any, should be issued.

I heard someone say recently "it's not like the trains are jumping the tracks and attacking innocent vehicles". I almost feel like we'd have a better handle on the situation if that were the case. I'm going to try to stay hopeful that the rate of accidents will decrease as people eventually figure out where the train is.

Calpundit goes pro

Congrats to Kevin Drum for landing an honest-to-goodness paying blog gig for a real, respected publication. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. Way to go, Kevin!

Auschron discovers blogs

Among the many signs of spring around here is South by Southwest, which begins this Friday in Austin. Blogs have been an increasing focus of SXSW in recent years, and so with the background of the Presidential race, the Austin Chronicle has an article on the impact of political blogs.

Napster is history. And when was the last time someone enthused about WebTV? But blogs have entered the mainstream big time. Web diaries have become a must-have high school accessory. Current-event blogs are everywhere, and have even generated a blog oligarchy: webloggers like Andrew Sullivan, Josh Marshall (of Talking Points Memo), and Glenn Reynolds (of InstaPundit).

Interestingly, the blog seems to be resurrecting a form that was invented on March 1, 1711, when Joseph Addison and Richard Steele started The Spectator. The authors called The Spectator a "diurnal essay" – in other words, a daily that covered politics, culture, and lifestyle issues from a personal POV. The current environment in which blogs have flourished is oddly similar to the London landscape of Addison and Steele's time, when England's first stock market bubble coincided with a fad for coffeehouses to produce a constituency for a new, disposable kind of text. The Spectator provided perfect reading matter to bond this community of coffeehouse goers.

What blogs add to Addison and Steele's primitive print format are links and interactivity. Blogs can accommodate comments, which have become the most fascinating parts of some of them. And links allow the reader to segue seamlessly from text to reference – or to another blog – in one reading session.

I swear, if I didn't know better, I'd think I was reading a UPI feature story from mid-2002. Surely the hip urbanites who read the AusChron have heard of blogs before, so why such a sterile treatment? Even the Statesman has blogs, a fact that the AusChron made fun of earlier this year. Talk about boring.

The author goes on to get a few quotes from Matt Welch, Juan Cole (whose URL they bungled at the bottom of the story), and Carl Zimmer about this whole blogging thing. Conspicuously absent is any mention of bloggers in Texas, a somewhat insulting oversight given the very large number of good Austin political blogs, including the state Democratic Party, the AusChron's own Jim Hightower, and of course Rick Perry's favorite blog, the Burnt Orange Report. C'mon, guys, try a little Google search next time.

After all that, it seems almost gratuitous to note their excessively short interviews with Eli Pariser of MoveOn and SXSW presenter Virginia Postrel, whose bloging and blog URL go completely unmentioned. The latter article begins, right next to Postrel's smiling face, with this:

In 1999, Vanity Fair did a photo spread on the new generation of conservative babes. The group included Wendy Shalit, Amity Shlaes (sic), and Virginia Postrel. If this was Vanity Fair's idea of a right-wing Charlie's Angels, then surely the smart one was Postrel.

Maybe it's just me, but that sure seems like it could be construed as a poke at either Shalit and Shales' brains, or Postrel's pulchritude. I'm guessing that's not quite what the author - the same guy who did the soporific article on poliblogging - had in mind.

Poker tournaments illegal

Sorry, citizens of Lubbock. You can't play in poker tournaments that offer cash prizes.

LUBBOCK -- Do bar and restaurant card tournaments requiring entry fees and promising prize money violate state gambling laws?

District Attorney Bill Sowder says they do.

Spurred by recent attempts to hold card tournaments at Lubbock businesses, Sowder informed owners last week of his stance before pursuing criminal charges.

"The law is not designed to punish the Friday night poker game at a guy's house," he said in Saturday's editions of the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. "The law is not designed to throw out the football pool at the shop."

Jake's Sports Cafe recently canceled a Texas Hold'em poker tournament when law officers questioned the event's legality.

Owner Scott Stephenson said his event does not amount to gambling.

"It's no different than a golf tournament or a dart tournament," he said. "The way we're running the game, there is no bet. We don't let people bet money in the game."

The tournament would charge players entry fees and offer prizes to the winners. Instead of money, players would wager points on each hand.

But Assistant District Attorney John Grace said that when it comes to gambling, the Texas Supreme Court says points are the same as money. And because each player's odds of winning differ with each deal of the cards, poker is gambling, he said.

Here's the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal story, which contains the following quote from Scott Stephenson, whose sports bar cancelled a Texas Hold 'Em tournament as a result of the DA's ruling.

Poker involves more skill than chance, Stephenson said, pointing out that the same players repeatedly win major national poker tournaments.

"All we're doing is determining the better, more skillful player," he said. "I think it's a game of skill. ... It's just like we determine who's the better golfer."

Far as I know, that was the rationale that got bridge exempted from gambling laws, which is why there are rubber bridge studios where you can play for money. I'd be very interested to see, now that televised poker events have become so ubiquitous, if a judge would buy that argument.

Bush to visit rodeo

Never one to refuse an opportunity to show just how down-home, Real America, Mom & apple pie he is, President Bush will pay a visit to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo today.

When President Bush drops by the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo today, his eye will be as much on the Bubbas as the Brahman cattle.

The president has been working hard lately to rope in these socially conservative Southern white men who usually vote Republican but who may be tempted to stray because of the tight economy.

To reach these voters, the president has stepped up his appearances at sporting venues.

Bush flew to Florida recently to attend the Daytona 500 NASCAR race, opening the event with the traditional phrase, "Gentlemen, start your engines." And during a visit last month to Springfield, Mo., he made a stop at a supersize sports store to check out the fishing gear.

The Bush campaign also has targeted sports buffs by running some of its new political ads on the ESPN cable network.

I was going to make the point about Bush's recent Feel Good Tour Of The Heartland, which appears to be aimed at shoring up support among Bush's core demographics, but the Chron did it for me. Next stop: He'll be the opening act for a Marshall Tucker concert, followed by a ribbon-cutting at the grand opening of a bait stand.

Of course, we shouldn't forget the real reason for this trip, like every other trip Bush has taken.

Bush is sandwiching the livestock show visit between a luncheon campaign fund-raiser in Dallas and an evening money event in downtown Houston at the Hilton Americas-Houston.

[...]

The rodeo outing also gives Bush a financial advantage. Even though the trip to Houston is primarily for campaign fund-raising, the White House can bill some of the travel costs to taxpayers because the livestock show visit is considered an official presidential function.

Pretty much says it all.

UPDATE: Missed the related story earlier about that fundraiser.

VP poll

Keith Berry surveyed a few bloggers to ask who they thought Kerry's VP choice would be, and he found the most popular answer was..."Beats me!" I picked John Edwards, mostly because I didn't feel like coming up with some too-clever-by-half non-conventional wisdom answer, and partly because I think it really will be Edwards. Check it out.

(PS - Note to Tacitus: I think Rep. Harold Ford will be a national candidate some day, but as you can see from his bio, he's not yet 35 and thus not eligible to be on the ticket.)

Spam fight!

It's headlines like this that make reading the Sunday paper special: Hawaiian Spam fans tempted by pork rival.

Not since the overthrow of Hawaii's last queen has a foreigner dared to wage a battle so fierce against an island institution.

Spam has been Hawaii's undisputed king of canned luncheon meat since the gelatinous pink pork brick was first introduced to the islands during World War II. Now a new Danish copycat called Tulip is trying to unseat Spam.

In Hawaii, Spam is much more than a four-letter word for unwanted e-mail. The product made by Austin, Minn.-based Hormel Foods Corp. isn't just another canned meat either. It's more of a staple food and part of island culture: Hawaii leads the nation in per capita Spam consumption.

After two years of planning and development, Tulip was introduced in Hawaii last August with an aggressive marketing campaign and an ambitious goal of gaining nearly 20 percent of Spam's enviable market share in two years.

Tulip's distributor and marketer, Advantage Webco Dodge Hawaii, said sales have been strong. Its marketing goal of selling 1.2 million cans may be met a year earlier than expected, the company said.

"Surprised? Oh yeah, because you just can't just challenge the big boy and expect to do that well in the first year," said Percy Higashi, Webco's vice president.

But Higashi acknowledges putting a major dent in Spam will be a challenge.

"I don't think anyone has been successful against Hormel in Hawaii," he said. Tulip, made solely for the Hawaii market, isn't sold in any other states.

Well, maybe these foreign invaders will take some market share, but will anyone ever compose a haiku to their product?

Pink beefy temptress
I can no longer remain
Vegetarian

I think not.

Kerry in Houston

I got a recorded phone call yesterday about attending this John Kerry event, but it was scheduled for 7:30 AM, and I really needed the sleep. If anyone reading this did attend, please leave a comment.

One item of interest:

Just days after forcing the last of his rivals from the race for the Democratic nomination, Kerry was seeking to show the flag in the South, probably his toughest region in which to build support. He was spending Saturday in Texas before flying to Mississippi.

While few argue seriously that the president's home state or reliably Republican Mississippi are up for grabs in the November election, campaign aides said Kerry was making the point that he'll compete everywhere. He was heading later to Florida, a crucial swing state.

Kerry argues that his focus on jobs and the economy will sell in all regions, but the issue of Iraq and the war on terror injected itself into the fray today.

