Freeway blogging

Like a number of other lefty bloggers, I've been receiving mail from a fellow who calls himself the Scarlet Pimpernel lately. SP has been sending links to photos of snarky anti-Bush messages that have been showing up on the highways of Southern California. There's been so much material from this that SP has announced the creation of a site called Freewayblogger to chronicle this real-world "blog". It's pretty amusing if you're one of those America-hating liberals that I keep hearing about. Check it out.

Best sports blogs

Check out Forbes Magazine's list of the Best Sports Blogs, in which the estimable Off Wing Opinion came in at #2 overall. Congrats to Eric for some well-deserved recognition! If you like sports, you should be reading Off Wing.

(Note to my parents: One of the top five is a blog about the Yankees.)

Berry backs Sanchez

Former mayoral candidate Michael Berry has given his endorsement to Orlando Sanchez.

The endorsement is expected to solidify Sanchez's standing among conservative voters who supported him in a 2001 runoff loss to Mayor Lee Brown but had shifted toward Berry in the 2003 campaign's early months.

Berry made the endorsement during a meeting of the Harris County Republican Party, which has been spending money on advertising labeling candidate Bill White as a liberal.

"I welcome it, absolutely," Sanchez said. "I thought Michael ran a good race on some issues that I also campaigned on, and he has good fiscal conservative values."

I guess this is no surprise, as Kevin says, yet somehow I do feel surprised. This is part of it:

Earlier this year, Berry told the Houston Police Officers Union that he would not make an endorsement if he were not in the race.

And he had pounded Sanchez for using campaign operatives who once worked for Brown.

But he said he decided to endorse Sanchez after getting assurances that Sanchez would take up two causes the mayor opposes.

First, Berry said, Sanchez would have to oppose Metro's Nov. 4 transit referendum that includes light rail. Sanchez struck that position last Wednesday, two days after Berry decided to run for another council seat.

Second, Berry said, Sanchez would have to support his proposal for a 1-cent cut in the city's property tax rate of 64.5 cents per $100 valuation.

I know it happens all the time in primaries, but it always feels a bit awkward and dishonest to me when a candidate who's pounded on someone else's honesty and integrity endorses that person later on. I know, Candidate B may be scum, but he's higher quality scum than the other guy. I'm just saying that the endorsement would carry more weight with me after a positive campaign and not a negative one.

Anyway, Berry gets reassured that his heart will go on, Sanchez finally remembers that he doesn't like rail, and all is well with the universe.

All swirly and bad

Andrew Northrup sums up some conservative reaction to the Plame Affair. Standard beverage warning applies.

We're number one!

Just not in a good way.

One out of every four Texans lacks health insurance, the highest percentage of uninsured residents in any state in the nation, according to new Census Bureau figures.

The findings are part of a report that shows the ranks of the uninsured nationwide swelled by 2.4 million last year as insurance costs kept rising and more Americans lost their jobs and health care coverage.

The number of people without health insurance the entire year rose to 43.6 million, a jump of almost 6 percent from 2001 and the second consecutive annual increase, the Census Bureau said. The percentage of Americans without health coverage rose from 14.6 to 15.2.

In Texas, the percentage of uninsured increased from 23.2 to 24.7 based on two-year averages. The 1.5 percent increase was among the highest in the nation.

New Mexico was the only other state to crack 20 percent at 20.9.

Somewhere, the state of Mississippi is laughing at us.

If you look up "quid pro quo" in the dictionary...

This is pretty much all you need to know about how government works around here.

Less than one month after receiving $100,000 from Houston homebuilder Bob Perry, Gov. Rick Perry (no relation to Bob - ed) named a top executive from Perry Homes to a commission implementing a new law designed to reduce lawsuits against builders.

John Krugh was appointed Sept. 8 to the Residential Construction Commission, a nine-member body charged with developing building performance standards and setting up a dispute resolution process. A homeowner would have to go through the review process before bringing a lawsuit against a builder.

Bob Perry, chief executive officer of Perry Homes, is the longtime top donor to Rick Perry. Since June 1997, when Rick Perry was agriculture commissioner planning a race for lieutenant governor, Bob Perry has contributed $580,000.

His most recent donations came on Aug. 14, when he wrote two $50,000 checks to Texans for Rick Perry, according to a campaign finance report filed with the Texas Ethics Commission.

[...]

This year, Perry Homes was a driving force behind House Bill 730. Krugh, senior vice president and corporate counsel for Perry Homes, led a task force that crafted the legislation for the Texas Association of Builders.

Kathy Walt, a spokeswoman for the governor, said Krugh was appointed because of his experience in the building industry.

And for all I know he is well qualified and he will do a good job without unduly benefitting himself or his business. These coincidences do pile up, though.

Houston homeowner John Cobarruvias, who applied for the commission, said he had hoped that Perry would appoint a consumer advocate like himself. Cobarruvias, president of the Texas chapter of Homeowners Against Deficient Dwellings, said he's disappointed but not surprised at the appointments.

"We expected them to stack this commission somehow, some way," said Cobarruvias. "I look at the makeup and just don't see us having a chance of doing anything in support of the consumers."

Krugh said he asked to be appointed to the commission. He said the law's benefits are the same for consumers as they are for builders.

"It's an opportunity for disputes to be resolved in a more amicable fashion and without people having to go to court. At the same time, we're not taking away the rights of consumers to have legal action against builders," said Krugh.

Yeah, sure, like Prop 12 will benefit consumers. It's not like business and consumers ever have competing interests, so it doesn't matter if the consumers' interests are represented by business people, right? Nothing to see here, folks.

GOP wheels and deals in West Texas

The Republicans involved in redistricting spent much of yesterday trying to come to an agreement on how to divvy up West Texas, and while it appears they have a plan for Midland and Lubbock, I can't tell if they're really close to an actual deal or are just projecting confidence, as the various press reports are a bit muddled.

The Chron's headline says GOP strikes Midland deal in remap war, but the story sounds a lot less firm than the header does.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said Monday senators have agreed to break a redistricting stalemate by giving House Speaker Tom Craddick a new congressional district in his hometown of Midland.

How to draw West Texas congressional districts had been a major impasse to Republican redistricting plans. Dewhurst said the agreement in principle was struck during high-level negotiations in Gov. Rick Perry's Capitol office.

[...]

"It's very, very clear that we're overdue in coming to an agreement on a fair redistricting map," Dewhurst said.

But the devil is in the details. And optimism seemed held together by gossamer threads in the Sam Houston conference room where negotiations were taking place privately around folding tables and a redistricting computer.

While the House and Senate congressional maps differ in almost all parts of Texas, the sticking point among Republicans is West Texas.

Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford, lead House negotiator, said he thought progress is being made toward meeting the legislative leadership's goal of having an agreement by Wednesday.

But Sen. Robert Duncan,R-Lubbock, said problems remained in creating a Midland district that did not pit freshman U.S. Rep. Randy Neugebauer,R-Lubbock, against veteran U.S. Rep. Charles Stenholm,D-Abilene, in the same congressional district.

"They're not moving in the right direction until we have some consensus between the House and Senate," Duncan said, "and right now we don't."

Duncan said he wants to be "reasonable" in negotiating West Texas, but he said the map "has to be something, in my view, that protects agriculture and doesn't directly pair those two in a race."

But King indicated such a pairing is still under consideration.

"We want to help Randy Neugebauer stay in Congress," King said.

"Now, whether he's in an open seat or a seat paired with Charlie Stenholm, I don't know," King said. "West Texas is still under discussion."

Midland currently is in a district with Lubbock. Craddick contends it should have its own district because Lubbock is farming while Midland is oil production and ranching. The House passed a map with a Midland district; the Senate did not.

Dewhurst said the Senate agreed to have a new district in Midland after the meeting in Perry's office with Craddick, King, state Rep. Joe Crabb,R-Atascocita and lead Senate negotiator Sen. Todd Staples,R-Palestine.

"I believe a different approach on West Texas can be reached and we can have a mutually acceptable agreement on that," Dewhurst said.

"It's important that we focus on having a map that is fair to all Texas," he said. "It's bigger than any one person or two people."

Dewhurst also said he is not a "party" to any mapping plan "aimed at creating new districts for any specific would-be legislators." He did not explain what he meant.

Got that? Now compare to the DMN, which says there is no deal as yet.

Republican leaders haggled over West Texas congressional boundaries in closed-door meetings Monday but were unable to agree on a redistricting compromise.

The state's top leaders sat down with the Legislature's mapmakers for the first time since the two chambers passed conflicting remap plans this month. As rumors of a deal bounced around the Capitol, including a compromise supposedly brokered by Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, his spokesman said late Monday such reports were premature.

"There is absolutely no deal," and none expected overnight, spokesman Dave Beckwith said.

As negotiations broke up Monday night, one participant said the only agreement is that House Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, should have a seat based in his hometown. But, nettlesome details remained unresolved.
Republicans expressed confidence they'll meet their self-imposed Wednesday deadline for a plan to boost GOP influence in Congress by five or six seats. Both the House and the Senate have recessed until Thursday, awaiting a deal by the conferees.

"I think we're going to have an agreement on West Texas either today or tomorrow," Mr. David Dewhurst told reporters at a Fort Worth speaking engagement. He added that he expects final passage of the bill by Monday, described by Gov. Rick Perry as a "drop dead" date.

See what I mean? It does sound like they've agreed to give Queen Craddick what he wants, but there's still the question of where they go from there.

One participant said the 90-minute morning meeting marked a change from the prior practice of "playing tennis," lobbing competing maps and demands back and forth without any face-to-face discussion or hint of compromise.

About five or six alternative West Texas configurations were presented and discussed at the meeting, the participant said.

Some of those maps would achieve both Mr. Craddick's main demand – a congressional district dominated by Midland-Odessa – and Mr. Duncan's, which is protection for newcomer U.S. Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Lubbock.

Earlier, Mr. Craddick pushed through the House a map that threatens Mr. Neugebauer's job security by pitting him against U.S. Rep. Charles Stenholm, D-Abilene. Mr. Duncan said he could not accept a map that forces his Lubbock constituents to choose between a hometown congressman, Mr. Neugebauer, and Mr. Stenholm, a strong supporter of agricultural interests important to Mr. Duncan's district.

Mr. Duncan persuaded the Senate to pass a plan that avoids that choice, by keeping the congressmen in separate districts, but denying the Midland-Odessa-based seat sought by the speaker.

At least some of the proposals to cure both men's objections share a common strategy, the participant said: pitting Mr. Stenholm against a GOP congressman other than Mr. Neugebauer. Proposed opponents include Amarillo-area U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Clarendon, or U.S. Rep Kay Granger, R-Fort Worth.

Another person who attended the meeting agreed with that description but said the proposed pairing of Mr. Stenholm with Ms. Granger is unlikely, given the opposition of state Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford, author of the House map.

Another plan, proposed by Mr. Perry last week, would appease the speaker and Mr. Duncan by pairing Mr. Stenholm with U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco. But that plan drew opposition from the Panhandle for splitting the region into two districts, and from Central Texas for separating Waco from Fort Hood.

