The proposed toll road that would have cut through Oak Forest appears to be dead.

A proposed toll road that would slice through the Oak Forest subdivision in north Houston is no longer an immediate threat to residents, who opposed the project at a Tuesday town hall meeting at Scarborough High School.

Alan Clark, transportation planning director for the Houston-Galveston Area Council, announced that the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad will not relinquish right of way for the proposed 20-mile Northwest Corridor Toll Road to span from the Grand Parkway in Tomball to Loop 610.

Clark was there to present H-GAC's Regional Transportation Plan for 2025 — which includes widening parts of T.C. Jester Boulevard, Pinemont and Antoine drives, and 43rd Street.

Clark was interrupted by residents who packed the school's auditorium.

Residents interrupted Clark and forced him to abandon a video presentation on the overall plan. "What about our neighborhood?" a resident shouted.

"I'm here to help our community be a better place to live," Clark said, prompting the audience to become more disruptive.

Taking over the microphone, Greg Ryden, president of the Oak Forest Homeowners Association, urged residents to be respectful and defended their cause to Clark.

Fearing plans for a toll road will resurface in the future, Ryden said residents of established neighborhoods "should not be penalized to address the needs of commuters who choose to live outside the city."

In addition, widening thoroughfares such as 43rd Street and Antoine Drive from four lanes to six could reduce property values, put children who bike and walk to school at greater risk for accidents, and exacerbate air and noise pollution, he said.

"Are our neighborhoods worth preserving, or are we at the mercy of the infrastructure that serves them?" Ryden said.

I think that in the end, if you choose to live in a remote part of the metro area, you should expect to condemned to hellish commutes, and if you don't like that, you should push for mass transit. Wrecking someone else's neighborhood should simply be off the table. It's interesting to me that allowing unchecked development and road-building is usually a conservative position, when in fact it's a kind of meddling welfare - we will save people from the results of their own choices by punishing those who made smarter choices. And yes, my bias is showing; if you work downtown, moving to the northeast corner of Harris County is just stupid, unless you are one of those few people who enjoys sitting in traffic jams.

Here's the big scoop for people who claim they have to go out there to get an affordable house: it's not Christmas and the government's not Santa Claus. You do not have to go there to find an affordable house; there are tons of cheap houses in Houston, inside the loop. What's unspoken is the other adjectives in that "affordable housing" phrase: "3000 square foot," "brand new," "not near too many people different colors than me," and so on.

I'm not going to comment on the benefits of old vs new, 3000 square feet versus 1500, or any of that. We all make these choices. I like old houses; not everybody does. I don't want a giant house; maybe somebody else does.

My point is that I am perfectly willing to live with the consequences of my choices. I want to live close to the center of the city, therefore, I will pay more per square foot. I want to have an actual neighborhood where people walk around and there are stores and businesses mixed in with residential development; therefore, there are many places in Houston with nice, affordable houses that I won't look at.

For someone moving to a distant suburb to insist that they have to now have roads built for them is no different than me insisting that someone needs to build me a 2500 square foot brand new house in the Heights, and sell it to me for the same price as a 1200 square foot 60-year old bungalow. If I made that claim, I'd be laughed at. I don't make that claim; I look at all the factors, decide what trade-offs make sense for me, and live with that. I'm only asking that those who want to live farther out do the same. If the commute is really a reasonable trade-off for space and newness, that's fine. Just don't come back and say, "hey, this house is exactly as far from downtown as it was on the map when I bought it!" and expect someone to plow down someone else's house to make your life easier.

(This issue isn't strictly partisan, of course - Debbie Riddle has filed a bill that may be of help here (I haven't gotten a reply to my email asking about it, so I can't say for sure), and Martha Wong has been asked to sponsor a bill that would rein the HCTRA in a bit. Note also Council Member Toni Lawrence's words at the end of the article, and recall that at the Woodland Heights I-45 town hall, representatives from Michael Berry and Shelly Sekula Gibbs' offices were there in support. For sure, though, Robert Eckels and Jerry Eversole have dirty hands here, and if anyone ought to be vulnerable to this kind of appeal, it should be the more pragmatic than partisan offices in the Couny Commissioners' Court. If nothing else, I think a Democrat who campaigns in Spring on a message of making the HCTRA more responsive to neighborhood concerns would be listened to.)

Worried the idea of a tollway will emerge again, one resident asked how homeowners can protect their neighborhood in the future.

Clark said as long as the railroad is not a willing partner, residents can remain at ease.

Ten years ago today, Tejano music sensation Selena Quintanilla Perez was murdered by the manager of her fan club, whom the singer had accused of embezzling funds. Here's a sample of coverage of the anniversary of her death:

Selena's last day still vivid for many

Legend of Selena keeps growing

Selena's death reshaped family's life

Myths still surround Selena's death

Selena left cultural, musical legacy

Remembering Selena

Selena's records still selling

Hallelujah.

"We want to take gambling off the table this session," said Rep. Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. He was joined by Reps. Pete Gallego, D-Alpine, and Garnet Coleman, D-Houston.

Gallego, chairman of the House's Mexican American Caucus, said he thinks most of the House's 63 Democrats and enough members of the Republican majority will join to kill any gambling proposal.

[...]

The Texas Republican Party is on record as strongly against gambling. State GOP Chairwoman Tina Benkiser is scheduled to speak at an anti-gambling rally at the Capitol today.

Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican who proposed video slot machines as a source of education funding last year, seems to have backed away from that option this session.

And Speaker Tom Craddick has said he doesn't know how gambling will fare in the House.

But there has been speculation that Republicans may seek a House vote on gambling as a source of additional funds for public schools. With such a move, some observers have noted, Republicans could put some of the blame for gambling on Democrats, who have been pressing for more education funding.

The anti-gambling comments by the Democratic leaders seemed designed to address that speculation.

"We can't afford to let the Legislature roll the dice with our children's future," Gallego said.

In a related development, Texas Democratic Chairman Charles Soechting said he will ask the State Democratic Executive Committee to pass a resolution opposing the expansion of gambling in Texas.

It's easy to see what the allure of gambling is for states that don't have the will or the wherewithal to deal with their finances in an honest manner, but let's keep a few things in mind here. One is that in our case, neighboring states like Louisiana are not going to just let us take their revenue away without a fight. Whatever we think the state can rake in from "racinos" and slot machines is at least one part wishful because of that. Two, money spent on gambling is money that for the most part would have been spent on other activities, like movies or sporting events or trips to the beach. The cost to other businesses is at best understated if not outright ignored in the rosy projections. Finally, an expansion in legalized gambling will be a huge windfall for a few firms, and boy do they know it. They have an equally huge incentive to do whatever it takes to make sure they get a piece of than pie. All of this, without even mentioning the social costs of compulsive gambling, is more than enough to stand firm against it. My applause to Reps. Dunnam, Gallego, and Coleman, along with Chairman Soechting, for getting it right.

UPDATE: In the Pink reports from the anti-gambling rallies at the Capitol.

UPDATE: PinkDome reminds us of Governor Perry's big ol' flipflop on the gambling issue.

State Rep. Eddie Rodriguez takes his first step down the blogging highway with a guest post on Rep. Aaron Pena's blog. Next thing you know, he'll be fiddling with stylesheets and hunting around for plugins. We'll be there for you, Rep. Rodriguez!

Attention, everyone who may be affected by TxDOT's plan to widen I-45 inside Loop 610: State Rep. Jessica Farrar is hosting a town hall meeting this Saturday from 9 AM to 1 PM to discuss this.

The meeting is at the University of Houston-Downtown, One Main St.

Representatives from TxDOT are expected to provide updates on the agency's proposal to expand the interstate between downtown Houston and The Woodlands and to increase the number of lanes between Loop 610 and I-10.

In October, TxDOT unveiled plans of its expansion to community members at a meeting at Jefferson Davis High School. The plans called for the creation of four "managed lanes" in the center of the interstate that would serve as high-occupancy vehicle lanes or toll lanes for individual drivers.

In some cases, the addition of those lanes would increase I-45 from eight lanes to 12.

Community members who attended the October TxDOT meeting, as well as a meeting hosted by the I-45 Coalition in February, have voiced their concerns over noise and aesthetic issues associated with the expansion — particularly the idea of TxDOT having to purchase homes and other buildings in order to create more right of way.

TxDOT representatives have said that initial plans call for little, if any, land purchase, but residents have been worried that they would not be able to work closely with the department before design plans are finalized.

9:00 a.m. Welcome by Representative Jessica Farrar

9:30 a.m. Preserving our history, Dr. Stephen Fox

Stephen Fox is an architectural historian and a fellow of the Anchorage Foundation of Texas. He is an adjunct lecturer in architecture at Rice University and The University of Houston.

10:15 a.m. Air pollution/ environmental impact, Dr. Winifred Hamilton

Dr. Hamilton is a professor at Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Hamilton directs the Environmental Health Section (EHS) in Baylor's Chronic Disease Prevention and Control Research Center in the Department of Medicine

11 a.m. Neighborhood advocacy: Question and Answer Session with community leaders Drexel Turner and Jim Blackburn, Rep. Farrar will moderate

Drexel Turner is a professor at the University of Houston School of Architecture. He worked with his neighborhood on the Spur 527 Jim Blackburn is an environmental attorney who worked with the Katy Corridor Coalition. Both men have experience in working with neighborhoods on transportation issues.

12 p.m. I-45 Coalition

The I-45 Coalition is a group of community leaders and neighborhood groups who have worked joined together to create a unified voice for our area in regards to the expansion.

12:30 pm Closing

** Questions from the audience will be taken after each speaker

Remember the good old days when the Katy Freeway expansion project cost a mere $2.2 billion? How young and foolish we all were, back before stories like this started appearing.

The cost of expanding the Katy Freeway has gone up almost another $300 million, according to a state audit that faults the Texas Department of Transportation for failing to "take the necessary and appropriate steps to estimate total project costs."

Auditor John Keel's report notes TxDOT's latest cost estimate is $2.67 billion, up 78 percent from the October 2001 estimate of $1.5 billion. The last estimate released by TxDOT was $2.4 billion.

"TxDOT faces a significant risk that costs will continue to rise above the $2.67 billion March 2005 estimate for total projects costs." Keel warns in his Tuesday report to Rep. Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, which was publicly released Wednesday. "The Legislature may wish to require TxDOT to design a standard model so that it could estimate project costs more accurately."

And since I started making that silly calculation last time, I'll update it to note that at a total cost of $2.67 billion, this project is costing $2107 per inch.

Keel criticizes TxDOT for basing the 2001 Katy expansion estimate on preliminary engineering work and failing to update the projection as further design work revealed substantially higher costs. He cites about $100 million added after the department determined it would need to rebuild the Beltway 8 interchange to accommodate the four High Occupancy Toll lanes being built in the center of the freeway.

According to the report, the highway department did not originally include $56 million for moving Houston water and sewer lines, failed to include the project's administrative costs of more than $100 million, didn't adjust costs for inflation or include contingencies to cover rising materials prices.

The auditor identifies another $121 million in unanticipated cost increases for land needed to widen the freeway, and suggests transportation officials raced to get the bulldozers out there before having the necessary right of way.

"TxDOT did not follow its standard practice of purchasing the majority of right of way before letting contracts," the report states. "TxDOT made a decision to forgo acquiring right of way in advance in order to manage the project on an accelerated construction schedule."

[...]

Keel issued several recommendations to the Legislature for mandating better cost controls at the highway department on future projects. He also cited changes needed in expediting the state's ability to take property needed for these major infrastructure upgrades.

His suggestions include expanding jurisdiction for right of way condemnations in Harris County to include state district courts in addition to county courts. Legal delays mean only 57 percent of needed parcels along I-10 have been acquired despite nearly all construction contracts' having been let.

[TxDOT Commissioner Ric] Williamson blames landowners for bogging down the process in a bid to get more money.

That said, I think Ric Williamson has a hell of a nerve blaming displaced property owners for his problems. This situation was entirely foreseeable. It's a big part of the reason why critics like the Katy Corridor Coalition agitated to reduce the footprint of the Katy renovation - less property to take means lower costs, less time spent in court, and a better outcome for everyone. And not to put too fine a point on it, but I thought respect for private property was supposed to be a conservative principle. At least now we know where it stands when put in conflict with the roadbuilding industry and its generous campaign contributions.

UPDATE: Greg chips in his two cents.

Am I the last person on earth to realize that that actually is Darius "Hootie" Rucker in that bizarro Burger King ad? I swear, I thought that Boondocks comic was a joke. Whatever motivated him to do this ad is unfathomable to me. Well, okay, not completely unfathomable, but still. There are some things money can't get me to do. That commercial would have been one of them.

And I didn't realize that was Brooke Burke at the end of the ad, either. Show of hands here - who thinks Brooke Burke has ever eaten at Burger King in her life? Yeah, me neither.

You know, having seen so many bad bills that could do real damage to people and institutions in this state, it's nice that our Lege is still capable of contemplating legislation that's just plain silly.

Under bills filed by Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, and Rep. Corbin Van Arsdale, R-Tomball, college football teams in Texas would be banned from playing in post-season championship games that are not part of a national playoff system.

But the bills would expire before BCS bids go out in early December if four of a dozen states mentioned in the proposals don't adopt similar legislation.

"The problems (with the BCS) have been existing for some years now," said Wentworth, a graduate of Texas A&M University. "People can't figure out the formula, there are always disputes and arguments over how people got picked and who really is the national champion."

[...]

If passed, the legislation would take effect before the upcoming season but could expire on Dec. 2, if at least four other states mentioned haven't adopted similar legislation.

Of the states mentioned — Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina and Washington — Wentworth said California is the only one with similar legislation pending, but he expects the others to debate the issue.

On the other hand, there is this:

Wentworth said former Texas football coach Darrell Royal admitted that he didn't understand the BCS formula.

"If it is beyond him, it's certainly beyond the rest of us," he said.

UPDATE: Postcards from the Lege has some viewer mail on the subject.

One last thought for the day on L'Affaire DeLay: When Aggies turn against you, can the rest of Texas be far behind?

By now you've probably heard of the anti-DeLay ads that are being run here in Houston (the Chron has a video link) and in various other Congressional districts - see here for more on that. Couple things to mention here, staring with a bit from the NYT story:

Officials in Mr. DeLay's office were quick to depict the commercials as partisan attacks, noting that the Campaign for America's Future has in the past received money from George Soros, the philanthropist and financier who gave millions of dollars to support Democrats in last November's elections. Records show Mr. Soros gave $300,000 to a committee run by the organization last year.

"This is one more front group for Nancy Pelosi and Democratic heavy hitters like George Soros," said Dan Allen, a spokesman for Mr. DeLay. "They are attacking the House Republicans in an attempt to bring the House down."

"You can't complain of partisanship when you are one of Congress's leading partisans," said John Jonas, a Democratic lobbyist. "This is somebody who has contributed to the sharp and bitter partisan environment in Washington. There's not much credibility in his claim."

As for the political wisdom of all this, Brad Plumer and Ezra Klein think the focus is too much on DeLay and not nearly enough on DeLayism. I think their fears can be summarized by the closing of this Howard Fineman article:

Inside the GOP leadership on the Hill, DeLay is not beloved. He is admired for his fundraising skill and political daring, but at least some of the top figures are wary of him. Speaker Denny Hastert, once thought of as a creation and tool of the DeLay, has risen in esteem – and real and perceived independence. Majority Whip Roy Blunt, widely respected and much liked at the White House, is waiting in the wings should the need arise to move up in the ranks.

Relations between the president and DeLay have never been particularly warm – Texas isn’t quite big enough for the both of them. Bush and Karl Rove have been careful to cultivate him over the years, of course, and they have made common cause since Bush first started running for governor in 1993. Bush likes to delegate the tough stuff – to people like DeLay and Rove – but they are still hired help.

And you can always fire the help.

Reading JesseLee's post, I think the DCCC gets it. I don't think there's any way in which DeLay leaves voluntarily, as Newt Gingrich did in 1998. To me, the ideal situation is for DeLay to dig in and remain defiant - and thus in the news - all the way up to the 2006 elections. As with Newt, I don't think it's the Republicans who will benefit from his higher profile. Let him get his friends to publicly stand by him. That's what we want, right? And it keeps the story in the news and allows us to keep bringing up all the reasons why it's in the news. All that without even mentioning that there ought to be a continuing stream of news coming out of Texas, all with ties back to DeLay. I say bring it on, fellas.

Pink Dome has more on the attempts by Sens. Armbrister and Madla to hand the Edwards Aquifer over to developers. Among other things, the legislation they're set to propose would have a profound impact on Kinney County out in West Texas.

I'm a signee of this open letter to the National Press Club about their upcoming conference on bloggers and journalists. It's difficult to regard a panel which includes JimJeff GannonGuckert as anything other than a wretched parody, but then we do live in some strange times. See here and here for the background, and drop Sean-Paul a note if you want in on the signatory action.

I think one reason why so much regrettable legislation gets passed is that a lot of legislation is just plain complicated. Read some of the bills I've linked to for this session, or just go to either the House or Senate homepages and look a few bills up to see what I mean. The fact that a lot of what the Lege does is (as we've discussed) too arcane and/or complicated for mass-market audiences doesn't help, either.

So if it seems like I've been on a Bad Bills rampage lately, it's partly because there's a lot of material to work with, and partly because in my small way I hope to shed a bit of light on some dusty corners of the sausagemaking process. With that in mind, I'd like to direct you to this post by Hope about STAR+PLUS, a pilot program in Houston that integrates acute and long-term care services for aged and disabled Medicaid recipients using a managed care model. Hope worked on the legislation that created STAR+PLUS as a legislative aide awhile back, and she's got a lot of good reasons why you should think of this program as highly as she does.

Unfortunately, Rep. Dianne Delisi has filed HB1771, which would effectively kill STAR+PLUS. It's pending in committee now, so that makes this an excellent time to call your Rep or Senator and express your support for STAR+PLUS. Hope's got a list of the Committee members and a suggestion for how to express your support. Please take a moment and check it out.

OK, break's over, time to work the Senate on HB789. We know that Senate Business and Commerce Chair Troy Fraser has his doubts about this bill, but that doesn't mean he'll kill it. If you need another reason to get fired up over HB789, try the Crownover Amendment. Or maybe the fact that thanks to real free market competition, broadband access is more widespread and prices are much lower in Europe.

Last but not least, I join in with Save Muni Wireless in condemning the idiot that sent threatening letters to Rep. Phil King. Whatever happens with HB789, there's absolutely no justification for that kind of crap. I hope the FBI catches this clown quickly.

Long as I'm on his site, let me recommend The Jeffersonian's followup post on the San Antonio Mayoral race (initial post noted here). There's much there for the political junkie to chew on. One small piece of anecdotal data that I can add is a note from an Alamo City correspondent now living in HD121, which as we know is a heavily Republican area, who reports that he got a visit from a Julian Castro volunteer recently. I'm always happy to hear about Democratic candidates who aren't afraid to go after votes in traditionally unfriendly turf. Anyway, check out the report. This is going to be a very interesting race.

State Rep. Mike Villareal has come under some fire for his role in helping HB3 pass out of committee (though he eventually voted against it, which has also contributed to the grumbling about him). The Jeffersonian puts some of the squabbling in context and gives a robust defense of Villareal's overall record. Check it out.

Martha Wong, on the hot seat, thanks to yet another anti-gay marriage bill in the Lege. Sure does suck representing a swing district sometimes, doesn't it? Via Byron, who also has more info on the proposed legislation.

If you're a Texas-based progressive political blogger and you have not received an email from me in the last week or so, please drop me a note (kuff-at-offthekuff-dot-com) and tell me how to reach you. I've got a little project going and I want to make sure everyone who might be interested hears about it, but my address book (even after a major overhaul) is still lacking. Thanks!

We'd all like to help send Richard Morrison to Washington next year, but here's a chance to help him now. He's taking a trip up to DC next week to talk to the DCCC about his rematch with Tom DeLay, and he's hoping to get a few folks to give him a boost on the way. This is a great chance for him to convince the powers that be that he's got DeLay in his sights and just needs the means to beat him in 2006. Click here to lend a hand for his journey.

Sigh...What do some people have against a clean and stable water supply?

Advocates for the Edwards Aquifer, already stunned by the pace of development over the recharge zone, are incensed by bills making their way through the Texas Legislature that would gut the protections that do exist.

Even a representative for local developers who helped craft the compromises at the heart of the current protective city ordinances said common sense should lead people to oppose most of the proposed bills.

Observers say passage of the bills would undo years of efforts by those in San Antonio to pass ordinances striking a balance between development and preservation, to limit the density and types of construction over the area where rainfall and streamflows refill the aquifer.

"These are developer dream bills," said Richard Alles, technical research director for Aquifer Guardians in Urban Areas. "You've got people in the Legislature who are limited government advocates and they don't believe in regulations and don't believe that developers should be regulated."

State Sen. Kenneth Armbrister, D-Victoria, who tried two years ago to yank water quality powers from the Edwards Aquifer Authority, is the author of most of the developer-friendly bills.

Armbrister's Senate Bill 1363 says cities don't have the authority of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to regulate water quality and that a city can enforce water quality rules adopted prior to passage of this bill only to the extent that they agree with the standards and practices of the state commission.

That effectively would gut the aquifer protection measures approved by the San Antonio City Council in early 1995 and by Austin voters in 1992, said Brad Rockwell, deputy director of the Save Our Springs Alliance in Austin.

Another Armbrister bill, SB 1362, would strip away a city's ability to regulate within its extraterritorial jurisdiction the density or number of buildings or lots and the percentage of land covered by concrete, buildings and other nonporous surfaces. The bill specifically removes an exemption that covers the Edwards recharge zone outside San Antonio.

[...]

Gene Dawson Jr., a San Antonio engineer whose firm has had a hand in much of the city's recent development, has sat on several panels that worked out compromises on city ordinances that restrict development.

Dawson said that local development groups are not pushing for the two Armbrister bills. "I've not seen any lobbying effort on those at all," he said.

"I just can't believe a bill like that would be passed," he said of SB 1363. "It seems like that would have so much common-sense opposition from all the cities."

Rep. Robert Puente, D-San Antonio, who battled Armbrister two years ago over the senator's efforts to strip water quality powers from the Edwards Aquifer Authority, said another battle is brewing over these two bills and others that would make it easier for developers.

"I think these bills are aimed at cities like San Antonio that have been very progressive in establishing water quality provisions and regulations that a lot of the mainstream environmental community buys off on," said Puente, who is chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee.

"And there's always a segment out there that wants to go their own way and they're not willing to sit down and negotiate.

"Everything we've done here in San Antonio has been by compromise, by negotiation, that the development community has bought in on, and I think that's the way it should work," Puente said.

Sadly, there's more. PinkDome has the details of two more bad bills, SB848 and SB574, both of which are more sops to developers. These bills are the brainchildren of San Antonians Frank Madla and Jeff Wentworth, though Madla has three Republican cosponsors on his piece of work. More details can be found at the Greater Edwards Aquifer Alliance webpage.

Awhile back, I noted a story which told the tale of Things Gone Wrong at the Dallas Morning News. The American Journalism Review has a followup on the subject now (via Kimberly). All I can say to that is Yeesh.

Much more interesting from a political intrigue perspective is this long sidebar which asks the question "Did the Morning News soften its pro-environment stance after a visit from a powerful congressman?"

Regrettable as the layoffs were at the Dallas Morning News, there might have been a silver lining for at least one very important person: Joe Barton.

Barton, a Republican congressman, represents Ellis County, just south of Dallas, where cement plants and other industries contribute mightily to the area's smog problem. But besides contributing to the smog, the companies that own these plants also contribute to Barton's political campaigns, and Barton fights doggedly to shield them from government clean air rules.

Before they were laid off in October, two of the News' editorial writers, Timothy O'Leary and Jim Frisinger, had given Barton a very hard time, accusing him of using sneaky legislative maneuvers, regulatory loopholes and plain old political pressure to protect some of North Texas' worst polluters.

Local advocates for clean air drew comfort from these editorials. They felt that the paper was on their side in the fight against Barton.

But now, says Wendi Hammond, executive director of Blue Skies Alliance in Dallas, "There are a lot of people in the environmental community who are not happy with what's going on at the paper." They fear that political pressure may have played a role in the two writers' departures, says Hammond, and in what they perceive to be a toned-down editorial policy.

When you make a mistake, you try to fix it, right? Especially when you've publicly admitted to that mistake and publicly stated that it is your intent to fix it at your first opportunity, right? If so, you're one up on State Rep. Dan Gattis (R, Round Rock). Eye On Williamson County has the details.

Chris Bell has picked up the ball on the recent spate of anti-ethics PLOBs, in particular Mary Denny's "Mother May I?" HB913 and Sylvester Turner's "I'm just helping out a friend" HB3148. There's certainly a target-rich environment here for a reformist campaign, and I'm glad to see him work this theme. More, please.

I should note that the Chron editorializes in favor of the broadly supported bipartisan reform bill HB1348 today. Which is nice, but a little bit more about the bad bills and who's behind Turner's HB3148 would be nicer.

As for when Bell drops the "exploratory" and becomes an actual candidate, well, hopefully soon.

And the furious debate over whether Kay Bailey or Little Ricky hates Hillary Clinton with more fervor continues on.

A week after Gov. Rick Perry's campaign tried to link one of his potential GOP primary rivals to U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a 1993 letter emerged in which Perry called Clinton's efforts at health care reform "commendable."

[...]

On Monday, Hutchison's campaign aides said the Perry letter to Clinton showed he was a hypocrite in making the videotape.

"It's a double standard. It's the ultimate in hypocrisy," said Hutchison campaign manger Terry Sullivan.

"I'm glad to see in at least some instances the governor is willing to reach across party lines," he said. "Unfortunately, it's for Hillary Clinton's socialized medicine plan."

Perry campaign manager Luis Saenz said there is no comparison between Perry writing a letter on behalf of his constituents in 1993 and Hutchison accepting praise in person from "a rather liberal New York senator."

The story states that Perry's letter to Hillary isn't quite in the same boat as KBH's kissy-kissy video. Frankly, I don't care. The whole thing is stupid. We're all in danger of losing IQ points just by being forced to acknowledge the existence of this inane kabuki dance. Jim D has about the right response, as did the Star Telegram to Perry's initial salvo and his lackey's lies about it (via PerryVsWorld).

The best thing about this Chron story on the Wall Street Journal's anti-DeLay editorial and the reaction to same is the following quote at the very end:

But some observers of Congress say ethics probes can suddenly flare out of control, as when former House Speakers Texas Democrat Jim Wright and Georgia Republican Newt Gingrich were forced from power.

"If you've seen a chicken in the barnyard get a peck on his head so a little blood is showing, then the other chickens all rush in and peck him to death, that is the danger for Tom DeLay right now," said Charlie Wilson, a former Democratic member of Congress from Lufkin. "He's got a little blood on his head, and sometimes that is enough to get you killed."

Anyway. The Stakeholder notes that some other prominent conservatives are joining in the DeLay peck-a-rama, though they manage to steer clear of the blood-and-feathers language. Start of a trend, or soon to be forgotten? We'll see.

UPDATE: The Daily DeLay has some thoughts on the WSJ editorial, while the Burnt Orange Report has a poll.

State Rep. Aaron Pena has moved his blog to a friendlier location. Whether the peanut gallery of which I was a part got him to switch or not I couldn't say, but I'm glad for it. Rep. Eddie Rodriguez, it's your turn now. Via Grits.

Criminy, I just can't keep up with the wave of voter-unfriendly bills coming out of the 79th Lege. Lyn informs me that Houston's own Rep. Dwayne Bohac has filed HB1269, which would essentially require you to re-fill out and submit a voter's reg application in the event you'd previously made a mistake. Current law allows for a space on reg forms to make corrections, and as Lyn notes in some cases you can do that online, but Bohac would take that away. Why, I have no idea. Maybe too many non-citizens were submitting badly-filled-out forms in a subtle attempt to wreck our democracy or something.

I think we need a pithy descriptive term for all this bad legislation. I hereby propose that bills like HB1269 and its bastard cousins be called Petty Little Odious Bills, or PLOBs for short. It's based on a expression from the game of bridge, where the B stands for Bid instead of Bill. Who's with me?

Adina writes about the death of the scoop in newspaper journalism and notes how the assumptions are different when blogs cover the news.

Early reporting on the big Texas House telecom bill involves bloggers sharing information, puzzling out the intricacies of a debate with nearly 40 amendments, and the meaning of the bill that came out of the sausage machine.

The enemy isn't other bloggers -- it's the indifference of the mainstream media to stories that are less dramatic than an oil refinery explosion. The Statesman covered the telecom story. The Dallas Morning News and Houston Chronicle apparently didn't.

In a world of online peer production, facts aren't the scarce resource. Attention is the scarce resource. We're not limited by the front page, news-hour spatial constraint where an oil refinery explosion crowds out other news. We're limited by social dynamics that focus attention on the day's cause celebre.

The scarce resource is attention. Collaboration multiplies links and attracts attention. Thus bloggers swarm to assemble the facts.

Clearly, though, there was and is an audience for narrow-interest stuff, and that brings us to where blogs stepped in. I think the effect that the proliferation of blogs has had on news coverage is akin to the effect that the proliferation of cable channels has had on broadcast TV. Think back, if you're old enough, to the dark days of the Big Three networks, PBS, and UHF. How many shark documentaries were there back then? How about shows about home design? Celebrity poker? Fashion faux pas? They didn't exist because the audience for them wasn't big enough. But cable channels, who took to specialization as a means of competing, gladly went after those audiences. Though the overall numbers they got were small in comparison, the people who did tune in tended to fit a niche that was attractive to advertisers. The smaller audience was still a very desireable one.

I think that's the role that blogs play now. Just as there's only so much room in the weekly network schedule for niche programming, there's only so much room in the dailies for stories that don't have broad appeal. Bloggers, who do have the time and inclination to follow stories like the lifecycle of an otherwise dry telecom bill, step in to fill the void. Speaking as a voracious consumer of news, I couldn't be happier. The (generally) collaborative nature of blogging is a big asset here, since no one person can stay on top of all developments all the time, and most of us aren't usually heavily invested in publishing first. We just want to make sure that thing we're obsessing about gets the coverage we think it deserves. On busy days especially, we're happy to be able to throw a link that says "my colleague so-and-so has the goods today on that story we're following" and know that the interested readers are still being served.

The interesting question, of course, is whether the mainstream news producers will attempt to leverage these efforts as a way of boosting their own product line, much as NBC, Viacom, and Disney have snapped up various cable channels. That seems to be the direction that the Greensboro News & Record is taking, and if this story is any indication, others are beginning to follow their lead.

The News & Record's Web site features 11 staff-written Web journals, or blogs, including one by the editor that answers readers' questions, addresses their criticisms and discusses how the paper is run.

That puts the paper way ahead of even much larger news organizations. The News & Record's blogs range from "just-the-facts, ma'am," to slightly spicy.

There's a page for reader-submitted articles, another for letters to the editor and an online tips' form. The Web site hosts online forums on 23 topics, including safety at a local high school, FedEx Corp.'s move to the area and cameras at local stoplights. Traffic cams monitor local road conditions.

The site posts up-to-date public records on property ownership, marriages and divorce.

[...]

Other papers are watching. The Houston Chronicle, The (Portland) Oregonian, (Raleigh) News & Observer and USA Today have all called News & Record editor John Robinson to discuss what his paper is doing.

UPDATE: More from Grits, including some good comments.

Complete season sets of "The Muppet Show" will be released on DVD by the end of 2005. And the news just gets better:

The video is reported to be transferred from their original British (PAL) tapes. Aside from working to get a beautiful transfer and mastering of the video, it is also said that the episodes will be unedited and will contain the UK skits. This goes to show how Disney is trying to create a collection of the episodes like never seen before.

Although at this point, the inclusion of the original season 1 opening sequence is still undetermined. Apparently there are strong arguments for including the original openings, and also powerful reasons for not including them. The answer of which it will be has flip-flopped back and forth throughout the set’s production and the final outcome is not available at this time.

There were two pilot episodes produced for The Muppet Show (“The Muppets Valentine Show” and “The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence”). There were also some specials produced during the run of the show, including the great behind the scenes special “Of Muppets and Men”. Many fans wondered if these season sets would include any of the show’s pilots or specials. The answer to this is yes. Disney does plan on including several of the historic Muppet Show pilots and specials.

That was some weekend of basketball, huh? I don't know how any of the Final Four teams can top what happened in the Michigan State-Kentucky game for excitement, but then I wouldn't have known how anyone could have topped the Illinois-Arizona and Louisville-West Virginia games, either. And despite my overall incompetence at bracketology this year, I came thisclose to calling the Final Four correctly - my only misfire was picking Kentucky. You can see my folly here, which leads to a vexing question - how come this thing was set up so that North Carolina would be the Illini's foe in the semifinals? I've got Illinois over Louisville for the championship, and obviously that's not gonna happen. Hey, Yoni Cohen, what's up with that?

Ken Pomeroy makes an observation that usually gets overlooked in the wake of a classic battle like Mich State-KY:

There was no better illustration of how random chance can affect a game than on Patrick Sparks' successful three-pointer to send the Kentucky/Michigan State game to overtime. There were three main variables that could have flipped the other way from what actually occurred.

1) What if Patrick Sparks' foot is a micron closer to the basket, and so it's only a two- point attempt?

2) What if Kelvin Torbert (or "Torbit" as Jim Nantz says) is called for a foul on Sparks?

3) What if Sparks' shot falls off the rim instead of through?

Then consider each of the eight possible combinations to the yes/no answers of the above questions. Only one of those - Sparks makes a three, foul is called - potentially results in a UK win.

(If you want to know the ref's actual thinking on his decision, read this:

"On the court, I scored it as a 3 and scored it within the regulation of time," [referee James] Burr said. "When you go to the replay and you first see it, the camera angles that you have are very difficult. I felt that the play was so important in deciding a college basketball game that was as great as that, I asked the guy in the (production) truck to blow it up for me.

"I don't know how many angles he had. But he showed me every single angle he possibly could, and I still couldn't find anything that would overrule my original decision. When he finally blew it up, in my humble opinion, it showed that the kid was behind the line when he took the shot, and that is how I made my decision."