I'm glad to hear that Kerry will not be pursuing a "non-Southern strategy". While I firmly believe that the Midwest (in particular, Ohio and Missouri) and the Southwest (Arizona, Nevada, and Colorado) are much riper electoral vote targets, contesting the South and bolstering Democratic turnout here will help with those crucial Senate and Congressional races elsewhere on the ballot. I hope this is not the last time we see John Kerry down here between now and November.

UPDATE: Steve Bates attended the event, got his hand shaken by John Kerry, and came away quite impressed with the man.

UPDATE: Greg was there too, and so was Rob. Obviously, I'm a total lame-o. I'll go hide my face in shame now.

Early voting ends

With early voting over and the regular voting to take place on Tuesday, we'll finally get a better picture of who's in and who's out in all of these hotly contested primaries. Among others, we ought to know who'll carry the flag in the ninth district, where I think the end of the race will be a boon to everyone.

A group of African-American ministers supporting Al Green for Congress demanded Friday that Texas Democratic Party Chairman Charles Soechting withdraw his endorsement of U.S. Rep. Chris Bell.

The demand came on the heels of a claim by Bell that Green has violated federal campaign laws in a week of heightened rhetoric in the Democratic primary for the new 9th U.S. Congressional District.

Bell is white and Green, a former justice of the peace and former head of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, is black.

Friday, the Rev. Bill Lawson of Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church and several other black ministers said the Soechting endorsement creates a double standard.

Soechting endorsed Bell earlier in the week because Green took a $2,000 campaign contribution from former Harris County GOP Chairman Gary Polland. Soechting said Polland has worked to oppose affirmative action and other interests supported by blacks.

Lawson echoed Green's original complaint that state party officials didn't complain when Bell received Republican money or when he got the Political Courage Award from Polland and the local GOP for opposing a city tax hike in 2001. At the time, Bell was a City Council member running for mayor.

Texas Democratic Party spokesman Mike Lavigne said Soechting stands by the endorsement because "Gary Poland and the Republican Party aren't going to pick our candidates."

I'll say again that I think Charles Soechting should have remained neutral in this fight, which Harris County Democratic Party chair Gerry Birnbirg did do. Unfortunately, his taking a side is just furthering one of the GOP's goals of re-redistricting, which was to sow dissension within the Democratic Party. Greg Wythe has been following this pretty closely (see here and here), and he predicts a nailbiter finish, with the possibility of a runoff, as there is a third candidate (Beverly Spencer) in the running.

Over in HD 131, the race between Ron Wilson and Alma Allen is largely being funded by competing PACs.

Allen's latest campaign report shows she raised $152,000 between Feb. 10 and March 1 -- $136,000 of it from the Texas Democratic Party and two groups of trial lawyers.

Texans for Insurance Reform, a new political action committee formed by a dozen state law firms focused on personal injury cases, poured $116,000 into Allen's campaign.

Wilson is one of seven Democratic legislators who were members of Republican House Speaker Tom Craddick's leadership team and are now caught in the new PAC's cross hairs. The biggest contributor to the PAC has been the Houston law firm of Williams and Bailey, which gave $125,000. The PAC's treasurer is Austin plaintiffs' attorney Mike Slack, past president of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association.

That association's PAC gave Allen $10,000 during the reporting period. Another $10,000 came from the Texas Democratic Party.

These three sources accounted for all but $16,000 of Allen's contributions during the period.

[...]

Of the $206,250 Wilson raised during the Feb. 10-March 1 period, the largest contribution was $22,500 from the Hillco PAC; Hillco is a major Austin lobbying firm with close ties to Craddick. Other contributors include big-name Republicans like Austin consultant Reggie Bashur and Houstonians Richard Weekly and Bob Perry. Weekly heads Texans for Lawsuit Reform, which advocates limitations on lawsuits and damages, and Perry is a homebuilder and major GOP contributor.

Craddick also has held two fund-raisers for Wilson, one in Austin earlier this year and a recent one in Houston. Spencer Newman, a Republican political consultant who worked for former mayoral candidate Orlando Sanchez, also is working for Wilson.

Wilson is doing his usual bleating about racism. I gotta say, if the Democratic Party is treating him so badly - and I for one would submit that it's no worse than how he's treated the Party - he's more than welcome to switch. For all intents and purposes, he's playing for the other team now anyway.

And speaking of the other team, I confess to finding a certain amount of amusement in this.

Justice of the Peace Russ Ridgway appears to have picked up another endorsement this week -- from his opponent.

That's the way it looked Friday from the street in front of a house leased by City Councilman Mark Goldberg, who is challenging Ridgway in Tuesday's Republican primary for Harris County JP Precinct 5 Place 1.

Right there in the front yard of the house in the 6100 block of Dumfries were two Ridgway campaign signs.

Harris County Commissioner Steve Radack, who backs Ridgway, admitted putting the signs in the yard Thursday to support his contention that Goldberg doesn't really live in the JP precinct as required by law.

Repeated attempts to reach Goldberg on Friday were unsuccessful.

"He's either for Ridgway or he doesn't live where he says he lives. Anybody can pretty much figure that out," Radack said.

Goldberg leased the house in December, right before he filed against Ridgway.

I don't have a dog in this fight, but I have to wonder why Marc Goldberg is taking on an established incumbent who clearly has the support of their party without having all of his ducks lined up first. Whatever he thinks he's doing, it sure doesn't look like to me like it's helping to enhance his future viability as a Republican candidate.

Down doobie doo down down

And here's the story of that Texas Poll that I alluded to yesterday.

Controversial budget cuts and the bitter congressional redistricting battle apparently have turned Rick Perry into the most unpopular Texas governor in 14 years, according to a poll released Friday.

Half the 1,000 Texans surveyed in the latest Scripps Howard Texas Poll said they disapprove of the job Perry is doing as governor. Just 40 percent gave Perry positive marks.

That marks the greatest level of dissatisfaction with a Texas governor since Republican Gov. Bill Clements' last year in office in 1990, when 59 percent of the Texans surveyed said he was doing a poor job.

Texans turned on Clements in 1987 because he was involved in a football pay-to-play scandal at Southern Methodist University and broke a no-new-taxes campaign promise by signing into law the largest tax increase in Texas history.I

In Perry's case, the slide seems to have been caused mostly by bitterness over three special sessions on congressional redistricting last year.

"The biggest event probably was the negative publicity surrounding redistricting, which was an ugly political fight," said Perry pollster Michael Baselice, who questioned the poll's accuracy.

The Scripps Howard Texas Poll was conducted Feb. 12-March 3 in a random sample of 1,000 adult Texans. The poll's margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Baselice said it is unlikely that rumors about marital infidelity, which Perry has denied, played any role in the drop in the governor's numbers. Baselice predicted that Perry's image will improve in the public eye once he holds a special session on public school finance reform.

First of all, that would be "if" he calls for a special session on public school finance reform, not when. Second, that would be "if" all of the factions can agree on a plan, since a session that ends with no progress made is unlikely to enhance anyone's image. Third, that would be "if" the agreed-upon solution is accepted by the public. Perry is a long way from the goal line here.

[T]he poll indicates that Perry could face serious problems when he runs for re-election in 2006.

Former Gov. Ann Richards' worst job approval rating -- 51 percent -- came just weeks before her bid for re-election was crushed by Republican George W. Bush.

Bush's worst job approval rating occurred as he took office in 1995. Only 37 percent of Texans said Bush was doing a good job and 22 percent disapproved, but 41 percent said they knew too little about Bush to make a judgment.

Perry's job approval has been in a steady decline since just before he ran for re-election in 2002. He entered that race with 67 percent of Texans approving of his job performance, and he came out of the bitter contest with half approving.

His job approval declined to 44 percent last summer. It rebounded slightly to 46 percent in the fall, with 44 percent disapproving. The latest poll indicates a six percentage point drop in his positives with a like rise in his negatives.

The governor's job approval rating among self-described independents -- the swing voters in state elections -- has dropped 42 percent since last November to 33 percent. And among Republicans, support for his tenure is down from 74 percent last fall to 66 percent.

"That's not good for any politician," said SMU political scientist Cal Jillson. "Any politician going below 50 percent (job approval) needs to be looking over his shoulder."

Only 66% support among Republicans? That's a big problem, especially when he can point to all sorts of partisan victories - no tax increase (sort of), tort "reform", redistricting, etc. If after all that red meat he's not as beloved by his fellow party members as Dubya was, what's he going to do for an encore?

In Perry's case, he could face possible Republican primary challenges from either U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn. U.S. Rep. Jim Turner, D-Crockett, who is losing his seat due to redistricting, also has indicated he may run for governor.

Strayhorn said the poll results showed a general displeasure with Perry's administration.

"Texans know this governor has abdicated his responsibilities and created local crises in education and health care by signing laws that balance the budget on the backs of school teachers and our most vulnerable Texans," Strayhorn said.

She said Perry passed state costs on to local governments and cut the budget in a way that caused 107,000 children to be "thrown off the health insurance rolls in the last five months. That's unconscionable."

You tell 'em, Carole.

University of Houston political scientist Richard Murray said Perry also is suffering partly from the continued downturn in the economy, the export of high technology jobs overseas and a decline in popularity for Bush. He said that all combines to make life for difficult for politicians in the party in power.