The Lege is officially adjourned until Thursday, but negotiations will continue behind the scenes. If something happens, it'll happen suddenly, possibly late at night.

One consequence of all this is a likely week's postponement of the deadline to file for primaries, and possibly a change in the primary date.

Lawmakers are already considering extending the filing period for congressional candidates by up to 12 days. Currently, the filing period is Dec. 3 to Jan. 2.

The unusual middecade redistricting push has also put a strain on local elections officials, said Robert Parten, Tarrant County elections administrator. And the prospect of moving the primary date would be daunting, he said.

"We expect there is going to be a lot of interest in this primary because of the presidential race," said Parten. His office must wait for the redistricting issue to be settled before it can mail registration cards to inform the county's 900,000 voters which congressional district they will vote in.

Historically, Texas has had little say in the presidential nominating process because the winning candidates had managed to lock support in the states with the earliest primaries. In 2004, Texas will conduct its primary on the same day as most of the nation's largest states, including California and New York.

Because President Bush is not expected to face serious opposition for the Republican nomination, any delay in the Texas presidential primary would only affect Democrats.

"Delaying the primaries would be an abuse of the voters and would deny Texans a say in who will be the next president," Texas Democratic Party Chairwoman Molly Beth Malcolm said. "Just as importantly, moving back the primary will reduce turnouts in both parties' primaries and create confusion and frustration."

Kathy Walt, a spokeswoman for Republican Gov. Rick Perry, rejected any assertion that moving the primary is motivated by partisan concerns.

"The governor hopes and believes that lawmakers can come to an agreement on redistricting this week so the primary can take place as scheduled," Walt said.

Let's see, the primary is to help pick a Democratic Presidential nominee, and the delay is to allow the GOP's redistricting plan to go forward - Nah, no possible partisan motives there.

Meanwhile, Sen. Jeff Wentworth's bill to create a nonpartisan redistricting committee is dead again.

In a related matter, Sen. Jeff Wentworth's legislation to transfer the responsibility of drawing congressional boundaries in 2011 to a panel of citizens appears dead. Dewhurst had referred the bill to the Senate Jurisprudence Committee, where it appeared unlikely to resurface. Wentworth, R-San Antonio, wanted the legislation to go to the Senate Administration Committee, of which he is a member.

Todd Staples of Palestine, chairman of the Senate Republican Caucus, huddled with Dewhurst and Wentworth, then polled Senate Republicans on the floor Monday. The bill was not referred to a more favorable committee.

Finally, some yahoo is agitating for Hispanics to demand a refund from the Texas 11.

In a news release, the fledgling Center for Hispanic Advocacy described the holdout as tax-funded rest and relaxation in a plush hotel.

"You — the minority population they claimed to be protecting — paid for their $2.5 million, 44-day vacation and they gave you nothing," the release said.

The release lists e-mail links to the senators and urges recipients to contact the senators and "bill them" for the costs of their travel.

Jorge Uresti of Tyler, the 31-year-old founder of the organization, said the message had already gone to more than 1,000 contacts around the state.

It was unclear if any of those contacts had followed through with requests for refunds, but Uresti said response was enthusiastic.

He accused the senators of mischaracterizing redistricting proposals that might have meant more overall representation for Hispanics because they wanted to preserve Demo cratic power.

Brownsville Sen. Eddie Lucio, one of the "Texas 11," said that he'd never heard of the group.

He insisted that the senators used their own money or "office holder accounts," which come from campaign contributions, to pay for food and lodging in New Mexico.

"I'd like to know who funds this organization," he said. "He certainly, I don't believe, speaks for the people I represent ... I can show (Uresti) a few thousand e-mails that came from people around Texas supporting what we do."

[...]

Uresti said his months-old organization is nonprofit and nonpartisan, and is preparing the first issue of The Hispanic Advocate, a magazine.

Two staff biographies show strong Republican party ties.

Both of the organization's press contacts worked on the U.S. Senate campaign of Republican John Cornyn; one leads Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's Texas Women's Alliance, the other interned this year for the White House Office of Presidential Correspondence.

The group also has been invited to speak before the Republican National Committee.

Quelle surprise, as they say in Lubbock.

Wellstone World Music Day

My buddy Ron sent me a note last week telling me about Wellstone World Music Day, which will be October 25, the first anniversary of the plane crash that killed Paul, Sheila, and Marcia Markuson Wellstone along with campaign aides Mary McEvoy, Tom Lapic and Will McLaughlin. It's the brainchild of Minneapolis music critic Jim Walsh, and it is intended to celebrate the life and fighting spirit of the late Senator. Take a moment and check it out.

I note that the Wellstone site contains a link to the Daniel Pearl Foundation, and that October 10 is the second Daniel Pearl Music Day, on what would have been the slain journalist's 40th birthday. Two dates to mark on your calendar.

SEC targeting Kenny Boy?

What could be sweeter than the prospect of Karl Rove doing the frog march? How about Ken Lay doing the perp walk?

Federal regulators have asked a federal court to force former Enron Corp. Chairman Ken Lay to hand over documents they believe will shed light on the company's collapse.

Lay has refused to turn over the records, citing his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, trying to determine whether Lay engaged in any fraudulent activities at Enron, has subpoenaed documents from Lay's tenure at the one-time Houston energy giant.

In a filing today with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, SEC officials argued the documents they want to review are corporate records that Lay has no right to withhold.

"It is well settled that a corporation has no Fifth Amendment rights and an individual cannot resist the production of corporate records based on the Fifth Amendment, even where the records might tend to incriminate the individual personally," the SEC argued.

We're still a long way from Kenny Boy getting his butt dragged into a courtroom. But this is a start.

If you're going to delude yourself, you may as well dream big

Super Bowl Fever means different things to different people, especially people who hope to earn a few grand by renting out their houses during Super Bowl Week.

With the $6,900 a day she hopes to get renting out her southwest Houston ranch-style home during Super Bowl week, Tobi Shvartzapel wants to buy a car and take her family to Disney World.

Nicholas Howard III, a barber, could pay off his mortgage with the $25,000 he is asking for a week in his three-bedroom home.

The $8,500 that student Andrew Abrameit wants for a week in his two-bedroom condo would nearly pay a semester's tuition at South Texas College of Law.

Scores of locals have shown interest in renting out their places at breathtaking prices, and many are advertising on Web sites that charge, in some cases, hundreds of dollars.

These poor people not only paid upwards of $250 apiece to have their homes listed on a web page that apparently solicits potential renters, but now their friends and neighbors all know what suckers they are. Seemed almost cruel to read the reaction from the Host Committee and folks in Tampa and San Diego who fell for this pitch about the likelihood these people will cash in, but there you have it. Somewhere, PT Barnum is having a good chuckle.

Sanchez overview

The Chron did the first of three promised candidate overviews yesterday with this entry on Orlando Sanchez. It's a decent enough effort, and struck me as being reasonably fair to its subject. I thought this was pretty damning, though:

"If it was controversial and/or not his idea, he was reticent to get involved in any sort of leadership role," said Rob Todd, who served on City Council with Sanchez for six years. "He's one who likes the tea-party aspect of politics, but he's not one to clean up the dishes afterwards."

Todd, a Republican, is supporting White, a Democrat, in the mayor's race, which is officially nonpartisan.

Sanchez sometimes missed meetings in Houston while on international trade missions for the city.

"He was sort of the secretary of state for City Council," Todd joked.

The city does not track attendance at regular City Council meetings, but Sanchez's scanty attendance at budget workshops -- where council members have an opportunity to give their input on the city's $1.4 billion budget -- is on record. In 2001, after declaring his candidacy for mayor, Sanchez attended eight of 18 budget workshops. He attended one meeting out of 20 in 2000 and one of 23 in 1999.

For someone who's made as much hay as Sanchez has about the Brown Administration's incompetence, a record of missing meetings does not inspire confidence. I wonder if and when White or Turner will emphasize this.

In any profile of Orlando Sanchez, there are two items that one is legally required to mention. One is his ethnicity and his ability to attract Hispanic voters.

In 2001, Sanchez received overwhelming support in the Hispanic community, in spite of active opposition from many of the city's other Hispanic elected officials, mostly Mexican-American Democrats.

"These races have become partisan," said Democratic political consultant Marc Campos, who is working for Turner this year. "I just cannot be supporting a Republican. He's a nice guy and everything, but he's a card-carrying Republican."

As Democrats and Republicans vie for Hispanic votes, though, Sanchez has won national Republican support. President Bush and former President Bush both endorsed him in the last election.

"It's not just because he's Hispanic," said City Councilman Gabriel Vasquez, who recently switched to the Republican party and is running for city controller. "It's also because he's qualified, he's educated and he's someone we can be proud of."

[...]

Whether Sanchez shares the political leanings of Houston's Hispanic voters or not, many believe he will get their support.

"Anybody with an S, a Z or a vowel on the end of their name is likely to pick up a majority of the Hispanic vote," said former Port Commissioner Vidal Martinez, who is supporting Sanchez.

As I've said before, Sanchez probably needs to do at least as well with Hispanics as he did in 2001 when he got 62% of their vote in order to contend. I've been skeptical all along that he will do that well, but it's based on gut feel and nothing else.

The other item is, of course, Sanchez's looks.

Additionally, Sanchez is well-spoken and good-looking, with dark hair, a chiseled chin and piercing blue eyes.

"God, he's gorgeous!" exclaimed one woman after watching him walk out of a downtown office building.

Sheesh. John Williams said Sanchez has steel blue eyes, now Rachel Graves says they're piercing blue eyes. I think the Chronicle needs to issue a style guide on this topic so there's less confusion in the future.

Please don't feed the alligators

There are certain things in this life that you wouldn't think should require an external disincentive to keep people from doing them. Feeding wild alligators, for example.

Feed an alligator, face a fine.

That wasn't the case until this month.

At its public meeting the final week of August, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission adopted regulations making it a Class C misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of as much as $500, to "intentionally feed a free-ranging alligator."

(There's some interesting stuff in this article about the recent history of gators in Texas, so take a moment and read through it.)

You know, I may be a lifelong city boy, but I don't think I've ever needed the TPWC or any other similar body to explain to me why leaving food out for gators was Not A Smart Thing To Do. While I, as a good liberal, generally applaud the government for taking action to protect unwary citizens from lurking dangers, I'm not sure that preventing future Darwin Award recipients from self-selecting themselves out of the gene pool in this fashion is necessarily a laudable objective. It's a quandary, I must admit.

UPDATE: As a couple of people note in the comments, the real problem is not protecting people from gators, it's protecting gators from people. There's only one way to deal with a gator that has no fear of people, and that's to kill it. Hunting gators is highly restricted in Texas, but killing one to protect oneself, one's livestock, or one's pet is permissible and happens regularly. So whether it takes common sense or the threat of a fine, don't feed the gators, OK?