The point that needs to be stressed here is that it is the extremely rare champion that wins it all on superior skill alone. These teams are very evenly matched. If you could take each of the matchups in the regional finals and play them a hundred times apiece, do you think any of those teams would win as many as 60 games? Luck is a bigger factor than we want to admit - it's much sexier to talk about "character" and "knowing how to win". Michigan State won anyway, but had they not, Patrick Sparks' rim-rattler should serve as a reminder of that.

Like I said, better late than never. I can't wait to see what the letters to the Editor will look like.

As for whether or not DeLay's name recognition and negatives may be on the rise, all I can say is that it's never a good thing when the cartoonists start taking aim at you.

UPDATE: Ooh, the Wall Street Journal is piling on. That's gonna leave a mark. And here's an earlier cartoon on DeLay by the same artist (thanks to William in the comments for the link).

Since this is near where I live, I'm quite interested in the development on Washington Avenue.

Rob Johnson recently accomplished what few independent real estate developers can in the inner city.

He bought enough land — on a hot corner, no less — to build a shopping center.

Johnson's new project is planned for the northeast intersection of Washington Avenue and Shepherd Drive.

Experts say the price of real estate along Washington Avenue — the east-west corridor that connects Memorial Park to downtown — is being driven up by acquisitive developers and real estate speculators who see huge promise in this area.

"It's hard to find land," said Johnson, owner of Rob Johnson Interests. "I don't think there's any street inside the Loop that's changing as fast as this one."

I'm actually a bit amazed that it's taken so long for anything to happen on Washington. I can't think of any other stretch of real estate south and/or west of downtown that's been anywhere near as overlooked. Maybe Richmond Avenue east of Shepherd? Anyone in Houston that wants to nominate some other street, please do so in the comments.

Developers and retailers are attracted to this area because of its demographics and proximity to dense residential neighborhoods, people in the area say.

Nearly 130,000 people live within three miles of his site and have median incomes in excess of $80,000, Johnson said.

Many of those folks live in pricey new townhome developments.

"Townhomes are proliferating in every little pocket in the area," said Larry Plotsky of the Plotsky Group, a real estate brokerage that's leasing space in a new strip center on Washington.

So far, much of the new commercial development has been concentrated between Westcott and Shepherd.

A CVS drugstore has just opened on Washington near T.C. Jester. And Mexican restaurant El Tiempo has moved its Katy Freeway location to a spot across the street. The cantina is said to be packed nightly, backing a theory that this area is underserved by retailers.

"A lot of the people eating and having drinks are walking back into the neighborhood," said the Michael Group's Jeff Trevino, a commercial real estate broker who works in the area. "They're walking back to their townhouses."

The mind games between Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchison about KBH's future plans continue on.

As Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison eyes a possible race against Gov. Rick Perry, a network of key Republican activists and power players is moving to send her a clear message: Don't do it.

In letters, e-mails and direct conversations, nervous Republicans have told Ms. Hutchison they want her to seek re-election and abandon thoughts of targeting the incumbent governor in what they expect would be a fractious GOP primary.

Aides to Ms. Hutchison, who will spend next week on a fund-raising tour of the state, dismiss the effort. They say that the opposition is being orchestrated by the Perry political camp and that Ms. Hutchison has widespread support.

But the prospects of an expensive, intra-party battle between the two has rattled many of the GOP faithful, according to interviews with top Republicans and supporters on both sides.

"It would be like throwing a hand grenade in a chicken yard," said former Texas Republican Party chairman George Strake, a Perry supporter.

Ms. Hutchison has not said whether she will try to unseat the governor, but she has floated the idea in conversations with fellow Republicans.

Her political team expressed confidence she has a strong backing within the party, and contended that some who would prefer to avoid an intramural feud will side with her if she makes the race.

"The amount of support from average people has been shocking – people out of the blue coming up to her," said Hutchison campaign manager Terry Sullivan.

Via PerryVsWorld.

A little perspective on $2/gallon gasoline.

If you think gasoline is expensive, be glad your SUV doesn't run on double half-caf mocha lattes.

At $32 per gallon, the popular Starbucks brew can make today's prices at the pump look like a real bargain.

Even so, a lot of drivers who complain about gasoline prices in excess of $2 per gallon seem to have no problem plunking down $3 or more for a designer cup of coffee.

[...]

Consider this. John Frieda's brilliant brunette color-boosting shampoo retails for $6.19 per tube at Randall's. That translates to a whopping $94 for a gallon. But even cheap-o bottles of Suave that sell for 89 cents on sale ring up to $8.14 for a gallon. That's four times the average price for regular unleaded in Houston.

Art Smith, an energy consult with John S. Herold, says when broken down, the overall price-per-mile ratio in this country still comes out to a mere 10 cents.

"Would you pay a dime to not have to push your car down the highway for a mile?" Smith asks. "I would."

I've seen several takes on this NYT story on the waxing and waning of Tom DeLay's role in the Schiavo affair and how his front-and-center appearance may affect his name ID in 2006. Obviously, Democrats would love nothing more than to be able to run against him in '06 as they did against Newt Gingrich in 1996 and 1998, but up until now he's been mostly a backstage presence. There's some evidence that both his name ID and his overall negatives are on the rise lately, but I don't think they're at the point yet where his invocation would make much difference. I stress the "yet".

I'm not up to an involved analysis here. Two takes on the subject that I recommend are those of The Daily DeLay and Julia. For further reading on the Schiavo case and DeLay's involvement, try this LA Times story, which was mentioned in less detail in the book "The Hammer". It'd be nice if the Chron picked this one up; not as nice as if they'd done the work themselves, of course, but still better than nothing. Via Greg.

I always appreciate stories like this, which help me to realize where the current bounds of my cynicism are.

The leader of Texas' largest business association is endorsing a proposal that would make it more expensive for racetracks to operate slot machines – just weeks after the tracks turned down his offer to promote their interests in a statewide campaign.

Bill Hammond, president of the Texas Association of Business and one of the state's most powerful lobbyists, recommended to his group's executive committee on March 18 that it endorse a requirement to auction licenses for slot machines. In a memo, Mr. Hammond wrote that bidding would raise between $2 billion and $4 billion for the state, which would issue the licenses.

But just two weeks ago, Mr. Hammond offered to tout the racetracks' position – that bids are unnecessary because slot machines would raise plenty of revenue for the state and that tracks, which already feature betting, are a natural home for the machines. Tommy Azopardi, the executive director of the Texas Horsemen's Partnership, said his group turned down Mr. Hammond's overture several weeks ago because the group's budget could not accommodate more lobbyists.

"That is very disappointing that he'd be taking that approach," Mr. Azopardi said Thursday of Mr. Hammond's recommendation for an auction.

Mr. Hammond did not return a phone call seeking comment. In a written statement, he said his recommendation is consistent with the association's philosophy.

"As we have for years, we support VLTs at racetracks and now are also considering supporting the auctioning of VLT licenses," he said, using an abbreviation for "video lottery terminals," the technical name for the slot machines. "If TAB were to support auctioning, it would be because it would produce more non-tax revenue for the state."

Texas lawmakers are considering several proposals to legalize gambling. A popular plan calls for putting slot machines at horse and greyhound racetracks. The tracks, which are losing money, want exclusive rights to operate the machines as a way to boost their revenue.

Some lobbyists and lawmakers have suggested out-of-state casinos are pushing for the state to take bids. In the past, the casinos have opposed slots at Texas racetracks, concerned it would reduce the number of Texans gambling at casinos and racetracks in Louisiana and New Mexico.

"If I was an out-of-state casino, that is the position I would take," said Elton Bomer, a lobbyist who received Mr. Hammond's original offer. "I would want to auction off these things, which would give me a better chance of getting them."

Some lawmakers are uncomfortable with giving an exclusive license to racetracks to operate slots. They say the state is giving up money it could earn by auctioning the licenses to the highest bidder.

Track operators argue that an auction would delay the start of gambling and thus the flow of money to the state. The tracks say they are ready to set up the machines and begin wagering as soon as the Legislature and voting public approve new gaming.

Craig McDonald, director of watchdog group Texans for Public Justice, said Mr. Hammond's quick change of position makes it "look like Mr. Hammond has put the TAB up for sale to the highest bidder."

"These types of side deals should be disclosed, so people know that when TAB is speaking, it is speaking out of financial self-interest, rather than for the good of its members," Mr. McDonald said.

For what it's worth, and however Hammond arrived at it, I think this is the correct position to take. If we must have slot machines - and mind you, I'm nowhere close to conceding that point - then I see no reason why licenses for them should be excusively granted to one particular interest. Let the horse tracks compete with everybody else. Maybe they'll figure out how to make money that way.

Ready or not, here it might come.

Houston and Atlanta appear to be headed for a photo finish in the race to determine which city will host the 2009 Super Bowl.

Houston, Atlanta, Tampa and Miami are the finalists for Super Bowl XLIII that will be decided May 25 when the owners vote at the NFL summer meetings in Washington.

The four cities, all of which have hosted at least two Super Bowls, make final bids May 2.

Although no one will admit it publicly, league sources say Houston and Atlanta are the favorites to win the bid. Houston's last Super Bowl was 2004 and Atlanta's 2000.

Tax shelter crackdown bears fruit

The IRS has collected more than $3.2 billion, mainly from wealthy people, in its most ambitious effort ever to crack down on improper tax shelters, the agency said Thursday.

There's been "some real pain" among the 1,165 taxpayers who are participating in the "Son of Boss" tax shelter settlement, IRS Commissioner Mark Everson said at a news conference. "Some people have had to sell their villas and yachts" to come up with the money.

Ex-CEO felt stuck between looking greedy and guilty

Former General Electric Co. Chief Executive Jack Welch says the lavish perks he received in retirement were legitimate but admits in an upcoming television interview that they made him appear greedy.

Amid a wave of corporate scandals, details of Welch's perks emerged in court papers during his 2002 divorce from his wife of 13 years, Jane Beasley. He received millions of dollars in benefits, including unlimited personal use of GE's planes, office space and financial services.

After the perks became public, Welch reimbursed the company for many of them and now pays for use of aircraft and other services.

According to a transcript of a 60 Minutes Wednesday interview with Dan Rather, Welch says he faced a dilemma when the perks sparked controversy.

"I got two choices. Give the money back, renounce the perk. Then, if I do that, I look like I did something wrong, like I shouldn't have had it," Welch said. "Or keep the perk; then I look like a greedy pig."

Free advice, Jack: There was no value to the shareholder in all that boodle GE gave you as a going-away present. That was the reason you should have given them when you turned most of it down. Then you wouldn't have had that choice. Sadly, only someone with a functioning moral core would have realized that. Next time, hire someone like that to accompany you. It'll save you a lot of trouble later on.

Atrios points to this interesting post about the differences in pricing models for CDs and DVDs, and how that may be a contributing factor for lackluster performance in CD sales.

I think there's something to that, though the many comments which point out that movie studios have already made some amount of money before the DVDs ever hit the stores, which gives them a lot more flexibility on price, are worth considering. For me, about the only time I'm willing to part with $15 for a CD is when it's by a band I've heard perform live. Anything else, I'm hitting the used rack. I've been burned too many times by disks with one or two listenable songs.

What I keep coming back to is that I get very little exposure to music that I haven't heard before but might like. The bulk of my music experience is regular commercial radio, as I commute and run errands. I don't have the time (or the inclination at present) to find and sample music on the Internet, and I work in an open area, so listening on my computer is not an option. Listening to the radio is what I've got. Search my Music archives and you'll see that I've written many times about how I feel I've been poorly served by Houston's radio choices. My thesis has always been that if my situation is at all common, commercial radio and its stagnant formats have to take a lot of the blame for poor CD sales as well. How can you sell to an audience that's completely unfamiliar with your product?

(Case in point: Don's Records in Bellaire, one of the great places to buy music on vinyl in Houston, closed its doors within months of radio station KQUE changing its big band/easy listening format from FM to AM (and then eventually yanking it altogether) because they no longer had a place to advertise. Sales plummeted almost immediately, and they couldn't stay afloat.)

I mentioned last month that I started listening to KACC, and it's been a bit of a revelation. For the first time, I've heard music by the likes of Los Lonely Boys, The Donnas, and the Dave Matthews Band on my radio. Now, I'm sure you can hear these groups on the Top 40 stations, and maybe on a station like Mix 96.5, but my point here is that people like me (and I'm sure I'm not the only one here) don't care for - and for sure aren't the target demographic for - stations like those. I like and listen to rock radio, and it's a bit appalling to realize that the only station I can pick up that plays groups like those, as well as a wide variety of local artists, is a community college station out of Alvin. Those guys have obviously sold a few CDs in their day, but how many others, with a sound that isn't really suitable for the Top 40 crowd, have missed out? Heck, how many more CDs could they have sold if they'd been reaching the wider audience that they would be appealing to?

Maybe satellite radio is part of the solution. Looking at XM's offerings, I certainly see stuff I'd want to tune into. One of these days, I guess.

I'll be interested to see how (or if) commercial radio tries to compete with satellite. Since further specialization seems futile against an opponent that can boast multiple varieties of just about every format, maybe the answer is in finding ways to fuse different types of music into something that will have broader appeal. Just don't make the mistake that erstwhile 80s station 106.9 The Point made by grafting on 70s rockers like Steve Miller to their staple of Yaz and Depeche Mode. Putting aside the fact that in the 80s, no one listened to both Steve Miller and Depeche Mode, I can count at least four other stations that already play Steve Miller (93.7 the Arrow, 97.5 KIOL, Oldies 107.5, and yes, 89.7 KACC). What kind of listener they didn't already have that they thought they were reaching out to is a mystery to me, but the report via Banjo that a station doctor is on the way to fix things isn't.

I see I've kind of wandered away from my main point. Well, it's Saturday, I'm entitled to a little rambling. Bottom line: Radio badness has an effect on CD sales. Thank you and good night.

The Christian Science Monitor picks up on the story of politicians who blog. There's not a whole lot new to that angle, but I found this tidbit intriguing:

Entire communities have turned to the Web in hopes of providing information ignored by mainstream media that are gradually consolidating into fewer voices. Situated between Los Angeles and Anaheim - and largely overlooked by both - Bellflower, Calif., now sends out e-bulletins to residents - announcing Easter egg hunts and chili cook-offs once reported in newspapers.

"Generally it was just the shootings and robberies that made the news," says Jeff Hobbs, a city spokesman.

State Rep. Garnet Coleman had a strong op-ed piece in yesterday's Chron about the shortcomings of HB2, the school finance reform bill. Among other things, he noted the bill's ideological underpinnings. Coleman's web page contains a fuller analysis (PDF) of HB2 and a link to the Coalition to Invest in Texas Schools, which has way more resources for those wanting to do some followup study.

Hey, cool, they found soft tissue from a Tyrannosarus Rex. If anyone comes near it with frog DNA, my orders would be to shoot first and ask questions later. Via Julia.

Every day in the news there are many stories which require sober reflection, reasoned commentary, and a frank exchange of thoughtful views. This is not one of those stories.

It began as the fairly routine arrest of a drunken-driving suspect on a Houston street.

It quickly evolved into a maze of questions as investigators checked out reports that a Houston police officer had found nude photos of the driver stored in her cellular phone, downloaded them and later showed them around the courthouse.

Patrolman Christopher Green has been reassigned to desk duty pending the outcome of an internal investigation. His partner, George Miller, also has been reassigned while the department looks into reports that he called the DWI suspect's home to ask her out.

"We're sort of waiting to see what's going to happen," said Houston Police Officers' Union attorney Aaron Suder, who represents the officers.

Complicating matters is the fact that the 25-year-old woman, a native of China who is here on a student visa, speaks little English, her attorney says.

Some good news for Metro today.

The Federal Transit Administration's notice of intent to approve preliminary engineering next month for the Main Street light rail extension to Northline Mall and a new line to the southeast side clears a major hurdle for the Metropolitan Transit Authority's efforts to obtain half the projects' costs from Washington. The action is critical because it's difficult to obtain congressional appropriations for rail lines without the FTA's stamp of approval.

[...]

Metro submitted its two projects for federal review in August, hoping to obtain a recommendation by February, when the FTA makes its annual report to Congress. The MetroRail lines were not rated in that report last month, however, and the federal agency said at the time it was still reviewing the application.

The FTA rates proposed rail projects on criteria including construction and operating costs compared to forecasted ridership, land use, mobility improvements and environmental benefits.

Houston still has numerous steps toward obtaining the $390 million it needs for the 50 percent federal match on the Northline and Southeast sections. Voters approved the lines in 2003 and authorized bonds to finance the local share.

Anne says that Rep. John Culberon deserves the credit for this and that he's been made out to be an undeserving bad guy all the way through. That's certainly one way to look at it. I look at it this way:

"This is a first sign from the FTA that the light rail projects were positively reviewed and cleared to move forward," said Chris Paulitz, spokeswoman for Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas. "This is an important step toward completion of the Houston Metro system."

[...]

Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston, who sits on the House transportation appropriations subcommittee, said he will ask Congress to fund MetroRail at the same level as other projects.

"Metro is entitled to receive funding for preliminary engineering and I will submit their application for funding at a level proportional to similar projects in other cities," he said. "I will work to ensure Houston receives its fair share of transit funding."

I'm still not happy with Rep. Sylvester Turner, and I'm still not convinced that the telecom bill (also known as HB789) deserves to be passed despite the 145-1 vote in favor of it in the House, but he's at least taking a step in the right direction.

Turner said the bill opens up the market sooner than he would have liked, but he voted for it because of several consumer protections that were added during House debate.

Turner got eight amendments added to the bill and withdrew three others.

The bill includes an amendment, proposed by Turner, that freezes the rates for basic phone service for the next two years, something he said is important.

"For Grandma and Grandpa who are simply interested in having a basic service, and don't want the other smokes or whistles, their rates are going to remain the same," Turner said.
Turner said the bill opens up the market sooner than he would have liked, but he voted for it because of several consumer protections that were added during House debate.

Turner got eight amendments added to the bill and withdrew three others.

The bill includes an amendment, proposed by Turner, that freezes the rates for basic phone service for the next two years, something he said is important.

"For Grandma and Grandpa who are simply interested in having a basic service, and don't want the other smokes or whistles, their rates are going to remain the same," Turner said.

Other amendments added to benefit customers include allowing consumers to get three free directory-assistance calls a month and requiring municipalities to give consumers 30 days notice if they are raising fees.

Turner said he hopes the Senate, which will consider the bill after one more routine House vote, will further improve the legislation. He would like to see basic service defined as dial tone, call waiting and an additional feature.

The coverage is a bit confusing as to what exactly happened with municipal WiFi. Here's the Chron:

Rep. Robert Puente, D-San Antonio, originally offered an amendment that would have prevented municipalities from offering or expanding wireless networks. But after a long debate, the measure was changed to ban cities from charging for wireless services if they had not done so by Jan. 1, 2006.

Other key amendments that were passed include:

•A ban on cities operating Wi-Fi Internet networks except in public buildings and areas such as parks, or for limited purposes, such as bill-paying or emergency services.

Today, the Texas House approved an amended version of HB 789 that bans municipal wireless services. That's disappointing, of course, but the blow is somewhat softened by exceptions for existing and planned projects. The bill also calls for the State PUC (Public Utilities Commission) to conduct further study, and make recommendations for the next legislative session.

The amended bill would add a new section 54.2022 that prohibits municipalities from charging for wireless services. Existing services would be grandfathered. New services could be offered only on an amenity (i.e., free) basis. Cities can set up public/private partnerships where a private ISP provides service for a fee.

Cities would have until September 1, 2006 to setup these services (or until June 15, 2006 to inform the PUC about their plans to set up a service). After that, cities would be prohibited from offering wireless access—free or otherwise.

Turner was among several Democratic representatives from Houston, including Garnet Coleman, Scott Hochberg and Melissa Noriega, who argued that underserved populations should have access to wireless technology as well.

Several Texas cities have built or are building wireless networks in libraries, parks and neighborhoods.

Under the amendment, Technology For All, a Houston nonprofit group that has joined the city of Houston and Rice University to provide free, high-speed wireless Internet service to East End residents, can continue doing so. Will Reed, who heads the group, says providing Internet access is perhaps the single biggest thing cities can do to close the gap between information-age haves and have-nots.

Reed said he was hopeful the amendment would not affect plans to expand the program to other neighborhoods.

"We are going to have to figure out what this means for municipalities that are doing this kind of work," Reed said. "Cities need to have local choices that help them provide services to all of their citizens."

According to the DMN, Susan Hays is now the former Chair of the Dallas County Democratic Party. Byron applauds her decision, while Bill thinks it should have happened long ago. All I care about is having that group in fighting shape for next November, since we have more important things to worry about. Let's put this behind us and move on, OK?

UPDATE: As has been noted in the comments, Hays submitted her resignation for April 1, so until then she's still the Chair. Byron has a further update.

This Kos diary nicely summarizes the case against Tom DeLay as put together by Common Cause (you can also see it here and here.

There's more, so much more, from the NYT to the Charleston Gazette (reproduced here) to the Raw Story (via). Polls show DeLay's negatives and name recognition are up, while overall approval for Congress is down. I can't keep up with all the bad news for Tom DeLay and his buddies. Which is a good thing, since it means so many more people are noticing what a dirty, sleazy, corrupt, power-mad politician he is. No wonder he's been uttering bizarre, paranoid rants (via), which you can hear here.

Poor Tom. Couldn't be happening to a more deserving guy.

UPDATE: According to the Daily DeLay, last night's NightLine was about the DeLay scandals (you can see video of it here). One of the guests was apparently Bev Carter, who devotes another column to the unlovely son of Fort Bend (via Swing State Project).

Oh, and add the Salt Lake Tribune to the list of DeLay-bashers.

If you're still sorting through the tea leaves looking for a reason why Kay Bailey Hutchison would abandon the Senate for a cage match against Rick Perry, here's one: In her 1994 campaign, she pledged to serve no more than two full terms as a Senator.

Hutchison made her promise in television ads and personal statements in 1994, and on election night she said:

"I've always said that I would serve no more than two full terms. This may be my last term, or I could run for one more. But no more after that. I firmly believe in term limitations and I plan to adhere to that."

[...]

Hutchison was first elected to the Senate in 1993 in a special election after Lloyd Bentsen was appointed Treasury secretary.

She made term limits a major promise of her 1994 re-election campaign and included it in television commercials produced by David Weeks of Austin. Weeks now works for Perry's campaign.

Term limits were a popular Republican campaign issue in 1994, serving as a centerpiece of Newt Gingrich's Contract with America. Term limits also were one of the first agenda items dropped by Republicans once they gained control of the U.S. House.

It's all amusing but little more than a sideshow distraction nowadays. One-time support for term limits among current (almost exclusively Republican) incumbents is to the Nineties what pot smoking was to the Sixties: everyone who was anyone did it, nobody wants to talk about it now, and when forced to confront it, the accused chuckles nervously, shrugs his or her shoulders, makes vague references to the prevailing culture of the time, and changes the subject as quickly as possible. Next!

If you use Mozilla Firefox (and Lord knows, you should), please note there's a new version, 1.0.2, which fixes what they're calling a "risky" security flaw. It takes just a few seconds to download and install the upgrade, so hie yourselves over there and get on it.

Came home from work today and sat down at the computer only to see that I couldn't connect to any websites. The wireless router was showing good signal, so I shut down the PC and headed downstairs to reboot the cable modem. Crap - the "cable" light on the modem was off. Now I gotta call AOLTimeWarnerOfBorg tech support and hope to get an answer that doesn't involve "we can send a tech out next week" sometime before I have to pick up the baby from day care.

Well, first I need to walk the dog. Hey, look, it's an AOLTimeWarnerOfBorg van! And it's got a cable connected to a big ol' switch box. I ask the tech what's up, and he says ten people have already called about the problem, and he's there to fix it. Sweet!

Sure enough, by the time we get home, the cable modem is happily blinking away. Some days things just work out, you know?

While Rep. Sylvester Turner inexplicably carried forward a campaign finance-weakening bill on behalf of an anonymous colleague, twenty-five of his Republican friends were signing on to support a real campaign finance reform bill.

So far 36 House members, including nine Democrats and 27 Republicans, are backing House Bill 1348 by Reps. Craig Eiland, D-Galveston, and Todd Smith, R-Euless.

But [Fred Lewis with Campaigns for People] credits Rep. Terry Keel, R-Austin, with helping round up support among his fellow Republicans.

“We have more than a fifth of the House signed off (on the bill),” Lewis said. “And we haven’t worked the Democrats yet because we know they understand the issue after the 2002 election.”

This is hilarious. Start with a video in which Sen. Hillary Clinton says a few nice things about her Senate colleague Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, which gets widely circulated by email to those who work themselves into a lather at the mention of the name "Clinton".

Cathie Adams, head of the conservative Texas Eagle Forum, calls the video "very disturbing."

"Is she going to be loyal to a feminist philosophy or the Republican philosophy," Adams asked. "It seems to me, not only in this video but in her politics she is quite loyal to the feminist philosophy." Adams endorsed Perry several weeks ago.

Hutchison spokesman Chris Paulitz said employees of Gov. Rick Perry used state Republican leaders — many of whom have written Hutchison urging to abandon consideration of a challenge to Perry next year — to spread the video and "take silly political shots. Sen. Hutchison is doing her job and, at this critical time, the governor should focus on doing his."

Perry spokesman Luis Saenz said aides had nothing to do with the distribution among conservative activists of the 46-second video.

Perry's campaign director, Luis Saenz, had said Tuesday that Perry had nothing to do with the e-mail's distribution.

Saenz said Wednesday that the campaign paid $2,000 to a Washington firm, Upgrade Video, to tape the March 3 joint appearance at a Washington museum.

A Hutchison campaign spokesman, questioning the taping, charged Perry forces with "stalking" Hutchison.

Saenz replied: "News flash: Potential opponents trashing my governor are not going to get a free ride."

Can folks count on more to come?

"We're being very aggressive in everything we do," Saenz said. "And you ain't seen nothing yet."

Dos Centavos, Pink Dome, and PerryVsWorld, from whom I got these links, join in the mirth.

Yo! Rep. Sylvester Turner! What the hell are you doing?

Legislation that would allow political candidates and committees to violate legal restrictions on contributions without being subject to civil, monetary penalties has been filed in the Texas House by a member of Speaker Tom Craddick's leadership team.

The president of a campaign-finance watchdog group called the bill a "disaster" for campaign ethics.

The sponsor, Speaker Pro Tem Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, said the measure, which he didn't write, is more far-reaching than he intended and said he will scale it back to cover only minor violations of campaign-reporting requirements.

"I've got to look to see what's all included in there," he said when asked about the legislation.

As filed, House Bill 3148, which is pending in the House Elections Committee, would repeal sections of state law that allow opponents or the state to sue for monetary penalties from candidates and committees that make or accept illegal political donations.

[...]

The bill wouldn't affect Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle's continuing criminal investigation into the use of corporate money in the 2002 legislative races. And it would allow the Texas Ethics Commission to continue issuing administrative fines for campaign-finance violations.

But [Fred Lewis, president of Campaigns for People, a nonpartisan campaign-finance reform group], said the Ethics Commission has never acted aggressively against violators. Criminal investigations are rare, he said, because many campaign violations are misdemeanors.

The possibility of a civil lawsuit — although relatively few are filed — is a greater deterrent to illegal campaign activity, Lewis said.

"The bill is a disaster. It will essentially gut the civil enforcement of our election code," he added.

Turner said he accepted the bill from another legislator, whom he declined to identify. He said the lawmaker wasn't Craddick.

Turner said his intent was to restrict lawsuits brought over a candidate's failure to fully identify all political contributors, including addresses, on campaign finance filings.

First, if you're going to submit a bill with the goal that it will do X, don't actually sumbit a bill whose language indicates it will do Y and Z and then tell us you'll fix it before it comes to a vote. Get the intent right up front before you hand it in so we're all clear from the beginning what you've got in mind. And if that means that you're unable to meet the deadline for filing new legislation, tough. If that's the case, it couldn't have been that great a priority for you.

Second...Let me get this straight. At a time when there's a bipartisan and broadly supported effort to strengthen campaign finance laws, you're submitting a bill to roll back existing laws, and you're doing it on behalf of some other legislator who apparently hasn't got the guts to let you say his or her name in public? You do know that there's also a scurrilous partisan effort to weaken campaign finance laws, right? Whose bidding are you doing and why are you doing it?

I can understand your change of heart on gambling, even if I don't agree with it and even if I fear that it's a tactical error to do so. But this? This I don't understand at all. Help me out here, Rep. Turner. What the hell are you doing?

What with the baby and all, I'm not too likely to see the "Wonder Woman" movie in the theaters, even if Joss Whedon writes and directs it. But on the odd chance that I am able to catch it, I hope Whedon follows this advice. The Chron's weekly "TMI" feature (which is apparently not online) weighed the pros and cons of such luminaries as Jessica Simpson and Beyonce as Wonder Woman. That's exactly the kind of catastrophic error that the MTV piece hopes Whedon (or more likely, the money people who'll make the ultimate decisions) can avoid. The whole world is watching, Joss. Don't screw it up. Via Amanda.

Inside the Texas Capitol takes an in-depth look at HB789 and confirms my suspicion that the more you look at it, the more you find beyond the muni WiFi ban to dislike. Frankly, at this point, King amendments or no, I hope this bill dies an ugly death. But click over first and see for yourself.

I should, of course, have posted that earlier in the day. Now that the House has debated HB789, an amended version has been passed. I suspect that many of the bad parts that ItTC and others have pointed out are still in there, so I hope sufficient attention will still be paid to it now that it's in the Senate's hands.

Will we not have Barry Bonds to kick around anymore?

Coming off knee surgery and caught up in baseball's steroids scandal, Barry Bonds said he might not play at all this season — despite standing on the doorstep of the sport's most hallowed record.

The San Francisco Giants slugger also said he was physically and mentally "done," and he blamed the media for at least part of his troubles.

"I'm tired of my kids crying. You wanted me to jump off a bridge — I finally did," Bonds told reporters Tuesday, shortly after returning to training camp. "You finally brought me and my family down. ... So now go pick a different person."

[...]

Bonds said he was tired and disappointed following a winter in which he was accused of steroid use, his grand jury testimony was leaked and he had two knee operations.

Leaning his head on a crutch and repeatedly saying he was tired — he used the word 14 times — Bonds spoke after a 1 1/2 -hour session with Giants trainer Stan Conte.

"Right now I'm just going to try to rehab myself to get back to, I don't know, hopefully next season, hopefully the middle of the season," Bonds said. "I don't know. Right now I'm just going to take things slow.

"I'm 40 years old, not 20, 30."

As far as reasons go, Tom speculates that Bonds believes bad things are coming in the grand jury probe of BALCO. That may be, and if so it will be a shame, but a shame that hasn't gotten nearly the attention it deserves is that any of us knows anything at all about the testimony given so far in that probe. It's supposed to be secret, remember, and frankly I think those of us with any outrage to spare ought to aim a bit of it in the direction of whoever has been leaking details from the grand jury room. Whatever else you may think of Barry Bonds (and Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire and so forth), they didn't deserve to have their Constitutional rights violated like that.

Scott reports that State Rep. Eddie Rodriguez appears to be ready to join his colleague Aaron Pena in the blog world. For what it's worth, I'll second Scott's recommendation to aim for a different site design.

Rodriguez is considered one of the brighter lights on the Democratic side these days. This AusChron profile from a couple of weeks back gives you a good idea why you'll probably be hearing his name a lot more in the coming years (link via Latinos for Texas).

Forget Chicago. Ray in Austin is claiming credit as the progenitor. Personally, I think we may have ourselves a Newton/Leibniz situation here. I'll leave it to the historians to decide who's right.

Major congratulations to Tennessee coach Pat Summit for becoming the winningest college basketball coach of all time.

The Tennessee coach broke Dean Smith's career victory record Tuesday, getting No. 880 in the Lady Vols' 75-54 win over Purdue in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Summitt tied Smith at 879 with an easy win over Western Carolina in the first round Sunday night and passed the former North Carolina men's coach with another convincing victory. Summitt improved to 880-171, while Smith was 879-254 when he retired in 1997 after 36 years with the Tar Heels.

After the game, NCAA officials presented Summitt with the game ball and a plaque. And the university said the court at Thompson-Boling Arena will be named "The Summitt."

Comptroller Strayhorn's letter warning of fiscal imbalances in HB3 has provoked a strong reaction.

"Maybe she is playing politics or maybe she and her staff are inept," said House Speaker Tom Craddick, who added he was taken aback by the news.

"Either way, I assure you that we stand by this bill. The comptroller's office certified it, and we are going forward with HB3 as is," he said.

Strayhorn said she could not begin analyzing HB3 until it was sent to the Senate last week because of the number of amendments that were added during floor debate.

[...]

Problems with HB3 began to emerge as soon as it was first voted out of committee on March 2. Strayhorn warned then that the bill would not raise enough revenue and on March 7, the committee reconsidered the bill and added the snack tax.

The committee version mandated all Texas businesses to pay a 1.15 percent tax on payroll. But as the bill headed toward floor debate, lobbyists for labor-intensive businesses such as grocery stores and airlines began complaining about the burden of the payroll tax.

A business-friendly alternative emerged that would allow companies to choose between the payroll tax and the franchise tax, which is 0.25 percent of assets or 4.5 percent of net income. Craddick delayed a scheduled floor debate for March 11 to work over the weekend on loopholes that might allow businesses to avoid paying.

Deputy Comptroller Billy Hamilton said he waited all that weekend to see new language to close the loopholes, but nothing was ever presented to him.

"If you give them the choice, chances are they're going to pay a lot less in tax," said Hamilton.

Hamilton said a loophole that would allow staff-leasing companies to avoid the payroll tax also was not addressed.

Strayhorn said Craddick told her on March 11 that "he did not need our help and would not need a fiscal note until the bill was sent to the Senate."

I think the most interesting tidbit in this story is right here:

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said he and senators knew months ago of the comptroller's concern about giving businesses tax options without setting a minimum requirement. He declined to discuss the House plan.

HB789, known for its provision that would forbid municipalities from offering free WiFi services, is up for debate today, and there's more than just that bad part of the bill to worry about.

Earlier versions of House Bill 789 said dominant providers such as SBC Communications Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. could opt to set their own rates — currently regulated by the Public Utility Commission — if they also cut the access fees they charge competitors and gave up the millions of dollars in Universal Service Fund subsidies that support service in rural areas.