"Numbers this bad usually means an incumbent governor loses, but he has time to recover," Murray said.

Yes, I know. It's still more than two years before the campaign even starts. He may get back over 50% approval, and he may survive whatever challengers come after him in 2006, but I don't think he'll ever be in a comfortable position.

Perry attacks rumors, bloggers

So now that the rumors of his infidelity and impending divorce have been discredited and mostly disappeared from the discourse, Governor Perry has gone to the effort of calling in the Statesman to work up a high dudgeon and deny everything, while simultaneously trashing the state Democrats and the Burnt Orange Report for speaking about those rumors. And you know, even though politics is a very dirty business, and even though Perry was a full participant in an extremely nasty campaign in 2002, a campaign that included an allegation by the Perry camp that Tony Sanchez was directly responsible for the death of a DEA agent in Mexico, I was almost on the verge of feeling a twinge of sympathy for him. But then I read this from the Quorum Report.

What a fascinating turn of events today.

After months of the Governor's office trying to keep the lid on trashmouth rumors, they came out swinging. Governor Perry granted a full-tilt above the fold style interview in this morning's Austin American Statesman.

Shortly afterwards, First Lady Anita Perry issued a statement (Word doc).

Then Press Secretary Kathy Walt issued a statement (Word doc) castigating Democrats for rumor-mongering. Within minutes, Republican Party Chair Tina Benkiser issued her own statement (Word doc) blistering her Democratic counterpart for spreading the rumors at political events.

But what is remarkably curious about the turn of events is the change of attitude in the Governor's office just as the rumor seems to have disappeared.

For well over a month, the Governor's office had acted to suppress the story, relying on journalist's disdain for airing sordid and unverifiable rumors.

Last week, we posted, "Enough is Enough" which was widely read and distributed in the political community.

The Governor's press office told us that the day after the Thursday posting was the first time in weeks that they did not have to field a single call on the rumor. And press interest has been all but non-existent since then.

So why revive it and come out guns blazing on Friday, just in time to feed the Sunday editions after the story had all but disappeared.

And ironically, why start their own rumors that it was a conspiracy driven by Democrats to defame the Governor. At one point, the people around the Governor were pointing fingers at other Republican officeholders as sources. Our experience here at QR was that Republicans were at least as guilty of driving the rumors as were Democrats.

So, without putting any evidence on the table, the Governor's office has revived a near moribund rumor to drive a rumor in the form of an accusation.

Maybe it was to divert attention from the drop in his numbers as measured by the Texas Poll to be released tomorrow.

Just a guess on our part, but we would not be surprised to see the next iteration of this melodrama tying the unsubstantiated charge of a "partisan smear by Democrats" with what Republicans allege is the "partisan witchhunt" of the Democratic Travis County District Attorney.

Emphasis mine. There are many things that went through my head as I read that, but it all basically boils down to this: Screw you, Governor.

Here is Charles Soechting's response to Perry's attack on him. Here is more on Tina Benkiser's petition to disembowel Ronnie Earle. And here, from the Quorum Report, is the news about Perry's precipitous poll drop:

This weekend, the Texas Poll will report that Governor Rick Perry's approval rating has dropped 29 points since 2001. He now has a 40% approval rating and a 50% disapproval rating.

We checked it out after recieving a statement from the Governor's press office.

"Governor Perry governs by principle, not polls. Governor Perry has demonstrated leadership by tackling tough issues like solving budgetary problems without raising taxes, creating jobs and expanding the economy, and improving our children’s education. The governor will continue to make tough decisions that are in the best interest of all Texans, regardless of polls."

Sweet. May you have to work for a living from 2006 on, Governor.

Baseball Day

This is an idea I can get behind: Make baseball's Opening Day a national holiday. It's especially appealing for those of us who get no holidays between New Year's and Memorial Day - we could use something to break the long dry spell. Via Kos.

Am I my brother's lobbyist?

Forwarded to me from the Congress Daily:

HE AIN'T HEAVY. How hard can it be to lobby the Hill when your name is DeLay? Just ask Randolph DeLay, brother of House Majority Leader DeLay. Last week, DeLay the lobbyist registered to work the halls of Congress for Reeves County, Texas, on appropriations and "negotiating [an] intergovernmental agreement with the Bureau of Prisons." Lucky for him his brother left the Appropriations Committee when he became majority leader, or some people might get the wrong idea.

Yes, we wouldn't want to get the wrong idea, now would we?

New nickels

The US Mint will be rolling out new nickels soon to commemorate the Louisiana Purchase, then even more new ones with a Lewis & Clark theme.

Millions of the new nickels have been shipped to the Federal Reserve, supplier of the nation's cash. They should start showing up in change in several weeks, say officials of the U.S. Mint.

"This marks the first time in more than half a century that Americans will see a new design on their nickels," said Mint Director Henrietta Holsman Fore, who showed off the new coins today.

On the back of the new nickels, Jefferson's home, Monticello, is replaced with a scene that commemorates the Louisiana Purchase.

The back of the new nickels now headed into circulation bear the words "United States of America," "Louisiana Purchase" and "1803." There is an image of hands clasped in friendship -- one with a military cuff to symbolize the U.S. government, and the other with an ornate bracelet to represent American Indians.

Above the clasped hands is a tomahawk crossed by a peace pipe. The images are similar to those on Jefferson Peace Medals, which were presented ceremonially to Indian chiefs and other important leaders. Below the clasped hands are the Latin words "E Pluribus Unum" (meaning "Out of many, one"), and hugging the bottom of the coin is the denomination: "Five Cents."

Approximately 900 million of these new nickels have been made.

Another nickel honoring the 1804-1806 Lewis and Clark expedition will be released in the late summer or early fall, Mint officials say.

I collected coins as a kid, so I'm always interested in news like this. I've never had a pre-Jefferson nickel in my possession - "collecting" coins back then meant keeping all the pre-1959 wheat pennies and other older coins I'd get as change. Other than one Liberty dime and a couple of 1943 non-copper pennies, I never did find anything really unusual. I'd love to see some more variation in our coins, just because it'd be cool.

One last thing: Look at the picture of the new nickel. Is it just me, or does that peace pipe look like something you'd find in a bag of golf clubs?

Hitch in Enron building sale

Uh oh. The sale of the Enron building has hit a snag over promised tax abatements.

ChevronTexaco spokesman Mickey Driver said Thursday that the San Ramon, Calif.-based oil giant assumed it would get millions in tax breaks from the city and Harris County before finalizing the purchase of the property at 1500 Louisiana.

White has forwarded to City Council a proposed 10-year tax abatement on $64 million in improvements and furniture that would reduce the company's tax payments to the city by $3.5 million. ChevronTexaco still would pay full taxes on the building's current assessed value of $79.3 million, which would bring the city $520,000 a year.

The abatement would average 89 percent of the investment, significantly more than the city's standard abatement of 56 percent. The city has offered similar deals on three of its more than 40 abatements. Council members are scheduled to vote on the proposal next week.

But county officials so far have balked at giving ChevronTexaco a similar offer, primarily because White's announcement made it seem to them that ChevronTexaco had already decided to ink the deal. Abatements typically are used to lure companies into an area when they are considering other locations.

"The ChevronTexaco project was announced before the request for the abatement was made," said Harris County Judge Robert Eckels. "That indicates the abatement is not necessary as part of the economic decision. We have in the past denied abatements to folks who have previously announced their plans."

In a memo sent to county commissioners, David Turkel, Harris County's director of community and economic development, said an unnamed ChevronTexaco representative "was very distressed to learn that they would not qualify for an exemption."

"He opined that the mayor told them they would have no problem with the county," Turkel wrote.

Turkel said the representative was Tim Relyea, vice chairman of New York-based Cushman & Wakefield, which is brokering the proposed purchase. Relyea could not be reached after he was identified.

Driver and White spokesman Frank Michel vehemently denied that White made any such promises.

The proposed abatement applies to $45 million in improvements and $19 million in new furniture, the latter of which Turkel said would violate county policy because the items depreciate quickly. It also is higher than typical county abatements, he said.

Commissioner Steve Radack said he agreed with Turkel's analysis.

"If they're willing to cut the citizens of Harris County a big break on the price they pay for gasoline, let's talk," Radack said.

Neither Driver nor Relyea would directly answer whether the deal could fall through if the county does not provide an abatement.

"Our answer to that question is we think we qualify both for the city and county abatements, and we assume we're going to get them once we explain the situation to those folks," Driver said.

He said ChevronTexaco had originally planned to close the purchase by mid-March but that will probably be delayed. The only remaining snag is the issue of the abatements, he said.

On the one hand, you won't catch me shedding tears because a megacorporation failed to get a tax break. On the other hand, so much for all that county-city cooperation we heard about last month. I think in the end, Eckels and Radack are too inherently pro-big business to hold the line on this. They may demand some kind of tribute for not being properly notified, but I believe the deal will go through with ChevronTexaco getting most of what they thought they were getting.

Consultants deny responsibility for pension plan screwup

Towers Perrin, the firm which gave us that bogus report on pension fund costs, says that the city did too know that its liability was going to skyrocket.