Houston's urbanity

This great op-ed piece in today's Chron makes a good economic argument for rail, and also puts its finger on something that I'd peripherally thought about but hadn't quite formed into a real idea yet. Let's start with his case for rail:

Many people who oppose the Metropolitan Transit Authority's November referendum argue that the major priority of public transit should be to make life easier for people who don't use transit -- drivers. If a transit plan doesn't appear to do this, opponents say, then more roads should be built instead of transit. The goal, they say, should be to reduce traffic congestion. But that should not be a high-priority goal of transit operation, and it is probably impossible to achieve with any transportation strategy.

Anthony Downs, one of the nation's top authorities on growth and transportation, flatly told Congress a couple of years ago that rush-hour congestion can't be reduced, and certainly not by expanding roads. Market doctrine says that people will use something that is free until it is gone, and likewise, free travel space will be used until it is full.

The most common approach in attempting to reduce congestion is to add more lanes. But evidence is overwhelming that adding more highway lanes produces a dynamic generally known as induced demand. That is, if you make it possible to travel faster on a roadway, more people will use it and many will decide to live farther away from jobs as a result. Soon the road is full again.

Houston is a terrific example of this. Even though for a period in the 1990s our region was spending more on roads than any state except California, travel delay increased by 97 percent, according to the Texas Transportation Institute.

Transit's highest purpose is to provide citizens with more mobility choices. People who choose to live in a situation where transit makes a car generally unnecessary simply don't participate in congestion; they avoid it. Each of those people, of course, is also not contributing to congestion.

That's exactly right. Houston is a sprawled-out car culture not because of divine intervention but because no competition for cars has been admitted. We pour money into roads, and the development has followed. Hell, as often as not, the development leads the way, with master planned communities of cul-de-sacs and strip centers, knowing that the roads will follow. It's why I reject arguments that Houston is inherently inhospitable to rail. Why can't (or won't) development follow rail? There's no guarantee it will, but to say that it can't happen is baloney.

More importantly, author David Crossley notes that what this is really all about is supporting an urban, rather than suburban, lifestyle.

Urbanity is about a world in which things are close together, with the sidewalk as the principal means of transportation within the urban place, and with the urban places connected to each other by transit.

Urbanity can be in many places all over the region, but its primary concentration has to be in the central city, radiating from downtown. We already are seeing in Houston's downtown a massive reconstruction of our central business district. With the opening in January of the Main Street light-rail line we will quickly see urbanity spread down through Midtown, jump Hermann Park, and pick up again in the Texas Medical Center, which is a small city in its own right (more jobs than downtown San Diego).

Urban commercial and residential places are stunted by the need to move and store cars. Parking areas push productive uses apart. Streets inconvenience and even endanger the primary denizens of the city, pedestrians.

In not-quite-urban places like Uptown/Galleria, the stores and services could easily accommodate more people, and thus more transactions, but more people cannot come because the only way to get there is by car. The desire, or demand, of many people to get to these places is inhibited by the difficulty of access. And, of course, the space given over to parking cars is space not being utilized for economic development.

The people who want a more urban lifestyle are at least 30 percent of us, maybe more. That percentage is definitely growing as our demographics change radically in the next 20 years or so. People who live and work in the urban zone are the most efficient users of tax money, infrastructure and land in the region. Twenty-five percent of residents inside the Loop live on only 17 percent of the land. Only a small fraction of that urban market is being served today.

Encouraging as much as possible of this efficient urban dynamic should be a high priority in the Houston region, because it can remove from the suburban system a huge group of people who are perfectly willing, even eager, to live a far more compact urban lifestyle.

But in order to provide this demographic group with the ability to make the urban choice, the most urban portions of the region need safe, convenient, high-quality transit.

What Crossley is arguing is that this fight is about improving the lives of folks who live in and around Houston's urban centers. With Metro's plans scaled back to a modest 22 miles of rail, that's even more true, since most of what will be paid for now won't go anywhere near Houston's outer suburbs. In doing so, the debate is framed as making a choice about those who live primarily inside the Loop and who would stand to benefit from having enhanced transportation options.

When considered in that light, the recent actions of Rep. John Culberson are neither evil nor wrong, at least not in an absolute sense. Culberson's choice is clear - he doesn't want to spend any money on urban Houston if he doesn't have to. From his perspective, it doesn't benefit his constituency, while road construction does. It's logical and defensible as far as that goes, no matter how much steam it makes come out of my ears.

(Of course, one could also mention that the Republican Party in general, which gets much of its strength from the suburbs, has little reason to lift a finger to help urban areas, which are mostly Democratic. The same is true in reverse - I for one would happily vote to kill Metro's payouts for road maintenance to its non-Houston member cities. And I still think that Culberson's methods for giving his side the upper hand in this fight are often reprehensible.)

I doubt that either the pro-rail or anti-rail forces will make their case in such stark city-versus-suburbs terms in their advertising. I'm not even sure who'd have the advantage if either one tried. And for sure, one can live in the suburbs and see value in Metro's plan, and one can live inside the Loop and see it as a boondoggle. I do see it as being a net plus for the city, but I also see it as being good for me, and I see no reason to feel any shame in admitting that.

If you want some background, a Google search on Crossley shows he's the president of the Gulf Coast Institute, on the executive board of Blueprint Houston, and has a number of published articles on this theme, including one that more directly addresses the urban-suburban dichotomy.

RIP, Althea Gibson

Althea Gibson, the pioneering women's tennis player who won two Wimbledon titles in the 1950s, died today at the age of 76.

Gibson was the first black to compete in the U.S. championships, in 1950, and at Wimbledon, in 1951. However, it wasn't until several years later that she began to win major tournaments, including the Wimbledon and U.S. championships in 1957 and 1958, the French Open, and three doubles titles at Wimbledon (1956-58).

"Who could have imagined? Who could have thought?" Gibson said in 1988 as she presented her Wimbledon trophies to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History.

"Here stands before you a Negro woman, raised in Harlem, who went on to become a tennis player ... and finally wind up being a world champion, in fact, the first black woman champion of this world," she said. "And believe it or not, I still am."

Rest in peace, Althea Gibson.

Greg's opinion of city races

Greg Wythe gives a fascinating (to Houston political junkies, anyway) overview of the Republican/Democrat breakdown in the upcoming city election. Basically, if things break right, Houston could go from an 8-8 balance of city offices to a 12-4 advantage for one party or the other. He thinks the Republicans have the advantage right now, but there are a lot of races that are too close to predict.

One race of interest is City Council District H, currently held by Gabriel Vasquez. Here's Greg's take:

A heavily Hispanic district, this was Gabe Vasquez's district - he of party switching infamy. The race is full of neophytes ... and one well heeled Republican: Hector Longoria. When [Michael] Berry dropped the Mayor's race in favor of another At Large race, it was Longoria's race he entered. So with Vasquez's last second entry for the Comptroller's race, this left an opening. This one's another runoff. But the question is which unknown will survive to December and reclaim this one for the Dems? ... and can they overcome Longoria's money advantage? I'd think the odds favor Longoria here. I hope I'm wrong.

District H is my turf, so here's what I think. I've not heard of any of the candidates besides Longoria (and the first I'd heard of him was at a mayoral candidate forum that our neighborhood association sponsored a few weeks ago; he and his wife were handing out flyers for his candidacy). I must reluctantly agree that Longoria has the edge.

Both Vasquez and Longoria are based in the affluent and more Anglo Woodland Heights, rather than the much larger and more Hispanic areas north of the Loop and east of I-45 (here's the map). This is a Democratic area, including the Woodland Heights - Precincts 0003 and 0004, both located in the WH, voted for Al Gore (note the size of the Nader vote, too) and Ron Kirk - yet Vasquez, who as noted before was strongly disliked by the Democratic hierarchy before he jumped ship, won easily in 1999. (Feel free to do one of those great color-coded maps of yours for District H, Greg. And if you know where returns for city-only elections are, please tell me 'cause I couldn't find them.)

I think the Woodland Heights and the neighboring areas, all of which are liberal-leaning and which tend to turn out in elections, are the key to Vasquez's success. On an up-or-down partisan basis, he'd lose, but in a traditionally nonpartisan city race, he's used his connections to the area to demonstrate his concern for these areas, he's been effective in representing them, and he's been rewarded by the voters here. I don't know if Longoria has the same credibility that Vasquez has, but I do know that his campaign mailers tout his membership in the Woodland Heights Civic Association. If nothing else, it's a step in the right direction for him.

Bottom line: Like Vasquez, Longoria needs to carry this area. He clearly knows this. Vasquez overcame strong resistance in 1999. Longoria has no obvious opponent just yet. In my opinion, this race is his to lose.

UPDATE: I'm very glad to have been wrong about Longoria's prospects in this race. And just because I'd not heard of the other candidates at this time doesn't mean they didn't have bases of support.

Unbelievable

I second everything Calpundit says about the amazing revelation that the Valerie Plame story is true.

At CIA Director George J. Tenet's request, the Justice Department is looking into an allegation that administration officials leaked the name of an undercover CIA officer to a journalist, government sources said yesterday.

The operative's identity was published in July after her husband, former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, publicly challenged President Bush's claim that Iraq had tried to buy "yellowcake" uranium ore from Africa for possible use in nuclear weapons. Bush later backed away from the claim.

The intentional disclosure of a covert operative's identity is a violation of federal law.

The officer's name was disclosed on July 14 in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak, who said his sources were two senior administration officials.

Yesterday, a senior administration official said that before Novak's column ran, two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife. Wilson had just revealed that the CIA had sent him to Niger last year to look into the uranium claim and that he had found no evidence to back up the charge. Wilson's account touched off a political fracas over Bush's use of intelligence as he made the case for attacking Iraq.

"Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge," the senior official said of the alleged leak.

Wow. What more can I say?

Two items of related interest. First, as Josh Marshall has said, the phrase "senior administration official" refers to a fairly small number of people. The list of people who that could mean, and thus who could have ratted out Valerie Plame, includes Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz. It doesn't have to be any of them, but the point is, they're on a short list.

Secondly, as was noted somewhere (dammit, I can't remember now), it was George HW Bush who successfully pushed for the law that makes it a felony to out an undercover operative. One can only marvel at the irony involved, and one can only note what Poppy himself thinks of such shenanigans.

Even though I'm a tranquil guy now at this stage of my life, I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious, of traitors.

Indeed. Via Atrios.

UPDATE: BZ in the comments reminds me that I saw the bit about "Poppy's Law" (actually, the Intelligence Identity Protection Act of 1982) at the Daily Kos.

The origin of the law is 1976 when Richard Welch, CIA officer in Athens Greece was murdered. At the time the belief was that "Counterspy" published his identity obtained from a rogue CIA officer.

At the time George Herbert Walker Bush was DCI, and he became the chief advocate for this bill. Welch had been killed under his CIA watch, and the legislation was his response.

However, after November 76, GHWBush was no longer at the CIA -- Carter had his own chief. So the legislation went no where for four years. However, in 1981 GHWBush became VP, and passing this law became his passion. The chief lobbiests in addition to Bush were his buddies, Scowcroft and Baker. The three of them had been pall bearers when Welch's remains were returned from Greece for burial at Arlington.