The proposal headed to the House today would deregulate phone rates for most Texans by 2008 if the service is sold in a bundle with other services, such as caller ID. Dominant providers also would have had to lower the access fees they charge competitors in order to set their own rates.

Instead of ending Universal Service Fee subsidies, the bill directs the PUC to arrange for a study of how the money is being spent and report back by 2007. In 2003, the fund paid phone companies $583 million, with SBC and Verizon together getting more than half.

With new technologies and other changes, King contends that there's plenty of competition and that it's time to let the free market dictate prices. Less regulation would encourage companies to invest more in key technologies such as broadband Internet service, he said.

"I don't believe that the prices will go up. I believe they will actually go down" as a result of his bill, said King, chairman of the House Committee on Regulated Industries.

[...]

But consumer groups and some competitors say the bill is tantamount to a free ride for major providers such as SBC and Verizon.

"This bill offers big phone companies tremendous benefits without asking much in return," said Tim Morstad, policy analyst for the southwest office of Consumers Union.

Morstad pointed to a recent PUC study showing that nearly 80 percent of traditional phone lines are still in the hands of major companies such as SBC.

[...]

[HB789] also would diminish the the PUC's role in handling complaints on issues such as slamming and cramming — the practice of signing up or billing customers for services they didn't request, Morstad said. Instead, the state would let federal regulators worry about those issues.

"Nearly every state has slamming and cramming (laws) on their books," Morstad said. "And getting satisfaction on slamming and cramming . . . from Washington, D.C., seems like much more of a burden" than the Federal Communications Commission "needs to deal with."

Second, deregulating only for bundled services like Caller ID seems to me to defeat the whole purpose of letting the free market take over. Why won't customers who don't want to spring for Caller ID (and no doubt other "optional" services like call waiting) be given the same wondrous benefits of the truly free market? It's already likely the case that the only people who will see a really good deal are the ones who are willing and able to switch multiple services (including but not limited to local and long distance, high-speed Internet, cellular, cable/satellite TV, etc) to a single provider.

Finally, kicking the regulation of slamming and cramming out from the Public Utilities Commission seems at best premature and at worst anti-consumer. I can see value in letting the feds set the guidelines, and I can see value in letting them take matters to court (though honestly this sounds like the sort of thing that state Attorneys General are born to do), but I seriously doubt they're better suited to handle citizens' complaints.

On the bright side, it looks like HB789 might not survive the Senate.

Whatever emerges from the House today could face tough going in the Senate. Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, last week pulled back his bill on telecom.

"It's becoming increasingly obvious to me . . . that the incumbent telephone companies are not interested in competition," Fraser said. "They are only interested in raising revenues by raising rates and maintaining subsidies at their current levels."

I heard this on this past Saturday's edition of "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me!" (it's Limerick Challenge #3, which you can see and hear here) - the mystery of why drunks shout "Freebird!" at concerts gets probed by the Wall Street Journal.

"It's just the most astonishing phenomenon," says Mike Doughty, the former front man of the "deep slacker jazz" band Soul Coughing, adding that "these kids, they can't be listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd."

Yelling "Freebird!" has been a rock cliché for years, guaranteed to elicit laughs from drunks and scorn from music fans who have long since tired of the joke. And it has spread beyond music, prompting the Chicago White Sox organist to add the song to her repertoire and inspiring a greeting card in which a drunk holding a lighter hollers "Freebird!" at wedding musicians.

Bands mostly just ignore the taunt. But one common retort is: "I've got your 'free bird' right here." That's accompanied by a middle finger. It's a strategy Dash Rip Rock's former bassist Ned Hickel used. According to fans' accounts of shows, so have Jewel and Hot Tuna's Jack Casady. Jewel declines to comment. Casady says that's "usually not my response to those kind of things."

Others have offered more than the bird. On a recent live album, Modest Mouse's Isaac Brock declares that "if this were the Make-a-Wish Foundation, and you were going to die in 20 minutes — just long enough to play 'Freebird' — we still wouldn't play it."

[...]

How did this strange ritual begin? "Freebird" is hardly obscure — it's a radio staple consistently voted one of rock's greatest songs. One version — and an important piece of the explanation — anchors Skynyrd's 1976 live album "One More From the Road."

On the record, singer Ronnie Van Zant, who was killed along with two other bandmates in a 1977 plane crash, asks the crowd, "What song is it you want to hear?" That unleashes a deafening call for "Freebird," and Skynyrd obliges with a 14-minute rendition.

To understand the phenomenon, it also helps to be from Chicago. [...] Kevin Matthews is a Chicago radio personality who has exhorted his fans — the KevHeads — to yell "Freebird" for years, and claims to have originated the tradition in the late 1980s, when he says he hit upon it as a way to torment Florence Henderson of "Brady Bunch" fame, who was giving a concert.

He figured somebody should yell something at her "to break up the monotony." The longtime Skynyrd fan settled on "Freebird," saying the epic song "just popped into my head."

Matthews says the call was heeded, inspiring him to go down the listings of coming area shows, looking for entertainers who deserved a "Freebird" and encouraging the KevHeads to make it happen.

But he bemoans the decline of "Freebird" etiquette. "It was never meant to be yelled at a cool concert — it was meant to be yelled at someone really lame," he says. "If you're going to yell 'Freebird,' yell 'Freebird' at a Jim Nabors concert."

[...]

It's possible "Freebird" began as a rallying cry for Skynyrd Nation and a sincere request from guitar lovers, was made famous by the live cut, taken up by ironic clubgoers, given new life by Matthews, and eventually lost all meaning and became something people holler when there's a band onstage.

But as with many mysteries, the true origin may be unknowable — cold comfort for bands still to be confronted with the inevitable cry from the darkness.

For them, here's a strategy tried by a brave few: Call the audience's bluff. Phish liked to sing it a cappella. The Dandy Warhols play a slowed-down take singer Courtney Taylor-Taylor describes as sung "like T. Rex would if he were on a lot of pills." And Dash Rip Rock has performed the real song in order to surprise fans expecting the parody.

For his part, Doughty suggests that musicians make a pact: Whenever anyone calls for "Freebird," play it in its entirety — and if someone calls for it again, play it again.

"That would put a stop to 'Freebird,' I think," he says. "It would be a bad couple of years, but it might be worth it."

So what do the members of Skynyrd think of the tradition? Johnny Van Zant, Ronnie's brother and the band's singer since 1987, says "it's not an insult at all — I think it's kind of cool. It's fun, and people are doing it in a fun way. That's what music's supposed to be about."

Besides, Van Zant has a confession: His wife persuaded him to see Cher in Jacksonville a couple of years ago, and he couldn't resist yelling "Freebird!" himself. "My wife is going, 'Stop! Stop!' " he recalls, laughing. "I embarrassed the hell out of her."

I received an email yesterday from the fellow in San Antonio who runs a blog called The Jeffersonian. He's got a nice post up about the upcoming Mayoral race, and promises regular updates on the subject, for which I'll be watching with interest. Check it out, there's lots of good stuff there.

The Chron has a story today about something near and dear to my heart - a battle between Heights homeowners and a developer.

After work and on weekends, between appointments or during lunch breaks, a half-dozen or so Heights residents have logged hundreds of hours in their campaign to block a planned condominium project in their neighborhood.

They've created a Web site, collected hundreds of petition signatures, met with city officials, exchanged countless e-mails and explored the intricacies of the city's development code. Five months after their efforts started, they're on a first-name basis with city Planning Department officials and City Council aides.

Like their counterparts in neighborhoods throughout Houston, these Heights residents are frustrated by the difficulty of fending off development they believe will increase flooding risks, clog their quiet streets with traffic or threaten their children's safety.

They are heartened, however, by stirrings of change within the City Planning Commission, a group of 21 volunteers who provide the primary public forum for arbitrating land-use disputes in the nation's only major city without zoning.

In December, Mayor Bill White installed new leadership on the commission and instructed the panel to find ways to protect neighborhoods more effectively while sustaining growth and development.

"We're going to be challenged to think of how we can do certain things differently in the future than in the past, unless we want to see increased flooding, congestion, deteriorating air quality," White told the commission on Jan. 27.

Mark Sterling, a physicist who has led the opposition to the Viewpoint Condominiums, said the project is a good illustration of development conflicts in Houston and a test of the reorganized Planning Commission's commitment to protecting neighborhoods.

"Viewpoint seems to represent so many elements of poor planning," Sterling said. "In the fog of war, it just started looking like the perfect fight."

[...]

Guided by recommendations from the city's professional planners, the commission determines whether projects comply with rules for site access, lot sizes, building setbacks and related matters. It meets every two weeks to review dozens of subdivision plats, which describe how property is to be divided for development projects.

White said he wants the commission to move beyond plat review and create committees to examine the city's development policies and recommend any needed changes.

Leading this effort is the commission's new chairwoman, Carol A. Lewis, a Texas Southern University professor and former Metropolitan Transit Authority board member. Supporters of stronger local planning said White's choice of an academic with expertise in transportation planning was a clear signal that he is serious about changing the commission's role.

One of the most urgent questions facing Lewis is how, or whether, the commission should seek greater authority and discretion to balance neighborhood and development.

Under city laws, the commission is required to approve plats that meet development rules, even if the project seems inappropriate because of factors that fall outside the scope of plat review, such as traffic or flooding. This is often frustrating to members of the public who appear at commission meetings to complain about these issues.

[...]

Critics of the current arrangement said plat approval creates momentum for projects that might be harmful to existing neighborhoods.

"Once the plat is approved, virtually every developer thinks that (the building permit) is going to be approved," said Kay Crooker, a neighborhood advocate who has served on the commission for 21 years.

The most contentious projects the commission reviews tend to be those for which developers request variances, or exceptions, to the city's code.

Officials at innerLoopCondos.com asked for three variances for Viewpoint. The application was on the commission's agenda last month, but the developer withdrew it the day before the meeting. The company said it intends to resubmit the application without changing its basic concept for the project.

Suzy Hartgrove, a spokeswoman for the city Planning Department, said the staff intended to recommend denial of the variances, although the developer did not know this when it withdrew the application.

Opponents of the 64-unit, midrise project said the site is inappropriate for development and would be better used as a park.

The only access would be a bridge the developer would build across a ravine that drains into White Oak Bayou. The bridge would start at the dead end of 5th Street. City rules require two access points for such projects, which prompted one of the variance requests.

I think to really get a feel for where this is and why the residents might be concerned, you need to see some pictures. I drove by with my digital camera and took some shots. Click the More link to see them.

This is a view of the area from the I-10 service road, which is south of the proposed development. To the left (west) is a new luxury apartment complex called the Alexan Heights. It faces Oxford Street and runs from the I-10 service road to 4 1/2 street, two blocks away.

The Alexan Heights from Oxford and 4th, one block north of I-10.

One more block north at Oxford and 4 1/2 Street. I'm showing you this so you'll know what the borders of the proposed development are, and also so you'll see that there really is no other way in to Oxford and 5th.

And here we are at Oxford and 5th. The bridge mentioned in the story begins where the street dead-ends.

The official Notice of Variance Request, with some editorial comments from the residents.

More editorial comments.

The view behind the fence, as best as I can get it. It looks like what's directly behind the dead-end fence is already owned by someone, though the townhome it's connected to is under construction and for all I know may be owned by the InnerLoop people. If not, well, how much would you need to be paid to have a public bridge built over your back yard?

Moving over to the corner of Frasier and 5 1/2, we see another defaced InnerLoop sign.

A view of the behind-the-fence lot from Frasier. The dead-end fence is just to the left of the townhome. It's hard to see, but that cyclone fence continues all the way around the lot, behind the plastic child's playground unit, which is the box in the middle of the picture. My guess is that the bridge will have to cross over all of this.

Where I think the condos will be built, just east of the fenced-in lot. The downtown skyline view is the obvious attraction.

Another view of the lot.

I should note that there's no fence at the junction of Frasier and 5 1/2 (it's not an intersection, as both roads end where they meet), so I suppose there could be a second access point via Frasier (5 1/2 goes one block and deadends at the next street over, whose name escapes me). Indeed, other than the fact that Frasier is a really narrow little road and it doesn't have a direct connection to the I-10 service road like Oxford does, it would seem to be the more natural entry point to the proposed development, since no bridge would need to be built. I can only presume that the developer planned on having the units face the downtown skyline, which would make the entrance from 5th Street more appealing. Nonetheless, if it comes down to it, rejigging the design would surely be preferable than leaving the land fallow, at least from InnerLoop's perspective.

This in my mind is a good example of the kind of undesireable density that gets proposed in the Heights and other inner city areas. The infrastructure isn't capable of handling it, and in this case at least, there's not much anyone can do about it except deny it. Maybe the city can make an offer to buy the land back from InnerLoop, assuming of course that it has that kind of cash lying around.

Finally, I'm glad to see that Mayor White respects the needs and values of his urban constituents enough to want to give some teeth to the Planning Department. There really isn't any other viable counterforce to the developers, and it's high time there was one. Someone has to look out for the people who get impacted by this sort of thing.

Never let it be said that our Lege does not have a finely honed sense of irony.

Last week, newspapers around the country banded together for Sunshine Week, an effort to publicize the importance of open government and public access of government records.

Today, the state House of Representatives responded by moving to take more records out of reach of the public.

The House voted to expand the definition of audits in the Texas Public Information Act. The word now includes audits that are authorized by city charters, ordinances and county commissioners’ court orders. Previously, the term referred only to audits authorized or required by a state or federal statute, according to a House Research Organization analysis.

The effect of the change is that working papers used to draft audits now would not have to be released to the public. Information that auditors discover but do not report might turn up in such working papers.

The vote was, apparently, unanimous. It was approved on a voice vote, meaning lawmakers did not have to publicly record their votes. The bill, House Bill 1285, still requires a final vote of the House as well as approval by the Texas Senate.

I must say, I was unimpressed with Sunshine Week. Not with the concept, which I think is valuable, but with the execution. Maybe other newspapers actually paid more attention to it than the Chron did, but a Sunday editorial followed by basically nothing isn't my idea of a weeklong look at the value of open-government laws. If that's what we have to expect, I'd say cut it back to a day and be done with it.

Me, earlier today:

I'm sure Judge Whittemore's ruling won't be the end of [the Terri Schiavo case], just as I'm sure that pre-ruling stories which proclaimed him fair and unbiased will be non-operative within the next hour or so.

U.S. District Court Judge James Whittemore has defied Congress by not staying Terri Schiavo's starvation execution for the time it takes him to hold a full hearing on her case, a leading Republican senator said Tuesday.

"You have judicial tyranny here," Santorum told WABC Radio in New York. "Congress passed a law that said that you had to look at this case. He simply thumbed his nose at Congress."

"What the statute that [Whittemore] was dealing with said was that he shall hold a trial de novo," the Pennsylvania Republican explained. "That means he has to hold a new trial. That's what the statute said."

"What he's saying is, 'I don't have to hold a new trial because I've already determined that her rights have been protected,'" Santorum said.

"That's nice for him to say that But that's not what Congress told him to do," he added. "Judges should obey the law. And this judge - in my mind - simply ignored the law."

UPDATE: John Cole called it, too.

UPDATE: Via The Stakeholder, the scandal-plagued Tom DeLay has now reacted to Judge Whittemore's ruling:

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican, said in a statement Whittemore's ruling is "at odds with both the clear intent of Congress and the constitutional rights of a helpless young woman."

The legislation Congress passed requires a "new and full review" of the case, DeLay said. "I firmly believe the circuit court will give the case a full and appropriate review."

Comptroller Strayhorn has released a letter (PDF) which criticizes HB3 for not coverning the proposed property tax cuts with alternate revenue.

In Fiscal Year 2006, the bill raises $2.8 billion in new state taxes with no local property tax relief. In Fiscal Year 2007 - the first year of property tax reduction - the property tax reduction of $5.8 billion exceeds the offsetting increase in state revenue of $4 billion by $1.8 billion. In Fiscal Year 2008, the property tax reduction exceeds state revenues by $2 billion. In 2009, the imbalance is $2.3 billion and the imbalance continues to grow each year thereafter.

The problem with the Bill not balancing is entirely in Article 2, which is the business tax section of the Bill. The Bill's revised business tax is designed to give taxpayers a choice between a payroll tax base and a franchise tax base. The Bill does not provide for a minimum tax. Taxpayers will simply plan around the tax as easily as they do the current franchise tax. For those firms currently playing the franchise tax, and given the tax rates used for the franchise and payroll components, providing taxpayers with a choice of tax bases greatly reduces their tax liability. New firms would be added, but they too would have the same choice of tax bases and therefore their inclusion would not close the funding gap. Additionally, there are various ways of avoiding the tax - such as replacing existing staff with leased staff.

Via Pink Dome. Now we all know about Strayhorn's aspirations to higher office, and there's been little she loves more than bashing Governor Perry for his many sins (though this letter here is very straightforward and doesn't mention the Governor), but I think her point about ways of evading the tax is well taken. The whole reason why we need to reform the franchise tax is because any firm that wants to can avoid paying it. Replacing it with another tax that can be just as easily beaten by legal maneuvering is pointless. Make it simple, make it comprehensive, and make it applicable to everyone who should be paying it. Let's hope the Senate is up to the challenge.

UPDATE: Andrew D has more.

And now for something a little less weighty: The City of Freeport in Brazoria County has designated an official red-light district inside its borders.

In a 4-0 vote Monday night, City Council approved the district on a 40-acre tract extending west from Commerce Street and north from Texas 332, more than a mile from the nearest residential neighborhood.

Businesses could include adult book and video stores, cabarets, adult theaters, escort agencies and nude modeling studios.

Although there are no sexually oriented businesses in Freeport, city leaders have been working on how to handle the businesses if they want to locate in the southern Brazoria County town.

You'd think a headline like the one just above would be pretty banal, but when dealing with the Terri Schiavo case, nothing has been normal. I'm sure Judge Whittemore's ruling won't be the end of it, just as I'm sure that pre-ruling stories which proclaimed him fair and unbiased will be non-operative within the next hour or so.

One thing I want to note from the ruling story before this gets appealed to the Supreme Court, the World Court, and the Pope:

[David Gibbs III, an attorney for Terri Schiavo's parents] argued at a Monday hearing in front of Whittemore that letting Terri Schiavo starve would be "a mortal sin" under her Roman Catholic beliefs and urged quick action: "Terri may die as I speak."

This has nothing to do with the sanctity of life. The Roman Catholic Church has a consistent 400-year-old tradition that I'm sure you are familiar with. It says nobody is obliged to undergo extraordinary means to preserve life.

This is Holy Week, this is when the Catholic community is saying, "We understand that life is not an absolute good and death is not an absolute defeat." The whole story of Easter is about the triumph of eternal life over death. Catholics have never believed that biological life is an end in and of itself. We've been created as a gift from God and are ultimately destined to go back to God. And we've been destined in this life to be involved in relationships. And when the capacity for that life is exhausted, there is no obligation to make officious efforts to sustain it.

This is not new doctrine. Back in 1950, Gerald Kelly, the leading Catholic moral theologian at the time, wrote a marvelous article on the obligation to use artificial means to sustain life. He published it in Theological Studies, the leading Catholic journal. He wrote, "I'm often asked whether you have to use IV feeding to sustain somebody who is in a terminal coma." And he said, "Not only do I believe there is no obligation to do it, I believe that imposing those treatments on that class of patients is wrong. There is no benefit to the patient, there is great expense to the community, and there is enormous tension on the family."

"One thing that God has brought to us is Terri Schiavo, to help elevate the visibility of what is going on in America," Mr. DeLay told a conference organized by the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group. A recording of the event was provided by the advocacy organization Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

"This is exactly the issue that is going on in America, of attacks against the conservative movement, against me and against many others," Mr. DeLay said.

If you want to make your wishes known beforehand and want to make sure that they meet the standards set by the laws in your state, Stina has an exhaustive list of advance directives. For the record, and for any family members who may be reading this, if I were in Terri Schiavo's situation, I'd want to be allowed to die.

When last we checked in, the ban on free municipal wireless networking had been dropped from HB789, but as the bill was still in committee and as the ban is favored by Regulated Industries Committee Chair Phil King, it ain't over by a long shot. According to Inside the Texas Capitol, the bill has been put on the calendar for Wednesday, so as before, now is an excellent time to contact your rep and tell him to keep that provision out.

As always, Save Muni Wireless has more, such as the success story of Taylor, Texas. Check it out.

Wow.

A genius like Abramoff doesn't spring fully formed on his own. Just as Michelangelo emerged in the ferment of Renaissance Italy, so did Abramoff emerge from his own circle of creativity and encouragement.

Back in 1995, when Republicans took over Congress, a new cadre of daring and original thinkers arose. These bold innovators had a key insight: that you no longer had to choose between being an activist and a lobbyist. You could be both. You could harness the power of K Street to promote the goals of Goldwater, Reagan and Gingrich. And best of all, you could get rich while doing it!

Before long, ringleader Grover Norquist and his buddies were signing lobbying deals with the Seychelles and the Northern Mariana Islands and talking up their interests at weekly conservative strategy sessions - what could be more vital to the future of freedom than the commercial interests of these two fine locales?

Before long, folks like Norquist and Abramoff were talking up the virtues of international sons of liberty like Angola's Jonas Savimbi and Congo's dictator Mobutu Sese Seko - all while receiving compensation from these upstanding gentlemen, according to The Legal Times. Only a reactionary could have been so discomfited by Savimbi's little cannibalism problem as to think this was not a daring contribution to the cause of Reaganism.

[...]

Ralph Reed, meanwhile, smashed the tired old categories that used to separate social conservatives from corporate consultants. Reed signed on with Channel One, Verizon, Enron and Microsoft to shore up the moral foundations of our great nation. Reed so strongly opposes gambling as a matter of principle that he bravely accepted $4 million through Abramoff from casino-rich Indian tribes to gin up a grass-roots campaign.

As time went by, the spectacular devolution of morals accelerated. Many of the young innovators were behaving like people who, having read Barry Goldwater's "Conscience of a Conservative," embraced the conservative part while discarding the conscience part.

Abramoff's and Scanlon's Indian-gaming scandal will go down as the movement's crowning achievement, more shameless than anything the others would do, but still the culmination of the trends building since 1995. It perfectly embodied their creed and philosophy: "I'd love us to get our mitts on that moolah!!" as Abramoff wrote to Reed.

They made at least $66 million.

This is a major accomplishment. And remember: Abramoff didn't do it on his own.

It took a village. The sleazo-cons thought they could take over K Street to advance their agenda. As it transpired, K Street took over them.

UPDATE: JesseLee presses the issue further.

UPDATE: Steve Clemons notes a connection to John Bolton. I'm sure there's much more where that came from.

Here's a little science for your Monday: thirteen things which do not make sense. Feel free to add your own items in the comments. Via Milk River.

The first cut of a Senate budget is out.

Senate budget writers today approved a $139 billion two-year budget that restores some cuts made to health and human services programs two years ago, increases salaries for state workers and state troopers and gives more money to higher education.

The Senate Finance Committee also boosted funding for the troubled Child Protective Services agency and approved more money for probation and alternatives to incarceration to slow prison population growth.

The spending plan for 2006-2007 is a 10 percent increase over the current two-year budget cycle and includes $66.2 billion in state funds. The rest comes from federal funds.

Budget writers did not face as tight of a money pinch this year as they did two years ago when they drafted the 2004-2005 budget while facing a nearly $10 billion shortfall.

"This is a good budget," said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Steve Ogden. "It's well thought out. There is bipartisan support."

Finance Committee member Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, was the only lawmaker to voice some opposition when he voted present not voting on the plan.

[...]

On education, state lawmakers allocated $1.5 billion to fund enrollment growth, but school funding likely does not end with this budget proposal. Aside from the budget, lawmakers are working to put together a new funding plan to pay for Texas schools, and they have pledged that schools will get additional money.

Funding for higher education would grow by 8 percent, or about $800 million, under the Senate plan. A provision in the budget takes away some state funds from colleges that raise their tuition too high. Lawmakers last legislative session gave universities the authority to set their own tuition rates and since then, tuition has increased about 16 percent.

Also included in the budget are pay raises for state employees of about 9 percent over the next two years. And Department of Public Safety troopers' salaries would increase to the state average for police officers in large Texas cities.

A wildcard in all this is the various proposals for expanded gambling, all of which continue to lurk in the background like stalkers. The bulk of the pro-gambling bills have been filed by Democrats, which Hotshot Casey thinks is a tactical error.

One perceptive Democratic operative summed it up well:
"A Democrat-backed gambling initiative will allow Perry, Craddick and (Lt. Gov. David) Dewhurst to take credit for balancing the budget, funding schools and not raising taxes.

Democrats will continue to be demonized as morally bankrupt, for carrying water for gaming interests and would take the blame for all the ills that gambling is likely to bring to the state."

His solution is for a coalition of Democratic leaders to take the lead in opposing gambling and force Republican leaders to make the difficult choice: "Take gambling off the table and find another source of revenue to fund schools or provide Republican support for gambling and split their base."

Will the Democratic leadership, if there is such a thing, do something so smart?

If I were a betting man, I don't think I'd put my money on the donkey.

(Casey column also noted by Stace.)

Continuing my weekend catchup, we have the first of what will likely be several diary entries on Daily Kos by Chris Bell's Operations Manager Tim McCann. I believe we're going to see more of this kind of direct interaction between now and 2006, and I think as that happens, the bar is going to get raised a bit. By that I mean in order to impress the target audience, more will be expected of the candidates themselves and less from intermediaries, such as doing their own writing and taking some time in order to respond to comments. Or maybe this will all be a fad and no one will understand why any candidate would want to get involved like that in a year's time. But I don't think that will be the case.

I took a bit of a breather this weekend - the days were too nice, the baby was too active, and the NCAA opening round games were too interesting to spend too much time on the computer. So please indulge me as I catch up on a couple of stories.

From the Sunday Chron, an overview of the San Antonio Mayoral race. Not much here that I hadn't seen before from reviewing Express News stories, but certainly useful if you hadn't done that. Couple of things to comment on:

In a nonpartisan election with an unpredictable turnout, the city is choosing a replacement for Mayor Ed Garza, who cannot seek re-election because of term limits.

Similarly, Castro and Schubert must vacate their council seats after four years in office.

[...]

The candidates are trying to distinguish themselves on a slew of issues, including strained city services, rambunctious suburban development and the ever-tenuous water supply. And then there are potholes, chronic flooding in some neighborhoods, traffic jams and struggling small businesses in need of city help.

Schubert, 57, the lone Republican among the three major contenders, vows to stick to "essential" city services. Castro, 30, speaks in visionary terms of improving city life and government. Hardberger, 70, plays the outsider role as he pledges to restore credibility to City Hall. But all their promises are tempered by one reality: The new mayor will have only two or four years to accomplish anything.

Four other candidates, none with significant resources or name recognition — they're routinely excluded from candidate forums — will also be on the May ballot.

Vigorous campaigning has been under way since January, and a series of polls, with varying degrees of reliability, have consistently listed Castro as the leader, though short of the majority needed to avoid a runoff.

Hardberger usually runs second in those polls.

Neither of his opponents sees Castro's apparent advantage as insurmountable.

John DeLorean dies at age 80.

John Z. DeLorean, an automotive innovator who left General Motors Corp. to develop a radically futuristic sports car only to see that venture crash spectacularly as he fought federal drug charges, has died of complications from a stroke. He was 80.

While apt to be remembered popularly as the man behind the car modified for time travel in the Back to the Future movies, DeLorean left a powerful imprint in automaking built on unique, souped-up cars.

Marty McFly: Wait a minute, Doc. Ah... Are you telling me you built a time machine... out of a DeLorean?

Dr. Emmett Brown: The way I see it, if you're gonna build a time machine into a car, why not do it with some style?

Harris County Judge Robert Eckels editorializes in favor of indexing the state's gasoline tax to inflation.

Highway safety and the delays caused by urban roadway congestion have reached crisis proportions in Texas, largely because of a lack of funding available to invest in transportation infrastructure improvements. In fact, the Texas Legislature allocates only $2.9 billion, or 46 percent of annual state highway user fee and tax revenue, to fund transportation; it allocates the remaining $3.5 billion, or 54 percent, to fund general government and education services. Without this diversion of transportation resources, funding would be available to make needed infrastructure improvements.

In 2003, for example, the Texas Department of Transportation spent $4.7 billion in highway funds. Only 15 percent of that was allocated for new capacity in urban areas, despite the fact that 90 percent of population growth is in urban areas. We need an economically sound, business approach to bringing more transportation funds to Houston, where they rightfully belong.

I also find it interesting that Eckels notes the disparity in rural versus urban new capacity, given his support for the Trans-Texas Corridor, which will for the most part bypass urban areas. It's true that the TTC would help turn US59 into I-69, but 59 already has a lot of capacity on it, much of which was recently added, and the main bottleneck that remains is undergoing construction now. My point is that supporting the TTC and wanting more roads built in cities are not necessarily compatible.

Eckels' piece is also a bit ironic, in that the main reason stated for the TTC has been an insufficiency of state highway funding. If the grand vision is the privately-funded Corridor, then what's the purpose of the indexed gas tax? And if we need to raise the gas tax, then how much do we need to raise it to in order to pay for what we need? Those questions aren't answered.

All that said, I've expressed support for this idea before. Kevin does not.

While we agree with Judge Eckels that the gas tax should only be used to fund transportation, we're a little shocked that a notable conservative would urge passage of a taxing mechanism by which taxpayers are forced to hand over more and more of their money without politicians ever having to take a tough vote. Certainly, it makes life easier for politicians who want more money to spend on pet projects, but politicians who call themselves conservatives (like Eckels) and say they favor limited government should be focused on making it harder for politicians to spend the earnings of taxpayers, not easier.

We can understand that Eckels would like Harris County to receive more funding for road construction. So would we. But we don't support mechanisms that transfer ever increasing amounts of money to the state (whether by property tax appraisal creep or "indexing" of the gas tax) without a vote by our elected officials. Those decisions ought to be hard for elected officials, and the fact it is hard is reflected by the fact that while Eckels laments that the gas tax hasn't kept pace with inflation, he is unwilling to state in his column how much more Texans would be paying for each gallon of gasoline if the scheme he's advocating had been in place since 1991.

Meanwhile, I'm pleased to see that Eckels and his cohorts on the Harris County Toll Road Authority are catching more flak for their imperious ways.

The toll road authority is a massive operation, generating $298 million in tolls last year, but critics say plans to build more roads could destroy their neighborhoods.

The Fort Bend County toll road project will eventually extend to the corner of the 610 Loop in southwest Houston. Residents there are very upset.

"To bring this through our neighborhoods without letting us know, we had no way of knowing this," said resident Christine Levin.

Levin says the toll road construction is going to eat up local communities.

"Westbury, Willow Bend, Willow Meadows, Meyerland, and ultimately West U and Bellaire," said Levin.

These toll roads in the Houston area are either under construction, or will be built or converted. That includes the 290-Hempstead toll road, the conversion of Highway 249, and the end of the Fort Bend County toll road.

"We feel that a city like Houston should have a say about toll road projects happening within their city limits," said Polly Ledvina with the Citizens' Transportation Coalition.

Ledvina says the toll road authority has too much eminent domain power, and is making decisions without public input.

"The public needs to know that right now, that Harris County Toll Road Authority can build a toll road without even telling them," said Ledvina. "No public meetings are required."

Harris County Judge Robert Eckels says, "We cannot have an eminent domain proceeding without having a public meeting first."

Eckels goes on to say the public has a chance to give input on these toll roads at the county commissioners' meeting every two weeks.

However, Houston City Councilman Mark Goldberg says the toll road authority won't even deal with the city of Houston.

"It's very scary because they don't even have to coordinate with us," he said. "They've even refused to meet with us for a public meeting, and said basically they don't have to, and they're not going to."

State Representative Martha Wong has filed two bills addressing the toll road authority's jurisdiction. One would mandate public hearings for a proposed toll road conversion.

"The toll road authority needs to give the public more information before they build a toll road. In some instances, the toll roads threaten to go right through neighborhoods," said Wong.

Just a few links for a lazy Sunday...

Is Tom DeLay approaching a tipping point?

More trouble for DeLay's buddy Jack Abramoff.

The Senate Finance Committee is investigating the activities of a tax-exempt foundation controlled by Jack Abramoff, a powerful Washington lobbyist and former movie producer who represented the tribe, and his wife.

Abramoff and Michael Scanlon, a former press secretary to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, were working in 2002 to get Congress to pass legislation that would have allowed the Tiguas' Speaking Rock Casino to reopen.

Last year, the Senate Indian Affairs Committee uncovered e-mails detailing how Abramoff funneled money through his foundation to pay for activities that congressional rules prohibit lobbyists from paying for directly.

Now the Senate finance panel is questioning whether the foundation is legitimately tax-exempt.

In a letter dated March 16, the finance committee chairman, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, asked Abramoff's Capital Athletic Foundation to explain why it solicited contributions from Indian tribal governments and "why should they not be deemed payments for attempts to influence Federal and state laws and regulations regarding gaming."

Among the documents being sought by the panel are travel records about a 2002 golfing trip to Scotland by Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio.

Speaking of the DCCC, they keep the stories and editorials coming: US News retells the Peter Cloeren saga, the Denver Post notes how conveeeeeenient it is for DeLay to want to tell his side of the Korea travel story to the Ethics Committee now, the Post-Dispatch wonders when the rats will start to abandon the sinking ship, and on and on.

Molly Ivins explains how DeLay is "writing a new chapter on dirty".

Finally, the Chron reviews the latest document releases in the TRMPAC case.

Violations of campaign law are notoriously hard to prove. The public often finds the complicated cash transfers between political action committees and candidates eye-glazing. Yet the matters being investigated in Austin are particularly grave. Delay's associates and supporters used corporate cash to win control of a legislative body — the very result that Texas law was enacted to prevent. The powerful influence of the corporate campaign donors can be seen clearly as the Legislature considers bills to ease corporate responsibility while reducing individuals' access to the courts.

DeLay claims he was not involved in the day-to-day operations of Texans for a Republican Majority, which raised and spent the corporate cash. But common sense argues that DeLay called the shots from Washington. He was the one who set in motion the complicated machinery that used corporate cash to ensure GOP victory. It was not the work of free-lancing subordinates.