In its first public statement, actuarial giant Towers Perrin said "those involved in negotiating and implementing the benefit improvements ... understood that this would be the ultimate effect."

Reaction was swift from city officials now trying to deal with the pension program's shortfall, currently projected to be as much as $1.5 billion through 2022.

"Nobody ever advised us that we had near this kind of obligation," said Anthony Hall, city attorney under Mayor Lee Brown and now Mayor Bill White's chief administrative officer.

"People would have been out of their minds to know this and proceed," he said.

"The Towers Perrin report of February '01 speaks for itself," Mayor White said through a spokesman.

In that report -- an analysis of legislation in Austin that would increase pension benefits for Houston city workers -- Towers Perrin predicted that the city would not chip in more than 14 percent of its payroll toward the pension through 2009. On that basis, city officials agreed not to oppose the legislation.

But by last fall, Towers Perrin had revised the city's expected contribution to the pension fund to be a maximum of 42 percent of payroll. As an example, the contribution for 2009 would be $204 million from taxpayers instead of the previously estimated $94 million.

In a two-page statement, released from its headquarters in Stamford, Conn., Towers Perrin implied that the city should have known about the expected impact. Its statement said that in February 2001, the same month the firm issued its report, the state Pension Review Board issued an independent opinion that "underscored the inherent uncertainties involved in projecting actual future costs of benefits."

Indeed, the actuary from competing firm Milliman USA said the Towers Perrin assumptions were "very optimistic," according to a copy of the opinion obtained by the Chronicle.

The Towers Perrin statement went on to say that in November 2001, the firm revised its estimates based on another year of the pension's experience and "again reflected the need for increased city contributions."

That report came out after the bill was passed into law, however. And while it reflected a higher contribution rate, the maximum rate was predicted to be 20 percent, not the 42 percent Towers Perrin predicted last fall. The payment for sample year 2009 was $120 million, not the later-revised $204 million.

"They had a chance to give a good (report) well after the legislative session was over, and that one wasn't even close either," said Philip Scheps, the city's former director of finance and administration.

A spokesman for Towers Perrin said he could not comment beyond the written statement.

Yeah, I'm sure. I think Mayor White nailed it with his comment. I do think everyone involved back in 2001 should have questioned that optimistic forecast a lot more closely, but based on this story it's hard to see how Towers Perrin didn't drop the ball.

Getting Kinky again

Yet another profile of Kinky Friedman, self-proclaimed independent candidate for Governor of Texas in 2006.

For all of those wondering why the front man for the country music group 'The Texas Jewboys' wants to run the Lone Star State, Kinky will put down his cigar and say from under his 10-gallon hat: "Why the hell not?"

"I want to fight the wussification of the state of Texas. I want to rise and shine and bring back the glory of Texas," Friedman said. "I am a writer of fiction who tells the truth."

Friedman, whose first name is Richard but is known by Kinky and a few other names that are not publishable, does not have a campaign platform -- mostly out of fear there may be a trapdoor somewhere underneath that will spring open and leave him swinging.

He writes a regular column for Texas Monthly magazine and is the author of 17 novels. His amusingly dark mystery "The Prisoner of Vandam Street," comes out this month.

For the record, in order to fight the wussification of this article, in his mysteries (in which he himself is the sleuth), Friedman introduces himself (to women, anyway) as "Richard Kinky Big Dick Friedman". Take that, FCC!

The article goes on to cover most of the same ground, and many of the same one-liners, that you could find in previous Friedman for Governor stories. We're a long way from 2006, so it'll be awhile before we know for sure whether this really is the start of a serious campaign or just a novel way of drumming up publicity. I'll say this - if they make a reality show out of the Friedman for Governor campaign, I'll watch. If they're really smart, they'll run it on HBO so Kinky can be his own true self.

Schools to serve less junk food

Texas school cafeterias have been told to shape up or ship out.

The new food rules limit everything from fund-raising bake sales to grams of fat and will have an impact on 93 percent of Texas public and charter schools, according to the Texas Department of Agriculture.

French fries survived a no-fried-foods ban, to be phased in over five years, but will have to be baked and served no more than once a week to elementary schoolchildren.

Second helpings are out. Smaller portions for chips, cookies, bakery items and frozen desserts are in.

"This policy is the result of months of collaboration with experts and interested individuals around the state who consider children's health and education a top priority," said Texas Agriculture Commissioner Susan Combs.

"We think this is absolutely achievable. We wouldn't have done it otherwise," she said.

[...]

The new policies take effect Aug. 1 for all schools that participate in the National School Lunch, School Breakfast and After School Snack programs. Combs said she's releasing the guidelines now because districts are signing or renewing food service contracts with vendors.

Schools will face tough penalties for failure to comply with the new policy.

[...]

The guidelines call for 100 percent real fruit juice, skim and low-fat milk, fresh fruit and vegetables if possible and smaller sized soft drinks in vending machines in the high schools.

Candy is banned for elementary schoolchildren and restricted to after lunch for middle and high school students. All deep-fat frying is to be eliminated by 2009, limits are set for fats and sugars and schools must reduce purchase of products with heart-risky trans fat.

Franchise operations such as McDonald's and Taco Bell would have to comply with the guidelines in order to continue operating in lunchrooms.

Schools with fryers will need to find ways to buy ovens.

"They're not going to be able to sell fryers in the state of Texas. They're making us phase them out completely," said Terry Gooch, assistant director of the Texas Association for School Nutrition. "There's not too many districts in the whole state that don't have fryers."

What little I remember of school cafeteria french fries tells me that this is no great loss. But what I really want to know is are there any new rules about Mystery Meat?

Primary primer

I've told you about Local Voter and its many useful resources for determining who your incumbents and candidates are. The folks at E-The People have also created some voter guides that are worth a look, for Houston (in conjunction with the Chron), Dallas (with the Morning News), and El Paso (with the El Paso Times).

The Houston voting guide, to which I gave a test drive, was easy to get started - just fill in your street address and ZIP code. It gave me a list of races for which I was eligible to inspect and approve. From there it got a little confusing, as it didn't identify which party the primaries were for, and it mingled candidates for both parties in some of them, such as Sherriff, which threw me off at first. It only asks which primary you want after you choose the races you want. I'd have done it the other way around. It also couldn't say which JP and Constable elections I'll be voting in, something that Local Voter handled easily. Finally, it only showed contested primaries, a limited albeit resonable choice. As such, I recommend checking your information on Local Voter first - after you fill in your address and city info there, the page with your Local officeholders has a link to a list of candidates for your precinct, sorted by party, and including all Constable and JP races as well as uncontested primaries. I did this to verify that I do have a JP (he's just in an uncontested primary) and that I'm in the Constable precinct I thought I was.

Anyway, once you get past all that, you're presented with a ballot. You can enter a check mark next to the candidates you like, compare candidates on the issues, jot down notes to yourself, and print or email the ballot to yourself for later reference. If you email the ballot to yourself, it will contain a URL that you can bookmark. That's the only way to save the page itself with your choices.

For those who care, my ballot is here. For other races, with the exception of choosing Alma Allen over Ron Wilson in HD 131, I'd go with the Democratic incumbents. I'd also go with Richard Morrison in CD 22 and Byron Barclay in HD 134. Whoever you go for, though, just make sure you do go. The Presidential primary may be over, but the voting is just beginning.

Rob has already done his, having heard about this from Jost. I heard about this via an email from the E The People folks. However you're hearing about it, use it and Local Voter to get prepared for the voting booth. Early voting ends tomorrow.

The documents keep flying

More documents from the civil lawsuit against TAB/TRM were released Wednesday, and they appear to bolster the criminal case against those groups on charges of illegally using corporate money in the 2002 campaign. This is a really long post, so I'm going to put the bulk of it under the More link. Click on for the latest.

More than 1,000 pages of documents were released by Democrats suing TRM officials for damages on the claim that they illegally used corporate money to win House races in 2002. The collection includes TRM campaign finance reports, accounting statements and strategic planning documents and depositions by three TRM officials.

[...]

TRM interpreted administrative expenses to mean anything other than a donation directly to a candidate. But Democrats in the lawsuit and [Travis County DA Ronnie] Earle's prosecutors believe that definition is too broad and that no corporate money should have been used for polling, fund raising or candidate-support activities.

The documents filed in the lawsuit include depositions from TRM Executive Director John Colyandro, Treasurer Bill Ceverha and accountant Russell Anderson, along with memos, bookkeeping forms and telephone logs.

Colyandro testified that raising corporate money for the TRM effort was part of the game plan from the beginning. He said the person in charge was Warren Robold of [Tom] DeLay's Americans for a Republican Majority. Colyandro said Robold's goal was to raise $600,000 from corporations through his Washington contacts.

TRM filings with the Internal Revenue Service showed the committee raised $574,000 from corporations with $433,000 coming from out of state. Corporate donations accounted for a third of all of TRM's fund raising.

Ceverha, in his deposition, when questioned by attorney David Richards, said the TRM advisory committee, on which DeLay served, was aware of how money was being raised and spent. He said the board knew corporate money could not be spent directly on campaigns and avoided that.

Ceverha said two bank accounts were set up to keep "hard" donations that could be passed on to candidates separate from "soft" corporate donations that TRM planned to use for other purposes.