In 1982, Bush finally got the bill passed and Ronald Reagan signed it with ceremony. So -- in no uncertain terms, this law is Poppy's law.

Thanks, BZ!

Do the conference shuffle

Doug proposes a let's-do-it-and-get-it-over-with mega-conference realignment for college football that would get every Division 1A school into one of ten reasonably suitable groups, and throws in a possible playoff structure as a bonus. It'll never happen, of course, since college football is not about feasibility or practicality, but it's a cool idea anyway.

Two quibbles: I don't think Tulane would be happy in the suggested "Deep South" conference, as all of the other schools are public. I'd swap them for ULa-Monroe in the revived SWC. Also, this setup effectively means no other school could make the jump to Div 1A, since there'd be no room for them anywhere. But those are minor points. I'd take this lineup over what we've got now in a heartbeat. Check it out.

The home stretch

Thus sayeth Gov. Perry: The magic date for the redistricters is October 6.

"We start running into some time restraints. The 6th (of October) is somewhat of a drop dead date from the standpoint of getting some work done," said Perry.

"We're not going to go past the 6th. We're going to get our work done. We're not going to have a fourth called session."

Oct. 6 is an important date because a state constitutional provision requires bills to become law 90 days after the governor's signature.

If Perry signs a redistricting bill on Oct. 6 or later, it would not take effect until after the close of candidate filing for the 2004 elections. Democrats could then argue in federal court that the election already is under way with the current districts and that the new map should not be used.

A law can take effect immediately only on a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate. House Democrats have enough votes to block immediate effect.

Perry is, of course, predicting that all will be sunshine and happiness by the middle of this week. That's about as newsworthy as President Bush proclaiming that the economy will rebound, but what else do you expect him to say? Note his words about not having a fourth session, which he really means as "I damn sure don't want to have to call a fourth session, because I can't blame this one on anyone else." If there really is no map, I expect him to grit his teeth and call another session, which is what he originally said he'd do.

The spin is a little different in the Express News, which indicates that Perry is putting the screws on the joint committee but is running into some things he can't control right now.

Perry said he was optimistic a solution would be reached by Wednesday, but would not elaborate. He said if the conferees can't agree by Wednesday, "we start running into some time restraints."

[...]

Even as Perry said conferees would work this weekend, the author of the Senate map and that body's lead negotiator flew home and was not expected to return to Austin until Sunday night.

Aides to Sen. Todd Staples, R-Palestine, said a funeral and a long-standing family commitment Saturday would keep him in his Piney Woods hometown for most of the weekend.

The other four senators on the conference committee also were spending the weekend in their districts but would be available if needed, their staffers said.

House staffers involved in redistricting, who had been told Thursday by Craddick to ditch their weekend plans, said negotiators were not scheduled to meet today.

Often, conference committee members meet informally to try to work out differences in bills passed by the two bodies.

Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford, who leads House conferees, said he expected to meet Staples one-on-one to "determine what it is that I got to have and what it is that he's got to have."

"Then we can figure parameters and how to go about reaching a compromise," King said.

The two lawmakers met at least twice Thursday, with their latest meeting going into the early morning hours Friday, their staffers said. They couldn't reach an accord.

While Perry said he still hopes for a speedy solution, King said he expects slow going over a vexing West Texas problem that pits Republican heavyweights against each other.

The October 6 date is certainly doable, now that the Republicans are actually trying to work out their problems, but Wednesday? I'll be shocked if that happens.

Dept. of Analogies with Unintended Implications:

[House Speaker Tom] Craddick wants a congressional district centered in his hometown of Midland. The oil and gas region around Midland now is part of a congressional district anchored by the larger Lubbock, an agricultural city.

Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, head of the committee that drew up the map the Senate approved, wants Lubbock to keep its district.

Neither appears willing to compromise, and several House members, including two appointed by Craddick to the conference panel, said the speaker was unlikely to back down.

"It's like the king facing the rook on the chess board," said a House member who asked that he not be named. "It is preordained who is going to eat whom. (Craddick) in this case is the king, and we all know the king gets what he wants."

Um, if you've ever played chess, you might have noticed that the king is a wimpy little piece that needs protection from everyone else, including the pawns. It's the queen that can get you from anywhere on the board. Somehow, though, I don't think Tom Craddick wants to be known as the Queen of the Texas Legislature.

The Star Telegram also thinks Queen Craddick (apparently, I'm going to have a hard time not calling him that) will win.

Some Capitol observers said Duncan might have a hard time defending his preference for West Texas, especially if Craddick can persuade the other three senators to come around to his way of thinking.

"The speaker has been able to get what he wants all year," said Harvey Kronberg, publisher of the Austin political newsletter, Quorum Report. "So Duncan is the one who's under pressure."

For what it's worth, Duncan's constituents are still behind him.

Our local legislators — led by State Sen. Robert Duncan, who is chairman of the Senate Jurisprudence Committee — have stayed strong and held fast to try to protect our representation in West Texas. We appreciate their efforts and urge Sen. Duncan to hang in there as the Senate continues its battle over redistricting.

It's going to take something heavy to move Sen. Duncan, which is why I don't think the dispute will be easily resolved. Really, as I've said before, I think the smart move is to get Craddick to give in, since he'd be losing something he never had in the first place. Doesn't look like that will happen, so Duncan has the choice of placating the state party or listening to his voters. I don't envy him the choice.

Meanwhile, a new critic of redistricting has sprung up: Carole Keeton Strayhorn, who in an interview to be televised tomorrow chided Perry and his minions for pursuing redistricting over school finance reform.

"The Legislature is spending their time climbing up hills when we have a mountain looming out there...And the mountain looming out there is school finance reform," said Mrs. Strayhorn

[...]

"The most important issue that this state needs to address right now is school finance," she said.

"The state has got to pick up more of the share. Homeowners have to have property tax relief, and we've got to have equity" of funding among school districts, she said. "That's a huge challenge. That's what in a real bipartisan way we've got to address and address now."

That little tiff between those two gets nastier and more entertaining every day. Keep it up!

Finally, the MoveOn campaign appears to have struck a nerve.

Dave Beckwith, a spokesman for Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, said MoveOn was delivering a "very harsh message."

He said Texas senators were "being used as part of a national, anti-Bush effort to lure more minority voters away from the Republican Party, where Bush has had some (recruitment) success in the past."

Beckwith and some conservative business groups also have tried to make an issue of the fact that the official Web site of the Communist Party of the United States recently included a link to MoveOn.

The link, which Smith said MoveOn was unaware of, has since been removed.

Oh, please, pretty please, try to make an issue out of that link. Bring it on. If that's the best you've got, it's pathetic, and as noted earlier, it's very easy to turn that argument against whoever is making it.

Fill 'er up!

When all-you-can-eat promotions go bad:

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Darden Restaurants said this week it had replaced the head of Red Lobster, its biggest chain, after an all-you-can-eat crab promotion went awry.

Darden President and Chief Operating Officer Dick Rivera will succeed Edna Morris as president of Red Lobster.

Morris, who had been in that job just 18 months, left to pursue other interests, the company said.

Darden executives said Red Lobster management had badly miscalculated how many times customers would refill their plates after paying $20 for an "endless" crab entree. Meanwhile, crab prices were going up, sending the profit margin crashing.

"It wasn't the second helping on all-you-can-eat but the third," company Chairman Joe R. Lee said during a conference call.

"And maybe the fourth," Rivera added.

No one ever got rich underestimating the appetite of the American public.

What's next for women's soccer?

Via Eric McErlain comes this article by Allen Barra about WUSA'a demise. Barra makes a pretty good point in that in terms of league building, the WUSA was putting the cart before the horse.

Lamenting the closure of the WUSA last week, Julie Foudy, captain of the current U.S. team and a member of the 1999 World Cup Championship team and WUSA's board, commented, "The impact of the WUSA on women's sports and millions of fans has been extraordinary."

If that's the case, where are the fans? If given a second chance, the WUSA would do well to learn from the history of other American pro leagues and focus not on TV contracts and corporate sponsors but on selling its product the old-fashioned way. Right now, minor league baseball, with virtually no TV exposure, is flourishing in more than 100 American cities and towns, even though many teams lose their biggest stars to major league teams as the season progresses. It seems hard to believe that American women's professional soccer couldn't sustain itself with the same level of grass-roots support as minor league baseball and cultivate its fan base from there.

Ms. Foudy is right. The impact of the WUSA has been extraordinary, but the league has promoted its product the wrong way. To paraphrase the ghostly voice in "Field of Dreams," if you build a sport, TV and sponsors will come.

I'm fairly certain that the words "minor league" would be anathema to women's soccer boosters, and to an extent they've got an incontrovertible point: There's nothing "minor league" about what women like Mia Hamm and Sun Wen do. They're the pinnacle of their sport. Wherever they're playing is the major leagues.

The problem is that major leagues are grown, not created by fiat. Barra compares WUSA'a initial attendance to two existing major leagues:

[N]either the NFL nor NBA began with TV or corporate support. In 2001, riding the continued enthusiasm generated by the U.S. Women's World Cup victory, the average WUSA attendance was more than 8,100 per game. Surely this level of support could have been built on, particularly considering that women's pro soccer had no direct competition.

After 12 seasons of competing against the popularity of college football, the NFL, in 1934, began keeping attendance figures. The average figure of 8,200 attendees per game for that year was only slightly above that recorded by the WUSA in its first season.

A comparison with the NBA is even more revealing. From 1952 through the 1963 season, average NBA per-game attendance increased to 4,600 from just 3,200. In fact, it wasn't until 30 years ago, during the 1972-73 season, that the NBA's average attendance (8,396) surpassed that of the WUSA in 2001.

Barra could have added that Major League Baseball teams did not average 8100 fans per game until 1946, 70 years after the founding of the National League and nearly a half-century after the AL was born. By comparison, WUSA came blessed with a silver spoon in its mouth. So what went wrong?

Well, as I've noted before, WUSA's cost structure was outrageous. They didn't build on their success, and attendance declined. They bet the farm on corporate sponsors and TV contracts, and without to audience to justify them they went belly up.

What should they do this time around? I think the minor league model has some merit, but it should be noted that there are different kinds of minor leagues. Most minor league baseball, minor league basketball (I'm thinking the pre-Isaiah CBA), and minor league hockey is geared towards small towns where they're the only game in town. That's not an appropriate model for the WUSA, which can be reasonably compared to AA and AAA baseball, with teams in mid-to-large cities like Louisville, Portland, and San Antonio; the AHL, which has teams in Houston and Chicago; and (don't laugh) Arena Football.

The AFL, which started out as a small-to-medium town league and now has teams in New York, Chicago, and LA, is actually a great role model for WUSA. There's nothing quite like it, they controlled costs and built their brand from the ground up, and now, having grown an audience, are getting airplay on TV.