DeLay and others might be able to make the case that what they did fell narrowly within the law banning corporate campaign donations. But leaders should not mimic the drunk driver who thinks it is OK for him to drive with a blood alcohol level of 0.799999, just under the legal limit of 0.8.

The AP takes note of the proposed 7.5% plastic surgery tax that came along with HB3.

"This may bring in more money than oil," joked Wick Allison, publisher and editor of D Magazine, which covers the Dallas fashion and party scene.

Almost 40 percent of U.S. plastic surgeons practice in California, New York, Florida and Texas — a state where fashion and beauty is just as competitive as football and big business.

Nearly 140 of Texas' 324 board-certified plastic surgeons work in Dallas and Houston, according to perfectyourself.com, a national Web directory. When Dallas leaders searched for a city slogan last year, tongue-in-cheek suggestions included "Plastic Surgery Capital of the South" and "Flat Land and Women that Aren't."

Just as a reminder, this tax was implemented as an alternative to taxing diapers. Greg notes which family-friendly lawmakers preferred to tax new parents instead. I'm thinking that vote may show up in a campaign ad or two next year.

In addition to filing a complaint over the way that the Texas Health and Human Services Commission awarded its call center contract to Accenture, IBM has now filed a lawsuit against the state of Texas, claiming that there was a conflict of interest as well.

The lawsuit follows a formal protest IBM filed with the commission earlier this month that touches on conflict-of-interest allegations the state is already investigating.

Gary Gumbert, the agency's chief information officer, worked for Accenture subcontractor Maximus before being hired by the commission in January 2004, according to the lawsuit.

IBM officials were concerned about Gumbert's affiliations but were assured he would not play a critical role in the contract process, the lawsuit states.

But IBM officials, in the lawsuit, allege Gumbert was overtly biased in favor of Accenture, and that he was receiving retirement payments from Maximus during the contract process.

In February, Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Albert Hawkins asked for a review of the evaluation process.

"Obviously this is a contract that is very large in size and scope," Harris said Friday. "The commissioner does want someone not involved in the process itself to review the process and ensure there is public confidence in any decision we make."

The company in Colorado that designed their ill-fated computer program (CBMS) will ring a bell for those in HHSC in Texas -- it's EDS (Electronic Data Systems), which was the original contractor for the first phases of the TIERS system here in Texas (and has it's hands in other aspects of HHSC). Well now the Governor of Colorado wants a consulting firm to conduct an "independent review" of what went wrong with CBMS, and so whom does he choose? Deloitte & Touche...the same company that has the current TIERS contract in Texas.

Deloitte out to know a lot about computer systems that cost hundreds of millions and don't work worth a hoot in hell, because they designed the one we have in Texas. The only thing that has thus far prevented Texas from experiencing the same disaster as Colorado is the fact that the State of Texas has kept TIERS in a pilot phase for years beyond the date that the whole system was supposed to have been rolled out to the whole state. It is very curious how three corporations keep turning up with their fingers in the government pie: EDS, Deloitte, and Accenture.

Did I say waiting to happen? That wait may be over.

State officials are investigating whether current or former state employees profited from a nearly $1 billion Health and Human Services Commission contract to the Bermuda-based company Accenture.

[...]

In the past two years, the Health and Human Services Commission has embarked on a massive effort to consolidate the agencies under it and privatize many of the services it delivers to needy Texans. Accenture last month was tentatively awarded a contract to privatize the call centers where Texans apply for services like Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program.

News of the investigation comes amid evidence of a "revolving door" involving at least two high-ranking state employees who had dealings with the privatization at Health and Human Services and have since left their state jobs to work for Accenture or one of its subcontractors.

Hazel Baylor, who until last year was the agency's deputy commissioner for planning, evaluation and project management, was later hired by Accenture to work on the state bid, Soh, of Accenture, said Wednesday.

Baylor could not be reached for comment.

Gregg Phillips, who was the No. 2 official at the state agency until last year and was a key figure in the plan to privatize many agency services, now does work for Deloitte Consulting in Dallas, which subcontracts for Accenture. He did not return a call left at his Dallas office.

May I suggest, by the way, that this may be part of the reason why this sort of thing happens?

According to Sarah Woelk, director of advisory opinions for the state Ethics Commission, it is a Class A misdemeanor for state employees who work on a particular matter to join a private firm that's working on the same matter, and they could face civil fines.

I don't care what it does to my bracket, I'm always pleased to see a Big XII team make an ignominious early exit from the NCAAs. This one is sweeter than Nevada over Texas, and that was a game I called correctly. Heck, it's the best Big XII loss since Iowa State flopped against 15-seed Hampton a few years back, and I had the Cyclones picked for the championship game. Way to go Bucknell!

Via Lasso and blogHOUSTON, the famous Beer Can House is about to get a facelift.

Efforts to restore Milkovisch's Beer Can House, which has suffered years of gradual decline, have moved into high gear with a $125,000 Houston Endowment grant to the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art, which acquired the house in November 2001. "The Beer Can House represents the sort of idiosyncratic individualism that Houstonians and Texans' pride themselves on," Emily Todd, the endowment's grant officer, said Wednesday.

Orange Show Executive Director Susanne Theis said repair and restoration of the house at 222 Malone west of downtown should be complete by late next year. The house then will be open for tours.

[...]

Much of the restoration will be performed by volunteers, although final installation of components likely will be handled by professional carpenters. In some cases, Theis said, brewers might be asked to reproduce the discontinued cans Milkovisch used in his project. Already, can collectors have donated vintage cans to the effort.

One more thing:

Changes in the neighborhood also have contributed to the site's degradation, Theis said.

Once a working-class enclave of single-family homes, the neighborhood in recent years has experienced rampant redevelopment. The Beer Can House now is flanked by multistory townhomes, one of which was erected about three feet from the property line.

With new development blocking sunlight, a once-sparkling fence studded with colored glass marbles has gone dull. Theis said plans call for installation of lighting to again illuminate the fence. Plans also call for a vine-covered trellis at the building's rear to suggest the greenery of trees that have been removed as adjoining property was developed.

The debate continues to roil regarding Rep. Al Edwards' vote on HB3. See the comments on Houston Democrats, these two updates by Greg, this one from Byron, and for a little variety, Save Texas Reps on Edwards' partner in controversy, Rep. Mike Villareal.

I think Greg's take is right on. I don't expect lockstep behavior, but Edwards' explanations make no sense, and his voting record overall this session is highly questionable. If Edwards could point to something tangible in HB3 that he got in return for his vote, then it might be different. He can't even realistically claim that he's following the will of his constituents, as it seems to me that if this is what they wanted, the GOP would have been running challengers against him. What's going on here, Al?

On the plus side, Al does have the anti-naughty cheerleader bill going for him. So that's something.

Having already filed "one of the worst pieces of legislation in recent memory", State Rep. Mary Denny (R, Flower Mound) is at it again, filing one of three new atrocious anti-democratic (small d) bills designed to make it harder to vote.

Texas voters would have to show photo identification or multiple forms of other ID before they could cast their ballots under election law changes being pushed by House Republicans.

Three bills with the photo ID requirement are pending before the House Elections Committee. Lawmakers heard testimony from supporters who say the measure would prevent voter fraud and opponents who warn it will deny some citizens of their right to vote.

"This is to make sure you are who you say you are when you show up to vote," said Rep. Mary Denny, the Flower Mound Republican who sponsored one of the bills. She is chairwoman of the elections committee.

The Republican Party of Texas supports the measure. The state Democratic Party opposes it.

"They're just adding roadblocks to voting," said Democratic Party Chief of Staff Mike Lavigne.

Mary Denny was on the House panel that would have evaluated Talmadge Heflin's challenge had it not been dropped after Will Hartnett issued his report. She knows full well that all of one voter in HD149 was a non-citizen, and he was issued a voter's reg card even though he correctly checked the box identifying himself as a non-citizen. Denny's bill would not have stopped him from voting, as long as he had that card plus his driver's license with him. Does she have any evidence that there is a problem of non-citizens voting beyond this one example? Or is she just scaremongering and attacking the civil rights of all Texans?

"These bills are not based on evidence of fraud," said Nina Perales, of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. "They will prevent some voters from casting ballots."

While several states require some sort of voter identification at the polls, Denny's measure would make Texas among the most restrictive in the nation, said Laurie Vanhoose of Advocacy, Inc., which works on behalf of the disabled.

Several county elections administrators who testified were split on whether to support the measure.

George Hammerlein, director of voter registration in Harris County, which has about 1.8 million voters, said he supports it.

"We think voters have a certain responsibility along with the right to vote," Hammerlein said. "It provides integrity and gives people confidence in the system."

Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, a sponsor of one of the voter ID bills, said the extra burden of proof would not be a significant hurdle for voters to overcome.

"Our world has changed a lot since Sept. 11," she said. "You can't get on an airplane without a picture ID. A number of things require us to prove who we are."

Oh, and one more thing. That article didn't mention the third sponsor of these terrible bills, but this one does.

One of the measures is sponsored by Rep. Joe Nixon, R-Houston, a key member of Republican House Speaker Tom Craddick's leadership team.

Rusty and Andrea Yates are officially no longer married. Ginger noted this yesterday, and I think her cynical guess as to Rusty's motivation are spot on. If so, I'm sure we'll know soon enough.

Don't know who's behind this new blog from Williamson County, but I'm glad to see one from there. Williamson, like Fort Bend, voted for Bush in lesser numbers in 2004 than it did in 2000, and I think it stands a chance of being competitive for Democrats in a couple of cycles. I hope this blog will help me get a little more insight on it.

I noted before that Accenture won the bidding to provide call center services to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. Today in the Statesman, two State Reps are alleging that they had inside help.

On Wednesday, Albert Hawkins, executive commissioner of the state's health and human services agencies, said that he had asked the Office of Inspector General to investigate the evaluation process. He made the request Feb. 22 — three days before his agency officially announced the tentative contract award to Accenture.

And the chairman of the House General Investigating and Ethics Committee, Rep. Kevin Bailey, D-Houston, said on Wednesday that his committee started looking into the matter late last week.

"I haven't gotten any firm information yet, but there have been allegations that they (Accenture) may have some friends in high places, and there's been some questions about whether they are competent to handle this kind of contract," Bailey said.

Peter Soh, an Accenture spokesman, said the accusations outlined in the letter by Rep. Dawnna Dukes, D-Austin, and Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston,"are without merit."

"We have no reason to believe that Accenture violated any laws or procurement rules in the preparation of our eligibility proposal," he said.

IBM officials, who have filed a protest with the commission, declined to comment, citing the ongoing process.

[...]

The same day they received IBM's protest, state officials received the letter by Dukes and Turner. Dukes said she received her information anonymously.

"It is our understanding that Accenture bragged to another vendor that they obtained copies of (IBM's) proprietary technical architecture for the . . . proposal, and that Accenture's Tim Overend shared the architecture with a vendor, commenting that others were retaining the information on their computers," the letter reads.

Overend declined to comment when reached at his office Wednesday.

The letter also states that:

•Hazel Baylor, a contractor for Accenture, was the commission's deputy commissioner for planning, evaluation and project management in 2004 and had specific knowledge about the request for proposals.

•Gary Gumbert, the commission's chief information officer, was hired within the past year from Maximus, which has partnered with Accenture on the project proposal.

•Anne Sapp, a commission employee who had attended confidential vendor presentations as part of the agency's proposal evaluation team, is Baylor's housemate.

I'm sure Father John will have something to say about this. In the meantime, he's got more on the Colorado mess here and here. Statesman link via Clean Up Texas Politics.

The latest word from SaveMuniWireless is that the ban on city-supported network services has been stripped out. That's great news, but as they note, there's still the amendment process, and as this earlier entry showed, that means various bad things can happen. Here are the relevant committee members - if one of them is your rep, please drop him a note and give your support for leaving this market unfettered. Via Dwight.

Remember the special session on school finance reform last year, when the House passed a shell bill to the Senate? It's beginning to look to me like they did the same thing this year, based on comments like these.

Senate leaders found little to like about the legislation, other than that it's designed to raise money exclusively for property tax reduction.

"There are some philosophical differences, there's no question about it," said state Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano. "We'll make adjustments."

Shapiro, chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee, criticized the business tax proposal, the taxes on bottled water and snacks, and the way property taxes are distributed to schools under the House plan.

"I don't think this body will go to a full penny [increase] on the sales tax," Shapiro said. "I don't think this body agrees with a payroll tax at all."

Lt. Gov. Dewhurst piles on:

"We're very focused in the Senate on the regressive nature of some taxes, and that's why we've been focused on how we reduce the tax incidence level for the poorest in our society," said Dewhurst.

Dewhurst said the Senate will include a provision to allow the nearly 90,000 Texans who qualify for food stamps to receive a rebate on a portion of sales taxes. The Senate also is considering a requirement that apartment owners pass through to tenants a portion of their property tax relief until markets lower rents.

[...]

Shapiro, R-Plano, said the Senate is "ice cold" on the payroll tax portion of HB 3. That provision would place a 1.15 percent levy on a company's payroll. Dewhurst said the Senate favors expanding the existing franchise tax to partnerships, but reducing the rate from 4.5 percent of net income to about 1.25 percent.

Senate Finance Chairman Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, said the Senate will include a smaller sales tax hike than the 1-percent increase passed by the House.

Dewhurst said higher alcohol taxes are "on the table." The House resoundingly rejected an amendment to HB 3 that would have increased taxes on beer and wine by 3 percent.

The Tom DeLay Scandal Spillover Vortex has claimed another casualty.

Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, was listed as a special guest and speaker in 2002 for Texans for a Republican Majority. While investigating DeLay's conduct last year, the House committee deferred — but did not dismiss — a complaint that DeLay, R-Texas, used the same political committee to solicit corporate contributions in violation of state law.

"Your support today will go directly to help Republican candidates in Texas successfully run and win their campaigns," according to one invitation from the political committee for a Sept. 23, 2002, breakfast reception with Smith and Rep. Henry Bonilla, R-Texas. Suggested donations ranged from $25 to $10,000.

Smith said in an interview that neither he, nor any other House ethics committee member, would "let personal friendship get in the way of the integrity of the House."

Smith would not say whether he would remove himself from consideration of the matter.

Every member of the committee "is obligated to protect the integrity of the House," he said.

And speaking of lawyers with questionable relationships:

When a Senate committee started investigating whether U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's lobbyist friend and a former aide had misled Indian tribes into giving them millions of dollars in fees, the Coushatta Indians of Louisiana needed to replace the lobbyist with new legal representation.

They turned to Hance Scarborough Woodward & Weisbart LLP, the Austin law firm that is defending the DeLay-founded Texans for a Republican Majority in civil lawsuits brought by losing Democratic candidates.

Former Texas congressman Kent Hance said it is just coincidence that he is representing the Louisiana Coushattas while his partner, Terry Scarborough, represents Texans for a Republican Majority, or TRMPAC.

UPDATE: The chairs of the Texas and Ohio Democratic Parties have sent Smith a letter asking him to "step aside as Chairman of the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct". Click the More link to read it.

Dear Chairman Smith:

We are writing to ask you to step aside as Chairman of the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct.

Yesterday's news that you personally raised funds for Majority Leader Tom Mr. DeLay's political action committee, a serious legal matter currently pending in your committee and other legal forums, makes it untenable for you to continue as chairman.

As you know, three of Mr. DeLay's top associates at that political action committee, Texans For a Republican Majority or TRMPAC, have been indicted for their role in the 2002 campaign for which you helped them raise cash. Your own committee has an ongoing inquiry into this same matter. The Senate is also seeking financial records and travel receipts for a 2002 trip to Scotland by Mr. DeLay and his close ally, House Administration Committee Chairman Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio), among others.

Before your appointment, your committee deferred action on the fund-raising allegations against Mr. DeLay in an effort not to interfere with the work of the Texas grand jury.

Yesterday's reports that you raised money for TRMPAC during a San Antonio breakfast on September 23, 2002, uncovers a conflict of interest that will be impossible to ignore even by recusing yourself once your committee resumes its investigation of Mr. DeLay. In the larger context of the other controversies swirling around your committee, the only honorable course of action for you now is to step aside.

Sincerely,

(Signed)

CHARLES SOECHTING DENNIS WHITE

Chairman, Texas Democratic Party Chairman, Ohio Democratic Party

Cc The Honorable Alan B. Mollohan, Ranking Minority Member

Some good news for college students may be on the way, according to Inside the Texas Capitol, which rounds up several tuition-relief bills in the House and Senate and assesses their odds of passage. Those of you with a current interest in this subject especially should check it out.

Via Greg, a fascinating lesson on learning binary numbers using the Socratic method. Given the results achieved, if everyone had learned the new math that way, we might have a much lower rate of innumeracy in the world.

I should have linked to Prescription for Change and the awesome animation/Lounge Lizards song when Scott first announced it, but as is sometimes the case, it got lost in my to-be-blogged pile. I'm glad to see that it's been getting loads of favorable publicity since its debut, and more to the point, has generated a lot of the kind of action it was intended to generate. Kudos all around.

I've missed the Lizards the last couple of times they've been in Houston, but at my next opportunity I hope to ask one of them a few questions about this, such as whether they plan to eventually add it to a CD and/or their live repertoire. We'll see.

Tiffany took Business Trip #2 yesterday - she just called from IAH and should be home soon - so I got to spend some more time as Single Dad. As with the first time, I got a lot of help from my in-laws, who came over last night for dinner and baby assistance. Unlike last time, I did the morning daycare dropoff/go to work thing, then the daycare pickup/dinner and bedtime thing by myself today.

All in all, things went well. I was worried about the timing of the morning routine last time, but Olivia solved that problem for me by waking up at 4:30 and taking a good 40 minutes to drink three ounces of milk. By the time she finished and drifted back off to sleep, my alarm was sounding. Which was fine, actually, as this meant I could shower, dress, eat breakfast, walk the dog, and load everything into the car without having to worry about her. She woke up after another hour or so and we got to daycare at about the usual time.

She was a little fussy this evening, as she's getting over a fever from the weekend, which in traditional fashion, she shared with Tiffany. Integrating a baby into public life is like hooking up an unsecured Windows PC to the Internet. The speed and frequency with which they get infected by something is just amazing. When Olivia is under the weather, she's needier than usual, which mostly means she wants to be held all the time. Past experience with that has taught me many things, mostly how to do stuff one-handed. Here's a partial list of things I can do with a baby in one arm:

- Vacuum
- Eat
- Move laundry from washer to dryer
- Move dishes from dishwasher to cabinets
- Pet the dog - Olivia's not the only one who can be needy, and Harry always wants in on the affection action
- Read the newspaper, which is more challenging than you might think, since Olivia is fascinated by all things paper
- Operate the TiVo, which as above is more challenging than you might think
- And of course, blog (not at this moment, as she's now asleep for the night)

In chatting with my in-laws today, both of them expressed wonder about how single parents do it every day. For the most part, they try to do what any sane person in a multiple-parent household would do, which is establish and stick to a routine, plan things out in advance, think of every possible contingency, and hope like hell the kid cooperates. Of course, being by yourself means there's no backup, no net beneath you, and most of all, no relief. You're on all the time, and that's enough to make anyone wig out. My "single dad" experience has come with a ton of help, almost enough to require quotes around the expression every time I use it. I had a lot of respect for everyone who does it for real before now, and I have a lot more now.

Since we're talking how-do-they-do-thats, I'll fess up and admit that like Kevin, I've found the Nanny Rescue shows oddly compelling - we've also watched a little SuperNanny on ABC. I second what Kevin says about this being fairly practical parenting information for people who have probably never cracked a book on the subject. I say these shows are performing a public service, and I'd invite you to give them a look before you turn up your nose. I'd also submit that the pre-intervention footage would serve pretty well on its own as abstinence education for high schoolers.

No more business trips for Tiffany until May. Tune in at that time for Single Fatherhood III: Beyond Thunderdome.

I have to say, I was excited at the prospect of a Harris County Democratic Party blog from the time I first heard about it, and since its launch late last week, it's been exceeding my expectations. You don't have to be from Houston to appreciate what they've been doing over there. Some examples:

James Robertson on Project Houston Hope

John Cobarruvias on Texas' excessive homeowners' insurance rates

Mark Olivier on the latest school voucher bill

Stace Medellin on the anti-immigrant HB2345

Lyn Wall on Rep. Al Edwards' Yes vote on HB3

And much more. If every other county party isn't green with envy and plotting to flatter these folks by imitation, they should be. Bookmark 'em and check 'em out.

There's more anti-Trans Texas Corridor activity in the House, and it's coming from both sides of the aisle.

State Rep. Garnet Coleman has filed a bill seeking to bar the state from spending money on the Trans-Texas Corridor until 2007 and calling for a committee to study the corridor plan and its use of toll and bond financing.

The Houston Democrat's bill, HB 3363, would place the same moratorium on tolling currently free roads. It was one of four bills — the others filed by Republicans — that seek to limit the corridor plan proposed by Gov. Rick Perry in 2002.

[...]

HB 1273, filed by Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, bars "noncompetition" clauses in contracts between the state and corridor developers that would prevent government from building roads nearby.

The bill would narrow the corridor's maximum width from 1,200 feet to 800 feet and require that state highways and farm-to-market roads intersecting it remain unobstructed and connect to it. A Cintra-Zachry spokesman said the company is not interested in doing that.

HB 1794 by Rep. Glenn Hegar, R-Katy, calls for at least one public hearing in every county through which the corridor passes, with public disclosure of each of its proposed transportation modes, entrances and exits.

On a related topic, Anne sent me a note last week about a bill filed by Rep. Debbie Riddle, HB847, which is "relating to the board of directors of a regional mobility authority" (RMA). The bill is noted on this blogHOUSTON thread by Connie of United to Save Our Spring. I don't know what, if any, effect it might have on the Grand Parkway toll road extension that's slated to slice through Spring, since (I'm told) the Harris County Toll Road Authority is not an RMA, but I do approve in general of "fair representation of a political subdivision that will be affected by an authority transportation project", which HB847 calls for. If I get a chance, I'll call Rep. Riddle's office and ask what the goal of this bill is.

Haven't we heard this story before?

Astrodome Redevelopment Co. is continuing to look at whether it makes good business sense to spend hundreds of millions to turn the building into a mammoth, luxury convention hotel.

The company, selected by the county to propose a plan for the Dome, is waxing positive about the hotel but will not issue a report on whether it can obtain financing until summer, county officials said Tuesday.

"They are working vigorously to nail down the final piece of the feasibility study," said Willie Loston, director of the Harris County Sports and Convention Corp., which oversees the Reliant Park complex.

Astrodome Redevelopment is considering leaving the shell of the building intact and essentially gutting the inside. Seats might be replaced with about 1,000 hotel rooms, convention-type meeting rooms, restaurants and possibly retail stores, a cineplex and other entertainment sites.

Well, now that the vaunted honest idiot defense has failed and Bernie Ebbers faces a stretch in the Big House, the question becomes How will this affect Kenny Boy?

"The Ebbers trial is a bellwether for Lay," said David Berg, a Houston trial lawyer who has watched both cases. "Both are huge financial frauds at the heart of the businesses, both involve billions of hidden losses ... and both men claim to have been removed from the day-to-day business."

Because the jury convicted Ebbers on all charges, they must have searched hard for evidence against him on each charge, highlighting the difficulty of getting jurors to believe the "What's a poor boy to do?" defense, he said.

[...]

"It's the most difficult defense imaginable," Berg said, especially for someone who made great wealth off the company and had been with it since its inception like Ebbers and Lay.

Berg said it's not only Lay who will have a tough time convincing a jury he didn't know about the fraud at Enron. So will his co-defendant Jeff Skilling, the former CEO.

"This was the (banker Frank) Quattrone defense, the Ebbers defense, the Lay defense and what Skilling told Congress. We can go down the list, saying they didn't know is often the only thing a defendant like this has left," Berg said. "It may even be true, but it's still the most difficult defense possible."

[...]

Though it may be too early to predict how the facts of the case will bear out, it may be easier to convince a jury Lay was less involved in the day-to-day business of his company than Ebbers, said Troy Paredes, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis.

"At least as I understand it, Lay's saying 'I wasn't involved in the misdoings, I wasn't involved in the financial manipulations, and I wasn't involved in cooking the books. I wasn't aware of it,' " Paredes said. "My sense, at least at this point, is that there's at least some indication that Lay as a general matter may have been a little more hands-off than Ebbers."

Mike Ramsey, Lay's defense lawyer, distinguished his client's case from Ebbers' in an interview before Tuesday's conviction of Ebbers.

"At Enron we had a trusted employee who was stealing and hiding his theft from the people above him," Ramsey said of ex-CFO Andrew Fastow. "But Sullivan at WorldCom appears to be just a cheat, and not a cheat and a thief."

Ramsey said the falls of the companies were different, too.

"Enron's failure was a failure of liquidity, not of solvency," Ramsey said. "And the liquidity froze because of Andrew Fastow's double-crossing."

[B]oth Lay and Skilling supported Fastow's involvement in the off-balance sheet partnerships and their co-defendant -- former Enron chief accountant Richard Causey -- approved the dubious accounting relating to the partnerships. It is going to be risky for Messrs. Lay and Skilling to criticize Mr. Causey's accounting for Fastow's machinations with off-balance sheet entities during a trial in which all three are defendants.

[...]

Messrs. Lay and Skilling are contending that Mr. Fastow's greed to generate huge income from Enron's off-balance sheet partnerships incentivized him to lie to Lay and Skilling regarding the true nature of Enron's off-balance sheet partnerships. Of course, a complicating fact in Messrs. Lay and Skilling's defense is that they engineered the Enron board's dubious approval of Fastow's management of the partnerships, but that's another issue.

On a side issue, Kenny Boy has decided that he wants two different juries for the two different trials he faces.

In a court filing Monday, lawyers for Lay said having one jury hear both the conspiracy charges he faces with two other defendants and the bank fraud charges he faces alone could deny him his Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury.

While the two sets of charges are unrelated, a jury that sits through the first trial could consciously or subconsciously "infer a propensity on the part of the defendant to commit the other offenses ... ," his attorneys said.

In February, Judge Sim Lake told Lay and government prosecutors he was considering hearing the bank fraud case immediately after the first case — scheduled to begin Jan. 17 — either with the same jury or with no jury at all.

Lay's attorneys said they could be ready for the second trial within 60 days of the end of the first. They also withdrew their previous waiver of a jury trial, saying it was originally intended as a way to get the case moving quickly.

UPDATE: You know, I was just thinking that what I needed for some closure on the Ebbers trial was a haiku that summed it all up. Thanks to Julia, who no doubt will feel safer walking the streets of New York now that Bernie has gone to the hoosegow, for the tip.

UPDATE: Jeralyn examines the Ebbers/Kenny Boy differences as well.

UPDATE: Mac reminds us that there are other "honest idiots" besides Kenny Boy out there.

He can deny it all he likes, but the documentation of Tom DeLay's wrongdoing keeps piling up.

U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's federal leadership political fund apparently coordinated with a Texas committee to deliver $23,000 in contributions to Texas House candidates, according to documents filed in a civil lawsuit.

The documents draw DeLay's Americans for a Republican Majority deeper into the ongoing controversy over whether Texans for a Republican Majority illegally used corporate money to help finance the GOP takeover of the Texas House in 2002. Republicans contend the money was spent legally.

DeLay, R-Sugar Land, and his aides have maintained that TRMPAC had nothing to do with his leadership political committee, ARMPAC, though some of his associates worked for both. But the new documents show a working relationship between the groups.

DeLay's relationship to TRMPAC was that of a loose advisory position. ARMPAC is his official leadership committee he uses to raise money for congressional candidates across the United States to help him maintain his position in the House.

[...]

The new documents, filed as evidence in a pending civil lawsuit against TRMPAC Treasurer Bill Ceverha, are copies of ARMPAC checks and letters on TRMPAC's stationery that were delivered together to 15 House candidates. The amounts ranged from $1,000 to $2,500.

"We are pleased to send you a contribution of (amount) compliments of Congressman Tom DeLay's political action committee Americans for a Republican Majority," the letter said. "Congressman DeLay is as equally committed to winning a House Republican majority in Texas as he is maintaining a Republican majority in the U.S. Congress."

The letters were signed by Ceverha, but he has testified he never saw most of what TRMPAC sent out under his name.

Putting it more substantially:

Liz Spayd, national editor of The Post, said Tuesday evening, "His office has not called here to challenge any facts in our story. If they did we would certainly listen to his concerns."

The good news is that all this is starting to play in Peoria.

One senior House Republican voiced his concerns to House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's (R-Ill.) chief of staff after seeing a front-page story on DeLay in one of his home-state newspapers Tuesday morning.

"The perception is that we're not in control of the ethics process, that DeLay can do what he wants," said the lawmaker. "It's giving the party a bad name…. This thing is no different and has the same flavor and tone as when we knocked Jim Wright out."

Mr. DeLay may in fact be guilty of no wrongdoing, but his actions and those of his most ardent backers betray a cynical indifference to congressional ethics. If House Republicans aren't blind to their oversight responsibilities, they will remove ethics panel members who have already taken sides on behalf of Mr. DeLay and displayed an arrogant disregard for what the public may think. Defenders who say Mr. DeLay is the victim of politically motivated attacks are -- perhaps unwittingly -- repeating the lines used by Mr. Wright's supporters against Mr. Gingrich. It didn't do Mr. Wright much good.

How long the GOP will put up with DeLay's power plays and ethical lapses is a matter for speculation. But some Republicans already are acknowledging that DeLay's position is weakening.

One Republican consultant quoted recently resorted to a remarkable bit of verbal gymnastics to describe DeLay's position. "The situation is negatively fluid right now for the guy," he said.

DeLay brought this on himself. His scorched-earth partisanship, coziness with lobbyists and flippant attitude toward House ethics rules made him a vulnerable target.

Republicans would be wise to get themselves another majority leader before more damage is done.

Recent allegations involving DeLay have put the spotlight on the ethics gridlock in the House. The Washington Post reported that DeLay and his wife took a trip to England that might have been paid for by a lobbyist for Indian tribe gambling interests. DeLay later voted against a bill that would have hurt those gambling interests, even though he is on record opposing the spread of legalized gambling. Media reports have also detailed how DeLay, other members of Congress and staff members, in violation of House rules, allowed an organization registered as a foreign agent to pay for their trips to South Korea.

This is no time to let partisanship paralyze Congress' ability to police itself. Just as House Republicans eventually reversed a decision that would have allowed DeLay to keep his leadership position even if indicted, they should now restore the ethics committee's limited power to initiate investigations without a majority vote. By submitting the matter to a vote of the full House, at least constituents will find out what's more important to their elected representative: party loyalty or ethical behavior.

Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo.), the former chairman of the House ethics committee, said yesterday that he will co-sponsor a bill to repeal or revise changes that Republican leaders made to the committee’s procedure at the start of the 109th Congress.

The bill is sponsored by Rep. Alan Mollohan (W.Va.), the ranking Democrat on the ethics committee, who along with four other Democrats has refused to adopt new rules for the committee until his proposed changes to ethics procedures are adopted or given serious consideration.

More than 190 House Democrats have signed on as co-sponsors of the bill since Mollohan introduced it two weeks ago. Thus far, only one Republican, Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) has signed up as a co-sponsor. But Hefley’s support is expected to provide incentive and political cover to other Republicans who are thinking about supporting the ethics legislation.

More as always at The Stakeholder and the Daily DeLay, which points to a new URL for their campaign, WithoutDeLay.org.

Greg Moses is still wading through documents from the Heflin Challenge, and he keeps putting out useful and interesting articles on what he's found. Stay on top of it all here, here, here, and here.

One of the better questions to be raised by all this is why exactly did Tax Assessor Paul Bettencourt do an audit specific to HD149 when the normal procedure is to do one of the whole county? The answer they've given is that this was standard for when there's such a close election, except that no one can recall a previous incident even though there have been similarly close elections in recent history, like this one, for example. As Moses documents, Bettencourt's audit was quite the handy guide for Andy Taylor.

The more I read of Moses' work, the more I share his distaste with the sustained attacks that Taylor made not just on individual voters, but on the concept that voting is a right, and as such it shouldn't be trivially denied. Mark Schmitt notes that a frequent question on the test for US citizenship is "WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT RIGHT GRANTED TO U.S. CITIZENS?" The answer, of course, is "the right to vote". Well, if that's really so, why do we make it so hard to vote?

[We should] allow immediate voter registration on the day of the election, or abandon the concept of voter registration entirely. Show up with any proof of residence and citizenship, and you can vote. Your name is immediately entered into a state-level computer system so that you can't vote again that day, and won't need ID in the future. There's no reason it can't be that simple, and if this is truly "The Most Important Right," we would do it.

I'll close here by pointing to Greg's account of a lunch date he and I had with Larry Veselka, the man who ably represented Rep. Hubert Vo in the Heflin challenge. I don't have a whole lot to add to what he said, so I'll just second the notion that there was quite the lack of outrage on the issue of absentee ballots from people serving in the military whose votes were questioned by Heflin and Taylor. Refer to pages 32-34 of the Hartnett report (PDF) for the notations on this. As Greg asks, where's Jerry Patterson when you really need him?

I thought we could make it through the end of this basketball season without another bashing of the Rice Owls' home for hoops, but apparently not.

That Willis Wilson and Cristy McKinney have their basketball teams in the postseason for a second consecutive year speaks to their coaching ability and recruiting savvy.

According to Hawaii coach Riley Wallace, the fact Wilson has the Owls playing competitively qualifies as a minor miracle, considering the facilities he and McKinney have to work with — namely that cozy, antiquated barn called Autry Court.

"I played in this place in 1960, and it was old then it seemed like," said Wallace following the Owls' 80-61 victory over the Rainbow Warriors on Feb. 27 at Autry. "Willis does a great job here, and unless Rice ever helps him by building an arena where he can recruit to, they'll never be able to compete much better than what they're doing right now because kids don't want to come and play in this box.

"I understand they can write a check anytime they wanted to."

Autry Court was already 10 years old when Wallace, then with Centenary, visited four decades ago. Aside from renovations, little has changed, but that's news to no one.

[...]

However, suggesting Rice or anyone affiliated with the university could "write a check" — an assumption based on Rice's $3.3 billion endowment — is equally unjust. Southern California will replace the Los Angeles Sports Arena with the 10,258-seat Galen Center in the summer of 2006 at a cost of $114 million — not exactly small change. It will take a significant contribution on the part of some entity, but it is clear many are watching.