But a fund-raising letter TRM sent to corporate leaders indicated the political committee planned to go beyond a strict definition of Texas law that allows for the use of corporate money to pay for only administrative expenses such as rent and utilities.

"Unlike other organizations, your corporate contribution to TRMPAC will be put to productive use," the piece said. "Rather than just paying for overhead, your support will fund a series of productive and innovative activities designed to increase our level of engagement in the political arena."

While TRM officials have said they gave no corporate money to candidates, a TRM document released Wednesday raises questions about that claim. The document lists soft money contributions totaling $7,500 to two Republican House candidates. Those donations are listed along with a $190,000 contribution to the Republican National State Elections Committee, which TRM officials have acknowledged was corporate money but a legal donation.

I'm presuming that this is the same lawsuit that I blogged about back then, which was filed by four defeated candidates including Debra Danburg. I'm a little uncertain because the accounts I'm reading now never mention who the plaintiffs are, and the original story I cited said the lawsuit was against the Texas Association of Business, while the stories now refer to Texans for a Republican Majority. It almost has to be the same lawsuit, but I'm mentioning this because it's a little confusing to me to keep track of everything.

Speaking of TRM's IRS filings, there are questions around the amounts it reported as well.

The political action committee created at the direction of U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has always said it raised and spent almost $1.5 million during the 2002 state elections. About $600,000 of that came from corporate donors and is the subject of the civil lawsuit and a yearlong grand jury investigation into whether the group illegally spent corporate money to influence two dozen legislative elections.

The Republican Majority committee has said it didn't report the $600,000 to state election authorities because it was spent on the committee's administrative expenses, not to directly benefit Republican candidates. It did report $900,000 in donations to candidates on its state election report.

Yet the committee's 2002 tax return lists $1.16 million — instead of the $900,000 — as "activities related to support of Republicans for state Legislature and statewide offices in the state of Texas." It also shows $122,528 in fund-raising costs.

"None of these expenditures can remotely be classified as administrative costs of TRMPAC," according to the lawsuit, "and they total $1,291,041.92."

Furthermore, according to the lawsuit, the political committee reported only $127,457 in management and general expenses on the tax return, not the almost $600,000 it cites as administrative costs on a different IRS form.

"The result is that there was a failure on the part of defendant (Bill) Ceverha to report, as required by law, at minimum some $460,000," the lawsuit alleges.

Ceverha, a former state representative, served as treasurer of the Republican Majority committee. John Colyandro, the committee's executive director, signed the tax return.

Terry Scarborough, the lawyer for Ceverha and the committee, said the committee's 2002 money was reported differently on three reports as required by law.

"The difference is how the IRS defines program services and how the (state) election code defines it," Scarborough said. "It's apples and oranges. It's a different set of rules and definitions. We have complied with all the rules."

[...]

State law bars spending corporate and union money in campaigns, but it allows political committees to spend corporate or union money for administrative expenses.

The investigation and lawsuit might turn on the question: What's an administrative expense?

Lawyers for the Democratic candidates contend it is only routine overhead, such as office rent, utilities or the salaries for bookkeepers. Lawyers for Texans for a Republican Majority argue that corporate money spent on polls, research and consultants is legal as long as it did not benefit candidates directly.

"There is not going to be much dispute about what happened," Scarborough said. "The dispute is going to be over the interpretation of the law."

Indeed. I'll point again to this Texas Observer piece which has as good an explanation of all of the moving parts as you'll find.

More bad news for TRM: A lawyer for the Texas Ethics Commission says that TRM was required to report that $600K to the state.

"If the PAC has taken possession of the money, yeah, you have to report it," general counsel Sarah Woelk said in response to questions about state election laws. "That is clearly what the law says."

Woelk, the state's top campaign finance lawyer, said a political action committee must report all expenditures no matter who donates the money or whether it's spent to run the committee or to help elect a candidate.

Lawyers for Texans for a Republican Majority disagreed with Woelk's interpretation of state law and raised questions about her impartiality. However, Woelk's comments repeat the interpretation given three months ago in a related story by Karen Lundquist, the executive director of the ethics commission.

[...]

The $600,000 is at the center of a civil lawsuit accusing the Republican committee of hiding the money it spent in the 2002 elections and a grand jury investigation into whether corporate money was illegally used to affect the outcome of almost two dozen legislative elections.

A reporting violation carries a penalty of a $500 fine per campaign finance report, about $4,500 in this example, and the grand jury investigation concerns a different state law barring the use of corporate money as campaign expenditures.

Ethics Commission officials can pursue a fine only if a complaint is filed and the commission refers the case to prosecutors. Commission officials cannot comment about whether a complaint is pending.

[...]

In its reports to the state, the committee did not disclose how it spent the $600,000 it raised from corporations, which can give money for a committee's administrative overhead but not to campaign for or against candidates. But a one-time fluke in federal regulations forced the committee to disclose the expenditures.

In addition to routine overhead, the committee spent corporate money on polls, candidate research, consultants, phone banks and similar expenses.

Scarborough has said the money spent on polls, research, phone banks and consultants did not have to be reported to the public because those services were for the internal use of the committee and weren't used to benefit the Republican candidates.

He said his client reported its expenditures just as other political committees do.

"You look at other PACs, you won't see their 'expenses' that weren't political expenditures," he said.

If Woelk is right, however, it could undercut the Republican committee's defense.

Woelk said the Ethics Commission has issued opinions about corporate contributions and the definition of administrative expenses, but not on the law requiring a political committee to disclose all political expenditures, including money used to run the committee.

She said she understands the confusion among officials who run political committees.

Woelk said state law anticipated a corporation establishing its own political committee and paying its administrative overhead.

"If a corporation pays an electric bill directly, there is nothing to report," she said. "If a corporation gives the PAC the money to pay the electric bill, the PAC has to report the expenditure when it pays the electric bill."

Fred Lewis with Campaigns for People, a group that lobbies on campaign finance laws, said the controversy underscores the weakness of the state's reliance on political players disclosing how much money they are giving and spending.

Unlike federal campaigns, Texas has no limits on how much money can be donated. The Texas Ethics Commission has no authority to audit campaign finance records randomly to verify full disclosure.

"If you have no audits and only a $500 fine," Lewis said, "then people are going to disregard the law."

I wouldn't expect anything to change on that front any time soon.

Finally, on another front in the scandalization landscape, lobbyist/DeLay crony Jack Abramoff has resigned from Greenberg Traurig after reports of his megamillion fees charged to American Indian tribes sparked a Senate investigation.

Richard Rosenbaum, a top officer of Greenberg Traurig, said in a statement released late Tuesday evening that Abramoff resigned after he “disclosed to the firm for the first time personal transactions and related conduct which are unacceptable to the firm.”

Greenberg Traurig also has retained Henry F. Schuelke III of Janis, Schuelke and Wechsler to “conduct a comprehensive investigation of these matters so the firm can take any additional action that may be appropriate.”

“The firm will finish its internal investigation before making further public comment,” Rosenbaum added.

Abramoff, in his own statement, said that recent press reports about “my lobbying practice has distracted from my efforts on behalf of my clients whose interests are now, and have always been, my number one priority.”

He added: “Therefore, I have determined that the best solution is to resign effective immediately.”

The lobbyist said he has not made a decision about his future.

“As for what I will do, I have several options on the table, but have not decided from which option to chose,” Abramoff said.

Abramoff’s departure comes after The Washington Post reported that Abramoff had raked in about $15 million in federally reported lobbying fees from four tribes in the last few years and that his business associate Mike Scanlon, a former spokesman for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), reaped another $30 million from three of the same tribes.

At least one of the tribes is now complaining that they were bilked.

Here's the WaPo story on Abramoff's departure. I must say, I'm a little disappointed that he didn't answer the question about his future with something like "I'm gonna take my boodle and live high off the hog". Maybe next time. Abramoff links via Alfredo Garcia.

Congressional roundup

Some stories of interest as the primary date draws near.

An overview of the new CD 10, the Austin-to-Houston barbell district whose representative will be the winner of the GOP primary.

Among the GOP primary candidates, former Houston City Councilman John Kelley stands out because he opposes some conservative Republican orthodoxy. He said he voted against Proposition 12, a GOP-led effort that placed limits on the amount of money that can be rewarded in medical malpractice suits, and he mocked his opponents for saying they can abolish the Internal Revenue Service.

"If you think we're going to get rid of the IRS in the next 10 years, take a hike," Kelley said when he and several of his opponents visited the Chronicle editorial board. "Let's work on some things we can get done."

[...]

The Republican Party has shifted from its former rural supporters and toward a new suburban constituency that votes more reliably, he said.

Much of the area in the new 10th District is now in the 31st, represented by Rep. John Carter, R-Georgetown. The 31st was one of two new districts created in 2001 to reflect Texas population growth recorded in the 2000 census.

Carter is seeking re-election in a newly drawn 31st District that keeps his home county of Williamson but spans into North Central Texas.

The original 31st was drawn to take advantage of suburban growth in Austin and Houston, Alford said, a political characteristic that the new 10th inherits.

Independently, neither area had enough new people to sustain a Republican district, so mappers thought of combining the two with the rural areas in between.