How would I follow the AFL paradigm if I were to be named the next commissioner of WUSA? Well, I'll tell you:

- First off, think regionally. I'd start with a six-to-eight team league that's all in one area of the country, both to promote rivalries and to minimize travel costs. The ideal region, in my mind, would be the Southwest - Southern California, southern Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and west Texas - which is a region that's not only fast-growing, but which also features a large, growing, soccer-loving Hispanic population.

- My other reason for picking the Southwest would be that it would allow me to schedule all of my games between February and April or May, which is a relative barren spot for sports, especially in an area that doesn't have too much hockey. It's no accident that the AFL plays its games at this time.

- A relatively short schedule, mostly in winter and early spring, would allow my star players some flexibility to play elsewhere during the offseason, much as many WNBA players play in Europe, South America, or the NWBL outside of their season. This means I can keep salaries modest.

- Before aiming for a national TV deal, I'd work to get each team its own local TV and radio broadcast deals, including on Spanish-language stations (after all, before the advent of MLS, where else could you find soccer on TV?)

- Once I had a few seasons and some fan loyalty under my belt, I'd look to expand, most likely by creating another geographic division. That might force me to move the schedule back a bit into warmer weather, but if I can keep the bulk of it in the April-June time frame, I still won't have that much other competition (college hoops will be finished, at least).

I admit, this has nowhere near the glamour of WUSA when it first burst upon the scene. I'm willing to bet it'd last longer, though.

Brazoria County Democrats

If you had asked me which local Democratic organization would be the first to get themselves a blog, I would not have guessed it would be the Brazoria County Democrats. And I would have been wrong, for there it is. I hope they find the experience to be as useful as I think it will be.

Via Half the Sins of Mankind. Don't worry, PG, I plan on sending them a pointer to the blogburst, along with the suggestion that they add their blog URL to the links page on their official site.

Court hangs up do-not-call again

Argh! Just when Congress was moving to fix the problems in the original legislation that created the national Do Not Call list, another federal judge has put the kibosh on it by ruling it in violation of the First Amendment rights of telemarketers.

[U.S. District Judge Edward] Nottingham found the do-not-call plan unconstitutional on freedom of speech grounds because it allows charitable organizations to continue to call numbers on the list, while commercial firms were barred.

"There is no doubt that unwanted calls seeking charitable contributions are as invasive to the privacy of someone sitting down to dinner at home as unwanted calls from commercial telemarketers," Nottingham wrote. By exempting charitable solicitations, the FTC "has imposed a content-based limitation on what the consumer may ban from his home ... thereby entangling the government in deciding what speech consumers should hear."

"The First Amendment prohibits the government from enacting laws creating a preference for certain types of speech based on content, without asserting a valid interest, premised on content, to justify its discrimination," the judge said.

Personally, I think that's a crock. Commercial speech, which is what a telemarketing call is, is subject to greater restrictions than non-commercial speech. The multiple state-level do-not-call lists are all still in place. My right as a homeowner to put up a "No Solicitors" sign trumps your right as a solicitor to give me your sales pitch.

I grant that the exception carved out for charities, while well-intentioned, does throw a spanner in the works, a distinction that also gives Writerrific pause. I'd rather see a second do-not-call list for charities than see the telemarketers' list die.

It occurs to me that we could largely avoid this problem if Caller ID were more robust and if telemarketers were forbidden from blocking their outbound number. I don't like ignoring calls that say "unknown caller" because calls from my parents come in that way for some odd reason. Until calls from my folks display properly and/or until telemarketers are forced to display theirs, I'm left to guess when to answer and when to let it roll to voice mail.

(Wasn't forcing telemarketers to display Caller ID info part of the recent FTC rule changes? Did that go through?)

A friend recently asked via email to a mailing list I'm on if anyone knew of an answering machine that could be programmed to respond to calls based on the incoming number. I can't help but think that such a device, which sadly would depend on better Caller ID service, would be a big seller. I know I'd buy one.

(Yes, I know that some of the regional Bells offer a Privacy Manager service that forces unknown callers to announce their names before a call goes through. It's not available to me, I'd rather pay once for a machine than every month for a service, and it suffers from the same annoyances as challenge-response spam filtering.)

I've seen some comments that one response people will have to unfettered phone spam is to give up their landline and go cellular. It's true that telemarketers currently avoid calling cellphones as a rule, partly because there's no good directory for them and partly because many calling plans include charges for incoming calls. Between predictive dialers and an avalanche of new flat-rate calling plans, I don't see either of these as being long-term disincentives to telemarketers. Either we can control who calls us or we can't.

Finally, I agree with Calpundit that the DMA's oft-repeated line about "two million jobs lost" if a national Do Not Call list were implemented is baloney. Whatever may happen with the legal wrangling, does anyone honestly believe that these jobs are not slated for offshoring in the near future anyway? The Direct Marketing Association is shedding crocodile tears.

Off to committee

As expected, the job of drawing a new Congressional map has landed in the lap of a joint House-Senate committee, and they're pretty much starting from scratch.

"When I'm walking in, I think everything is on the table," said Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford, chairman of the House negotiating team. His counterpart, Sen. Todd Staples, R-Palestine, agrees: "The House and Senate versions are distinctly different."

[...]

When the House and Senate work out differences in legislation, the rules usually confine the negotiators to the parameters of each bill.

For redistricting, it's different. The map that eventually emerges for a final vote by the Legislature can resemble what's already been passed or be totally different.

The only sure shape of the things to come?

"It will be shaped like Texas," King said.

[...]

Although Perry reportedly wants a quick resolution, King and [Sen. Todd] Staples were predicting difficult negotiations.

"I don't think we'll argue over the shape of the table," King joked. "But it will take a while."

Staples and King have the same challenge. They must find common ground that a GOP majority — few Democrats even support redrawing congressional boundaries this year — can support in both chambers.

For example, the House map splits Waco, which Sen. Kip Averitt, R-McGregor, cannot accept. The Senate map divides Webb County, which Craddick said illegally dilutes the influence of Hispanic voters in Laredo. The House map gives state Rep. Kenny Marchant, R-Carrollton, a suburban-rural East Texas district from which to run for Congress. The Senate map doesn't.

And the biggest dispute is whether Craddick's hometown of Midland can be given a district without upsetting West Texas senators.

I think we can all now agree, after one entire special session that produced wildly different House and Senate maps, and two weeks into the second fully-attended special session with no resolution in sight, that the notion expressed recently by Rick Perry's spokesman Gene Acuna that "congressional redistricting could've been taken care of during the regular session had Democrats not bolted in May" is hogwash. If redistricting is such a high priority for Republicans, I think it's fair to ask why they haven't gotten their act together yet, nearly six months after Tom DeLay first foisted a new map on us. If the third session ends with no agreement on a map from the GOP, can any supporter of redistricting honestly say that a fourth session is justified? Is there no point at which failure is admitted?

It's not just West Texas, Central Texas, and East Texas that are points of contention any more. You can now add South Texas to the dispute.

A day after the Senate passed a bill redrawing congressional districts, House Speaker Tom Craddick declared that a last-minute amendment that would affect Bexar and Webb counties could cause the Justice Department to reject the entire state plan.

The amendment by Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, would split Webb County into two districts and remove about 130,000 residents in South Bexar County from U.S. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez's 28th Congressional District.

"It's simple. That amendment causes retrogression, and it will not pass Justice Department (scrutiny)," Craddick said.

Texas is one of 16 states required to get pre-clearance from the Justice Department before it can change political boundaries. The clearance is intended to verify that changes to political districts do not disenfranchise any of the state's minority voters.

Responding to Craddick's comments, Wentworth said the Republican House speaker was poorly advised.

"I've gotten very different legal advice from lawyers we pay a lot of money to," Wentworth said. "I'd like to know who is advising (Craddick), but it's not very good (advice)."

Meanwhile, there's now a disagreement over the reason to split Webb County in the first place.

During a debate earlier this week, Wentworth pushed through the amendment, which he said was intended to bolster the re-election of his fellow Republican, U.S. Rep. Henry Bonilla of San Antonio.

Bonilla, one of a handful of Mexican American Republicans serving in Congress, has a district that stretches from Bexar County to the Texas-Mexico border and includes all of Webb County.

During debate, Wentworth said he had spoken to Bonilla and that Bonilla was agreeable to splitting Webb County in two. Webb County, with a population that is 95 percent Hispanic, is one of the fastest-growing counties in the state.

But Thursday, [Sen. Judith] Zaffirini said she had spoken twice with Bonilla, who told her he was unaware of Wentworth's amendment and that he did not favor splitting Webb County.

"I find it ironic that the Republican Party is trying to help Bonilla with his re-election, and he hasn't even been contacted" about the effort, Zaffirini said.

Bonilla could not be reached for comment.

Nothing surprises me at this point.

Best Local Blog

Congratulations to Kevin Whited for winning the first Best Local Blog award from the Houston Press! Way to go, dude.

The best laid plans

Your football team is 0-3, and you're on the road for a tough game. The good news is that you've won the last two times you've played there, you've got some injured players coming back, and you're staying at the same hotel you've stayed at before. What could go wrong?

In an attempt to prepare without distractions for Saturday's football game against host Hawai'i, Rice booked reservations at the Turtle Bay Resort. The thing is, that also is the venue for this weekend's 2003 Miss Hawaiian Tropic International United States Pageant.

"I think this is a plan from Hawai'i," said Rice coach Ken Hatfield, whose team arrived in town yesterday afternoon.

In a what-the-heck request, Hatfield asked hotel officials if the pageant would consider relocating. "I didn't want to change hotels," Hatfield said. "We've had good success there."

Rice is 2-0 in Hawai'i since it began staying at the Turtle Bay.

"It's a major distraction if (the contestants are) running around the hotel," quarterback Greg Henderson said. "We have to stay focused in what we have to do. If we can get through this, we can get through anything."

But linebacker Jeff Vanover said he is confident the Owls will not be distracted.

"We'll see how it plays out," he said. "For the most part, with the coaching staff and the players, we'll have our mind on the game. I don't think it'll be too much of a trouble."

Vanover then introduced a reporter to his fiancée.

I'm sure there'll be plenty of game film to study to keep them busy. Thanks to Linkmeister for the tip.

Stupid Young Conservative Tricks

There's not really much you can say about the affirmative action bake sale put on at SMU by a chapter of the Young Conservatives of Texas once you get past the basic responses of "dumber than a box of hair" and "these guys think they're the best example of meritocracy in action?" I'd be willing to simply nominate them for one of Jack Cluth's Dumass Awards while thanking all that is holy that the tactic of protesting naked is limited to the left wing were it not for the fact that a certain name leaped out at me from this story:

David C. Rushing, 23, a law student and chairman of Young Conservatives of Texas at SMU and for the state, said the event didn't get out of hand. At most, a dozen students gathered around the table of cookies and Rice Krispies treats, he said.

"We copied what's been done at multiple campuses around the country to illustrate our opinion of affirmative action and how we think it's unfair," he said.

Yes! It's my old buddy David Rushing, the guy who had a stoopid op-ed piece printed in the Chronicle under a dishonest byline last year. At least here, he's being up front about who he is and what he stands for, which in his case represents progress. Have fun, Dave! Don't spend the buck-fifty y'all raised all in one place!