Do you live in a Republican-held Congressional district? The DCCC has a little project for you regarding the current status of the House Ethics Committee. It's based on this observation by Kagro X, and expanded on here, here, and here on the HCDP site.

Executive summary: The DCCC is asking people to get Republican Congressfolk on the record regarding Allen Mollahan's attempt to bring a bill to a vote that would restore old Ethics Committee rules. He's trying to get 218 sigs on a discharge petition, and he'll need about 20 GOPers to make it happen.

The goal here is to get grassroots folks to contact their own Congressperson and get him or her to state whether or not he or she will sign the discharge petition. You can keep track of who has said what here. I'd especially like to see Texas Republicans get called about this. If you get an answer, send an email to Jesse Lee and let him know.

Publicity is our friend here. If you've got a Democratic representative, consider sending a letter to the editor of your local paper instead, and don't forget the smaller community newspapers, too. Have fun!

Gird your loins, 'cause here it comes.

Gambling interests have raised their ante in the Texas Capitol this session, spending millions of dollars on lobbyists who are trying to end Texas' prohibition on casinos.

Pro-gaming forces – advocates for bingo, casinos, slot machines and expanding the lottery – have spent between $3.4 million and $6.2 million on their lobbyists this legislative session, according to state records.

Via Lasso. Also via Lasso is this story about one of the likely big winners if casinos are allowed to populate our landscape.

If casino gambling comes to the Lone Star State, a Texan – restaurateur Tilman Fertitta – is an odds-on favorite to build the first one, though he's keeping his cards close to the vest for now.

"I don't really care if they pass it in Texas or not," Mr. Fertitta said in an interview.

But as the conversation continued, it became clear that he's thought about it a great deal.

"If we do it, I want to see it done in a first-class way." he said. "Let's do tier-one properties that are in resort areas that bring in tourism and ... stop your upper demographics in Houston and Dallas from getting on a plane and going to Vegas."

There's other evidence he has more than a passing interest.

His company, Landry's Restaurants Inc., is a leading spender lobbying the issue as the Texas Legislature debates ways to balance the state budget. The company has reported spending at least $220,000.

And Landry's, which until now specialized in seafood and steaks, recently agreed to buy the Golden Nugget casino-hotel in Las Vegas for $140 million cash and $155 million in debt.

And the How Did They Manage To Write That With A Straight Face? award goes to story author Bruce Nichols, for committing this to paper:

Mr. Fertitta's ideas for Texas:

•Don't just legalize slot machines at horse and dog tracks. Resort casinos attract a richer market.

•Set a minimum license fee, say $50 million, to attract only strong operators.

•Require 51 percent Texas ownership to keep profits at home.

The Quorum Report (PDF) documents the vote on the second reading/"passage to engrossment" of HB3 (there will be one more vote, as I understand it; the minutiae of House operations bogs me down sometimes). Most went along party lines. Those of interest are as follows.

Republicans who voted against HB3:

Pat Haggerty, El Paso
Glenn Hegar, Katy
Delwyn Jones, Lubbock
Terry Keel, Austin
Jodie Laubenberg, Rockwall
Brian McCall, Plano
Tommy Merritt, Longview
Ken Paxton, McKinney

That's a pretty geographically diverse group, and other than Haggerty, I can't say I recall any of them speaking out on this issue before. One point to note on the R side is that Bob Griggs, who spoke out strongly against HB2, voted for HB3. No vote was recorded for Bryan Hughes.

On the Dem side, Craig Eiland was absent, which is excusable, while Al Edwards voted Aye, which is not. I second Greg regarding Rep. Edwards. What are you doing, Al?

QR link via BOR.

UPDATE: Missed one, Elvira Reyna of Mesquite. That makes sense, since two non-nay-voting Democrats plus eight Republicans would have made it 79-69 instead of 78-70. Thanks to Save Texas Reps, who notes that even Mike Villareal voted against HB3 despite voting for it twice in committee, and Lyn Wall for the catch.

The awful House Bill 3 underwent a few changes but ultimately passed by a 78-70 vote. Here are some of the highlights, such as they are:

[T]he House voted to include insurance companies in the new business tax. Insurers traditionally have been exempted from the state franchise tax and instead pay a 1.6 percent tax on premiums.

But Rep. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs, argued that the companies would be prohibited from passing the business tax to their policyholders.

Lawmakers opposed to the amendment, which passed on a 73-66 vote, said it would make Texas a less-competitive place to do business and could result in higher insurance costs.

Rep. Scott Hochberg, D-Houston, succeeded in amending the bill to exempt diapers and parking at medical facilities from all sales taxes. He replaced the lost $37 million a year by adding sales tax to elective cosmetic surgery procedures.

The bill would increase the state sales tax from 6.25 percent to 7.25 percent. It would impose an extra 3 percent sales tax on candy, chips and soft drinks.

Bottled water, auto-repair services, car washes and billboard ads would be subject to the sales tax for the first time. There also would be an increase of $1.01 per pack in the cigarette tax.

A proposed sales tax on newspaper sales was stripped from the bill. Donnis Baggett, publisher and editor of the Bryan-College Station Eagle, said he was "very pleased" by the change.

"It's a cumbersome and inefficient revenue-generating measure," said Baggett, past president of the Texas Daily Newspaper Association.

Just days before he's to meet with a newspaper publishers' group here, House Speaker Tom Craddick denied that a provision to tax newspaper sales is a punitive response to unflattering news coverage.

"That is not right, you are incorrect," Craddick said Friday, rebutting comments made by three House members, including two Republicans, who said they heard the GOP speaker specifically suggest newspapers be subject to the sales tax.

[...]

Craddick said he has "no idea" why only newspapers are being considered.

"I don't know about the other media, they were not in it last time," Craddick said, referring to debate in 2003 and during last year's special sessions when the Legislature faced a $10 billion shortfall. During the last regular session and during at least two special sessions, taxing newspaper sales was briefly considered.

But three House members, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Craddick is targeting newspapers.

"This is his (mode of operating)," one Republican member said. "He don't like you guys and what you've been writing about him, and this is his payback."

With newspapers facing declining circulation, "why would you want to hitch your wagon to that star," another member asked. "The answer is he wants to punish you for what you've been writing."

[Rep. Jim] Keffer, appointed by Craddick this term to head the powerful tax writing committee, denied the allegations.

"There is nothing sinister or underhanded here. This (newspaper tax) is just one of a number of items being considered," he said. "There is no ulterior motive here. We are trying to fit pieces onto a jigsaw puzzle."

“It’s tough. It’s been a tough bill. . . . But I’m very pleased with the outcome. We’re going to make it a better bill (in the Senate).”

Jeff Bezos wants to send you into orbit, with the West Texas town of Van Horn as the launching point.

Bezos flew into this West Texas town a few weeks ago to tell key leaders how he planned to use his newly acquired 165,000 acres of desolate ranch land. He also gave his only interview so far on the spaceport to the Van Horn Advocate, the weekly newspaper Larry Simpson runs from the back of his Radio Shack store.

"He walked in and said: 'Hi, I'm Jeff Bezos,' and sat down right in that chair there," Simpson said, pointing to spot in his small cluttered office.

Over the next 30 to 40 minutes, Simpson said Bezos told him the goal of his venture — known as Blue Origin — was to send a spaceship into orbit that launches and lands vertically, like a rocket.

"He told me their first spacecraft is going to carry three people up to the edge of space and back," Simpson said. "But ultimately, his thing is space colonization."

And the DeLay drums keep on beating. Click on over to the Daily DeLay and learn about the Public Campaign Action Fund's Without DeLay project. Here's their Top Ten list of reasons why Tom DeLay should take his leave from the public stage. This is the first phase of their campaign; the next phase will involve putting some pressure on potentially vulnerable Republicans for their close ties to The Hammer. Hop on board now, it's gonna be a good ride.

UPDATE: Here's a little reminder of why constant pressure is needed.

House Republican leaders stood behind Tom DeLay on Monday as they assessed the fallout from a series of news reports questioning the propriety of his fund raising and overseas travel.

They are expressing confidence in the majority leader from Sugar Land and are trying to tamp down private grumblings by some members.

"I never underestimate Tom DeLay," said House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier, R-Calif., a member of the House leadership team.

Dreier and others noted that DeLay has long been an inviting target for Democrats and watchdog groups because of his aggressive and effective fund raising among lobbyists and special-interest groups.

"Speaker (Dennis) Hastert believes that Majority Leader DeLay is an extremely valuable and integral member of the team" despite "partisan attacks," said Ron Bonjean, Hastert's spokesman.

The good news is that the fine folks at the Texas Observer are doing something that they were born to do - they've set up a Legislature blog, which promises "incisive reporting on key issues of the 79th Legislature and the characters behind them." The bad news is that their scheduled debut is April 15. As Scott says, y'all do realize that the session ends six weeks after that, right? Well, barring overtime, which, given the utter hash that the House made of school finance reform, looks like a good bet to me.

I've added it to my subscriptions anyway, in case they change their mind and start posting early. I'm definitely looking forward to their efforts.

Tiffany got a direct-mail piece from Judicial Watch today. You just never know sometimes.

(I'm sure they just rented some magazine subscription list to get her name - she used to have a sub to a foreign-policy mag, and she gets The Atlantic as well. The piece was an anti-UN screed, which would make my personal Top Ten list of pitches that are sure to miss with her. All in all, I had a good laugh as I hauled it to the recycle bin.)

From San Francisco City Supervisor Chris Daly (via Kos) to Rep. John Culberson (via Rob), more current elected officials are taking up blogging. Note their stated reasons, Daly first:

As it becomes increasingly clear to me that San Franciscans are not going to get the kind of local coverage that we need from the San Francisco Chronicle, I am going to be looking elsewhere to get my message out.

This site is intended to be a way for the Congressman to get his point of view onto the web in the quickest way possible, without the major media filtering or changing his words.

If for whatever reason we can't rely on the local media to cover campaigns and political happenings, then I'll take whatever I can get straight from the sources themselves. Politicians' websites will be necessarily self-serving, but at least there they can be sure that their words will be made public, where we can all hear and judge them. At this point, any candidate for office who doesn't have a website and who isn't regularly updating that site (it doesn't have to be blog format, though of course that's an easy and user-friendly way to provide regular updates) isn't taking the task of campaigning seriously enough, in my opinion. I don't see why those who are already elected wouldn't see it that way, too.

Last week, Cardinals pitcher Rick Ankiel announced that he was giving up pitching and would try to make it as an outfielder. While the sportswriter consensus appears to be happiness for Ankiel, who endured a terrible meltdown on the mound in the 2001 playoffs and never returned to form after that, there's not much hope for success at the major league level. Rob Neyer notes a prior example of a pitcher-to-outfield change, and predicts that like this predecessor, Ankiel will only be a minor-league hitter, though John Manual thinks there's a small chance he could make it.

Of course, the name that will occur to everyone is Babe Ruth. As David Pinto notes, Ruth was a much better hitter than Ankiel has shown himself to be - Ruth was playing the outfield part time from the beginning, and in his last full season of pitching, he hit 325/385/472, numbers which dwarf Ankiel's performance of 250/292/382 from 2000.

Personally, I think Ankiel ought to consider aiming for the Brooks Kieschnick career path. He can hit well enough to be a pinch hitter, and as a lefty there will always be room for him in someone's bullpen. Maybe giving up on being a starting hurler will enable him to relax enough to weigh that option, I don't know. Whatever, I wish him good luck.

Nothing brightens my week quite like a continued flow of news about bad behavior by Tom DeLay.

DeLay Ethics Allegations Now Cause of GOP Concern

"If death comes from a thousand cuts, Tom DeLay is into a couple hundred, and it's getting up there," said a Republican political consultant close to key lawmakers. "The situation is negatively fluid right now for the guy. You start hitting arteries, it only takes a couple." The consultant, who at times has been a DeLay ally, spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying he could not be candid otherwise.

Warning: Ethics-Free Zone

THIS MAY NOT sound like news, but the House of Representatives is now an ethics-free zone. To be precise, it has no mechanism for investigating or disciplining members who violate ethics rules. The proximate cause of this breakdown is the revolt by the five Democrats on the evenly divided ethics committee. Led by the ranking Democrat, Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (W.Va.), committee Democrats understandably balked last week at acceding to new rules for how the panel should conduct its business -- rules dictated by the GOP leadership and slanted toward making the ethics process, already tilted in favor of gridlock, even more feckless.

Last week's tumultuous events cap a year in which the committee took the extraordinary step of issuing three admonitions to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), infuriating the majority leader and his supporters. In the aftermath, the ethics panel's chairman, Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo.), and two other committee Republicans were removed and replaced with those more loyal to the Republican team. In addition, the GOP leadership did its best to neuter the committee by rewriting the rules for the new Congress. When their own members were too embarrassed to go along, the leadership was forced to backtrack on some of the most egregious changes. It left in place three others, leading to the current standoff.

[...]

Republicans are now trying, laughably, to portray the impasse as the result of Democrats' refusal to "put the ethics process above partisan politics," as a spokesman for House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) put it. Democrats have no lack of partisanship on this issue, but the GOP spin is hard to take from the people who rigged the rules and changed the players when they didn't like the result. Mr. Mollohan now has a single Republican, Rep. Christopher Shays (Conn.), co-sponsoring his resolution. We would hope that -- especially in light of new ethical questions involving Mr. DeLay -- additional members of the majority will sign on, putting the long-term good of the institution ahead of the short-term interests of those with the greatest stake in an ineffectual ethics process.

The FBI is trying to trace what happened to $2.5 million in payments to a conservative Washington think tank that were routed to accounts controlled by two lobbyists with close ties to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, NEWSWEEK has learned. The payments to the National Center for Public Policy Research were meant for a PR campaign promoting Indian gaming, center officials said. But internal e-mails obtained by NEWSWEEK show the lobbyists, Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon, DeLay's former press secretary, never documented any work performed or explained what they did with the money despite repeated requests. "We're disappointed and frustrated," said Amy Ridenour, the center's president. The group's records have been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury. One focus of the FBI probe, legal sources say, is whether the payments, as well as tens of millions of dollars in other fees collected by the two lobbyists from Indian tribes, were used for political contributions or to pay for trips and gifts to members of Congress.

DeLay and Company

[F]or the first time, a significant number of Republicans have begun to question DeLay's political survival. Frets a senior G.O.P. Congressman about the odor surrounding DeLay: "It just isn't going away."

A legal defense fund established by Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, has dramatically expanded its fund-raising effort in recent months, taking in more than $250,000 since the indictment last fall of two his closest political operatives in Texas, according to Mr. DeLay's latest financial disclosure statements.

The list of recent donors includes dozens of Mr. DeLay's House Republican colleagues, including two lawmakers who were placed on the House ethics committee this year, and several of the nation's largest corporations and their executives.

Among the corporate donors to the defense fund is Bacardi U.S.A., the Florida-based rum maker, which has also been indicted in the Texas investigation, and Reliant Energy, another major contributor to a Texas political action committee formed by Mr. DeLay that is the focus of the criminal inquiry.

UPDATE: ThinkProgress has a nice guide to all the latest scandals involving DeLay.

UPDATE: And more from the LA Times, via The Daily DeLay.

UPDATE: The Next Hurrah speculates as to who the six mystery Republicans mentioned in the first WaPo story might be, while The Stakeholder excerpts from that Roll Call story and from a Congressional Quarterly piece.

UPDATE: Welcome, Air America Radio listeners! Just about all of my historic DeLay-related stuff can be found here.

How can you tell it's Sunshine Week? Just look at the pile of stories and editorials telling us about it. Here's the Chron's entry, which was the top result at the time of my search.

Grits notes that Sens. John Cornyn and Patrick Leahy have proposed to make the national Freedom of Information Act more like Texas' laws. Thanks to the Sharpstown Bank Scandal of 1969, Texas is a national leader on open government laws, though as Grits notes, recent exemptions have caused it to slip a little - the Austin Chronicle had a good article on this awhile back. Still, though Grits also identifies a sizeable omission in the Cornyn bill, it's a step in the right direction. Let's hope it passes.

Welcome home, State Rep. Rick Noriega.

Rep. Rick Noriega, D-Houston, who is serving in the Texas Army National Guard in Afghanistan, came to the House chamber Thursday while home on leave.

Noriega's wife, Melissa, is serving as acting state representative in his place while he is away.

House members gathered closely around the podium to hear the guardsman speak. He told of how beautiful he now finds the drives to be on Texas' country back roads and how proud the state should be of its men and women serving in the armed forces overseas.

"Being where we've been certainly helps you to put your priorities in order on what's important in life," Noriega said.

Atrios has a couple of questions:

If you leave your child of age X alone for an afternoon and she manages to injure or kill herself, what is the minimum X such that you won't be arrested for some sort of parental negligence? What is the minimum X such that Nancy Grace won't try to destroy your life on national TV?

And, has X changed over the past 20 years?

I have no clue if it's different today. You'd think after a couple of generations of latchkey kids, this would not be a big deal, but pendulums do swing and there's nothing like a little demonization of "unfit" parents to make us all feel smug and superior. It's a little premature for me to say what we'll do with Olivia, but I can say that the 14-year-old girl across the street has already babysat for us, and I don't think there's anything that society as a whole would consider unusual in that. What do you think?

It's the first ever National Sunshine Week this week.

Opening a dialogue about the public’s right of access to government information is the focus of Sunshine Sunday and Sunshine Week: Your Right to Know, which kick off March 13, 2005 and continue through the following week.

Participating daily and weekly newspapers, magazines, online sites, and radio and television broadcasters will feature editorials, op-eds, editorial cartoons, and news and feature stories that drive public discussion about why open government is important to everyone, not just to journalists.

“This is not just an issue for the press. It’s an issue for the public,” said Andy Alexander, ASNE Freedom of Information chair, who is chief of the Cox Newspapers’ Washington bureau. “An alarming amount of public information is being kept secret from citizens and the problem is increasing by the month. Not only do citizens have a right to know, they have a need to know.

“Our goal is the raise public awareness of this horrible trend that is hurting democracy,” he said of the Sunshine Week project. “We hope that it sparks a public dialogue about the value of open government and the damage to citizens from excessive government secrecy.”

Rep. Toby Goodman thinks the law is unclear as to whether government officials and their staffs can meet in small groups and discuss public business.

So the Arlington Republican has filed legislation that he thinks clears up the confusion in the state's open-government law. But other lawmakers and activist groups are fighting the bill, saying it is either unnecessary or would diminish Texans' access to government.

[...]

Last week, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott urged the Legislature to pass bills filed by Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, and Rep. Todd Baxter, R-Austin, that would require all local and state officials to undergo open-government training.

The goal of the bills is to help standardize training and emphasize the need for both elected and appointed government officials to understand the state's open-government laws, Wentworth said.

Abbott said his office is flooded with requests for open-records rulings. He said the number of requests has risen by 44 percent in the past two years, and his office issues about 45 rulings per day.

Abbott is asking the Legislature for nine more employees to help with the load. In fiscal 2004, the Open Records Division received 11,355 requests from officials about the nature of their records and whether they should be disclosed to the public.

Goodman's bill would allow government officials to hold meetings in numbers less than a quorum, as long as information discussed is not shared with other people. There would be limitations on what could be discussed.

Currently, terms such as "meeting" and "deliberation" can have several meanings, which can affect how people interpret the law, Goodman said.

"Any Billy Bob who is elected to City Council in Lamesa, Texas, (could) get a pamphlet on open meetings and say this is what I can do and this is what I can't do" if his bill becomes law, he said.

But Wentworth, a longtime advocate of open government, thinks the bill is regressive. He said the bill encourages less sunshine on government because officials and staff could begin to deliberate in private, something he worked for years to prohibit.

"If they were merely being briefed by their staff it would be OK, but most of those meetings quickly changed from briefing to discussion, debate, deliberation, and that's not allowed under the law," Wentworth said. "It's a bad, bad bill."

Katherine Garner, executive director of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, said her group opposes the bill because the language is vague.

"(The bill) is ripe for abuse as far as we're concerned," she said. "This basically allows groups to meet privately and guts the open-meetings law to some extent."

Vince has some background on open records laws in Texas and his experiences with filing open records requests.

I know, I know, knock me over with a feather.

A proposed $11 billion tax bill before the Texas House would create a new sales tax on bottled water, but the excise tax on beer, wine and liquor escapes any increase -- as it has since 1984.

A search of the Texas Ethics Commission database turns up no campaign contributions from Evian or Perrier, the nation's largest distributors of bottled water. But Texas' liquor industry donated $726,000 to Texas politicians in 2004 alone, with almost $300,000 of that coming from Houstonian John Nau, president of Silver Eagle Distributors LLP.

Suzii Paynter, a lobbyist for the Christian Life Commission of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, thinks water is being taxed in the bill because it does not have an army of lobbyists like the liquor industry and some other big businesses do.

"They (lobbyists) are some of the most highly paid whiners in the world," Paynter said. "Instead of trying to figure out how to make this system work for Texas and its kids and everybody sharing the burden of it, they see their job as whining about their industry."

Some of the biggest industrial sector donors in the past two years and their proposed tax cuts are:

Finance, insurance and real estate -- $896.5 million a year in tax cuts; $7.3 million in political contributions.

Utilities and transportation -- $222.2 million in cuts; $6.1 million in donations.

Oil, gas and petrochemical -- $399 million in cuts; $5.1 million in donations.

And the winner for Best Use of Ideological Blinkers is:

Supporters of the tax bill say it will improve the state's economy by reducing taxes on capital to spur investment.

"We haven't built a new oil refinery in Texas since the '70s," said John Gormley, communications director of the Texas Association of Realtors.

TxDOT and Cintra have agreed to negotiate a master plan.

The comprehensive development agreement signed Friday does not mention either sum, or give Cintra any exclusive rights to build or operate anything on the corridor, designated TTT-35. It also doesn't mention revenue-generating ancillary facilities such as rest stops and service stations.

Jose Lopez, Cintra's director of U.S. and Latin American operations, said the company is not interested in operating these unless TxDOT asks them to. He said the sums cited would be paid out over the next decade as the toll road is built — if it is.

TxDOT spokeswoman Gaby Garcia said the agreement gives Cintra "a place at the table" in working with the agency to address transportation needs in the corridor, which would run east of Interstate 35.

Under the agreement, TxDOT will pay Cintra $3.5 million for its planning efforts and products, even if another developer is eventually chosen. TxDOT turnpike director Phil Russell said the department has "unfettered ability" to offer corridor projects to anyone.

"Why in the world would they jump into this if we always have that ability?" Russell asked. "I think they're very, very confident that they've got the best mousetrap."

Meanwhile, Robert Rivard relates the tale of a bad day on I-35 (you remember I-35, right?), while yet another rural county contemplates opposing the TTC.

This says an awful lot about the state of our state government.

Many of the proposals contained in the plan that could revamp the way Texas funds schools were penned more than a year ago by academics in California, not lawmakers in Texas.

[...]

Gov. Rick Perry; House Committee Chairman Kent Grusendorf, R-Arlington; and Senate Education Chairwoman Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, asked the Hoover Institution's Koret Task Force to examine Texas school funding and suggest ways to improve the effectiveness and delivery of education in public schools.

The Hoover Institution, founded at Stanford University, is a research center for advanced study on domestic public policy and international affairs. It's widely described as a "conservative think tank."

The Koret Task Force is made up of Hoover fellows and includes several members who've written books about school reform, accountability and private-school vouchers.

The result of the task force's work: "Recommendations from the Koret Task Force, February 2004," was published in book form last year. Its recommendations mirror the language in House Bill 2, including rolling back local property tax rates, establishing a system of financial accountability for districts, freeing exemplary schools from state regulation and phasing in computer-assisted testing for state-standardized tests.

The report also covers school board elections, incentive pay for teachers and how to budget for textbooks — all points covered in the bill.

Cal Jillson, professor of political science at Southern Methodist University, said state and national lawmakers from both major parties have become increasingly dependent on think tanks such as the libertarian Cato Institute, the conservative Heritage Foundation and the liberal-leaning Brookings Institute, to both craft and interpret policy.

"It's no surprise that conservative politicians will go to conservative think tanks, but there should be truth in advertising. We should know where this came from," he said. "We're really getting a Hoover Institution piece of legislation pushed through the Texas Legislature."

And while farming out extensive research and analysis to experts isn't necessarily a bad idea, it's important for voters to know the source of the ideas, Jillson said.

"The think tanks and policy analysis groups are not there to do public service," he said. "They're there to push a point of view."

Kimberly Reeves often highlights other people's posts with the title "Good Blogging". It's time I returned the favor and point you to this example of darned good blogging on her part concerning the hash that the Republicans have made so far of HB2. Go read and know that I agree with her 100%.

Continuing with the gearup for 2006, Richard Morrison takes his pitch directly to the netroots community from which he got such a great boost last time out. I'm intrigued by this comment, which shares some post-election research and suggests how the next campaign will unfold. Check it out, and of course don't be afraid to pitch in.

There may be a special election in Montgomery County's near future.

Local attorney Brandon Creighton announced his intention Tuesday to file for the District 16 House of Representatives seat currently held by Ruben Hope, if Gov. Rick Perry appoints Hope to a judicial post. The Quorum Report, a Web site reporting insider information about the Texas Legislature, stated Monday that Perry will soon appoint Hope to a district judgeship in Montgomery County.

However, no confirmation has been forthcoming from Perry's office or from Hope. When asked Tuesday if Perry has appointed him to a judgeship, Hope replied, "Not at the present time." As far as a future appointment, however, "That's a possibility," Hope, 67, said. "I don't fully know just what it's going to be. When it happens, it happens; if it doesn't it doesn't. The announcement in the Quorum Report was premature."

He added that he is hoping for a judicial appointment. The Courier so far has not been able to confirm that any of Montgomery County's five district judges will soon be vacating their post.

Creighton, who ran against Hope in the 2002 primary, is the second person to announce his intentions to run for the seat if Hope wins an appointment and Perry calls a special election. Former Rep. Bob Rabuck, who held the District 16 seat before Hope, told The Courier Monday he will run for the position if or when it becomes open.

I haven't checked in with Father John for a couple of days, but he's keeping up with the Colorado privatization mess and the concurrent activities here in Texas in a big way. Here's a roundup of his latest on the issue:

The Greeley Tribune editorializes that the state must pay to fix the harm caused by computer glitches.

There's been progress made in cleaning up the backlog that resulted from the faulty transition, but it's due to state employees putting in 14-hour days, not from improvements in the CBMS program.

There may be progress, but there's still plenty of glitches to contend with.

If you read just one of these posts read this one, which explains why privatization in Health and Human Services is not the panacea it's been made out to be.

And finally, a Denver Post editorial which says that progress claimed for the CBMS program is illusory.

There is some good news in Texas. I'm told that Senators Bob Deuell and Ken Armbrister have agreed to sponsor the Senate companion bill to HB1674, which would require the HHSC to "suspend all activities related to establishing a call center" until the new program (TIERS) is "fully developed and tested", determine that the system is "operational for all programs with respect to which it will be used", and reported on these activities. Armbrister will also be sponsoring the Senate companion to HB1338, which will require the state auditor to "conduct an audit to review the determination by the Health and Human Services Commission that the use of one or more call centers for determining eligibility for health and human services programs under Section 531.063, Government Code, as added by Chapter 198, Acts of the 78th Legislature, Regular Session, 2003, is cost-effective." And finally, though it doesn't have a Senate cosponsor yet, HB2447 would require HSSC to "develop and operate a pilot program to evaluate each feature of the redesigned integrated eligibility and benefits determination system for health and human services programs" prior to statewide rollout. So there's hope that this train can be slowed down before it has a chance to wreck. If you think that's a good idea, drop a note to your rep and youe senator and let them know it.

Interesting article on how State Reps Mark Strama and Todd Baxter, both of whom were elected by miniscule margins in November, arrived at their votes on HB2.

Baxter, the Republican representative for District 48 in northwestern Travis County, fresh from taking a public role speaking on the floor Tuesday, was eager to help fellow Republicans pass a bill that, he said, begins phasing out redistribution of school money from property-rich to property-poor districts, called "Robin Hood" by critics.

Baxter did it for his constituents: not just Eanes, often cited as a district that suffers under the system, but the Austin, Lago Vista and Leander districts.

"I consider it a watershed, one of the most important things I've done since I've been here at the Capitol," Baxter said, exhilarated. "I perceive myself a leader on this issue because it's what's right for my district."

Strama, a Democrat from District 50 in northeastern Travis County, intended to do what was right for his district, too. But Strama was nagged by a feeling that this plan wasn't good for schoolchildren in other parts of the state, in poorer districts that have been the beneficiaries of money sent from districts such as Eanes. His feeling was freighted by the sense that as a Democrat, there wasn't much he could do to alter the outcome.

Strama, like Baxter, represents a swing district that elected him by the narrowest of margins last year, creating pressures that drive both toward the political center.

Earlier in the day, Strama considered leveraging an aye vote on the Republican-sponsored bill for changes he thought might improve the bill for his constituents. But by early evening, Strama had decided to vote nay.

"I think that if the vote is close enough, I ought to vote as if my vote were going to decide the outcome," Strama said. "I don't think this is a good bill."

Actually, it's the Senate Finance Committee that's showing the love.

A Senate panel quietly approved a raise of more than 30 percent for the governor and other statewide elected officials Thursday, saying that those officials don't make enough for the "size and scope" of their responsibilities.

Gov. Rick Perry's response: Thanks, but no thanks.

"The governor has made his feelings about this quite plain to both the Senate and the House," said spokesman Robert Black. "He has no desire for a pay increase. He certainly does not see a need for a statewide pay increase for elected officials."

He would not say, though, whether Mr. Perry would use a line-item veto to strike the raises or refuse to take the money if the Legislature approves it anyway.

"We're not going to speculate on what might come to his desk," Mr. Black said.

The provision, added to an appropriations bill in the Senate Finance Committee, comes as lawmakers are wrangling over the first raises for teachers in years. State employees are set to receive 4.5 percent raises each of the next two years.

The vote was unanimous, but only a bare majority of the committee's members were present at the early-morning meeting.

"They're entitled to that level of compensation," said committee chairman Steve Ogden, the Bryan Republican who sponsored the measure. "Like anything else in state government, you get what you pay for."

Thankfully, saner heads may yet prevail.

The raises, although deserved, should not be a priority with so many budget needs, said Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Lewisville, a member of the Finance Committee.

Raises for agency heads reach up to $50,000 in some cases, she said, and the Senate seems to be "spending money without knowing exactly where it's going to come from."

"I have great appreciation for all our statewide officeholders, but that's not the way to do business," said Ms. Nelson, who was not informed of the vote on the raise and was out of the room when it came up. "My first question is, how much of a pay raise are our teachers going to get?"

[...]

Though the raise may make it through the Senate, it could have some trouble in the House when that chamber's Appropriations Committee takes it up later in the session.

"Outrageous, that's what I would say," said Rep. Leo Berman, R-Tyler, vice chairman of that panel. "We have a shortage in the budget. I couldn't support that."

Turns out that the payroll tax floated in HB3 isn't so popular. Who knew?

Trying to build more support for a controversial $10.8 billion tax trade-off, House leaders worked Thursday to revise a business payroll levy to also give companies the option of paying an expanded franchise tax based on income.

Speaker Tom Craddick said efforts to draft the change were more difficult than anticipated, and after several hours of preliminary discussions, the House unexpectedly postponed further debate on the tax measure until today.

[...]

Craddick said he had enough votes to win approval of the bill even without changing the payroll tax, which had been approved by the House Ways and Means Committee but had drawn opposition from a number of companies with large numbers of employees, including Texas-based airlines and grocers.

But state Rep. Larry Taylor, R-Friendswood, said the payroll tax "was giving a lot of people heartburn."

Under changes being drafted for debate today, the franchise tax would be expanded to cover all forms of businesses — including partnerships and sole proprietorships — that hire employees. It wouldn't apply to sole proprietors without employees.

The bill would continue the franchise-tax exemption for businesses that have annual gross receipts less than $150,000. But it would close loopholes under which many major Texas corporations don't pay the franchise tax.

Companies would be given the option of paying the franchise tax or a new payroll option. The franchise tax is based on 4.5 percent of a company's net taxable earned surplus, an accounting term based on income, or 2.5 percent of assets. The new payroll option would be set at 1.15 percent of each employee's compensation, up to $90,000 per worker.

The House appeared to be lumbering toward a vote on a $10 billion tax bill that would restructure the way businesses pay taxes, while levying a slate of new consumer taxes on Texans.

But after lawmakers mulled over more changes to the bill this morning — and some expressed worry about a proposed business tax — Republican House Speaker Tom Craddick said he would postpone debate until next week to give legislators more time to study it.

"I don't want anybody to vote on something they don't understand," Craddick said.

"My first thought was that somehow a graffiti dude had scaled the body 30 feet and sprayed the mustache," Adickes said. But he soon learned the paint job had been ordered by the office tower's managers.

"They don't have the right to abuse, debase or radically change the concept," Adickes fumed Thursday. "They can't leave it like that. It's hideous. It's Groucho Marx. ... You can't paint a mustache on the Mona Lisa."

[...]

The cellist's mustache was blackened several weeks ago as workers employed by U.S. Property Management repainted the artwork, which sits on the plaza of the office tower at 440 Louisiana, as part of routine maintenance. Adickes said he learned of the alteration from friends.

Jason Davis, president of U.S. Property Management, said he made the decision to paint the mustache black but offered no further comment. He did not indicate if the mustache will again be painted white.

[...]

"Painting the mustache on the David Adickes sculpture is clearly not the ethical thing to do," said Kim Davenport, director of the Rice University Gallery. "It's really the same as if someone were to spray paint it, to graffiti it."

"You could say Leonardo da Vinci is dead and legally the Louvre owns the Mona Lisa, but it doesn't have the moral right to paint a mustache on her," added Terrie Sultan, director of University of Houston's Blaffer Gallery. "Artists are people who have moral rights, too, and those things should not be taken lightly."

Adickes said he understands that the decision to paint the cellist's mustache black was made almost on a whim.

"They wanted to see what it would look like, whether anyone would notice," he said. "I don't think it was a malicious decision. ... But a well-established artwork has a life of its own.

"People are going to think I did this."

An arbitrator has ruled against former HPD Captain Mark Aguirre, who was fired by the city for his role in the K-Mart Kiddie Roundup.