I presume they mean that the Houston end, which is west Houston and Katy, didn't have enough people for a district on its own, since it's surely a very Republican area. The combination of the two was to get it to the 650,000 population mark.

District 28 is getting nasty.

U.S. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez lashed out at Democratic opponent Henry Cuellar on Tuesday in his most visible show of negativity yet in this down-and-dirty congressional matchup.

Spurred on by a harshly critical Cuellar mailout last week, Rodriguez is fighting back with literature in district mailboxes set to hit today that paints Cuellar as a party-hopping political opportunist.

"We would have liked to have not gone negative, but we feel it's important to set the record straight," said Rodriguez campaign manager John Puder.

The grudge match, one of the most watched and competitive Texas races heading into Tuesday's primary, pits two former Texas House Democratic colleagues against each other in a test of gritty South Texas politics.

Spite has replaced old alliances and mud is beginning to fly between the two camps.

Tuesday, the Cuellar faction fired another salvo at Rodriguez's candidacy with a complaint to the Federal Election Commission that accuses the four-term incumbent of violating federal election laws — a charge the Rodriguez camp hotly denies.

The complaint says Rodriguez purchased ads in the Mexican newspapers El Mañana and El Diario that call Cuellar a fair-weather political ally. The ads don't carry a disclaimer that they were paid for by Rodriguez, said Cuellar campaign manager Colin Strother.

"This is just more of the same stuff. It's disgusting," Strother said.

Puder denied that the Rodriguez campaign had anything to do with the ads.

"It's quite interesting that Henry has chosen to go negative in Laredo," Puder said. "It's a clear indication of how much impact we've had in Webb County."

Cuellar nearly knocked off Republican Henry Bonilla in CD 23 in 2002, which is the main reason that Webb County was removed from that district.

As with CD 02, immigration is an issue in CD 11.

Bill Lester fervently opposes a proposed government program that would give millions of undocumented immigrants a chance for temporary work legally. Mike Conaway likes the idea, as long as it doesn't give migrants a free ticket to U.S. citizenship.

The two Republicans, opponents in the primary race to represent Texas' newly created 11th Congressional District, offer similar conservative platforms — but diverge on immigration matters.

Their differences symbolize a growing fissure within the Republican Party over immigration, particularly visible since last month, when President Bush announced a plan to overhaul current policy.

[...]

National polls show Republicans are indeed divided on the issue. A majority of Republican respondents to several surveys last month disapproved of the president's plan.

Many of them would agree with Lester, the congressional candidate from Brownwood who condemned Bush's idea as a sweeping amnesty in disguise that would wrongly reward "illegal behavior."

Lester catapulted immigration into campaign contention, labeling Conaway, his Midland opponent, as being soft on undocumented immigration.

Conaway was forced to clarify his position. He doesn't go as far as Lester's seal-the-border views and considers the president's proposal a plausible solution.

I have no idea what "catapulted into contention" means in terms of actual support - I can't find any poll numbers. Conaway, who lost a special election runoff to Randy Neugebauer in CD 19 last year to replace the retiring Larry Combest, is the anointed GOP candidate, a Friend of Dubya and the person Tom Craddick had in mind when he insisted that Midland get its own Congress member. For him to lose would not only be a huge upset, it would also be cast as a strong message of conservative dissension against the President. I'm not saying this is likely based on one Express News story, but it does bear watching.

Of course, whatever value there may be in seeing a finger poked into Craddick and Bush's eye has to be weighed against this.

Describing himself as a social and fiscal conservative, Lester said he went to Montgomery, Ala., last year to support former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore and 2000 presidential candidate Alan Keyes in their fight to keep a stone monolith of the Ten Commandments in the court building.

Getting back to Houston, the CD 09 race is also ratcheting up.

Texas Democratic Party Chairman Charles Soechting took an unusual step Tuesday when he endorsed U.S. Rep. Chris Bell in the party's primary for the new 9th Congressional District.

Party officials typically remain neutral until a nominee is selected. But Soechting said he endorsed Bell because Bell's opponent in next Tuesday's primary, former Justice of the Peace Al Green, "has taken money from a Republican Party official with a history of intimidating African-American voters in this very district."

Party spokesman Mike Lavigne said the the GOP official Soechting referred to was former Harris County Republican Party Chairman Gary Polland, who gave Green $2,000 on Feb. 10. Soechting did not elaborate on the claim of intimidation.

Green said Soechting made his endorsement at Bell's request. And he accused Bell of a double standard because Bell has accepted campaign contributions or endorsements from Republicans, including developer Ed Wulfe and lawyer-lobbyist Robert Miller.

Green also noted that in 2001, when Bell was a City Council member mounting a race for mayor of Houston, he accepted the Political Courage Award from Polland and the local GOP for supporting a tax cut opposed by then-Mayor Lee Brown.

"This reminds me of the double standards when African-Americans had to ride on the back of the bus and drink from colored-only water fountains," said Green, who is African-American.

[...]

Bell said that he accepted the award from Polland because the mayor's race was officially nonpartisan and he wanted to demonstrate that he could work with both parties.

The tone of the race in the 9th began sharpening Monday when Bell demanded that Green withdraw a radio ad that inaccurately claimed the support of U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Green pulled the commercial after learning from Cummings that he had no preference in the race and that members of the caucus support both candidates.

Green also returned with a demand of his own -- that Bell move into the district.

Last year's redistricting put Bell's residence in the heavily Republican 7th Congressional District. The 25th District that Bell represents now was moved to South Texas.

Bell said he plans to move into the district this summer.

I support Chris Bell, but I think Chairman Soechting should have remained officially neutral. It's true that City of Houston races are nonpartisan, and most candidates reach out across party lines as a matter of course, but if taking money from Gary Polland is a bad thing for one Democrat to do, it's a bad thing for all Democrats to do. I dislike Polland as much as any Democrat, but in the end it's results that matter. Bell seems to have survived the experience, so I'm uncomfortable making it an issue in Al Green's case.

Finally, a look at CD 02, where it's Ted Poe and the five unknowns.

With a simple name and ample headlines attracted during his 22 years on the bench, Poe enjoys name recognition from more than 70 percent of voters in the region, according to one poll taken shortly after Christmas.

That leaves the five other candidates -- Andrew Bolton, George Fastuca, Mark Henry, Clint Moore and John Nickell -- assuming the role of the little people.

Even though they vary in campaign funding and grass-roots support, each is trying to build enough identity to push the race to a runoff with Poe -- whom they all acknowledge is the front-runner.

As with CD 10, there's very little differences on the issues, but unlike CD 10 the winner here will have a race to run in November, against Rep. Nick Lampson. Interestingly, though Poe is the best known candidate, he's only third in fundraising according to the article, thanks to the self-funding efforts of former Enron exec Fastuca and charter plane exec Henry. Former Anadarko exec Moore is not far behind Poe, also mostly on the strength of his own money.

UPDATE: Greg is OK with Soechting's endorsement, as is Byron.

Let the VP sweepstakes begin!

Well, barring anything truly wacky, John Kerry will be carrying the Democratic banner this fall. Kerry was not my first choice, but that was based as much on my perception of his early campaign missteps as anything. As with any candidate, there are things he's done that I disagree with, but I consider him to be a solid, worthy, and eminently fine person for the job. I plan on planting a Kerry/Whoever sign in my yard as soon as he announces who that whoever is.

The main down side here is that, as expected, next week's primary will be meaningless from the perspective of my having a say in who the nominee is.

"Certainly if Edwards withdraws before the Texas primary, we won't have a role ... but we will have a role in building momentum and enthusiasm as we move to November," said Gerry Birnberg, Harris County Democratic Party Chairman. "All I'm interested in is getting a strong candidate who will be capable of beating Bush next November, and it looks to me like we've done that."

I'll second that. To be honest, had the issue been in question, I'm still not sure how I'd resolve the Kerry/Edwards dilemma. If Edwards hasn't dropped out by the time I push the eSlate button, I may just flip a coin. All that aside, let's not forget that there's more to next week's primary than just this race:

[Harris County GOP Chairman Jared] Woodfill and Birnberg emphasized that Texas voters still will consider significant congressional, state and local elections.

For once, I agree with Jared Woodfill. I'm still pondering the Gallegos/Navarro Flores race.

But let's put all that aside for now and get on with the important task of making wild-assed guesses about who will play Riker to Kerry's Picard (or Spock to his Kirk, if you prefer). Let's start off by acknowledging the obvious: Everything that's been said by either Kerry or Edwards up to this point about a Kerry/Edwards ticket is meaningless. Either Kerry thinks Edwards is the best person to help him get to 271 electoral votes, or he doesn't. Denials about VP possibilities by candidates who are still competing are as bankable as Monopoly money.

An interesting suggestion for how to decide on a VP comes via On Background:

[If] Kerry is as smart as he has proven to be so far in this campaign, he won't play the old game of picking a running mate who might--emphasis on "might"--help him carry a particular battleground state. Rather, he will follow the lead of Carter in 1976 and Bill Clinton in 1992 and pick a vice presidential prospect who helps to energize the party's base voters nationally, and who adds ideas and energy to a ticket that will be needing more of both those commodities.