Metro update

Some good news on the rail front: Metro has jumped through the latest hoop by voting to change the ballot language in a way that satisfies Rep. John Culberson, and the Federal Transit Administration has accepted the change. Assuming that there's no grief from the Secretary of State regarding deadlines, everything should be a go for November.

Culberson said the change was good news.

"A complete and accurate ballot is critical because the ballot is the contract between Metro and the voters," he said.

[...]

After Monday's vote, Culberson said he is satisfied with the new ballot but not with the rail plan itself. He said he will help Metro win federal matching funds for rail if voters approve the plan, but until Election Day, he is urging them to reject it.

Culberson also accused Metro of trying, before the change, to mislead voters into thinking a "yes" vote would authorize only 22 new miles of rail.

"Until today," he said, " we did not know that by voting yes we were giving legal approval to the full 73-mile system."

Metro officials have frequently stated that the $640 million bond issue on the referendum ballot would pay for 22 miles of new rail lines, but they have also said repeatedly that they hope to eventually build out the entire system. A second bond referendum would be needed to approve further expansion.

I must say, I'm pleasantly surprised that Culberson did not try to move the goalposts when Metro complied with his last-minute wishes. I did not then and do not now have any trust in his motives, and you'd better believe I'll be bookmarking this post in the event he attempts a flipflop on that federal matching funds promise after a (hopefully) successful referendum.

That said, Rob has a valid point about the rhetoric getting overheated on a debate that isn't exactly life-and-death. Whatever my opinion of John Culberson as a legislator, I know fully well that I'm not going to convince anyone to heed my words by engaging in name-calling. My bad.

There are still potential problems for Metro:

[Sen. Kay Bailey] Hutchisonsaid she will not attempt to remove the Culberson amendment from the [2004 transportation appropriations] bill, which is pending in the Senate, because the issue has been resolved.

"If the people of Houston and the surrounding communities vote in support of light rail, it will be my highest priority to get the full federal share for the system," Hutchison said in a statement released by her office.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, said the Culberson amendment remains problematic because it subjects Metro to extra federal rules that no other transit agency must follow. She sent a letter Monday to Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta asking for a reconsideration of the FTA's original decision because [FTA chief counsel William] Sears hadn't seen the 22-page proposition Metro adopted, which includes a list of rail segments.

Metro needs federal matching funds to build the next 22 miles of light rail lines through 2012. It is asking voters to approve $640 million in bonds to accelerate construction.

So, if the referendum passes, then Metro needs KBH to be true to her word to remove the Culberson amendment push for federal funds and for Culberson to be true to his word and not have another go at torpedoing the federal funds again. You'll forgive me if I don't ice down the champagne just yet.

[Note: I misread the KBH quote. Thanks to Rob for the catch.]

On the local front, all of the major Mayoral candidates have finalized their positions on the Metro vote. Sylvester Turner, who criticized Metro for backing off its more aggressive plan, has said he will support the referendum, while Orlando Sanchez, realizing that with Michael Berry out of the race there are anti-rail votes to be had, has finally decided that he's against it after all.

"I want more, but I don't want to cut off my head and get nothing," Turner said of his decision to support the referendum.

[second article]

"We need a 100 percent plan, not a 1 percent solution plan," Sanchez said in a statement issued Wednesday afternoon.

The reference was to a road-oriented plan being developed by the Houston-Galveston Area Council, which it calls a 100 percent solution and which Sanchez supports.

Sanchez's two main opponents, businessman Bill White and state Rep. Sylvester Turner, support the Metro referendum and criticized Sanchez.

White labeled Sanchez's position as short-sighted, saying Houston needs to expand light rail as soon as possible.

Turner called Sanchez's plan "an unrealistic proposal to pave our way out of problems."

Well, at least Sanchez finally made up his mind. I'm sure his decision to do the same thing he did last time was a difficult one.

UPDATE: I suppose this was going to happen sooner or later - the opposition has gotten off the ground. They have their work cut out for them, but they have room to get traction:

There is a partisan difference in how voters view Metro's transit plan, a recent Houston Chronicle/KHOU-Channel 11 poll found, with Republicans the most skeptical, but still slightly in favor. The survey found 56 percent of Democrats questioned support Metro's referendum while 12 percent oppose it. Republicans, on the other hand, had only 37 percent support for transit expansion with 33 percent opposed. Among independents, 48 percent said they supported Metro's proposition while 16 percent were opposed. Roughly one-third of voters in each category were undecided.

Rail opponents point out this poll was conducted before today's launch of their campaign against the referendum and they expect the numbers will shift when anti-Metro advertisements start airing and voters better understand the facts.

Whatever "facts" these guys may have to present, I agree that their campaign will cause the numbers to shift. It's just a question of how much.

What a tangled web

You may recall how a wacky group called Texas Citizens' Action Network (TexCAN) recently accused MoveOn supporters of being Commies because the Communist Party of America (cpusa.org) web page links to MoveOn.org. Well, the Austin Chronicle had the same reaction as any other individual with two brain cells to rub together would, and after ascertaining that a hyperlink from cpusa.org to Moveon.org was enough to justify the accusation, proceeded to demonstrate a few unsavory connections in TexCAN's closet. Case closed.

Maryland shrugs off Diebold problems

You've probably already read this scary Salon article about the easily-compromised Diebold voting machines. According to that article, the state of Maryland ordered a review of its purchase of the Diebold machines. Well, guess what? Turns out the state of Maryland will approve tha machines anyway. Security concerns are for weenies, I guess.

Via The Agonist, who will serve as a mirror site for the currently-disabled Black Box Voting.

UPDATE: Kriston reminds me to mention why Black Box Voting is down: Diebold bullied their ISP into shutting them off. Links via Calpundit and Body and Soul.

Perry promotes Texas economy

Our only Governor is up in New York talking up the Texas business climate.

Perry, addressing the Governor's Summit on Economic Development and Tourism, said the trip is part of an "aggressive" new $5 million marketing campaign called Texas One that will be funded by private donations.

"We're showing the nation that Texas truly is wide open for business," Perry said. "When the private sector prospers, this entire state prospers."

[...]

Perry said the trip should include some new contacts as well as business people with whom he has relationships.

"I'm real excited about the opportunity to go into other parts of the country and tell a great story about what's happening in Texas," he said.

Perry said Texas' advantages to business include new restrictions on civil lawsuits, a diverse work force and a stand against new taxes despite a year that began with a $10 billion budget gap. He also cited "outstanding" public schools and "our own power grid" — valuable in light of last month's massive electrical outage in the Northeast and Midwest.

Whatever. While he's off gallivanting around and fundraising for 2006, Perry might want to check in on the Senate, where a provision in House Bill 7, inserted by Sen. Steve Ogden as part of an effort to weaken the power of the Comptroller's office, is generating stiff opposition from the Texas business community. Here's a bit from the Quorum Report.

[T]here is a buzz saw of business groups fighting a little noticed provision in Senator Steve Ogden's (R-College Station) committee substitute to HB 7. The provision was apparently inserted to punish Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn for being a thorn in the side of the legislative leadership.

But in the process of punishing the Comptroller, business groups say that the leadership is also punishing Texas business and the struggling Texas economy. Business groups have shifted into high gear to fight the provision.

Few things unify the business lobby, but this is one of them. They claim that Article 22 in CSHB7 (reprinted below) will cost Texas business at least tens of millions of dollars, render the state tax settlement system into a dysfunctional, chaotic process and create a huge disincentive for any future investment in Texas.

Other than that, the bill is fine.

No one would go on the record because the provision is described as coming from "upper management".

The provision presumes that the tax settlement process is the core of the Comptroller's fundraising ability. By messing with it, they believe that they can neuter her political fundraising and terminate her independence.

The provision gives the Legislative Audit Committee chaired by Lt. Governor David Dewhurst and Speaker Tom Craddick the right to audit any tax settlement from the Comptroller's office in which more than $10,000 is at stake. It also gives them the right to disclose the names of any taxpayers that are in a dispute with the Comptroller's office.

With such intrusivion, the presumption of the business lobby is that the Comptroller will have no incentive to concede even legitimate tax adjustments.

QR has posted a letter (Word doc) signed by the heads of 27 business groups that oppose this provision and were hand-delivered to every Senator's office. One of the signees is Bill Hammond of the Texas Association of Business, the group that's so in bed with Tom DeLay that two of their officers were confined to a courtroom on contempt charges (Hammond was also cited) rather than turn over information about its membership to a grand jury. How embarrassing it must be to be out of state promoting your business climate while a member of your own party is pushing a bill that the business lobby thinks is a disaster.

Ah, well, it could be worse. At least these guys aren't independent contractors.

Republican infighting

Remember Thomas Whaley, the State Republican Executive Board member who came under fire for allegations that he had secretly taped SREC meetings which contained embarrassing statements by the GOP leadership and gave the tapes to the Houston Chronicle? Well, we was indeed forced out by the SREC, and now he's calling on Susan Weddington, the state GOP chair, to resign.

Thomas Whaley, a businessman from Marshall who stepped down from the State Republican Executive Committee under pressure from Weddington, said the chairwoman's leadership was "hurting" the state party.

"I believe it is time for her to resign or be replaced," he said.

[...]

In a letter several weeks ago from Rene Diaz, the Texas Republican Party's chief lawyer, Whaley was accused of "disturbing the well-being of the SREC and hampering its work."

He was ordered to submit to a closed-door grilling by party officials or resign.

Whaley said he resigned with the understanding that his successor would have the support of most Republican county chairs in District 1. He said he was assured that Sam Moseley of Marshall, the Harrison County Republican chairman and a longtime GOP player, would get the nod.

But the executive committee, meeting in Laredo on Sept. 13, selected Ray Rocha of Mount Pleasant, the more conservative Republican chairman of Titus County, for the post.

Royer said there wasn't any agreement between Whaley and Weddington. He said Rocha, elected 43-16, mounted a more aggressive campaign, and Moseley didn't even attend the meeting.

Moseley said he agreed to be nominated as a way of resolving any conflicts over the post. "The next thing I know they had picked someone else," he added.

Awfully nice of you guys to provide us Democrats with a little distraction during these tough times. Please do feel free to keep it up.

Do Not Call on hold

This is annoying - a federal judge has ruled that the FTC lacks the authority to enforce the national do-not-call registry.

FTC chairman Timothy Muris said the agency disputed the court decision, arguing that the do-not-call registry was created as a result of legislation signed in March.

"This decision is clearly incorrect," Muris said in a statement. "We will seek every recourse to give American consumers a choice to stop unwanted telemarketing calls."

The Direct Marketing Association and others sued to block the program, saying it violated the constitutional rights of businesses involved in telemarketing.

The court did not specifically address the free-speech concerns raised in the suit but said there was no valid authority to enforce the registry.

"Admittedly, the elimination of telemarketing fraud and the prohibition against deceptive and abusive telemarketing acts are significant public concerns," US District Judge Lee West wrote.