Thursday's decision came six months after Aguirre testified that he was wrongfully fired in January 2003 as a scapegoat when the raid became a political controversy.

[...]

"Capt. Aguirre led and was responsible for a tragedy that ultimately affected not only many officers but the citizens as well," John B. Barnard, the arbitrator, wrote in his decision.

After the arrests prompted public fallout, the city dropped charges against everyone arrested. What followed was the police department's largest internal affairs investigation, resulting in disciplinary action against 32 officers.

Aguirre's attorney, Terry W. Yates, said Thursday that Aguirre likely will appeal the decision to a state district court or file a wrongful termination lawsuit against the city.

Via Byron, I see that Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams blog. Well, sort of, as Byron says, since the index page is a set of links to individual entries rather than a set of the entries themselves. His links page does establish himself as a blog reader, though, so you have to give him credit for that. Political views and taste in reading aside, I heartily approve of elected officials who blog, and so I salute Michael Williams, whose archives show that he's the pioneer here, beating State Rep. Aaron Pena to the punch by a few months. May Williams' (hopefully Democratic) successor pick up the habit as well.

Via Crooked Timber and Hit and Run comes the official list of banned words from the back of replica NFL jerseys (warning: NSFW). This list came to light after a customer was originally prohibited from getting the name "Gay" on a jersey, even though Randall Gay is a member of the Super Bowl champion Patiots. After the predictable outcry, common sense prevailed and "gay" was struck from the NFL's bad words list. But that still left 1159 other words and phrases.

Now, I like to consider myself fluent in the language of profanity, but alas, the culture moves faster than most of us, and a few of those words were ones I'd never heard. One such word is "stagg". I know what the naughty connotations are of "stag" with one "g", but not "stagg" with two. What I do know, however, is that Amos Alonzo Stagg was one of the greatest and most innovative football coaches in history. That doesn't mean that a member of his family could get a personalized NFL jersey, however. They say that NFLShop.com "uses three levels of manual checks to make sure a personalized jersey meets the league's guidelines", but unfortunately it would seem that none of those levels includes a knowledge of the game's history. And that's a pity.

Yesterday, AmericaBlog reported that a $25 million lawsuit had been filed against USANext for their misappropriation of the image of Richard M. Raymen and Steven P. Hansen (see here for more). Today, the judge granted their request for a temporary restraining order.

The TRO requires USA Next to cease and desist from further use of the couple's photos for any purpose. This is a big deal because it means the judge has found that the guys have reasonable likelihood of winning their case, and he also said he could see how they could get damages.

Basically, the couple’s lawyer, Christopher Wolf (counsel with Proskauer Rose, LLP), argued that a TRO was necessary to stop USA Next from using the couple’s image for additional ads. USA Next’s lawyer would not promise that the image wouldn’t be used again. And USA Next’s ad consultant even said in an AP story last night that the gay couple was to blame for getting married!

[...]

The first sign of trouble for USA Next, in my opinion, was when the judge said today “I can see how they [the couple] may be entitled to damages for the misappropriation of their images.” After a lot of back and forth between the attorneys, the judge retired to chambers, then came back. Here’s what he said:

1. There’s no real case on point with regards to this fact pattern, but “it seems to me that an individual obviously does have a privacy right in their physical image.”
2. He went on to say that there is no evidence that the plaintiff’s put themselves in a position to be photographed – meaning, they had to stand in line with everyone else in order to get their legal marriage at the courthouse. It wasn’t like they chose to be photographed, they were standing in line. (Wolf made an interesting comparison: If the judge had affirmatively chosen to put his wedding picture in the Washington Post “weddings” section, would that give Campbell Soup the right to put the judge’s now-public photo on a can of soup?)
3. The judge went on to say that even if the couple had consented to the newspaper snapping a photo, did that mean that they were giving away their rights, so the image could be misappropriated by anybody?
4. He continued, saying that USA Next used the photo “in a manner inconsistent with their [the couple’s] perspective on an issue.” “Clearly there was a misappropriation of their image…. The public does have an interest in an individual’s image not being misappropriated.”
5. He said that the ad campaign was obviously “done for the purpose of bashing gay marriage…. It seems to me a misappropriation inconsistent with the desire of the plaintiffs” and “it is in fact an infringement of their privacy right.” The use of the photo by USA Next was “inconsistent with the desire of the plaintiffs” and the use “does cause harm.”
6. He concluded that the harm in this case “does rise to the level of irreparable harm.”
7. He then granted the TRO and ordered that a $500 bond be used to secure the TRO.

The next step is for the attorneys on both sides to figure out, with the judge’s law clerk, when they can meet again to try the case – they threw around a date at the end of March. Of course, USA Next could always decide that it wants to settle the case before it goes to court again.

UPDATE: Colorado Luis takes a look at the full complaint (PDF) and sees danger for the defendants in the form of the word "disgorgement".

Having feasted on the smorgasbord of recent and new allegations regarding Tom DeLay, I figure it's time I note that Richard Morrison is out there gearing up for a rematch in 2006. As Texas Nate notes, DeLay spent $4.62 for every dollar Morrison used in '04, so a donation to Morrison gets you a lot of bang for your buck. As BoffoBlog notes, DeLay is also gearing up, and he won't be caught by surprise this time around. You can help make a difference and in doing so hopefully make our nation's capital a better place.

The good news is that the police appear to have found the person responsible for the horrible murders of Michael Lefkow and Donna Humphrey, the husband and mother of Judge Joan Lefkow. Apparently, he was a lone nutter with a grudge against a list of people, and he killed himself when pulled over for a routine traffic stop.

Investigators today said a Chicago man who shot himself in the head during a traffic stop Wednesday evening in Wisconsin had a suicide note claiming responsibility for the slayings of U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow's husband and mother last week.

The note listed people that Bart Ross—whose last known address was in the 4500 block of North Bernard Avenue—thought had mistreated him, including judges. One source called it "basically, a hit list."

Sources also said they recovered a stocking cap and coveralls from Ross' van that could link the man to the sketch of the older of two suspicious individuals that witnesses saw near the judge's Chicago home the day of the slayings.

"It was simply a suspicious vehicle. It turned out there could be much more involved here," West Allis Police Chief Dean Puschnig said at a news conference this morning in the Milwaukee suburb.

Separately, court documents show that in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, Chicago, Ross blamed doctors for a medical procedure allegedly gone awry and lawyers and the courts for failing to give him relief. Lefkow dismissed the suit last September.

How cool is this? Senator Russ Feingold addresses the concerns of the netroots community regarding the recent statements of FEC Commissioner Brad Smith and the effects of the McCain/Feingold law on political blogging. That makes him the second sitting Senator to directly converse with blog readers in this fashion, following the lead of Sen. Barbara Boxer. I hope that there's more to come.

I'm pleased to announce the birth of HoustonDemocrats.com, the official blog of the Harris County Democratic Party. It's a group effort, and having met most of the people who will be powering it, I expect it to be a rollicking good read on issues affecting Harris County and Texas. Check it out.

I believe they call this revising and extending one's original remarks.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said Wednesday he served as a creator, adviser and fund-raiser to a Texas-based political action committee now under state criminal investigation, but he was not involved in its day-to-day operations.

DeLay, R-Sugar Land, elaborated on his role as an advisory board member of Texans for a Republican Majority, or TRMPAC, after news stories about the ongoing state grand jury probe of the political committee.

[...]

"Yes, I raised money for them," DeLay said in an interview with the Houston Chronicle, brushing aside any implication that his activities might have been illegal. He has never been named as a target in the criminal investigation.

"Everything that TRMPAC did, they did under the advice of lawyers," he said. "When you have lawyers advising you every step of the way in writing, it's very hard to make a case stick."

The organizers of TRMPAC set up two bank accounts, one for corporate contributions and another for noncorporate donations, DeLay said.

Asked if he was involved in the transfer or disbursement of TRMPAC funds, he replied, "Absolutely not. The only thing I knew about that was, they created, which I agreed with in my advisory capacity ... two separate funds, two separate bank accounts."

Meanwhile, the WaPo reports on some more questionable travel by The Hammer.

A delegation of Republican House members including Majority Leader Tom DeLay accepted an expense-paid trip to South Korea in 2001 from a registered foreign agent despite House rules that bar the acceptance of travel expenses from foreign agents, according to government documents and travel reports filed by the House members.

Justice Department documents show that the Korea-U.S. Exchange Council, a business-financed entity created with help from a lobbying firm headed by DeLay's former chief of staff, registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act on Aug. 22, 2001. DeLay; his wife, Christine; and two other Republican lawmakers departed on a trip financed by the group on Aug. 25 of that year.

The exchange group in late 2003 hosted three Democratic House members and another Republican on a similar trip. It spent at least $106,921 to finance the three-day trip in 2001 from Washington to Seoul by the Republicans, which DeLay (Tex.) and accompanying staff assistants described at the time as having an "educational" purpose.

DeLay's aides said yesterday that the congressman did not learn of the group's registration until this week. "There's no way we could have known, and they didn't inform us of the fact that their status changed," said DeLay's communications director, Dan Allen.

The Rules of the U.S. House of Representatives on Gifts and Travel state that "a Member, officer or employee may not accept travel expenses from 'a registered lobbyist or agent of a foreign principal.' "

Jan W. Baran, a former general counsel for the Republican National Committee, said that although he was uncertain whether this trip violated the rules, "it's a problem" likely to trigger an investigation by the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, known as the ethics committee. DeLay was admonished three times last year by the ethics committee.

An aide to DeLay who asked not to be named said DeLay staff members had general discussions about the trip with the ethics committee before leaving and received verbal approval.

A veteran House official familiar with the case, who declined to be named because of DeLay's involvement, said verbal approval is not granted by the committee on such matters.

Committee staff workers provide advice to lawmakers and their aides, but it does not go beyond what could be read in a manual, the official said. "The only way you can get, quote, approval from the ethics committee that is good for anything other than your own comfort level is to write a letter asking for approval, and to get a letter back," the official said. "If you do that, you're home free. If you don't, you're always running the risk you'll end up in a bind."

No letter was sent by DeLay to the committee, DeLay's aides said.

The conservative policy group that two Republican congressmen from Ohio and Florida reported as the sponsor of their golf outings to Scotland said it didn't pay for their excursions with a lobbyist.

Members of Congress are required to report trips that are paid for by outside groups. They are prohibited from accepting trips or gifts from lobbyists.

Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, said in an interview Wednesday that he had been misled by lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who at the time was a board member for the National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative think tank based in Washington.

Rep. Tom Feeney, R-Fla., sent a letter Wednesday to the House ethics committee, alerting them to the discrepancy in his travel disclosure forms.

[...]

Feeney told the ethics committee in his letter about the trip, "My staff completed all required documentation based on the information provided by the trip sponsors, but it appears that in some instances, they were misled."

"This is ridiculous. I was told point blank that they paid for the trip," said Ney, who chairs the House Administration Committee. "Why would we want to make something up? We would not benefit. We are not insane."

Ney's financial disclosure report said the center had paid for his 2002 trip, which included a visit to the famed St. Andrews golf course. Feeney also reported that the center paid for his 2003 trip to Scotland, where he golfed and attended the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, an annual parade of soldiers and bands at the Edinburgh Castle.

The center's lawyer, Mackenzie Canter, said the group didn't sponsor either trip.

"That is a mistake that somehow occurred in the congressmen's reporting," Cantor said. "We don't know why or how they thought the center was a sponsor ... we had nothing to do with it."

I'm a little surprised to learn that Kenny G did something recently that should have, but apparently hasn't, attracted enough outrage for someone like me to have noticed it. I can't do justice to what he did, but I can point you to this essay by Pat Metheny, which expresses a suitable reaction far better than I could have done. Check it out. Thanks to Lulu for the tip.

Dwight is keeping up with Save Muni Wireless, which sadly reports that HB789 (PDF) has been changed, but not for the better:

One change actually broadens the ban to cover even more services. The original ban primarily protected the large phone companies. The revision extends further protections to the large cable providers.

The bill adds some small exceptions. New provisions will allow free public hotspots under limited circumstances. The change would allow the city to light up a library, but not a downtown block.

Exceptions are added for a number of obvious services, such as permitting e-government services and allowing libraries to charge out-of-area visitors to use their facilities. The presence of these ridiculous exceptions validates our claim that the ban is harmful and overly broad. It also illustrates the folly of this approach. The bill fails to exempt on-line library catalogs, for instance, so presumably the Austin Public Library would need to shut down that service.

The changes open up just one provision for community Internet. Municipalities will be allowed to setup networks to support "economic development activities" providing that specific legislation authorizes the project.

UPDATE: More from In the Pink Texas.

Look out! Tom DeLay's scandaliciousness is spreading!

A group of congressional figures has joined House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) under an ethics cloud stemming from foreign golf junkets arranged by a lobbyist facing influence-peddling investigations.

DeLay landed in trouble last month over a 2000 trip to Scotland with the lobbyist. But two other congressmen and three House aides also played St. Andrews on separate junkets with the lobbyist that may have violated House rules, records show.

And, like the Texas Republican, all omitted disclosing the key role of beleaguered lobbyist Jack Abramoff. He privately raised tens of thousands of dollars for private jets and boasted of setting up golf junkets, according to documents, congressional testimony and interviews.

One of Abramoff's golf guests was Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio), chairman of the little-known but powerful House Administration Committee. He said in congressional filings that his trip on a chartered jet in 2002 was sponsored and paid for by an obscure conservative think tank, the National Center for Public Policy Research.

But the center's president told the Los Angeles Times that it "did not sponsor, nor did we pay" for Ney's travels.

The same nonprofit organization also was listed by then-freshman Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.) after he flew to Scotland with the lobbyist in August 2003. But in response to inquiries by The Times, the center said it did not provide "a single dime" for the Feeney junket.

Members of Congress routinely travel as guests of educational and policy groups, but they cannot accept trips or gifts from lobbyists.

The think tank's blunt contradictions of the congressmen's reports raise questions about whether Ney and Feeney violated House rules and filed false documents to disguise gifts from a lobbyist.

It is the latest twist in a mounting ethics scandal surrounding one of Washington's most prominent lobbyists.

Ney and Feeney, through spokesmen, blamed others for any filing errors.

"It was the congressman's understanding that this trip was permissible under House rules," said Brian J. Walsh, communications director for Ney. He said it was "based on representations" by Abramoff that the National Center sponsored their travel.

Feeney's chief of staff expressed surprise. "You are the first to inform me of the information being incorrect," said Jason Roe.

He said any false information would be "the result of someone misleading" the congressman, "not any nefarious activity on his part."

And to think I was worried that everyone would forget about the DeLay scandals by the time the 2006 elections rolled around. I'll never underestimate you again, Tom.

Oh, and be sure to note this. Whether he realizes it or not, DeLay is heading down the Newt Gingrich Highway.

Kimberly posts her Quorum Report article on the furious money shuffling that the House GOP is doing to get enough votes for HB2 to pass (breaking update - according to QR, it passed by a surprisingly close 76-71 vote, with Speaker Craddick casting an Aye; correct me if I'm wrong here, but isn't it unusual for the Speaker to vote on a bill?) - it would be funny if it weren't so serious. Yesterday, she emailed me a big PDF of all the proposed amendments and what the Republicans were told to do with them. Here's the QR blurb on it:

Quorum Report has obtained a copy of a list identifying amendments to HB2, who is carrying them, what the amendment does, who is assigned to rebut the amendment and whether Republicans are to vote yes or no. Some items include points of argument for the rebutters to use.

One of our favorites is Amendment 100 by Dunnam which appears on page 6 of our list. It orders the Legislative Budget Board to create a list of mandates in HB2 and identify which ones are funded and which are unfunded mandates. Representatives Madden, Mowery, Hill and Hope are tasked with arguing against the amendment. According to the script, this useful amendment will go down.

Of course, if you want funny, be sure to read the coverage of this circus from Governor Perry's favorite blog, In the Pink Texas. In order, start here, then here, here, here, and here. Eileen, I believe the taxpayers of the great state of Texas owe you a margarita and a lifetime supply of seat cushions. Call my office to collect.

Mayor White's compromise has carried the day in the smoking wars.

Houston City Council voted today to ban smoking in restaurant dining areas but not bars, accepting Mayor Bill White's compromise between anti-smoking forces and economic interests.

The Council rejected a proposal to ban smoking throughout restaurants but permit it in free-standing bars. The ordinance approved allows smoking in restaurant bars.

The council did not consider any measure for an across-the-board ban on indoor smoking in all public places, although that had earlier been proposed by two council members .

10 council members voted for the mayor's ordinance, three voted against it and two were absent.

Council members Shelley Sekula-Gibbs and Gordon Quan had offered amendments to ban smoking in virtually all public indoor spaces, but withdrew that today in favor of the measure to ban smoking in restaurants and bars in restaurants, but not free-standing bars. That proposal was rejected 10-3.

The city's existing ordinance allows all businesses to establish indoor smoking areas, as long as they are clearly marked and properly ventilated.

I'm OK with this. I personally would be happy with a totally smoke-free world, but I don't care to legislate that. As long as I can reasonably escape the foul stuff, that's probably good enough. I'm glad to see Mayor White's compromise get passed. I just hope he gets more out of the experience than Ed Garza did.

On a side note, prior to the Council's action, Anne said:

I bet if you put it to a vote of the citizenry, a smoking ban would be tough to pass.

(Note: this was an invaluable guide to finding these articles.)

Here are the headlines for stories about the Legislative Budget Board's analysis of the awful House Bill 3.

Chron: Tax bill called best for richest

Express-News: Tax bill has silver lining for richest

Statesman: Study finds poor Texans would bear brunt of tax changes

Star-Telegram: Study: House bill would raise most Texans' taxes

Morning News: Analysis: Tax bill would benefit richest

Is it just me, or is anyone else detecting a theme here?

Here's the Republican response:

Rep. Jim Keffer, R-Eastland, author of the tax bill, said he believes the tax impact analysis is accurate.

"Facts are facts. I don't dispute the LBB numbers," Keffer said.

But Keffer said he believes the legislation provides benefits to low-income people by creating a tax atmosphere where businesses will invest in higher-paying jobs and by lowering property taxes for both businesses and individuals.

"One of the impediments to homeownership is property taxes," he said.

But don't worry. The House GOP did give us the Doughnut Tax:

[HB3] would raise the state sales tax rate from 6.25 percent to 7.25 percent and put a "snack tax" of 10.25 percent on chips, cookies, doughnuts, candy, nuts and soft drinks unless the items are bought in a restaurant. There also would be tax increases on boat and auto sales, and a $1-a-pack increase on cigarettes.

There is one other item that supporters are hanging their hats on, as noted in the Express-News:

Even some who see a problem with that, however, pointed to a separate economic analysis by Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn. Her analysis states that in 2010, the bill could be expected to generate 80,600 jobs, $4.2 billion more in personal income and $6.3 billion more in investment.

Who knows if this plan will even pass? As the Statesman notes, there's fairly broad opposition to it:

Some business groups and conservative activists worked feverishly behind the scenes Tuesday to defeat the House tax plan — a bill that would replace the current franchise tax with a new payroll tax; expand sales taxes to include newspapers, auto repairs and bottled water, among other things; and impose a 3 percent tax on snack foods.

Bill Hammond, president of the Texas Association of Business, the state's largest business group, said its executive committee failed to reach agreement on the plan Monday, meaning it has no position on its approval or rejection.

"You can draw your own conclusions," Hammond said.

Bill Allaway of the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association, who testified recently in favor of a committee version of the tax plan with reservations, said groups representing a range of business types have understandable difficulty giving "unequivocal" support to any plan.

Emblematic of the growing disquiet was this take on the topic e-mailed Tuesday to about 17,000 Texans by conservative activist Jim Cardle of Austin. Calling the payroll tax "a recipe for disaster," he said, "it stinks. It's going to kill jobs. It's a hidden income tax."

As part of the behind-the-scenes maneuvering on the bill, Craddick sought a letter last week from several groups representing business interests. By Tuesday, just two days before debate on the tax bill could begin, the letter still had not been delivered.

Ron Dipprey of the Texas Chemical Council said there has been concern that the plan favors big companies and hurts small ones.

"We want to do it in a way that reflects a diverse cross-section of business," Dipprey said. "The speaker will ultimately have to decide if he wants the letter."

A draft of the letter, obtained by the Austin American-Statesman, calls the tax plan "a meaningful first step in the process of building an effective, balanced tax system that is better able to support the growing needs of our state."

[Michael Quinn Sullivan of the Texas Public Policy Foundation] said the payroll tax would eliminate jobs filled by unskilled, poorly educated Texans. Under the bill, the existing business franchise tax would be repealed and all businesses would have to pay 1.15 percent of each employee's salary, up to $90,000 per worker annually.

Mr. Sullivan said the House should have considered alternatives such as expanding the sales tax to services provided by stockbrokers, travel agents and interior designers, services that "people at the lower end of the economic scale don't use."

We finally have a pronouncement from on high in the Governor's office, according to the Statesman:

In a surprise move, Gov. Rick Perry warned publicly that a defeat of the tax plan, House Bill 3, would prompt a special legislative session, a message he acknowledged was intended to "keep the process moving" by securing House approval of a plan, any plan.

"The most important part of what's going on right now is to move the process forward, not to kill this," Perry said, noting that the Texas Constitution prohibits action on any measure that has the same substance of a proposal already voted upon.

"If you kill it now, you don't get to take it up again. You're through. You don't get another chance at it until a special session. . . . We don't need to do that. We need to move the process forward."

Finally, Rick Casey notes an irony to all this:

[Ruth Duque], 28 and married to a freelance construction worker, is a cafeteria worker serving students at Sam Houston High School.

She works full time for $12.42 an hour. Her take-home pay is $645 every two weeks.

It used to be nearly $90 a paycheck less, but she gave herself a raise.

By dropping her health insurance.

"My paycheck was getting so small," she said after closing down the midday food line one day last week. And gasoline and other expenses kept going up.

Her husband doesn't have insurance, and she has diabetes.

[...]

For years, the state has shrunk its share of the cost of education, loading the burden onto local property taxes. Last year, HISD countered to an extent. In 2004, HISD saw a much larger number of lower-income employees drop their insurance. An important reason was that HISD encouraged them to.

We pay many of the people who serve our children so little that they qualified for the state's Children's Health Insurance Program, or CHIP. So school district officials gave workshops and presentations showing eligible workers with families that they would get a better deal with CHIP than with the private insurance company.

This saved the district money, as well, and helped account for a tripling of waivers of health insurance over the previous year.

Then the state cut CHIP eligibility, leaving many of those school workers and others out in the cold.

After a statewide outcry, legislators expect to restore much of CHIP. And, they say, they are going to increase the money going to the schools while cutting local property taxes.

How are they going to do this?

According to an analysis of the latest House bill by the staff Legislative Budget Board, by raising Ruth Duque's state taxes by about 5 percent.

The NYT reports that documents submitted as evidence during the TRMPAC lawsuit show a more detailed level of involvement by Tom DeLay.

The documents, which were entered into evidence last week in a related civil trial in Austin, the state capital, suggest that Mr. DeLay personally forwarded at least one large corporate check to the committee, Texans for a Republican Majority, and that he was in direct contact with lobbyists for some of the nation's largest companies on the committee's behalf.

In an August 2002 document subpoenaed from the files of the indicted fund-raiser, Warren M. RoBold, Mr. RoBold asked for a list of 10 major donors to the committee, saying that "I would then decide from response who Tom DeLay" and others should call to help the committee in seeking a "large contribution."

Another document is a printout of a July 2002 e-mail message to Mr. RoBold from a political ally of Mr. Delay, requesting a list of corporate lobbyists who would attend a fund-raising event for the committee, adding that "DeLay will want to see a list of attendees" and that the list should be available "on the ground in Austin for T.D. upon his arrival."

[...]

A lawyer for Mr. RoBold, Rusty Hardin of Houston, said that the documents offered no evidence to suggest any wrongdoing by Mr. RoBold or Mr. DeLay, and that Mr. RoBold continued to believe that Mr. DeLay had only a limited advisory role on Texans for a Republican Majority.

"Warren was just having no contact with DeLay about this," Mr. Hardin said in an interview. "DeLay wasn't directing him."

In one of his more detailed references to Mr. DeLay in the documents, Mr. RoBold seemed to suggest in an e-mailed message on Aug. 19, 2002, that Mr. DeLay would follow the committee's direction in fund-raising, not direct the fund-raising himself.

"John," he wrote, referring to Mr. Colyandro, the committee's executive director. "Create a top 10 list of givers and let me call them to ask for large contribution. I would then decide from response who Tom DeLay others should call. If this is successful than I will do more of them."

[...]

Cris Feldman, a lawyer for the Democratic candidates, said he believed that the newly revealed documents from Mr. RoBold were eye-opening.

"We always knew Tom DeLay was involved," Mr. Feldman said, "but we never realized the extent to which he was involved in fund-raising directly with corporations."

One of the most intriguing documents, he said, was a printout of a September 2002 e-mail exchange between Mr. RoBold and Drew Maloney, a Washington lobbyist who is Mr. DeLay's former legislative director and administrative assistant in the House.

Mr. Maloney, who has lobbied on behalf of Reliant Energy, the Houston-based energy company that was a major contributor to Texans for a Republican Majority, offered Mr. RoBold a list of possible corporate donors to the Texas committee, adding: "I finally have the two checks from Reliant. Will deliver to T.D. next week."

The Texas committee's donation records show that it received a check for $25,000 from Reliant that month. The existence of some of the documents in Mr. RoBold's files was first reported last month by The Austin American-Statesman.

Elsewhere on the DeLay scandal front, it's nice to know that he hasn't abandoned Jim Ellis the way he's brushed off Jack Abramoff.

Several House Republicans are helping to pay the legal bills of a top political adviser to Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-Texas) who is under indictment in Texas on money-laundering charges.

Between November and December 2004, Lone Star State Reps. Michael Burgess and Michael Conaway each donated $5,000 from their campaign accounts to the Texas Justice Legal Defense Fund, a private non-charitable trust that was established late last year to aid embattled DeLay operative Jim Ellis.

[..]

Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.) donated $1,000 to the fund in December, and Majority Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.) made a $10,000 contribution to the fund in January through his leadership PAC, the Rely On Your Beliefs Fund. Rep. Ralph Regula (R-Ohio) also made a $1,000 donation from his leadership PAC at the end of January. Regula had been a candidate to become the next chairman of the Appropriations Committee but was beaten out in early January.

Blunt, Regula, Feeney and Burgess are among the dozens of House Members who’ve helped financially boost DeLay’s own legal defense fund, which according to Public Citizen has raised more than $990,000 since it was founded in 2000.

On July 14, 2004, Blunt gave two separate $5,000 donations to the Tom DeLay Legal Expense Trust — one from his re-election account and the other from his leadership PAC. Two days earlier, Burgess contributed $5,000 from his campaign account to DeLay’s legal expense fund. Feeney’s campaign gave $5,000 to the DeLay fund in late November, and CARE, Regula’s leadership PAC, kicked in $5,000 in late October of 2004.

According to Public Citizen, former Members of Congress and their PACs have contributed 35 percent of the entire amount that DeLay’s legal expense trust has collected since its inception, and Blunt is one of the most generous donors, giving $20,000 in the past four years.

Meet Mary GrandPre, the artist who has drawn the covers to all the Harry Potter books, including book number six.

GrandPre, 51, of Sarasota, Fla., [has] been drawing him for the cover of each blockbuster book, as well as creating the illustrations that come at the start of each chapter. She's drawn him from a boy of 11 in book one to age 16 in book six.

"It's a challenge to take a character ... and make sure he ages correctly and make sure he looks like he would look if he were to get a year older," she told The Associated Press. "I feel like I'm his mom, I comb his hair or I mess it up, I make sure he looks good before he goes out the door."

GrandPre, who has been illustrating books for 15 years and working as an artist for 25 years, had no idea what she was getting into when she got the call from Scholastic, Rowlings' American publishers, about creating the art for the first book. She asked to read the work, to see if would be a good fit. (She still gets to read each book before creating the art, making her one of the few people in the world who has actually read book 6 already! Don't bother asking her what happens, she won't tell you.)

GrandPre loved what she read. "It's like a candy store for an illustrator," she said. "I connected with Harry pretty quickly and loved the way J.K. described everything; she's such a visually thinking person. You can't pass that up."

I mentioned recently that the next election of any major consequence will be the San Antonio city elections, to be held on May 7. Via Dos Centavos, here's an introduction to the leading contender and probable breakout star of the future, City Council member Julian Castro.

Castro is only 30. He won't turn 31 until Sept. 16, more than four months after the May 7 city election. But the age issue presents a difficult problem for his mayoral aspirations.

His strongest opponents in the six-candidate field, City Councilman Carroll Schubert and retired 4th Court of Appeals Chief Justice Phil Hardberger, are 57 and 70, respectively.

And, through no fault of his own, Castro is paying for the wobbly four-year administration of Mayor Ed Garza. After ascending to the office at 32, Garza's weak stewardship has left many in the community yearning for what they quietly refer to as "gray hair" or "mature leadership."

"The invisible candidate running against Julián Castro is Mayor Ed Garza," said Larry Hufford, a St. Mary's University political scientist.

It is a difficult position for Castro, a disciplined candidate who is a student of voting trends, because voters aren't likely to admit they think a candidate is too young or too old.

And if they hold an age bias, it likely won't be demonstrated until they enter the voting booth, Hufford said.

"In City Council elections and mayoral races, you have very low turnout," Hufford said. "And when the people who tend to vote in large numbers are senior citizens, it poses a potential problem (for Castro)."

[...]

"I have always shown maturity beyond my age," Castro said. "I challenge anyone to cite an example of how I've acted immaturely."

The closest his foes will come to that is by criticizing his opposition to the PGA Village golf development, a much-hyped tourism project that died because of intense community debate over its potential effect on the city's drinking water supply.

But Castro and the council have since approved an alternative deal with the PGA Tour to bring a world-class golf resort to the same land over the Edwards Aquifer.

The thing Castro's opponents have not overtly attacked is his integrity. And that's where he thinks he can neutralize questions about his youth.

In a post-bribery-scandal era at City Hall, he notes his age didn't keep him from being a leading voice on campaign-finance and ethics reforms. And as the representative of a largely working-class council district, his age also didn't keep him from ushering through a series of much-needed drainage projects.

A recent Survey USA poll showed that while City Councilman [Carroll] Schubert had a higher favorable rating than Hardberger among Republicans, 31-24 percent, Schubert also had a higher unfavorable rating — 14-13 percent.

Surprised? You might be surprised that many community and business leaders known for contributing to Republican candidates and conservative causes are supporting Hardberger, the retired chief justice of the 4th Court of Appeals.

Consider: Billionaire auto dealer B.J. "Red" McCombs has given $10,000 to the Hardberger campaign, and Cornerstone Church pastor John Hagee has contributed $5,000.

Billionaire construction pioneer H.B. Zachry has donated $1,000 to Hardberger, as has SBC Communications CEO Ed Whitacre.

I don't have time to identify all the Republicans who have contributed to Hardberger, but I've checked, and the list is long.

City Councilman Julian Castro and former Judge Phil Hardberger accused councilman and fellow mayoral candidate Carroll Schubert of using "push polling."

According to the National Council on Public Polls, a "push poll" is a telemarketing technique in which telephone calls are used to canvass potential voters, feeding them false and damaging information about the opponent.

Castro said a member of his campaign staff received such a call from a Schubert pollster.

"Councilman Schubert's negative push poll, these dirty campaign tactics, have turned this race into a personal kind of battle we need to stay away from," said Castro.

Hardberger also condemned the polling technique.

"It's gutter politics. It's questions being asked in theory, but in reality spreading lies. It's the worst of San Antonio politics," said Hardberger.

Schubert denied his campaign is using "push polls."

"The first thing I think Councilman Castro should do is look up he definition of push polling. I think, perhaps, if he had some professionals involved in his campaign, he would understand what push polling is," said Schubert.

Schubert said his polls are scientific and the statements made by his pollsters are factual.

I was called for the poll in question, and thought I could offer some direct testimony. It started out normally enough, but then hit a section which was "I'm going to read some statements from local newspapers, tell me if they would make you more likely or less likely to vote for that candidate." Again, normal enough, until the questions hit. The first one was "Julian Castro's opponents say he is too young to be effective as mayor of San Antonio." Hrm... Second: "Carroll Schubert has served on the City Council's military affairs panel for the last five years, during which time he was instrumental in keeping San Antonio military bases open and bringing millions of dollars into the San Antonio economy."

Note that quotes are paraphrased, it didn't occur to me to write it down at the time. Silly me.

At that point it was rather obvious what was going on, and I politely ended the call.

The survey began with general questions about city government, such as whether the listener had a favorable or unfavorable opinion of the current City Council.

The survey then went on to ask about the three major mayoral candidates, Castro, Schubert and Hardberger.

The pollster stated, for example, that Castro is a "West Side" councilman and that he has been criticized for missing numerous City Council meetings and trying to pass "non-effective legislation."

Hardberger, meanwhile, is portrayed as a lawyer who has "made millions of dollars suing doctors and small businesses" and who "is fighting for trial lawyers to keep more money and is against award caps."

Out of 20 questions asked about the candidates, two pertain to Schubert, three to Castro and the remaining 15 to Hardberger.

[...]

Schubert uses an Austin-based polling firm, Baselice & Associates, but said for strategic reasons his campaign won't disclose the results or timing of poll research.

Meranda Carter, Schubert's communications director, said the Baselice firm can neither "confirm nor deny either way whether this particular phone call was theirs. They cannot and will not because if they did, it would give out information about our approach."

I'm going to try to keep an eye on this race. If anyone in the Alamo City has any tips or other useful info on this race, by all means please send it along to me.

Remember how I said that "revenue neutral" can still mean winners and losers, and that there could be more losers than winners? Take a look at this document (PDF) from the Legislative Budget Board. Every family taking in less than $100,000 per year in Texas will pay more in taxes under House Bill 2, with each lower decile paying more on a percentage basis than the ones above it. Over 90% of the total tax savings - some $400 million in all - will go to households making over $140,000 per year. And all this without putting in extra money for education. Who, exactly, is this supposed to benefit?

What an utter travesty. More on the HB2 debacle from Andrew D, Lasso, Postcards from the Lege, In the Pink Texas, and PinkDome.