Among the people mentioned there are Texas' own Rep. Lloyd Doggett. I think this is unlikely in the extreme, as after March 9 Doggett will either be the loser of a primary race or locked in a battle with a well-connected and funded Republican opponent in a district the Democrats cannot concede, but I do agree with the overall nature of the advice. I would add that Kerry's VP ought to be someone who provides a good contrast both to himself (i.e., be a charismatic speaker, and not be from the Northeast) and to Big Time Dick Cheney (simply not being evil would be a good start here).

One of the advantages of having a seasoned veteran (in all senses of the word) on top of the ticket means that the Democrats can reach out to a younger, less experienced but more exciting choice for #2. That could include first-term governors like Bill Richardson or Janet Napolitano, as well as less obvious candidates like Doggett. I've said it before and I'll say it again - I'd love to see someone who would be a clearly strong candidate to run the next time.

That reason alone is enough for me to reject this idea.

With John Kerry's success in Tuesday's primaries, the race for the Democratic nomination for president is all but over -- and speculation about his choice for vice president can now begin in earnest.

John Edwards, Kerry's closest rival [and who is expected to officially withdraw from the race today], is a proven campaigner and could attract Southern voters. Govs. Evan Bayh of Indiana and Bill Richardson of New Mexico have both regional appeal and executive experience. Dark-horse candidates include former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and former Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia.

Amid this conjecture, however, one name is conspicuously absent: Bill Clinton.

Last I checked Evan Bayh was a Senator, but that's not important right now. I know what you're thinking: "Bill Clinton isn't eligible anyway!"

The first objection, the constitutional one, can be disposed of easily. The Constitution does not prevent Clinton from running for vice president. The 22nd Amendment, which became effective in 1951, begins: "No person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice."

No problem. Bill Clinton would be running for vice president, not president. Scholars and judges can debate how loosely constitutional language should be interpreted, but one need not be a strict constructionist to find this language clear beyond dispute. Bill Clinton cannot be elected president, but nothing stops him from being elected vice president.

True, if Clinton were vice president he would be in line for the presidency. But Clinton would succeed Kerry not by election, which the amendment forbids, but through Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, which provides that if a president dies, resigns or is removed from office, his powers "shall devolve on the vice president." The 22nd Amendment would not prevent this succession.

I'm not equipped to address that point - I daresay case law is lacking. Any lawyers want to take a crack at it? Beldar? Antinome? Anyone?

UPDATE: The best line of the campaign season so far goes to Rob Humenik:

Not seen this weekend on a Volvo S40 driven by a sullen, Birkenstock-wearing, Latte swiller...

"Widowed by Dean, Flirted with Edwards, Slowly Coming to Accept the Crushing Reality of an Arranged Marriage to Kerry."

Heh.

UPDATE: Yglesias and Volokh weigh in on the Clinton-as-VP question, with no clear answer. I'm hearing that Kerry already has a very short list of possibilities, and the big dog ain't on it. But what the heck, if you can't have fun with vice presidential woolgathering, when can you have fun?

More secrets for the Governor

Now that he's tanned, rested, and ready after his five-day cruise in the Bahamas with fat-cat lobbyists, Governor Perry has had to defend himself against the slings and arrows of a bunch of good-government namby-pambies.

"We could have gone a lot of places," Mr. Perry said.

"I don't think where we went has a thing to do with whether or not there was real, progressive conversation. And there was progressive conversation made. I'm glad I went," he said.

During the three-day Presidents Day weekend last month, Mr. Perry, top staff members and spouses joined the governor's political consultant, the head of a conservative Austin think tank and anti-tax leader Grover Norquist on the Abaco Islands.

Also included were top Perry campaign donors Bobbi and John Nau and Cecelia and James Leininger, a strong advocate for public school vouchers.

Watchdog groups have criticized the trip as an example of how big givers gain unfettered access to the governor and exert undue influence on public policy.

[...]

In his first public discussion of the trip, Mr. Perry said Monday that the working retreat was just one of several conversations he has had recently with different groups. He said his office also has spoken with teachers, students and administrators. "I've talked to a lot of people," he said.

He likened the trip to one he took to Washington, D.C., last week to attend the Republican Governors Association meeting.

"Was it appropriate for me to go and stay at the White House the following week and talk to the president? I think so," Mr. Perry said.

Well, gosh, I'm glad he's glad, aren't you? I mean, as long as there was progressive conversation made along with the fruity rum drinks and the conga lines, what's the beef?

Yesterday, one of those do-gooder groups filed a public information request to learn more about those "good progressive conversations".

[The Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas], which seeks to ensure the public's business is conducted in public, sought agendas and 10 other types of written records related to the first meeting of the Governor's Management Council on Feb. 25.

Perry chose to shut the public out of all but his own introductory comments at the meeting attended by 11 "executive branch" agency heads and other officials.

In order to ensure a "free flow of information," Perry said after the meeting ended, it's "quite appropriate to close the doors."

Foundation attorney Joseph Larsen, of the Houston firm Ogden, Gibson, White, Broocks & Longoria, said that particular comment alarmed the open-government advocacy group, which is based in Dallas.

"He's apparently hostile to open government by his acts and deeds," Larsen said of Perry. "Going back to the entire government reorganization, he sought to completely close access to his working budget."

Larsen said the government reorganization also involved eliminating public boards and Perry is "maybe replacing them with this ad hoc committee the public doesn't have access to."

Emphasis mine. I guess as long as "free flow of information" means "within our little group of like-minded selves", then that's a true statement. Sometimes it's really hard to know where the ignorance leaves off and the arrogance begins.

The best response I've seen so far to the Governor's Free Floating Fun Tour has been from State Rep. Jim Dunnam, chair of the Texas House Democratic Caucus, who sent a letter (Word doc) to the Governor inviting him on an all-expenses paid tour of the five poorest school districts in the state. I daresay his generosity will go unaccepted, however. Via the Quorum Report.

RIP, Marge Schott

Marge Schott, the former owner of the Cincinnati Reds, died yesterday at the age of 75. For someone as well known as she was for making racist statements, there was a fair amount of effort to find nice things to say about her in this article, as well as in pieces by Tim Kurkjian and Mickey Herskowitz. Personally, I can appreciate that we're all complex human beings, and that Marge Schott will be remembered fondly by people who (unlike me) knew her as well as for her charity work, but I can't get past my conviction that at heart she was an ignorant, racist cheapskate. If I'd ever seen any evidence that she came to understand why many of the things she said were hateful and hurtful, I'd soften my opinion. Sadly, it's too late for her now.

Yet another overview

The Texas Observer moves the ball farther forward in the TAB/TRMPAC scandal. Among other things:

- The Travis County grand jury expires at the end of March, so any indictments handed down should be made public before then.

- The investigation may eventually touch Attorney General Greg Abbott due to the late intervention of the Law Enforcement Association of America.

- Some people are still attempting to reap benefits from Speaker Craddick's ascension in 2002:

Ben Streusand has long been fascinated with politics. In the Houston offices of Home Loan Corp., the mortgage-lending firm he heads, hang signed letters by Winston Churchill and Theodore Roosevelt. A large man with a jovial smile, Streusand has worked for years as a Republican fund-raiser in Houston. He is the kind of essential cog in the Texas Republican political machine that links the elected officials with their corporate contributors. On October 12, 2002, about a month before the election, Streusand sent a letter addressed to: “Tom Craddick, Texans for a Republican Majority.” Enclosed was a $5,000 check from Aegis Mortgage Corp. to TRMPAC. Streusand wrote, “Dear Tom: Rick Thompson is the President of Aegis Mortgage, a nationwide lender headquartered in Houston. Next time you are in town I would like you to meet him.”

Streusand declined to respond to four calls seeking comment.

Since a number of corporate privateers and other special interests cashed in on the 78th Legislature, it stands to reason that Streusand would get his piece as well. And indeed, Streusand has benefited nicely from the efforts of Craddick, DeLay, and TRMPAC. He’s running for Congress in the newly redrawn, ultra-conservative 10th district that runs from north Houston to Austin. He’s leading in the polls and favored to beat his seven Republican opponents in the primary, which in that district, essentially hands him a U.S. House seat. As for Craddick, his acceptance of at least $5,000 in corporate money on behalf of TRMPAC doesn’t square with his post-election claims that he wasn’t involved with the PAC.

There's no "essentially" about the 10th CD, as there's no Democratic opposition. I've seen Streusand's idiotic TV ads, in which he seems to think that the budget deficit can be blamed on discretionary spending (see Calpundit for the real story), and those were enough to convince me that he's the second-worst candidate after John Devine. If he winds up in Congress, there really is no justice.

Anyway, a good solid read for all interested parties. Check it out.

Happy Independence Day

That would be Texas Independence Day, and today is the 168th anniversary of this state's declaration of independence from Mexico in 1836. Too bad there won't be a parade.

AUSTIN -- Longhorn-riding cowboys, honky-tonkin' Alvin Crow, and the big beats of the Aggie and Longhorn bands normally pulsate down Congress Avenue on the second day of March.

But, on this Texas Independence Day, one of the capital city's grandest parades has fallen silent.

Money mixups and miscues conspired to pull the plug this year on Austin's big bash paying homage to Texas' 1836 declaration of independence from Mexico.

[...]

Large observations of Texas Independence Day are not observed statewide. Aside from the Austin festivities, Washington-on-the-Brazos State Park near Brenham, where the Texas Declaration of Independence was signed, last weekend hosted its celebration with historical re-enactments and craft demonstrations.