"However, an administrative agency's power to regulate in the public interest must always be grounded in a valid grant of authority from Congress. Absent such a grant of authority in this case, the court finds the do-not-call provision to be invalid."

Grr. I hope this gets overturned, and quickly. It sure sounds like hairsplitting to me.

CDs vs. DVDs

I've written before about why I think the music industry is in such disarray, and yesterday I came across this Denver Post article (link via Brad deLong) which sums it up as well as anything I've seen, starting with the opening:

The best-selling "Chicago" movie soundtrack is available on CD starting at $13.86.

The actual movie, with the soundtrack songs included, of course, plus additional goodies ranging from deleted musical numbers to the director's interview and a "making-of" feature, can be had for precisely $2.12 more.

Therein lies the problem for a critically wounded music recording industry: The "Chicago" CD looks like a rip-off, and the DVD looks like a steal.

Bingo. I could not agree more. Go read it and see for yourself.

On an interesting side note, Bruce Sterling has declared the DVD to be one of ten technologies that deserve to die (it's number 10, so go on to page two of the article to see why). A free registration is required, but that's an improvement over the Technology Review's recent policies of only allowing subscribers to view online articles.

Senate approves Staples map

I've been under the weather the past two days, so I don't quite have the energy to do my usual thing on this, but late last night the Senate approved a slightly modified version of the Staples map by an 18-13 vote. Democrats used a variety of parliamentary tactics, many of which were questions aimed at gathering evidence for a future court challenge, to stall things, but the vote was eventually taken at about 9 PM last night.

I should note that the vote for the map went along party lines, with one exception: Sen. Teel Bivins of Amarillo voted No, because he prefers a version of the House map. I was curious why Sen. Bill Ratliff, who had previously announced his opposition to redistricting, changed his mind, so I called his office and spoke to a nice lady named Virginia. She said he issued a press release (which as far as I could tell none of the major papers picked up) saying that he thought this map treated his district fairly and that it would not prevent someone from that area winning an election. I did not ask, but I would presume that he does not feel the same way about the King or Perry maps.

Anyway, full coverage is here, here, here, here, and here. Of interest in the Express-News is a note that Perry will call a fourth session if necessary, and some details about how this map affects Rep. Henry Bonilla, currently the most endangered Republican member of Congress from Texas.

UPDATE: The Senate has given final approval to the Staples map, 18-12. Bivins voted No, Ken Armbrister voted Yes, Florence Shapiro was absent. Off to the House it goes.

"A rottenness begins in his conduct"

Chron Editorial Board member James Gibbons ripped John Culberson a new one yesterday over his Metro meddling. It's a joy to read. Here's a taste:

U.S. Rep. John Culberson of Katy considers himself a latter-day Jeffersonian. Judging by Culberson's conduct and character, one must conclude that the Age of Enlightenment has definitely run its course.

During his long career in the Texas Legislature, Culberson devoted himself to two propositions: 1. The Legislature should be free to specify an inadequate and grotesquely unequal system of public school finance; and 2. The courts should have no power to stop cruel and barbarous treatment of prisoners in Texas penitentiaries.

Fortunately, Culberson met with limited success. State courts commanded the Legislature to provide a school finance system that narrows the divide between rich and poor. Also, thanks to a federal court order, Texas prison wardens may no longer hand out clubs to some inmates to be used on others, who would then be denied medical attention.

Culberson, based on an imaginatively skewed reading of Thomas Jefferson's writings, apparently believes legislative sovereignty should trump constitutional protections. If Jefferson put much faith in that precept, he did not advertise it.

Read the whole thing.

What hath Boy Wonder wrought?

Man, Michael Berry's exit from the mayoral race and the subsequent filing free-for-all sure was big news, at least if one judges by the amount of blogging on the subject. My take on the issue is closest to Greg Wythe's, especially about Bruce Tatro, who really didn't need a GOP opponent in his quest for the City Controller's office. I don't quite get Gabe Vasquez's sudden desire to run for controller - maybe he thinks Orlando Sanchez will have some coattails, I dunno. I do know that Sanchez's popularity with Hispanic voters is considerably lower in the recent poll than it was in 2001, and that I've never been convinced that he'll get that same level of support again. I also know that both Sanchez and Vasquez (especially Vasquez) are not liked by most current Hispanic politicians in Houston, and that they will work hard against both of them.

In addition to Greg, you should check out what Alex Whitlock, Ginger Stampley, and Kevin Whited have to say about this. Rob Booth wins the Soul Of Wit award on this one.

Here's the full list of official candidates. I need to figure out who I'm gonna vote for in the District H council race - I can't support Hector Longoria, but I have no clue who these other folks are. Help!

Riding the poll waves

So now with Wesley Clark a declared candidate for President, we've got a CNN/USA Today poll and a Newsweek poll that not only shows him leading the Democratic field, but also shows him in a virtual tie with President Bush. I'm still leaning towards Dean, but there's no doubt in my mind that this is a good thing, and if Clark winds up being the candidate, I'll be happy to carry the flag for him.

What's more interesting is that the CNN/USA Today poll shows that all of the top Democratic candidates (Kerry, Gephardt, Lieberman, Dean) are basically tied with Bush, while the Newsweek poll says that Bush leads most of them, including Dean by a 52-38 mark. Ruy Teixeira uses the latter poll as reason to doubt Dean, while Atrios uses the former as evidence that all the Democrats are electable. What I haven't seen anyone mention so far is that this is the first poll that I've seen in which a specific Democrat who's actually running is not losing a head-to-head matchup with Bush. I've seen plenty of Bush-versus-generic-Democrat polls that show him tied or losing, and some Bush-versus-Gore-or-Hillary polls that show a close match, but every other Bush-versus-Gep/Kerry/Dean/Lieberman/etc poll I've seen up till now had Bush with over 50% and the Dem around 40%. That's the most significant thing about this to me.

All that said, I agree with Republican pollster Bill McInturff here:

"There are plenty of examples where you get this enormous bounce and it usually settles quickly," said McInturff, citing Republican Sen. John McCain's showing in a South Carolina poll taken after his victory in the 2000 New Hampshire primary in 2000.

Public opinion is extremely unpredictable early in the election cycle as voters have not focused on the race, according to McInturff, who noted that Republican Bob Dole was running ahead of President Clinton the year before the election. Clinton prevailed in 1996.

The election is a long way off, and a lot can happen. I said that to landslide-predicting Bush supporters last year, and I'll say it now to my fellow Democrats. Bush may be down now, but he's got plenty of time to get back up. Let's not give him the chance.

Oh, and one last thing: In the charts of the USA Today poll, down in section 11 where they ask about whether you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of some specific people, am I the only person who finds it funny that Hillary Clinton is the only one for which "Never heard of" is not an option?

Kinky Friedman for Governor

John Kelso says Elect Kinky - how hard can it be?

"I'm insinuating myself into the race against our common enemy: Rick Perry's hair," the writer, humorist and professional curmudgeon said.

Even if he doesn't win, we'll get some laughs. "I'm not pro choice or pro life. I'm pro football," said Friedman, who plans to run as an independent.

Running as an independent will be about as easy as picking up a raw egg with a set of chopsticks. But Friedman remains undaunted.

"I'm not running to lose, and if Willie Nelson and Lance Armstrong don't decide to run, you're now speaking to the next governor of Texas," he said.

He says he'll announce after the 2004 elections. I'm looking forward to it.

By the way, Kelso notes that Friedman once ran unsuccessfully for Justice of the Peace in Kerrville, on the slogan "I'll Keep Us Out of War with Fredericksberg". The cover of his CD From One Good American To Another uses one of his campaign photos from that election. Who wouldn't vote for an honest face like that?

Perry's proposal falls flat

Governor Perry's "compromise" map got a big raspberry from Senate Republicans. Full coverage is here, here, here, here and here. Here's what they're saying about it, taken from each of the new accounts:

Sen. Kip Averitt, R-Waco, questioned the value of drawing a map for only part of Texas. Perry's map would divide McClennan, Coryell and Bell counties into separate congressional districts, which has been strongly opposed by community leaders in Averitt's Senate district.

"Doesn't he (Perry) care about the rest of the state?" asked Averitt. "How can you negotiate half a state? What I've seen, I don't like."

Perry's map also immediately drew opposition from Sen. Teel Bivins, R-Amarillo, who has been supporting Craddick in his effort to get a congressional district for Midland. Bivins' state Senate district includes Midland. But the Perry plan would split the Panhandle into two districts and push the district of U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Amarillo, to east of Dallas along the Red River.

"I continue to support Speaker Craddick in his effort to create a district that enhances the chances of electing a congressman from the Permian Basin," Bivins said in a statement. "However, I would not be able to agree to a map which needlessly dissects a community of interest in the Texas Panhandle."

[...]

Sen. Jeff Wentworth, a San Antonio Republican whose district includes southern Travis County, said he has questions about the governor's proposal.

"I'd like to see the whole map," Wentworth said. "You can't just do East Texas or West Texas or North Texas or South Texas, because they all have ripple effects."

The governor's map leaves Travis, Williamson, Bastrop, Caldwell and Hays counties blank.

Sen. Todd Staples, R-Palestine, author of the map heading to the Senate floor today, said the Perry-backed version leaves many unanswered questions.

"It's significant progress from the viewpoint of West Texas, but it leaves a good bit of uncharted territory that must be filled in," he said.

[...]

Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, chairman of the panel that hears redistricting bills, said he also welcomed the House effort to seek compromise but didn't embrace the governor's map.

"While this plan is one option, it maintains some problems in West Texas and it doesn't take into account the progress we have made in drawing East Texas districts," he said. "Much work remains to be done, and during the coming days, I will continue to work with my Senate and House colleagues to develop a fair redistricting plan."

[...]

[I]t was unclear late Monday whether Perry's proposal can even be considered for debate since it didn't make a 5 p.m. deadline for written amendments, as stipulated by Senate rules.

"It's got too many moving parts and it is unacceptable to too many senators," said Dave Beckwith, spokesman for Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, the Senate's presiding officer.

"I would not call this a compromise because it decimates the voices of Central Texans," said Sen. Kip Averitt, R-Waco. "This map addresses a small part of Texas, and frankly, it is insulting to me that all the concerns we heard during statewide Senate public hearings will be dismissed simply to address the Midland issue."

I think "dead in the water" is the applicable phrase here. Sen. Averitt of Waco was the most vocal, and has more to say in the Waco Trib.

Meanwhile, the Senate Democrats are plotting strategy.

"I really think the Democrats will fight this on the floor and will voice their constituents' concerns but I think what you'll see is that we're going to be professional. We're going to be respectful," said Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, chairwoman of the Senate Democratic Caucus.

[...]

Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, said the senators will point out deficiencies in the proposed redistricting map as they debate the bill on the floor.

Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos, D-Austin, held out the chance that he could try to filibuster the bill on the floor to delay it from getting approved.

"I don't want to give the other side any information," Barrientos said when asked if he would filibuster.

Finally, here's an editorial from the Amarillo Globe-News that questions Speaker Craddick's tactics.