You'd think that a story whose headlines refer to a "bumpy road" and the fact that "its critics" are watching might actually contain a statement or two from those critics, but you'd be wrong. Instead, we get a long piece on the status of the Trans-Texas Corridor with several responses to critics (which includes such cutting brilliance as "When it comes to change, there are always going to be some people upset", because that's the kind of repartee one can have with an absent opponent) from Rick Perry's staff and political allies. What we don't get is anything from the likes of, say, Linda Stall or Erik Slotboom or Polly Ledvina or Robin Holzer. Which is too bad, because then we might have gotten a better article overall. Ah well, such is life.

Greg Moses continues his in-depth look at the original documents in the Heflin challenge, and discovers that some of the voters whom Andy Taylor claimed were illegal were not in the official list that Paul Bettencourt compiled, which leads to the question, "How did he know?" about them. If you want an example of good, original reporting by a non-mainstream media type (Moses is an activist and writes for Counterpunch among other online pubs, so I hesitate to call him a "blogger"), this here is a damn fine one for you. Check it out.

Call me crazy, but I have to wonder why one of Rick Perry's spokespeople is responding to a blog post about some silly award he won. I mean, doesn't he have other things to worry about, like, you know, school finance (which is on the floor of the House today) and tax reform. That sort of thing. And now, thanks to Robert Black's petulance, way more people know about this than ever would have otherwise. Way to go, dude!

You may note my somewhat colorful quote in the article. I have less than no desire to rehash the whole blogging legitimacy wankfest, but I will say this: We're all grownups here, and we're all capable of reading a newspaper or magazine or weblog and determining for ourselves if their producers have credibility or not. It's not hard. Even Robert Black could do it if he tried.

Anyway. Other takes on this:

In the Pink Texas

Greg Wythe

Byron LaMasters

Grits for Breakfast

PerryVsWorld, who asks "Could Mr. Selby really not locate a rightward-leaning blogger in Texas? He chooses to only highlight left-leaning blogs." I can tell you this: The email I got from Selby about this made me think he was going to do a feature article on the proliferation of bloggers who are focusing on goings-on in the Legislature/Capitol. After I spoke to him, I sent him a list of such blogs, one of which was PerryVsWorld. That wasn't the article he had in mind, apparently, and I can't speak to why he highlighted the blogs he did at the bottom. For what it's worth, though, PVsW is about the only truly right-leaning blog I can think of that fits this bill. Feel free to correct me on this if you think I'm wrong.

UPDATE: And from Southpaw.

UPDAYE: Still more from PinkDome and The Red State (thanks, Byron).

UPDATE: By request, here's the email I got:

Howdy...

I'm writing on Capitol blogs. Cud you call me at xxxxxxx area code 512 or e me here?

g.

That's about it. I would not say I was deceived in any way - I drew my own conclusions, and they were inaccurate. Had I thought about it, I might have figured it out, since why else would he refer to one specific post and read me a quote like that? The subscription-only Texas Weekly did a Texas bloggers profile a little while back, and I just assumed that's what the Statesman was doing. No harm, no foul.

Via Dwight Silverman, FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub has a message for us.

Bloggers of America, chill.

Reports of a Federal Election Commission plot to "crack down" on blogging and e-mail are wildly exaggerated.

[...]

I can't speak for my colleagues, but I'm not aware of anyone here who views this rulemaking as a vehicle for shutting down the right of any individual to use their electronic soapbox to voice their political views.

For people who worry about the influence of money on politics, the Internet can only be seen as a force for good, for the simple reason that it's generally a very cheap form of communication. As the Internet becomes an increasingly effective political tool, a candidate may not need to raise large sums of cash to run television ads, if she can get her message out cheaply and efficiently over the Internet.

It would be ironic indeed if, in the name of campaign finance reform, we were to try to squelch inexpensive online grassroots political rabble-rousing. Fortunately, I'm not aware of any intent to do so. Suggestions to the contrary are simply partisan scaremongering tactics by those attempting to foment false hysteria in the Internet community. Don't fall for it.

Lots written about House Bill 2, the Republican school finance bill, and House Bill 3, the tax overhaul bill, and much of it is decidedly negative.

The Chron writes about how much more regressive the tax system under HB3 would be, then editorializes against it. The Express News can't wait for the Senate to alter HB2, while the DMN calls on the business community to revolt against it. The Star Telegram says "the guiding vision this year is the same tired, old approach that has failed Texas schools in the past", while the Statesman calls HB2 an exercise in partisan politics.

The news isn't much better than the op-ed pages. Even Grover Norquist is taking potshots at HB3.

"Speaker Craddick and the House seem to want to shut down Texas for business," Norquist said in the release. "A payroll tax would raise the cost of everything produced in the state, and eliminate Texas' competitive advantage. And sales taxes would raise the cost of every consumer good, lowering the standard of living of Texas workers."

[...]

In a lengthy written reply to Norquist, Craddick said Norquist "needs to get his facts straight," stressing that the bill lowers property taxes by an equal amount.

"As we raise certain state revenues, they are offset by property tax relief to consumers and businesses," Craddick said. "It is dangerous to get the facts wrong and to criticize a plan without looking at both sides of the issue."

Two things worth pointing out: Kimberly Reeves has a story in the AusChron that casts the battle over HB2 as one of sincere philosophical differences rather than partisan jockeying. It's a very interesting perspective, so give it a read. Also, this Statesman story indicates that the Democrats have succeeded to an extent with their introduction of an alternate plan.

Democratic leaders made the vote even more difficult for Republicans last week by proposing their own plan for school funding that they said includes $2 billion more over two years than the Republican plan does. They called for a cut in property tax rates that was half the size of the Republicans' but also said they wanted to triple the $15,000 exemption on the taxable value of a home. Businesses would see a smaller cut in property taxes.

A large homestead exemption often allows owners of less expensive homes to see a sharper decrease in their tax bills than a straight rate cut. That allows Democrats to say that they could boost school spending by $2 billion while giving the owner of an average home in most parts of the state a larger property tax cut under their plan.

"We hope to offer this as a complete alternative so members can choose which is better for their district," said Rep. Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.

The Democratic plan, likely to be offered as an amendment on the House floor, would open the door for future challengers to say that some GOP incumbents voted against a larger tax break for homeowners. But Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University, said he expects the House to approve the GOP-backed proposal.

"I expect them to pass a bill that will put it in the court of the Senate, and they will take a more expansive view," Jillson said. "The Senate will pass a bill that will go back to the House, and that's when the pressure will come to adopt the Senate version, which will provide more funding."

I'm a little suspicious of this.

For 25 years, southwest Houston-area residents have gone to Harris County Annex 19 to renew auto registrations, pay taxes and find out how much a speeding ticket was going to cost them.

Next year, though, the annex on Chimney Rock is slated to close and be replaced by a much larger facility outside the Sam Houston Tollway six miles to the west.

It could be the start of a trend. The county is considering moving 14 other neighborhood annexes to as few as eight larger, regional county buildings on or near Beltway 8, which encircles the city about 15 miles from downtown.

[...]

The county is studying whether the phaseout of neighborhood annexes over the course of a decade or more would provide better services and save money in operating costs.

It would cost about $15 million to renovate neighborhood justice-of-the-peace court locations, often called annexes, said Mike Yancey, head of the county's property and facilities management department.

The county is better off building regional justice centers than spending millions on repairs and expanding buildings too small to meet the public's needs, he says.

Regional facilities would be bigger and have more space to provide better service, Yancey said.

They would house, as most do now, JP courts and satellite offices of the county clerk and county tax assessor-collector.

They also could include district offices for the sheriff's department, the local constable, a county toll road authority store selling EZ Tags, and a branch of the county library.

Regional facilities strung along or near the Beltway would be about halfway between those living in the county's outer reaches and neighborhoods near downtown, Yancey said. The main county offices downtown would still be available.

County Commissioner Steve Radack, long a proponent of stringing county satellite offices along Beltway 8, and Yancey said the toll road would benefit by siting the offices along the highway.

I don't necessarily oppose the idea of relocating the annexes as specified, and I can see the value in bigger centers with multiple JP courts in them. I just want to know the whole story before I make up my mind.

Whenever I see search engine referrals for Ashley McElhiney in my logs it can mean only one thing: she's back in the news.

Former Vanderbilt point guard Ashley McElhiney indicated yesterday that if the ABA Nashville Rhythm returns for a second season it might do so without the first woman to coach a men's professional basketball team.

Revealing her frustration with the unpredictable ownership group, McElhiney told The Tennessean yesterday: "I don't know what the future is for the Rhythm. For me, I think it's best that I move on and explore other opportunities."

McElhiney said she was dumbfounded when the team's owners declined a berth in the ABA playoffs.

"It's frustrating," McElhiney said. "That's what you play and practice for.

"We put together a record of 21-10 with not necessarily an all-star team. Then we finished our regular season strong. Why do you even play the season? Why can't we just finish?"

The first-year franchise made national news by hiring McElhiney, and again when co-owner Sally Anthony stormed the court during a game and confronted McElhiney about playing former Vandy star Matt Freije, who had signed a one-game contract.

Anthony tried to fire McElhiney after the game but was blocked by the team's other owners. Anthony subsequently was removed as the team's chief executive offer.

Then came a non-attributed news release through the ABA office declining the playoff berth. It read: "We've lost several players and felt we were not ready for the playoffs; we decided to open a spot in the playoffs for a more competitive team."

McElhiney already has filled her schedule with two AAU coaching jobs and continues to provide personal basketball training to area youngsters.

"I guess I'll never really know the reason why we are not playing," McElhiney said.

Yet another example of why the rich are just different.

A Government Accountability Office study released last week is the latest to point to problems with the Justice Department's attempts to ensure criminals pay their penalties.

The latest investigation looked at five cases that resulted in $568 million in penalties and found only about $40 million actually was paid.

Because these are ongoing cases, the report did not identify the offenders or give much detail about the cases. All were either high-ranking officials of companies or operated their own business. They pleaded guilty in each instance.

[...]

All five were wealthy, or appeared to be, before the judgments, the GAO said, but they claimed later they did not have the money to pay full restitution to their victims. Still, several continued living in million-dollar homes, and two took overseas trips while on supervised release, the report said.

Prospects are not good for additional restitution in these cases, the GAO said, in part because so much time passed between their crimes and the judgment — five to 13 years.

The report said the offenders were able to hide their assets before penalties were established, and there is not much incentive to go after them because willfully failing to pay restitution is not a crime in itself.

Bankruptcy expert Professor Elizabeth Warren and three of her students are running a blog on the state of the awful MBNA-favored bankruptcy bill as an adjuct to Josh Marshall's site. Pretty cool. Check it out.

We were out at dinner with some out-of-town friends last night, so the "60 Minutes" piece on Tom DeLay is still sitting on my TiVo waiting for me, but that doesn't mean I can't check out the transcript (via The Stakeholder). There are two things that I want to comment on. First is the "nobody really knows what the law means" defense, as articulated by DeLay apologist Rep. John Carter (R, Round Rock).

DeLay’s fellow Texan, Republican Rep. John Carter, says whether the law was broken depends on what your definition of “administrative” is.

"No court has actually defined clearly what administrative purposes is," says Carter.

60 Minutes showed him TRMPAC's brochure with the statement of how the corporate funds would be spent.

"Active candidate evaluation and recruitment. Message development. Market research and issue development," says Stahl. "I mean, how is that administrative?"

"Active candidate evaluation and recruitment, that’s a party of administrative procedure," says Carter. "That’s a party function."

"I thought administration was the running of the office. The Xerox machine. Paying bills," says Stahl.

"This is what the court has to rule on," says Carter. "If they find all these things are administrative, there’ll be no convictions in this case."

Norm Ornstein's clever quip about Mother Teresa getting caught turning right on red in a state that doesn't allow it is spot on. This isn't an honest mistake, it isn't a testing of boundaries, and it isn't a case of the law not keeping up with new technologies. It's shameless pettifoggery, and it deserves to be slapped down.

Item Two has to do with Ronnie Earle's caginess about whether or not Tom DeLay is in actual danger of eventually being indicted.

What about DeLay? Is Earle looking at him?

"We're following the truth. And wherever that leads, that's where we'll go," says Earle.

It is, of course, possible that Tom DeLay himself broke no laws, or that if he did he did so in a way that didn't leave enough tracks to hold him accountable. We won't know what the grand jury is up to until they either hand down more indictments or disband without taking further action. I think it's naive in the extreme to think that DeLay didn't know or didn't approve of what was happening, but that in and of itself is not an indictable offense. Either he kept his hands clean or he didn't. We'll find out soon enough.

It's also possible that Earle is building his case against DeLay, perhaps with the cooperation of the three corporations so far who have pledged their help. If so, I'd think his past experience with Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison might be guiding him to keep his cards very close to his chest for as long as possible. The stakes here are extremely high. If Earle is going to make a move at DeLay, he can't afford to start before all his ducks are lined up. We've already seen Rep. Mary Denny's worst-bill-ever, which would effectively neuter his investigation, we've now got Andy Taylor and the Seven Solid Citizens attempting to lecture us all on what the law really is, and we've had rumblings from as far as two years ago about moving jurisdiction for election law infractions into the AG's office. Anything that could tip public and editorial opinion away from "he's just doing his job" towards "it's all politically motivated" has to be avoided. Strike with full force or don't strike at all.

One other scenario that comes to mind goes back to the question, raised once way back when and mostly avoided since, of whether or not jurisdiction over DeLay would rest in Earle's office or in the Fort Bend DA's office. Suppose Earle thinks he can build an airtight case against DeLay but can't be sure he has the authority to indict him? I'd be pretty cryptic about what my intentions were if I were Earle in that instance. If Earle decides that he himself can't take action, what's his next step? Would the Fort Bend DA's office take the handoff? Would simply releasing it all into the wild and letting the chips fall where they may be the right thing to do? Like I said, I'd want to keep some wiggle room if I were in Earle's shoes.

Greg has his reaction to the piece, and I'm sure there will be more elsewhere. Ultimately, the ruling in the TRMPAC civil trial will go a long way towards pointing the path to a resolution in the criminal cases that we already know of, and those that may be yet to come.

UPDATE: Public Citizen has some resources for your perusal.

I saw a blurb about a new service called MyBlogLog on the SixApart blog, and it looked interesting enough to give it a try. This is a service that will capture stats on outbound clicks from your blog - in other words, if you put up a link to someotherblog.com, it will tell you how many people follow that link. I have no idea if this will be useful to me or not, but the basic service is free and they provide a seven-day free trial of their paid service for signing up, so what the heck. If I like it, I'll include these stats in my monthly traffic reports.

Had about 47,000 hits in February. The unfortunate trend of spam referrals continues. Hard to say how much effect that has on my traffic numbers - I'm not even sure I want to know. Whatever effect it does have, I'm still grateful to all of you for coming by. Thanks very much, and click the More link for the usual list of top referrers and search engine terms.

Aggregators, collections, indices, etc
======================================
292:  http://blo.gs/
202:  http://www.bloglines.com

Weblog referrers

================

1870:  Daily Kos


496:   TAPPED


374:   Atrios


344:   The Burnt Orange Report


319:   Jesus' General


193:   In the Pink Texas


175:   Liberal Oasis


121:   The Brazosport News


119:   The David Lawrence Show


101:   Greg's Opinion




Top search terms

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#reqs: search term

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By ten votes.

In a record 33 percent turnout, residents voted 4,929 to 4,919 for the measure, according to unofficial results.

"I feel it's a big win when you consider the odds that were against us," rollback supporter Bob Stewart said.

Members of the anti-rollback efforts were devastated by the results, standing in stunned silence as the numbers were announced at the Pat May Center and hugging each other in despair or frustration.

"Ten stinking votes," resident David Moon said. "Maybe we need a recount."

Mayor Rick Hurt said rollback opponents were contemplating asking for a recount, but he advised caution.

Although part of him wants to consider it, he said, "This city must heal."

If the tax rollback stands, the city's property tax rate will drop from 49.5 cents per $100 of assessed property value to 40 cents. Property owners can expect to receive rebates. The owner of a $150,000 house -- about the average price of a house in Bedford -- would save $142.50 a year.

City officials say they will have to cut $2.6 million out of the $24.8 million general fund budget.

Election results will be canvassed March 14. City manager Chuck Barnett said he would make recommendations for cuts at council work sessions scheduled for March 18 and 19. The council would then have to amend the budget, possibly at a special meeting March 29.

Officials have said threatened items include Bedford Splash, the library and senior citizens center.

Hurt said he didn't know which services would go first, but he said he would try to protect public safety.

More than 100 employees may be laid off, officials have said. Jeanne Green, who works at the library, stood still in shock after the results were announced.

"This is awful," she said. "The city is going to die."

Rollback supporters disagreed. Throughout the campaign, they said the city was using scare tactics to stop a rollback.

"Nobody's going to lose their job," resident Ralph Good predicted. "There may be some adjustments."

Ten votes. There's a reason people keep insisting that every vote counts.

I've got my TiVo set to record 60 Minutes tonight, as they do a story on the various investigations into Tom DeLay. How about you?

This is from the newsletter of the Saint Arnold brewery in Houston, which was sent out yesterday:

WE ARE SEEKING ANYBODY WITH ANY STATE POLITICAL CONNECTIONS

The Texas Legislature is in their biannual session right now which means if we want any changes to the laws, now is the time to act, and fast! We are looking for anybody that has any connections with any of our state legislatures. Perhaps you work for one, or your wife or husband does, or you have beers with one, or perhaps you have a compromising picture of one with a goat. If you do have any such connections and you would be willing to introduce us, please let us know. The specific law that we would like to see changed is to allow small breweries to have dock sales (the ability to sell packaged beer to go at the brewery). Texas wineries can do it, but breweries cannot. This would especially help with kegs.

Oh, and I just discovered that their newsletter archive has an RSS feed, so if I don't check my Yahoo mail for a month (cough cough), I won't be in danger of missing stuff like this in the future.

UPDATE: I see that PerryVsWorld is on their mailing list, too.

The TRMPAC lawsuit wrapped up yesterday as both sides made their closing arguments. It's in the hands of the judge now, and apparently he'll take two to six weeks to hand down his decision. Some brief recaps:

The Chron notes the specter of DeLay and Craddick:

Republican lawyer Terry Scarborough went out of his way in his closing arguments to distance DeLay and Craddick from the proceedings.

Scarborough told reporters afterward that a week of testimony never once linked the pair with establishing or running TRMPAC.

"This trial will tell you Tom DeLay wasn't manipulating the election through TRMPAC," he said. "Tom DeLay's involvement in TRMPAC would die of loneliness in a thimble."

Cris Feldman, a lawyer for the Democrats, said the trial may not have been about DeLay, but that there was a great deal of evidence that TRMPAC was born out of DeLay's political operation.

"Those exhibits in there ... show Tom DeLay, at his direction, had his operatives come down here and set up Texans for a Republican Majority," Feldman said. "These are his people. Tom DeLay's daughter was on the soft, corporate money payroll. And she sent an e-mail down here talking about our people are coming down to Texas."

Attorneys for the Democratic plantiffs said TRMPAC used $530,000 in corporate donations to pay for polls, direct mail and political consultants. They argued that spending corporate money that way was a violation of state election laws.

Attorneys said TRMPAC also didn't report that $530,000 amount to the Texas Ethics Commission.

"This is about a political committee, taking corporate contributions and paying for political work," plaintiffs' attorney Cris Feldman said.

According to Texas election law, it's illegal for corporations to give money to a political candidate.

But Ceverha's attorneys argued TRMPAC's corporate donations never went directly to Texas House candidates. They said their corporate money was used to pay for polls and research that focused on state-wide issues.

"I challenged the plantiffs before, during and after the trial, to show evidence that corporate money went to their opponents in their race ... they failed to do that," Ceverha's attorney Terry Scarborough said.

Chris Feldman outlined the plaintiff’s case with a powerpoint that methodically established the amount and type of political activity TRMPAC conducted with illegal corporate money. It built off his opening statment and reminded the court of the evidence that had been presented.

Next Matt Slimp spoke for the defense, and I gotta hand it to them for sticking to their guns. When I’m talking out of my ass and someone who knows what they’re talking about, like say Trevor Potter, tells me I’m a dummie, I usually pipe down and slink off. Not our Matt Slimp, he was as shameless as TAB lawyer Andy Taylor on his best day. Splitting hairs and muddling thru technical details wasn’t enough for Slimp – he tried to add some emotional punch and at one point emitted a high choking sound that might have been laughter. I almost cried when he claimed that the experience had been so hard on Ceverha that he would never be a Treasurer for a PAC again. What a tragedy.

Scarborough, who’s a really compelling court room speaker, went next for the defense and kind of wigged out on Ann Kitchen. He was going on about how the plaintiffs weren’t even in the court room and then started pointing her out and talking about how successful and bright she was before turning on her. He got so out of control that the judge had to order him to address his points to the court. I’m not sure what Scarborough was trying to do with that.

Then Dave Richards closed out for the plaintiffs, mostly addressing legal points on the damages and eligibility of the plaintiffs to sue.

Watching the proceedings in civil court this week was a member of the Travis County district attorney's office. The civil case parallels a criminal suit filed by the district attorney's office against DeLay associates John Colyandro, Jim Ellis and Warren RoBold.

I've had this Press story on Perry Homes that impressed Kevin so little on my to-blog list for over a week now. Better late than never, so here we go.

I lived in Montrose for eight years before moving to the Heights. When I first started looking for rent houses in that area in 1989, there were a lot of cheap places available, but not very many desireable ones. There were lots of older places that had seen their last real maintenance work sometime during the Johnson administration. There were lots of places that had burglar bars on the windows. All around you'd see empty lots, sometimes even empty blocks, and quite a few empty houses.

You don't see that any more. People want to live in Montrose and the Museum District and the Fourth Ward and many other inside-the-Loop neighborhoods, and on the whole that's a good thing. There are certainly plenty of people who want a historic house in their historic neighborhood, and God bless all of them, but there's more people who wouldn't consider living near downtown if there wasn't shiny new construction available to them. I may cringe at their taste in architecture, but I recognize that a viable inner city - economically as well as politically - needs people in it, and given a choice I'd rather they buy a townhome here than a McMansion out in Sugar Land or the Woodlands. Diversity comes in many forms, and I like to think of this as one of them.

All that said, I have a strong distaste for Perry Homes, more so than any of the other builders that do many of the same things in Montrose and surrounding areas. The political aspects, which the Press piece justifiably spends time on, is of course a part of that. Bob Perry has spent a lot of money in order to get a lot of legislation passed to protect himself and his business from the consequences of his actions. I have nothing but contempt for that, and frankly if that were the only sin he committed I'd consider him a villain. He's a major part of a bigger problem in this state and this country, and I hope the day comes soon when the power he's bought himself is rendered impotent.

What makes this more personal for me is what happened to the last rent house I lived in, before I bought into the Heights. I lived in a small bungalow on a one-block street near Montrose and West Dallas. When I moved into it in 1993, there were exactly three houses on the east side of the block, with mine in the middle. There were big empty grass-covered lots at each end of the block, with a small warehouse used by (I think) the Museum of Fine Arts for storage next to the southernmost house. On the opposite side of the street was a big parking lot, theoretically to be used as overflow for the American General building on Allen Parkway but in reality mostly empty save for some use by Nino's and Vincent's restaurants on West Dallas. (Having that right across the street made it awfully convenient for our friends when we threw a party, let me tell you.) Next to the parking lot was an old warehouse that had been converted into lofts.

In 1997, my house, which had changed hands a couple of times since the death of the original owner in 1994, was put up for sale, since the real estate market was beginning to boom. I considered buying it, but the price was too high for me and it needed a lot of work. Not buying that house turned out to be a great decision.

Since 1993, that block has changed completely. The empty lot at the southern end of the street, directly opposite the lofts, was built up with Perry townhomes before I moved out. Both the other empty lot and the old parking lot got Perryized after I left. I'd drive past the old house from time to time, and over time, that little street got more and more clogged with parked cars, since there were now so many more people living there. The last time I drove past, a couple of months ago, I noticed that the east curb was empty. The city had placed No Parking signs along it, including one in front of my old house. If I lived there today, I would be unable to park my car in front of my house.

And that in a nutshell is my beef with these guys. Their homes may well be lovely for the people who buy them, but they're built without any consideration for the neighborhoods they're in or the people who were there before them. I'm sure whoever lives in my old house has seen his or her property values appreciate, but who would ever buy that little house with no place to park from them? Heck, who would ever buy into that little converted warehouse, whose lofts no longer have a view of the downtown skyline like they once did? Drive around that area, as I do, and it's just more of the same - little bungalows surrounded by hulking townhomes, crammed as many to a lot as the law allows.

What the law allows was set in 1999, when a loophole in the city's ordinances on how many housing units can be built per acre came up for debate in the City Council. Developers wanted a cap of no less than 30 units per acre, neighborhood associations wanted it set at 24; ultimately, a compromise of 27 per acre was passed. I recall at the time hearing that the compromise figure would basically permit the same kind of lot-dividing that the developers wanted. Sure looks like it turned out that way to me.

The one tool that a neighborhood has in its arsenal against this kind of overbuilding is deed restrictions. I can tell you that even in an established neighborhood that values its historic heritage, they're a pain in the butt. Every block has to be separately protected, and a supermajority of homeowners on that block have to sign a petition (I think it's 70%). The Woodland Heights has been doing this work almost continuously since I moved in back in 1997.

I'm going to close this post by noting a quote in this story about new home construction:

"It's the townhouses that are hard (to sell) right now," [realtor Lee] Hudman said. "There are just too many. That's been the big problem with re-sale. Why buy a used town home when you can get a good price on a new one because there are too many units and not enough buyers?"

The city of Bedford, Texas, which is a suburb of Fort Worth, has an election today over the property tax rate.

In one of the most contentious city elections since the community incorporated on a 55-20 vote in 1953, voters go to the polls today to decide if they want lower property taxes — even if it may mean closing the library and swimming pools and laying off city employees.

Bedford's tax rollback election features a heated contest in a highly Republican community of 47,000 residents northeast of Fort Worth.

The outcome could send signals to a Republican-dominated Legislature about how a key group of Texas voters feels about the push for less government and lower taxes at the national, state and local levels.

"There's no difference between Bedford and Washington, D.C., except Washington, D.C., is just on a larger scale," said rollback organizer Dorothy McWhorter, 72. "I would venture to say we could fire 75 percent of the people in Washington and the government would still work."

The rollback campaign has turned Bedford Mayor R.D. "Rick" Hurt's name into a slogan: "We've been 'HURT' enough." Meanwhile, rollback opponents have been quoted in the local newspaper as saying, "We can no longer be nickeled, dimed and McWhortered."

Businesses that have contributed money to campaigns for or against the rollback have risked boycotts and had their names posted on the Internet.

[...]

Gov. Rick Perry carried the city with 59 percent of the vote in 2002, and most other Republicans won with at least 56 percent of the vote. Perry has been leading the legislative effort to cut public school property taxes statewide. The rollback fight was triggered last fall when the Bedford City Council voted 4-3 to raise the city property tax rate from 38.9 cents per $100 valuation to 49.5 cents.

MyDD prints a press release by Mark Glaze of Democracy 21, that emphatically states that FEC Commissioner Brad Smith's claims about McCain/Feingold and blogs are incorrect. US Rep. John Conyers is circulating a letter to the FEC for signatures that urges the press exemption McCain/Feingold be extended to blogs. Julia thinks the whole thing is a smokescreen. Mark Schmitt basically agrees with Iron Mouth (who has more thoughts, and who read the court decision that set Brad Smith off so you don't have to), and tells us all to not worry about it. Here in town, the Lone Star Times announces that they "will start issuing press credentials to any blogger who asks for one" in the event we should have worried about it. Finally, Patrick reminds us that Declan McCullough, the writer who did the interview with Smith that started all this, was the guy who popularized the myth about Al Gore inventing the Internet. 'Nuff said.

OK, I've read this article twice now, and I still can't understnd why it's at all newsworthy. I mean, look at the subhead, for crying out loud: "Cash earmarked for purchase of headquarters instead is spent on campaigns, other expenses". Is someone seriously suggesting to me that the Texas Democratic Party, in the year 2004, with $250,000 lying around in a bank account, should have blown that on buying property for headquarters instead of spending it to win elections?

I don't really know the background on this. Andrew D does, and he spells it out. I'll put it this way: If I had heard that the party had in fact bought itself a "dream house" when it could have spent a few bucks helping people like Mark Strama and Hubert Vo get elected, I'd be royally pissed.

I see that the lady who bequeathed the money wanted the party to buy itself a place to operate. Maybe in 1999 that was a decent idea. I'm not sure why no action was taken until 2003, and I'm even less sure why continuing to sit on that money (waiting for what? another rich old Democrat to die and make a similar bequest?) was a good idea. Molly Beth Malcolm was State Party Chair at that time, and she seems to think it was wrong to have spent that money on winning elections. Given how few elections Texas Democrats won during her tenure, I can understand why the concept would be unfamiliar to her. Hey, Molly, you think some of that 250 large might have helped Henry Cuellar knock off Henry Bonilla in 2002? Then we'd still have Ciro Rodriguez in the House, and maybe Bonilla wouldn't be the frontrunner to replace KBH in the Senate. I'd have taken that trade. Why wouldn't you? Where were your priorities?

Maybe having a permanent home would be a good long-term investment, I don't know. It's my understanding that the state GOP rents its digs, and I hear they're doing pretty well these days. If that money wasn't enough on its own, and there was no clear plan to make up the difference, then what we had here was a missed opportunity. Charles Soechting decided to take that opportunity, and I for the life of me can't understand why anyone wouldn't applaud the decision.

UPDATE: Dos Centavos piles on.

Rep. Sam "Nuke Syria!" Johnson says it was all kind of a joke.

U.S.-Syrian relations are often tense. U.S. officials are demanding that Syria withdraw its troops from Lebanon, and suspicion lingers that Damascus helped Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein hide illicit weapons.

Still, some of Rep. Sam Johnson's constituents apparently were surprised when the Plano Republican said he'd like to take care of the problem – by personally dropping a couple of nuclear bombs.

"Syria is the problem," the former fighter pilot said at a pancake breakfast at Suncreek United Methodist Church in Allen. "Syria is where those weapons of mass destruction are, in my view. You know, I can fly an F-15, put two nukes on 'em, and I'll make one pass. We won't have to worry about Syria anymore."

Someone was offended enough to play a recording of the Feb. 19 remarks for Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper that first reported them this week.

Mr. Johnson said he's "absolutely" surprised that anyone took it seriously, adding that he's never advocated a nuclear attack on Syria.

"I was kind of joking. You know. We were talking between veterans," said Mr. Johnson, an Air Force fighter pilot in Korea and Vietnam, where he spent 7 ½ years as a prisoner of war. "We were swapping sea stories – things that we'd done in the military."

He told the folks in Allen that he had shared his plan with President Bush and Rep. Kay Granger, R-Fort Worth, during a recent White House visit.

"President Bush knew I was joking," he said Thursday.

Fine, whatever, it was a joke. A sick and repulsive joke, in my opinion, but apparently not in Rep. Johnson's. I don't know what else to say.

UPDATE: There's an interesting comment by heartmind at the initial post:

My understanding from the Dallas Morning News is that Johnson says he meant this statement as a joke. We can debate if this was an appropriate joke. I think it was inappropriate. Yet, as a thirty something male, I find that I encounter a lot of men from Johnson's generation who occasionally make jokes that I think cross the line.

My understanding is that many of the persons at this event were persons from Johnson's generation. These were not members of Suncreek UMC. One does not find a large number of senior citizens in the west area of Allen. I think these persons attended at the invitation of some younger men at the church. The intentions of these younger men were good. I would caution against blaming the church for Johnson's statement or the applause by some of those in attendance following this joke. Read this link to discover what the pastor said at this event and reach your own conclusion about the values of this church.

It's a start.

House Democrats countered Thursday with a school finance plan that they said would do more for homeowners and schools than a Republican-backed plan, but they did not detail how it would be funded.

Rep. Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, said the Democrats' plan, which will be offered during House floor debate next week, would give greater school property tax relief to owners of homes valued under $170,000.

[...]

"Our plan extends greater tax savings to more Texans," said Rep. Scott Hochberg, D-Houston.

To accomplish the tax savings, Democrats would reduce local school property taxes for maintenance and operations by about 16 percent, and would triple the homestead tax exemption from $15,000 to $45,000 — but only for school property taxes.

Business property owners would not get that exemption.

Compare and contrast this:

Republicans, including [Beverly] Woolley, said in a written response that the Democrats' proposal would require a tax hike, while the Republican plan is revenue-neutral.

"Our plan puts $3 billion more into education and cuts spiraling property taxes by one third, and we get more education for each dollar by asking districts to spend money more efficiently," said House Public Education Chairman Kent Grusendorf, R-Arlington.

Don Green, director of budget and policy for Speaker Tom Craddick, said an error in drafting HB3, an $11 billion tax bill, that didn't include newspaper sales will be corrected next week when the bill is debated on the House floor.

If HB3 passes, newspaper sales would be taxed along with bottled water, motor vehicle repairs, car washes and billboard advertising.

The bill also would increase the state sales tax from 6.25 percent to 7.2 percent and replace the franchise tax with a 1.1 percent tax on a business's payroll. Additionally, HB3 would raise the cigarette tax by $1.

Information released by Craddick's office during a briefing with reporters showed that consumers will pay the bulk of new taxes under HB3. That contradicted statements Wednesday that the proposed business payroll tax would provide most of the new revenue.

Although the Democrats didn't offer a specific tax plan to pay for the $8.6 billion in lost property taxes, Hochberg said the Democrats would be studying the tax package in HB3.

UPDATE: PinkDome notes that HB2 has received raspberries around the state, so the more that alternative gets talked up, the better. One thing I didn't highlight here but mentioned before is that the Dems' plan would have room for more school spending. That should be emphasized as well.

The plaintiffs have rested and the defense has been putting on its case in the TRMPAC lawsuit. Feels to me like closing arguments will be either today or Monday - since this is before a judge and not a jury, I figure closers will be briefer and more to the point than they would otherwise. So far, the defense's case seems to consist of a consultant blaming the mixup on other PACs, an RNC official saying "Who Cares?", and some videotaped depositions from other malfeasors. Can't say I'm impressed, but I'm not the one that needs to be. I eagerly await the judge's ruling.