Backers of Austin's Independence Day celebrations hope to make them as important in the future as San Jacinto Day in April is to Houston or annual Fiesta celebrations are for San Antonio, said Harvey Ford, chairman of the board of Celebrate Texas.

In Houston, where San Jacinto Day is more widely celebrated than Texas Independence Day, neither the city nor county has an official observance planned. However, there will be San Jacinto Day ceremonies April 21 at the San Jacinto Monument.

Celebrate Texas' push for more Independence Day festivities, which began in 1999, wasn't initially met with open arms by city officials, Ford said.

"We never got a warm, fuzzy feeling from the city about what we were doing," he said, speculating on why schoolchildren no longer celebrate the holiday as he did growing up in Texas.

"I guess that could range anywhere from being politically incorrect or a lack of people trying to preserve our unique history," he said.

The Austin City Council had contributed in the past, but this year its belated financial support came too late.

The Independence Day parade and a fun run the next day would have cost nearly $15,000, a bill the city pledges to pick up in the future. In previous years, the city has contributed, if not always fully funded, the event.

Oops. Well, Pete has some alternate suggestions for would-be celebrants, and Norbizness has some links to follow if you want to do some reading on the subject. Of course, if you're here in Houston, you could just drive up I-45 and wave to the statue of Sam Houston.

The best Texas Independence Day ever was in 1986, because it was the Sesquicentennial. That was cool because how often do you get to use a word like Sesquicentennial in everyday conversation? The only thing better was when Rice University celebrated its 75th anniversary in 1987, as that was its Demisesquicentennial. As noted by the MOB, that was the same year that SPAM celebrated its 50th anniversary. What more do you need to know?

Will they or won't they?

If that pension shortfall problem isn't enough to raise your general stress level, how about that oft-promised special session on school finance reform, which still may or may not happen, especially now that they have other things to worry about?

With April 1, once a target date for a session, now only a month away, there apparently is still no agreement among [Governor] Perry and legislative leaders, much less rank-and-file lawmakers, on a new funding plan.

The focus on education, moreover, also is being challenged by a criminal investigation into 2002 campaign spending that recently was expanded to include House Speaker Tom Craddick's race for presiding officer.

Craddick, who turned over records related to his speaker's election to a Travis County grand jury last week, insists he did nothing wrong. Meanwhile, he has been meeting with legislators about school finance.

But some people who have been around the speaker said he has seemed fretful, perhaps fearing that Democratic legislators would use a special session to make frequent political attacks against him and other Republicans over the fund-raising issue.

"Some Democrats will be throwing tomahawks and spears," state Rep. Rick Noriega, D-Houston, predicted.

But he said the main problem was a lack of agreement on how to replace the current school finance law, which requires wealthier school districts to share tax revenue with poor districts.

Well you know, they could have taken care of this during the regular session as they promised they would. The Senate did its part just to see Perry and Craddick publicly piss all over their efforts. The powers that be very likely wouldn't have come to an agreement, even without the sudden shift of focus to redistricting, but at least they could say they tried and made progress.

Do I think this will affect the 2004 Legislative races? Maybe a little, but probably not too much. I figure the suburban districts that are really hot for Robin Hood's death are unlikely to toss out any Republican reps at this time (if ever). If this gets punted to 2005, it should be an issue in the next statewide election, unless of course a plan gets passed that people actually like. The pressure will increase on Governor Perry the longer this takes, but any viable challenger to him who wants to use this as a club will have to have a palatable plan of his or her own. Whatever else you might think, that's a tall order.

In the end, I believe that some variation of the Dewhurst plan, which broadened and increased sales taxes while cutting property taxes, will get passed. Perry will claim his share of credit for it regardless, and the bidness lobby will accept the closing of the franchise tax loophole (yet another thing that should have been done last year but wasn't) with much grumbling. As always, getting there will be most of the fun.

One point five billion

The projected shortfall in the city employees' pension fund is now $1.5 billion, and there's a mad scramble to come up with ideas to fix the damn thing. Nobody's committing to anything other than ruling out a property tax hike, which, let's face it, would be political suicide.

There are three things in this story I want to comment on. First:

An actuarial report prepared for the Houston Municipal Employees Pension System in 2001, when the biggest changes were made, said the city could afford the changes. But by late last year, the forecast had changed drastically.

And a constitutional amendment, ratified by state voters in September, keeps cities from rolling back pension benefits they've already given to workers.

This may be a semantic quibble, but the "forecast" didn't change in the sense that the conditions which affected the long-term numbers suddenly became very different. I'm quite certain that a true and accurate forecast in 2001 would have been about the same as the one that came out late last year. What really changed was the identity of the person or persons doing the forecast, from someone with a cranial-anal inversion to someone who knew how to work a calculator.

As for that Constitutional amendment that was ratified in September, the reason you don't remember anything about it is because that was the same election that featured the tort "reform" amendment Proposition 12. Though I strongly suspect that a seemingly innocuous amendment like the one that now shackles Mayor White would have gotten overlooked in just about any election, I do wonder if pushing it back to November might have given the competent forecasters enough time to figure out and warn about this mess we're facing. Oh, well.

One more thing:

Towers Perrin, the firm that prepared the 2001 actuarial report, has declined to comment on the major revision it made to its forecast last year.

I'm just curious here, but since I haven't seen any mention of it yet, I'll ask: Do these guys have any liability for their role in this debacle? What is the likelihood that the city will try to shake a few dollars loose from them as part of an overall solution, and what is the likelihood that they'd be successful? If nothing else, at the very least they ought to refund the fees we paid them for their lousy advice.

One more week of early voting

Early voting for the March 9 primaries in Texas continues through Friday the 5th, and after that you'll have to do your civic duty on the appointed day itself. Here's a few links and resources to help you figure it all out.

The Chron's endorsements are here, for better or worse. For whatever reason, that page doesn't include their recent endorsemsents of Chris Bell and Richard Morrison.

The Austin Chronicle and the San Antonio Current have some good coverage, including this Current story on a race in State House District 120 between incumbent Ruth Jones McClendon and challenger Sandra Martinez. Note that there's practically nothing in the Houston Press or its sister paper the Dallas Observer. Apparently, in their desire to reach that all-important younger readership, they've decided that voting is for old people.

On the other side of the street, Greg points to some Houston Review endorsements, while the United Republicans of Harris County, a more moderate group led by former County GOP Chair Betsy Lake, has its picks up as well. Those of you stuck in the new CD 10 and who are considering a tactical crossover should take their opinion into consideration.

Finally, on a personal note to the Riecke Baumann campaign: No one in this house will be voting in the Republican primary. Please stop calling us. Thanks.

TRMPAC overview

The Chron has an overview of the TAB/TRM investigation so far. No new information for those who have been following this from the get-go, but a pretty good recap for those who've tuned in late. You know those "Previously on" clips that you see at the beginning of 24 or Angel? It's like that.

UPDATE: And another overview from the WaPo, plus some editorials supporting Earle's investigation from the Statesman, the Express News, and the Chron. One thing to note about the Chron piece:

Ironically, TRMPAC didn't need to raise $600,000 in corporate donations. With the dominance of the Republican Party in Texas, a GOP House majority was all but assured. What TRMPAC's backers wanted was the right kind of Republican majority, one that would put off school finance reform and devote most of last year to congressional redistricting, a majority that would do DeLay's and business lobbyists' bidding rather than the voters'.

You could replace the first clause of the second sentence with "With the 2001 Legislative Review Board's redistricting of the State House map" and be equally correct. Links via The Stakeholder.

Paige's apology

Rod Paige tries to make amends for his recent remarks in which he called the NEA a "terrorist" organization. My eyes kind of glazed over reading this piece, but fortunately Greg made it all the way through, and he aptly characterizes Paige's bobbing and weaving. Check it out.

Mighty big head you've got, Mister President

Nothing says "culture" to me quite like giant sculptures of Presidents' heads.

As the sun played across his great stony countenance, George Washington had the look of a man whose teeth hurt. But if he was pained by his primitive false teeth, that discomfort was lost on 15-year-old Joseph Palmer.

Palmer, a high school student previewing the 42 giant concrete presidential heads that make up Williamsburg's Presidents Park -- set to open today -- had more pressing questions.

"Hey mister!" he shouted to the nearest adult. "Wasn't George Washington the one who chopped down the cherry tree?"

The query brought laughter from his mother and sister and a strained smile from Houston sculptor David Adickes, who has spent eight years bringing the heads, which range from 17 to 20 feet in height, to one of the nation's most historic spots.

[...]

"On the artistic level," Adickes said, "I want people to marvel at these big heads. How did I get the eyes to look like that? As a sculptor, it makes you proud when people respond with their mouths agape. Second, we'd hope that there is a historical appreciation of each subject and his times."

What this story doesn't make very clear is that all of these giant Presidential heads were sculpted right here in Houston, about a mile from my house, as it happens. (Take the Taylor exit off of I-10, turn south towards downtown, and you'll drive right past Adickes' place.) One of the items on my To Do list is to take the new digicam over there and snap a few shots before all of the busts have been shipped out. Any locals want in on that with me, drop me a note.