I learned one thing from this puffy piece on Andy Taylor. I already knew he was a blowhard who's made quite a good living lately off of Republican mischiefmaking. I knew he has at best a distant relationship with the truth, as we saw with his fradulent accusations during the Heflin challenge and as we are seeing now with his efforts to obfuscate existing campaign law. What I didn't know but learned to my chagrin is that he's a fellow graduate of Trinity University. Which probably means there'll be an alumni magazine feature on him soon. Ugh.

Via Pink Dome, the Quorum Report catches our old buddy Andy Taylor making with the crazy talk again.

During a break in the TRMPAC civil trial proceedings this morning, attorney Andy Taylor told reporters that he would be spearheading an effort to clean up Texas election law financed by a number of large contributors

"First, clarity must be a cornerstone of our campaign finance laws in Texas," he said. "Second, we must protect Texans’ rights to criticize and comment on the activities of our elected officials and government policies."

"Finally, crucial decisions about free speech in the political arena must be made by citizens and the lawmakers they’ve elected to represent them, not by any single judge or jury," he said. "Issues of free speech that form the foundation of our democracy should be addressed in the statehouse, not the courthouse."

UPDATE: It's on the wires now.

Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle weighed in Thursday on Taylor's announcement, saying that Texas election law for 100 years has prevented corporations or labor unions from making political contributions.

"Any 'clarity' that Mr. Taylor and his seven large contributors want to bring to that law should be viewed with alarm by every Texan who is not one of Mr. Taylor's seven," Earle said. "The law was never vague until certain large monied interests sought to evade it in order to control Texas elections. Then they said it was vague."

Will McCain/Feingold be the end of political blogging as we know it? FEC Commissioner Bradley Smith says yes. This guy says no. Me, I'm unsure. Any lawyers want to wade in here? Seems to me that the naysayer has a pretty good case when he says that "the smallest drop of knowledge about First Amendment law would tell you that such an interpretation has probably one of the steepest climbs in all of jurisprudence". Awaiting further enlightenment...

The WaPo does a feature on Tom DeLay, noting that his continued string of scandals may be having an effect back home in CD22.

Though the change has received little notice, DeLay's strength in his suburban Houston congressional district of strip malls and housing developments has eroded considerably -- forcing him to renew his focus on protecting his seat.

DeLay garnered 55 percent of the vote in the November election against a relatively unknown Democrat, an unusually modest showing for a veteran House member who is one of the most powerful politicians in Washington. Some Republican officials and DeLay supporters worry that with President Bush absent from the top of the ticket next year, liberal interest groups might target the conservative majority leader and spend millions of dollars on campaign ads to try to defeat him.

[...]

DeLay now has to worry about "Texas 22," the congressional district he has represented for the past 21 years in the U.S. House. Ironically, the Texas redistricting plan he engineered over strong Democratic objections drained some vital Republican support and could make it tougher for him to win reelection. In his old district, DeLay took 60 percent of the vote in 2000 and 63 percent in 2002.

In 2003, at DeLay's behest, the Texas legislature redrew the state's congressional lines without waiting for the next census (in 2010), the customary occasion for redistricting. With the new districts, which still face court challenges, Texas elected five additional Republicans to the U.S. House last November, accounting for all of the party's net gain.

DeLay's new district wound up several percentage points less Republican than his previous one, and it has a substantial and growing Asian American population.

"When you're drawing the lines, you have to set the example," DeLay explained late last week as he traveled his district during the Presidents' Day recess. "If you're going to maximize the number of Republicans that are elected, everybody can't have an 80 percent district. If you're the guy that's sort of leading the effort, you can't tell your members, 'Well, I'm going to dilute yours, but I'm going to pack mine.' "

"In doing all that, we tried to be as fair to everybody as possible," he added. "And I had to take my hit, too."

All that said, he's still in pretty good shape. Turnout in 2006 won't be anywhere near what it was in 2004. Richard Morrison did a fantastic job making up those seven percentage points on DeLay, but it's the next seven that will be the real challenge. And despite what the WaPo story says, CD22 isn't all that much less Republican than it was before. Go to this page, click on "U.S. Congressional Districts, 109th Congress", then click on "Plan Comparison". Under the 2002 lines, CD22 had a Dem/GOP statewide split of 33.0/67.0, with the Lite Guv race splitting 37.5/62.5; under the 2004 lines, those numbers were 34.1/65.9 and 38.3/62.7. I expect the actual numbers from 2004 to be more favorable to the Dems, mostly because of DeLay's weak showing but also because the district, especially in Fort Bend, is slowly changing. DeLay certainly can't afford to coast based on how poorly he did in 2004, but he's not yet in a position where he really has to sweat. I stress the "yet".

Anyway. The Daily DeLay and DeLayWatch from the District have their takes on this story. The Daily DeLay also kicks off a new feature called Tom DeLay, this is your life, which today takes a look back ten years and sees how little has changed.

The Chron and the Statesman both have good stories on HB789, the misguided attempt by Rep. Phil King (R, Weatherford) to ban municipalities from offering free wireless Internet service. I've noted before that King appears to be open to changes in his approach, but it's clear that he still doesn't get it. From the Chron:

King's chief of staff, Trey Trainor, said they are rewriting the telecommunications bill to recognize that there are legitimate uses for municipal networks, such as public safety communication, meter-reading and other city services. King's basic objection, Trainor said, stands — in a free-market system it's not acceptable to let public government compete with private businesses.

King used an analogy. A city shouldn't get into the grocery business, even if there's none in town, he said. Instead, he said, the state should provide incentives to companies in places where there is no competition.

"It's the idea of a free enterprise system," King said. "As a matter of public policy, we can't let the public sector compete with the private sector."

Best example of why our legislative process often sucks, from the Statesman:

State Rep. Phil King, the sponsor of House Bill 789, said he was taken aback by the intensity of the opposition and said he will go back to the drawing board to make sure cities can continue to offer the service in libraries and other public facilities.

"I had no idea we would have 2 1/2 days of testimony on broadband," King, R-Weatherford, said Tuesday. "But the toothpaste is out of the tube. . . . This deal is a brave new world of emerging technologies, and we have to kind of muddle through it."

Asked where the provision originated, King said it arose from hearings of the Regulated Industries Committee, which he chairs.

"It was just me, sitting in the hearings," listening to industry representatives talk about broadband, he said.

Kudos to Susan Combs:

"For economic development, it is a death blow in the 21st century if you don't have broadband," said Texas Agriculture Commissioner Susan Combs. "If I wanted to encourage some company to move to small-town Texas, . . . they will ask about education and housing. And then they will ask about broadband."

[...]

Combs said that while rural communities are less affluent, broadband can cost $70 a month, compared with $30 a month in Austin.

She wants cities and towns to have the option to offer broadband if no one else will.

"You can't possibly abandon small town after small town if the big boys want to cherry pick," Combs said. "Let the home folks have a shot at it."

Melissa Noriega, the acting state representative for the area covered by Technology for All, called the effort to ban municipal participation in wireless Internet efforts "short-sighted," and said she will work to prevent it from becoming law.

Noriega said families that cannot speak fluent English can be transformed by learning to use a computer and crossing the digital divide — they learn how to spell-check, can find translation services online, e-mail family in their home countries, and much more.

"This may be the single biggest step we can take to close the gap between the haves and have-nots," she said.

So how does Texas: The nation's highest sales taxes! grab you as a new state motto?

Texas would have the highest state sales tax in the country, businesses would pay a payroll tax and smokers would pay a dollar more for cigarettes in exchange for a cut in school property taxes under a bill approved Wednesday by a House committee.

The measure, which also includes new taxes on bottled water, auto repair services and car washes, would raise nearly $11 billion over the next two years, all of which would pay for lowering school property taxes by about one-third.

House Speaker Tom Craddick said he hoped to see the bill debated by the full House next week, right after debate on a related measure proposing major changes in school funding and operations.

Republican House Speaker Tom Craddick is putting the screws to his fellow GOP lawmakers to pass a massive tax-hike bill out of the Ways & Means Committee today. He’s telling recalcitrant members who campaigned against taxes and don’t relish explaining to voters back home why they broke their pledges that it’s up to them: they can support his tax hikes or they can be defeated in next spring’s primaries.

Back to the Chron:

The new tax bill wouldn't increase overall education funding. Craddick and Ways and Means Chairman Jim Keffer, R-Eastland, said the goal instead was to lower local school property taxes, which now pay for most public school costs and are a major source of taxpayer anger, particularly in suburban, Republican-oriented communities.

"The focus needs to remain that this is a property tax reduction bill," Keffer said.

[...]

House Bill 2, the related education overhaul also headed for the House floor next week, would increase education funding by $3 billion over the next two years. But that money, which school groups have attacked as inadequate, would come from elsewhere in the state budget, not from the tax bill.

Reaction to the business tax proposal was mixed. Representatives from chemical companies, electric utilities and large manufacturers expressed support. Several small-business owners criticized the proposal, saying that it would prevent them from hiring new employees.

The payroll tax also is opposed by retailers and other companies with large numbers of low-paid workers.

[...]

Gov. Rick Perry's opposition to a payroll tax helped kill a special session on school finance last spring. Perry said then that he feared the proposal would discourage companies from creating new jobs in Texas.

Spokeswoman Kathy Walt said Wednesday that the governor still has concerns about the tax and will remain involved in negotiations with lawmakers.

"We're still a long way from having the final (revenue) package developed," she said.

I'm still waiting to hear the details of the Democratic counterproposal on education spending. I hope they've got one for tax reform, too, because we sure need one.

One place where the Democrats have (somewhat surprisingly) come out swinging is a report from the DNC on how President Bush's budget screws his home state. Eddie has the highlights. Here's a sample:

Homeland Security

* The Bush 2006 budget cuts $420 million to state and local funding for homeland security, including a $55.7 million cut for Texas. These cuts will take police and firefighters off your streets.
* The Bush budget cuts the COPS program, which has put 6,124 officers on Texas streets, by 96 percent.

Health Care

* The Bush budget cuts $45 billion from Medicaid, enough to provide health care to 1.8 million children. Texas's share of these cuts is $2.7 billion.
* Bush's budget cuts the very same community and rural health care programs he touted during the campaign, even though more than 626,000 Texas residents have lost their health care coverage since Bush took office due to his failures.

He says he's still "exploring" a run for Governor in 2006, but Chris Bell sure has the look-and-feel of a real by-God candidate to me, at least based on this and this and this. Read his speech (PDF) - and the footnotes - and see for yourself.

UPDATE: More from The Red State and Saving String, who attended and has some cogent analysis.

I haven't really said what I think, partly because everyone else has done such a good job, and partly because I think we all know that I'm partial to Chris' candidacy. Suffice it to say that I like the approach he's taking so far, I think it will be very well received among the faithful and hopefully among the persuadable, and like Eddie, I'm more than ready for Chris to quit exploring and start declaring.

Tiffany left today for a two-day business trip out west. We considered having Olivia and I go with her, but since she was going to be busy during the day, we decided that if I was going to be by myself with Olivia, it'd be better to do it on familiar turf. So, for the first time in Olivia's almost-nine-month life, she went to bed without having Mommy in the house.

I've spent many an hour alone with Olivia, so I had no particular trepidations about this, but there's so much to do just to prepare for the next day - put used bottles in the dishwasher, take pumped milk that was delivered home by one of T's coworkers and put it in bottles for later, get Olivia's solid food ready for the morning, feed her, feed me, bathe her, etc etc etc - that I'd have been pretty overwhelmed had my in-laws not been here. It's not a question of capability, it's a question of having hands free, since Olivia's going through a bit of a separation-anxiety phase - basically, if you're not holding her or in her line of sight, she fusses. Being able to hand her off to one grandparent or the other so I can do what needs to be done was a huge help. The fact that my mother-in-law brought dinner didn't hurt, either.

I'm a little concerned about the morning, since I can't predict Olivia's wake-up time. I fear getting up and entering the shower while she's asleep only to exit it while she's awake and howling for her breakfast. Sharon, my mother-in-law, will come by again to ensure that at the very least I can leave Olivia at home while I walk the dog - I can and often do take her with me for walkies, but a cold front came through today, so doing that isn't a good idea now.

Tiffany returns Friday afternoon. Leaving Olivia was hard for her; it remains to be seen how hard it is on Olivia. If you're lucky and you have a baby with a reasonably sunny disposition, you aim to get her into a routine, since babies like familiar things. That's all well and good for normal days, but when something forces you to adjust your routine, you scramble like heck and hope it doesn't upset the baby too much. So far, so good, and we even survived a leaky-bottle incident, which forced a change of pajamas, without too much ado. Ask me again in 24 hours how we're doing, and hope you get the same answer. I know I'm hoping for it.

More from Father John on the upcoming changes in how the Texas Health and Human Services Commission will be doing its business, and hoe Colorado may be setting the (not good) example for us. I don't really have anything to add to what he's got this time other than to say I've found this whole series to be useful, enlightening, and more than a bit perturbing. It's an area of government that I think most of us here have little real experience with, but it's something that affects a lot of people in a very fundamental way. And this entry is festooned with some pretty excellent images. So check it out.

Campaign finance bill Number Two has been filed.

Mega-money donors are usurping the power of the people of Texas to control their government, two Democratic lawmakers said Tuesday as they filed a bill that would limit the amount of money individuals can donate to political causes.

"These individuals giving above $100,000 make up a disproportionate share of contributions that are coming into state elections," said Rep. Mike Villarreal, D-San Antonio, who co-wrote the bill with Rep. Mark Strama, D-Austin.

The proposed legislation would allow individuals to donate no more than a total of $100,000 in a two-year election cycle to political action committees, candidates for state office and political parties. Currently, there is no limit on the amount a person can donate to Texas political causes.

Rep. Dwayne Bohac, R-Houston and vice chairman of the House elections committee, said limiting contributions protects incumbents.

During the 2004 election cycle, 69 donors gave a total of $26 million, according to Texans for Public Justice. The group said the 69 donors made up 20 percent of all individual political contributions.

Capping contributions at $100,000 would have taken more than $19 million out of the 2004 election cycle, according to the group.

Anyway. This was another of the items on Clean Up Texas Politics' list from the seminar I attended. Nice to see that Rep. Mark Strama is one of the sponsors, though that probably just means this bill is doomed. Still, this is what he campaigned on, and it'll be good experience for the next time. It's a marathon, not a sprint, after all.

The Daily DeLay has a suggestion for the five plaintiffs in the TRMPAC lawsuit:

If the plaintiffs in the TRMPAC civil suit win, they should donate the money they win in damages to the institute Ronnie Earle is setting up at the University of Texas to educate the public about corporate money in politics.

DeLay and the attorneys for TRMPAC are all claiming the five former Democratic state legislators who brought the suit are just looking to "get rick quick." I don't know what kind of damages they're seeking -- roughly $25 million has been kicked around -- but I can't imagine that anyone really believes money is the motivator for them. It's not like being a state representative pays much (though many use this perch to collect other jobs), so they haven't lost a lot of pay.

So, plaintiffs, pledge to give every dollar away to Earle's institute. Three corporations have already done it. It would send a good message. This case is a battle for public opinion.

I heard about the awful, gruesome murders of Michael Lefkow and Donna Humphrey, husband and mother of Judge Joan Lefkow, yesterday, but wasn't really in the right frame of mind to write about it then. Judge Lefkow has been under a death threat from the terrorist Matt Hale and his followers since she ruled against them in a trademark-infringement lawsuit. She and her family had had protection from the US Marshall's office, even after Hale was put in jail for plotting her death, but it was eventually removed after the threats were deemed "not viable".

I want to quote Eric Zorn here, because I think he sums up how I feel about this very well:

We don't yet know why attorney Michael F. Lefkow 64, and Donna Grace Humphrey, 89, were shot multiple times in the family's basement. Among other possibilities, they may have been victims of a wandering sociopath, a startled or murderous home invader or a killer with a grudge against the family unrelated to Judge Lefkow's position.

What we do know is that the ability of judges and other public officials to make decisions without fearing for their lives or, worse, the lives of their loved ones is key to our way of life.

We know that fear is corrupting, corrosive, malignant, metastatic. It's toxic to freedom, the enemy of justice.

We see more than our share of mayhem in this country-random, predatory; purposeful, senseless. But what we don't see, or haven't seen in a long time, are orchestrated hits on key government, law enforcement and business officials of the sort we associate with third-world thugocracies and nations nearly paralyzed by terrorism.

[...]

Why not here? It's just not how we've done things. I'll leave further explanations and analysis to the political scientists, sociologists and psychologists.

But the status quo is fragile. That's why this story feels so terribly ominous.

Any organized, politically motivated attack on a judge or a judge's family is an attack on a core presumption that shapes our daily lives - that major decision makers operate free from the fear of organized intimidation, extortion and bloody revenge.

If that precious presumption shatters, we risk turning into one of those nations where the powerful and famous live in cocoons protected by thick walls, deadbolts, bulletproof glass and armed guards They scurry from place to place, an eye always out for killers and kidnappers.

Political courage is backed by blood and underwritten by terrible risk. Moral bravery is about more than just words.

It's too early to conclude that the presumption suffered a serious crack Monday afternoon in Judge Joan Lefkow's basement.

But it's not too early to hope that it didn't.

My heart goes out to Judge Joan Lefkow, her five daughters, and all the other family and friends of Michael Lefkow and Donna Humphrey. May you someday find peace and security again, and may the person or persons responsible for this vicious and heinous crime be captured and punished swiftly and severely.

One last thing I want to mention, also from Eric Zorn, is that the ruling Judge Lefkow handed down against Hale was forced upon her by an appeals court. She had ruled in his favor but her decision was overturned. Hale focused his hatred on her anyway.

Tom DeLay may not be a participant in the lawsuit against TRMPAC and Bill Ceverha, but that doesn't mean he's not there in spirit.

The Young Conservatives of Texas featured U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay in a mailing to Fort Bend County voters meant to influence the 2002 Republican primary runoff, but the mailer actually was paid for by a political committee created by DeLay.

Lawyers suing Texans for a Republican Majority seized on the mailing in state district court Tuesday as an example of how TRMPAC tried to hide its fund-raising and spending in the 2002 legislative elections.

[...]

Evidence of the DeLay mailing came out during testimony by Austin printer Bob Thomas, whose Thomas Graphics does printing and mailing for Republican candidates.

Thomas said he produced a postcard for the Young Conservatives of Texas to be sent out in the House District 28 Republican runoff in DeLay's home territory of Fort Bend County. He said the postcard featured DeLay.

"It said he was not endorsing in a race," Thomas said.

Thomas said he sent a bill of $4,000.10 to the Young Conservatives of Texas. He said that group could not pay the bill so TRMPAC paid it.

House Bill 2, the omnibus bill overhauling school finance, passed out of committee yesterday.

The Committee on Public Education voted 6-3 in favor of the bill. The committee's three Democrats, Houston Reps. Harold Dutton and Scott Hochberg along with Brownsville Rep. Rene Oliveira, cast the "no" votes.

Committee Chairman Kent Grusendorf, R-Arlington, said he expects the bill to be debated by the full House on Monday.

"House Bill 2 provides more money — not as much as some people would like — but it provides more money to our schools," said Grusendorf.

The bill would add new spending of $3 billion to the $60 billion spent during the biennium on public schools in Texas. Grusendorf said the money will be appropriated during the regular state budget process.

Every school district would be guaranteed a 3 percent increase for the 2005-06 school year, an amount many critics said would barely cover inflation.

Hochberg said the bill doesn't target spending to the lowest-achieving students, those living in poverty, with limited English skills and at risk of dropping out.

"We know where our biggest areas of need are, and this bill spends a lot of money without addressing those needs," he said.

Hochberg also criticized the House leadership for writing a major tax bill but using all of the money to lower property taxes.

"Absolutely none of that is going to go to the schools in Houston. It's a tremendously missed opportunity," he said.

Hochberg is far from alone in his opposition here, though you'd barely know if from reading this article. Andrew D quotes extensively from the Quorum Report with the spectrum of dissent. We'll see if any of that matters. Meanwhile, Rio Grande Valley Politics weighs in and Inside the Texas Capitol gives a quick preview of highlights from the forthcoming Democratic alternative:

- Tripling the exemption for the homestead tax from $15,000 to $45,000, providing a broader tax relief than the statewide property tax currently touted by the GOP.

- Buying down the property tax from $1.50 to $1.25. They will attack the fact that the GOP plan for lowering the property tax to $1.00 since it mainly benefits homes that cost more than $250,000.

- All in all, this Democratic plan will cost roughly $6.64 billion. Since the GOP set the spending bar at $11.789 billion, then that provides over $5 billion in new money to schools, which is greater than the $1.5 billion actually provided by the Republican plan (or even the $3 billion that the GOP plan wants). Most of the Dem's proposed spending would go to across-the-board teacher raises and once again providing health insurance to all other school employees.

Getting back to the Chron story, how are the Republicans going to pay for their plan?

The bill would restore a $1,000 health care stipend for teachers that was cut in half during the last legislative session. Districts would be required to set aside 1 percent of their budget for locally designed teacher pay incentives, and a separate provision would provide funding to reward teachers in low-performing schools whose students show test gains.

The tax bill, HB 3, may be unveiled today. Speaker Tom Craddick said it includes a hike in the state sales tax, a new business tax based on a company's payroll and an increase in the cigarette tax. The bill will need to raise about $11 billion during the biennium to replace property taxes cut by HB 2.

Kathy Walt, spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry, said the governor "still has concerns" about a payroll tax. His opposition to a House committee-proposed payroll tax contributed to the failure last year of a special session on school finance.

But Walt also noted that it is still early in the session and the governor will continue to work with the House and Senate on a revenue bill.

Bill Allaway, president of the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association, a business group, said he believed House leaders were still trying to figure out how to deal with large employers' concerns about a payroll tax.

In case you hadn't heard, the state of Georgia, whose three branches of state government are newly under all-Republican control, are planning to re-redistrict in time for the 2006 elections. MyDD and Ed Kilgore have the details, with Kilgore noting that the new lines may not disfavor the two targeted Democrats (John Barrow and Jim Marshall) as much as originally feared, possibly because of rumbled Democratic reprisals in Illinois and elsewhere.

I will stipulate that Georgia's current districts, drawn as Constitutionally required by Democrats in 2001, are butt-ugly and serve a primarily partisan purpose (though since the especially ugly CD11 was drawn to make life hard for Republican Rep. Phil Gingrey, it was an ultimately unsuccessful purpose). But unlike Texas, where the many minions of Tom DeLay had the fig leaf of judicially-drawn lines as justification for revisiting the issue in 2003 (despite their welcoming of judicial fiat in 2001), the Georgia boundaries were duly drawn and ratified by the Lege and Governor. The only reason to redraw, and it's the reason they've given, is because the Republicans are in charge now and there's no one to stop them. It's power serving its own purpose, and it's far from the only or most egregious example of late.

Which brings me to this LA Times article, in which the Democrats of California have put forth a compromise to Governor Ah-nold's proposal to hand the process over to an impartial third party: Fine, but not until the next mandated redraw in 2011. If he goes for that, then maybe I can shake the feeling that he was just offering a sucker's deal all along. I'd feel even better about it if he held up the Georgia power grab as a prime example of why legislators shouldn't be doing this work, or the Texas debacle before it, but I'd settle for that. I'm not holding my breath on either count, though:

Schwarzenegger spokesman Rob Stutzman said the governor wants new lines drawn "as soon as possible."

"If 2008 is as soon as possible, then that's great," he said, "but we'll strive for 2006."

If 2008 is more achievable, "why are we spending all this money when in two years you're going to go through this process again [when the 2010 census is taken]?" asked Kathay Feng, voting rights director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center.

(UPDATE: Oops, forgot to notice the first time around that Kathay is wrong when she says "you're going to go through this process again" in two years if you do it for the 2008 elections. Everybody will be redistricting again for the 2012 elections, since that's the first one after the 2010 Census, not the 2010 elections. Her point is still valid, though.)

The article notes that a re-ruling from the federal court on the Texas lawsuit is expected soon, so look for more of this in the news. Georgia map link via PerryVsWorld, LAT link via Lasso.

Engineers devise invisibility shield. Need I say more?

The idea of a cloak of invisibility that hides objects from view has long been confined to the more improbable reaches of science fiction. But electronic engineers have now come up with a way to make one.

Andrea Alù and Nader Engheta of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia say that a 'plasmonic cover' could render objects "nearly invisible to an observer". Their idea remains just a proposal at this stage, but it doesn't obviously violate any laws of physics.

"The concept is an interesting one, with several important potential applications," says John Pendry, a physicist at Imperial College in London, UK. "It could find uses in stealth technology and camouflage."

[...]

[T]he invisibility shield proposed by Alù and Engheta...is a self-contained structure that would reduce visibility from all viewing angles. In that sense it would be more like the shielding used by the Romulans in the Star Trek episode "Balance of Terror" in 1966, which hid their spaceships at the push of a button.

The lawsuit against the Texans for a Republican Majority PAC is underway, and one of the first witnesses says they shoulda known better.

Texans for a Republican Majority, formed by Republican U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, should have reported some $600,000 in expenditures on state disclosure forms, Trevor Potter testified.

Some of the money was spent for political consultants, printing for mailouts and other items that five Democratic plaintiffs claim were political expenses. Potter, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, agreed.

"They're all reportable, and corporate money can't be used for those expenses," Potter said.

[...]

Potter testified that TRMPAC was "a highly sophisticated political operation" that used nationally known pollsters, dealt with large amounts of money, had experienced consultants and targeted specific House races.

Under cross-examination, he acknowledged that a highly sophisticated political operation would be more likely to comply with the law.

Another claim by the Democratic plaintiffs — that the Republican political committee coordinated its efforts with other groups — was addressed in questions posed to Texas Association of Business President Bill Hammond.

The business association and Texans for a Republican Majority worked together on a mass mailing to voters in 15 House races, Hammond said. He said his association also shared information with TRMPAC about its issue-oriented "public education program" during the 2002 election season.

But the two groups made separate decisions about involvement in House races, Hammond testified.

[...]

Hammond said his association repeatedly sought the advice of a recognized Texas election law attorney so that it would stick with "issue advocacy" in its election activities and avoid "express advocacy," or the urging of the election or defeat of a particular candidate.

He said issue advocacy is protected free speech under the First Amendment.

Potter was asked about $190,000 that Texans for a Republican Majority sent to a division of the Republican National Committee. Some Texas House candidates later received that same amount of money from an arm of the Republican National Committee.

"It raises an obvious question. That is, whether it was money laundering," Potter testified.

However, attorney Terry Scarborough, who represents Ceverha, said in opening statements that money from the Texas committee went into a Republican National Committee account from which corporate dollars could legally be spent in other states.

In a separate criminal investigation, two people associated with TRMPAC — John Colyandro and Jim Ellis — have been charged with money laundering based on the $190,000 transaction.

Elsewhere, Save Texas Reps has a roundup of recent news coverage, while Drive Democracy is attending the trial and blogging from there. See Nathan's coverage of the opening statements by the plaintiff and Bill Ceverha's testimony. Last but certainly not least is In the Pink Texas, also at the trial and on the lookout for a double espresso and an open window. Stay tuned for more.

UPDATE: Two more from Nathan, on Trevor Potter's testimony and Bill Hammond's testimony.

Something I meant to link to when discussing the forthcoming Democratic alternative to HB2 but forgot was a series of posts by Greg Moses covering the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF)'s position on the upcoming Supreme Court review of Judge Dietz' ruling. Here's part one, part two, and part three. Check it out.

Byron sides with the disgruntled precinct chairs. Vince, Pink Dome, and Kerry sympathize with DCDP Chair Susan Hays. However you slice it, it sounds like it was ugly. I just hope it all gets settled soon.

UPDATE: Kerry explains his position more fully in the comments, since a forced server move is delaying his full bloggage on the meeting. I'll link to that when it's ready. StoutDem is definitely in the camp of the disgruntled.

Following up on this post regarding the new call center system in Texas' Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC), we see that they have made a tentative award of a contract to Accenture.

Notice of Tentative Award

HHSC announces the tentative award of a contract under request for proposals (RFP) #529-04-334 for Integrated Eligibility and Enrollment Services to Accenture LLP for all components prescribed by the RFP.

The tentative award is contingent upon, among other things, a final determination that a contract for call center services is cost-effective, the successful negotiation of a contract for the services, and obtaining federal agency approval for the portion of the contract that is subject to such approval. If negotiations with the selected vendor are unsuccessful, the tentative award will be withdrawn and HHSC may initiate negotiations with the next highest rated respondent or respondents. A tentative contract award becomes final upon successful execution of a contract.

The General Accounting Office has concluded that four of the 100 largest federal contractors are incorporated offshore in tax haven countries as a way of lowering their corporate taxes.

One of the four, Accenture Ltd. of Hamilton, Bermuda, is ranked No. 24 on Washington Technology’s 2002 list of Top 100 federal IT prime contractors. The company had $279 million in federal contracts in fiscal 2001, according to the GAO report. Overall, the four companies pulled in $2.7 billion in government contracts during 2001.

[...]

Besides Accenture, the other three companies identified as incorporating in tax havens were McDermott International Inc. of Panama, with almost $1.9 billion in federal contracts in fiscal 2001; Foster Wheeler Ltd. of Bermuda, with $286.3 million; and Tyco International Ltd., Bermuda, worth $206.4 million.

The report said that McDermott, Foster Wheeler and Tyco had conducted “corporate inversions,” the term given to companies that were incorporated in the United States and then re-incorporated in a tax haven.

Accenture spokeswoman Roxanne Taylor said the GAO report vindicates the company’s position that it was never a U.S. corporation.

“Our contention has always been that we were not a U.S. company,” Taylor said. “They have communicated very clearly the fact in their own report that Accenture is not an inversion.”

Accenture was part of Andersen Worldwide, which is based in Chicago. When it split from its parent, it operated as a series of related partnerhips, according to the GAO report. In April 2001, it conducted an initial public offering and incorporated in Bermuda.

Rep. Dawnna Dukes, D-Austin, filed a bill Monday that would require the state to put the brakes on call centers until it has fully tested an electronic system that would be the centerpiece of the new program for determining how people are eligible for government benefits.

House Bill 1674 calls on the state to stop negotiations related to opening the centers — hubs where people would call to apply for or renew food stamps, cash assistance and other government programs.

Dukes’ bill states that if the Health and Human Services Commission enters into a contract with a company before the bill takes effect, it will not be able to renew that contract until it proves that the electronic system that will support call centers works.

On Friday, the commission chose Accenture as the company to which it would give a tentative contract for the centers. However, a spokeswoman said the state must still weigh the company’s proposal for running the centers against its own to see which is better.

Father John has a different concern about the call center system (TIERS), once again looking to Colorado for an inkling of what's to come:

More Colorado mothers are getting little or no prenatal care, and it's beginning to show with more unhealthy babies, a hospital manager says.

"We're seeing more women show up in labor having no prenatal care," said Barbara Hughes, director of the Exempla St. Joseph Medical Center's midwife program.

Hughes blames a change in state policy last year that no longer allows counties or doctors to "presume eligibility" for Medicaid for a pregnant woman who seems to have very little money.

She also blames the state's new $200 million Colorado Benefits Management System, which is supposed to determine eligibility for welfare payments, but has been beset by problems.

If a pregnant woman applies for Medicaid, but then has to wait three or four months to be approved, she loses out on most of the crucial prenatal care, say health officials who want presumptive eligibility restored.

Medicaid covers about $1,000 worth of prenatal care for women of very low income who don't have any other insurance.

That $1,000 worth of care can mean the difference between life or death, a healthy baby or one that will cost the health-care system millions of dollars, Hughes said.

She cited the example of one pregnant mother who applied for Medicaid last August, just before the change in presumptive eligibility.

"She decided to wait for her Medicaid application to go through," Hughes said. "It took five months. She missed all her prenatal visits over that time."

She finally showed up at St. Joseph, about 10 days before her baby's due date. "The baby was already dead," Hughes said. "It's so tragic."

Thanks to a nameless-by-request reader for the tip on this. A communication from HHSC to its employees about the upcoming changes (read: massive layoffs) is beneath the fold.

February 25, 2005 Communications from HHSC:

*********

As most of you know, HHSC has been evaluating
private proposals to operate call centers as part
of our effort to modernize our eligibility
system. We still have not made a final
determination on whether call centers will be
operated with state employees or through a
private contract. However, we are taking a
significant step in that process today by issuing
a tentative award to Accenture, one of the
companies that submitted a proposal to operate
the call centers.

We will not be able to make a final decision on
whether a private proposal or the state's plan
for call centers represents the best value for
taxpayers without more discussions with the
vendor. Once that decision is made, changes to
staffing levels will still be months away.

Regardless of the decision on call centers, state
employees will continue to determine eligibility
and staff field offices across the state.

After a decision is reached on how to staff call
centers, HHSC will be able to develop a more
detailed transition plan and timeline for
employees. That means we'll be able to tell
employees how many state jobs there will be in
the new system, where the jobs will be located,
and what criteria will be used to determine who
gets those positions. Our goal is to provide
employees with this information several months
before any changes take place.

We recognize that this a stressful time. We will
continue our efforts to use temporary workers,
paid overtime and other innovative ideas to help
deal with workload issues as we transition to the
new eligibility system. HHSC also remains
committed to giving displaced eligibility
employees priority consideration for other jobs
within the health and human services system.

We appreciate the continued dedication of our
eligibility workers. Change is rarely easy, but
our efforts will result in an eligibility system
that is more convenient for Texans and makes
better use of limited tax dollars. We will
continue to provide employees with open and
honest communication about the changes taking
place in a timely manner so that you can make the
best decision for you and your family.

County GOP Chair Jared Woodfill responds to the earlier story in which he criticized City Council members for not being more in opposition to Mayor White and to the criticism he received for that story. There's nothing here that I find objectionable, and nothing that I'd argue with if Gerry Birnbirg had said it (philosophically adjusted, of course), so maybe Jared ought to consider the advice that Kevin had for him. Or not. I mean, it's not like I'm unhappy with how things are going around here.

The Raw Story follows up on their previous piece which outlined new allegations of inappropriate behavior by Tom DeLay. Will any Democrat step up and file another ethics complaint? Nancy Pelosi seems to be calling for someone to do so. Ball's in your court, folks.