We're all for the GOP strengthening its conservative influence on the state, but is Tom Craddick's power play the way to do it?

Craddick, the GOP House speaker from Midland, favors a redistricting plan that includes a congressional district with Midland as the focal point.

This way, Craddick kills two birds with one stone.

By separating Midland from Lubbock, which is the current configuration of the 19th District represented by freshman Randy Neugebauer, R-Lubbock, Craddick creates a congressional district for his home.

Secondly, by combining Lubbock with Abilene in a newly configured district, U.S. Rep. Charles Stenholm, a Democrat, would have to face Neugebauer at the ballot box.

It is debatable whether Neugebauer, still paying his dues in Congress, could defeat the popular Stenholm, but either way Craddick comes out ahead.

Obviously state Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, is not too thrilled with Craddick's redistricting map. It remains to be seen if a compromise can be reached or if a showdown awaits.

We fail to see the pressing need to hack up West Texas for Craddick, Midland or any other politician or city. If some justification can be made to do so, we're all ears. Otherwise, we would prefer Republicans flex their muscles where they do so best - at the ballot box rather than through redistricting.

Link via Save Texas Reps. As always, stay tuned.

Perry attempts involvement

Things must be getting serious in GOP Land, because Governor Perry has finally deigned to a greater degree of involvement in the redistricting mess than just calling special sessions and declaring his hands to be clean. Today he proposed a compromise map which House Speaker Tom Craddick and House redistricting author Phil King have signed off on, but which still favors Craddick and Midland at the expense of Lubbock and Sen. Robert Duncan.

The Senate plan remains far different from the one adopted three times since June by the House, chiefly because it does not include a West Texas district dominated by Midland.

Craddick has insisted that he will not accept any plan that does not have a Midland district. Duncan, who chairs the Senate's redistricting committee, wants Lubbock to be the key city in that district.

Under the plan prepared by the governor's office and unveiled by Rep. Phil King, the Weatherford Republican who drew the House map, Lubbock and Midland would each have its own district.

Craddick and King offered qualified support for Perry's plan, which only draws six West Texas districts and leaves the rest of the state to be apportioned at a later date, but Duncan stopped far short of embracing it.

"While this plan is one option, it maintains some problems in West Texas and it doesn't take into account the progress we have made in drawing East Texas districts," Duncan said.

Duncan said he will continue to search for a compromise that both sides can embrace.

"Hopefully, by the time this process ends, we'll all be singing Kumbaya in West Texas," he said.

I'm not exactly sure how this qualifies as a compromise, since it has the same problem as before and is less specific to boot, but I suppose they all have to listen because he's the governor and all that. Regardless, some other worm-filled cans appear to have been opened by this.

Under Perry's plan, West Texas would be carved by jagged, diagonal lines running southeast to northwest. Several Capitol staffers jokingly dubbed it the "lightning bolt plan."

One district would run from western Johnson County to Dallam County at the northwest tip of the Panhandle.

Sen. Teel Bivins, R-Amarillo, said the map "needlessly dissects a community of interest in the Texas Panhandle."

Reports on this "compromise" are still early - I'll either update this post or do another tomorrow. Right now, the Quorum Report has the most info outside of that Star-Telegram story, and what there is isn't promising for Perry.

[Perry's proposal] leaves Henry Bonilla's (R-San Antonio) district intact. Creates a new, open 11th district anchored in Midland. Another district will be anchored in Lubbock. Charlie Stenholm would find himself in a district that reaches from his home base in Abilene down into the Texas hill country including Bell and Coryell counties.

While the map is acceptable to Speaker Tom Craddick and House author Phil King (R-Weatherford), it is ripe with potential problems for Senators Troy Fraser (R-Horseshoe Bay), Kip Averitt (R-Waco), Teel Bivins (R-Amarillo) and maybe even more.

[skip to a later entry]

NO TAKERS FOR PERRY COMPROMISE ON WEST TEXAS - YET
Averitt, Duncan, offer varying degrees of hostility

The deadline for amendments to the Committee Substitute for House Bill 3 - the congressional redistricting plan from Sen. Todd Staples (R-Palestine) - came and went at 5 p.m. today without any Republican senator building on the "compromise" offered for West Texas by Gov. Rick Perry.

There were no amendments featuring the changes proposed by Perry, and supported by Speaker Tom Craddick and House redistricting bill sponsor Phil King (R-Weatherford), to districts 11, 17, 19, 13, and 12.

However, there has been some comment. Sen. Kip Averitt (R-Waco) reacted angrily to Perry's suggestion that Bell and Coryell counties be separated from McLennan County.

"The map that was presented at today’s press conference decimates the voice of Central Texas and I am firmly opposed," Averitt said.

So don't go counting your chickens just yet. More is to come. And to repeat a theme mentioned before here, there's more speculation that the Republicans will be their own worst enemy in Session 3.

With the Democrats back and the clock running in the third special session, Republican quarreling could be the final obstacle.

Last month, Sen. Bill Ratliff, R-Mount Pleasant, prophesied the Craddick-Duncan dispute:

"One of them is going to have to lose that battle, and there is precious little middle ground. That would be the greatest tragedy of all, if we've all gone through this and we get to a conference committee and the Republicans can't even agree on a map."

Indeed.

On a side note, the Senate Administration Committee adopted a plan to punish future quorum busters.

The Senate Administration Committee recommended $1,000 per day fines for senators who intentionally break quorum.

The 4-3 committee vote was a reduction from the $2,000 per day proposed this morning by Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio. A full senate vote is expected this week.

The amendment would take the money from missing senators' per diem expense payments. Once that money was exhausted, the fine would be deducted from missing senators' payroll account.

Wentworth said fines are needed because loss of seniority privileges — which include things such as first pick of office space, parking and desk location in the Senate chamber — is not a sufficient penalty.

"If you rank 25th to 31st (in seniority in the 31-member Senate) running away really doesn't punish you very much at all," Wentworth said.

As long as there's some reasonable bipartisan consensus, I'm okay with whatever penalties eventually get adopted for the future. I sincerely hope it's a long time before the issue needs to be revisited.

Pirate popularity

Meant to do this Saturday but was too busy with other stuff...How popular was National Talk Like A Pirate Day? Here are the most frequent search engine terms that referred people to my blog on Friday:

#reqs: search term

-----: -----------

  286: national talk like a pirate day

   70: talk like a pirate day

   59: national pirate day

   35: pirate translation

   22: talk like a pirate

   14: national talk like a pirate

   11: ugly people

   10: national talk like pirate day

    9: diane zamora

    9: gregg phillips

    8: prime number algorithm

    8: how to talk like a pirate

    6: redneck neighbor

    4: national pirate

    4: no guardrails

    4: pirate day

    3: bush upside down book

    3: sock puppets

    3: marnie rose

    3: national talk pirate day

  314: [not listed: 282 search terms]

Well, blow me down!

For thee but not for me

Via Atrios and Kos comes this insight into how someone who's spent too much time in power thinks.

[A]n administration move to privatize air traffic control at 69 airports has sparked opposition from labor groups, which contend it would compromise safety.

The administration had proposed 71 airports, but House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Don Young (R-Alaska), who supports the effort, got someone to strike the two Alaska airports on the list.

Young, on an Alaska cable TV show a week ago, acknowledged the move generated some heat.

"Of course the criticism of myself," he said, "is that I exempted the state of Alaska." But there were ample reasons for that, he said, ticking off a number of them.

"Lastly," Young said, "my hotel room is on the top floor of the Sheraton, and the airplanes take right off towards my hotel room. Every morning I look out and there's one coming right at me. It's an interesting experience and I want to make sure everything is done right in that field."

Once again, snark fails me.

(A fuller transcript is here, in case you're curious.)

Berry drops out

Michael "Boy Wonder" Berry has dropped out of the mayoral race, apparently facing up to the reality that he had no chance whatsoever of winning. He said he didn't want to be a spoiler, which from my anti-Orlando Sanchez perspective is a shame. Sanchez will surely get most of Berry's current supporters, which he really needs given his lackluster showing so far.

On that note, Chron columnist John Williams compares Sanchez's effort to Louie Welch in 1985. Welch was quiet through the summer after being declared the early frontrunner, and this allowed then-Mayor Kathy Whitmire to control the debate. Williams doesn't go into some of Sanchez's screwups on the campaign so far, but maybe now with Berry out they're no longer worth harping on. If so, Sanchez is the luckiest man in politics today.

What's even more interesting is Berry's timing, since the top story in the Metro section of the Chron's morning edition was about how Berry differentiated himself from the other three candidates at a debate sponsored by The Metropolitan Organization. You'd think he wouldn't have bothered to participate if he knew he was getting out, and you'd think he'd have faced the reality of his poll position and weak finances sooner than this. But who knows? He's now running for another at-large Council seat, which I think means he'd get a new six year term-limit cycle, and gets a ton of free publicity for it. Crazy like a fox, I guess.

UPDATE: Alex and I have been debating this last point, about term limits, in the comments, and I think he's right: Berry would still be subjected to the three-term limit on the grounds that it's the same type of office, even if it's a different seat. I tried to find a city statute to clarify but eventually gave up - their PDF model sucks compared to the HTML layout of the State's laws. Anyway, unless someone can say with authority otherwise, Berry has two terms left.

Blogburst index

Today a group of progressive Texas bloggers are all posting on the subject "What Texas Democrats Should Do Next". The following is a link to everyone's post for today's blogburst, which will be updated through the day as they come in. Please take the time to visit these links and see what a diverse group of people think needs to be done to make the Democrats more effective in Texas.

Stephen Bates says to tend to the base and stay on top of the media.

David Remer says that rural Texans hold the key to a return to power.

Jack Cluth says "The best time to recognize that you've been dealt a bad hand is before you've lost your shirt."

Ginger Stampley says to quit worrying so much about rearguard actions.

Jeremy Hart says to focus on the practical stuff and get a better PR team.

Bill Howell says stand up for something positive, and get involved in the race for state party chair.

Byron LaMasters talks about redistricting, the state party chair, and a plan for the Legislature.

Mark Norris says to use the unity created by the redistricting mess to tap into younger voters.

Jaye Ramsey Sutter says stop whining and fight back.

Greg Wythe says we've got bigger problems than redistricting.

Kerry Lutz says to get mad and get busy.

Hope Morrison says to figure out why it is that so many people don't vote.

Mike Thomas says to keep alive the "spark of life" that the party has shown this year.

Jim D. says to join "The Battle for the Soul of the Suburbs".

Adam Pressler takes a more national look and addresses health care.

Liz suggests that now is the time for a moderate Democrat to win the Presidency.

My own four-point plan.

(Note: I'm going to keep this post at the top of the main page for the time being.)

UPDATE: Response so far has been fantastic. I've got a long list of bloggers who've linked to this post to thank for the publicity they've given, and I especially want to thank everyone who contributed a post towards this effort. Please take the time to read what they've written.

Mayoral melange

A few quick hits on stuff related to the mayor's race:

- Tim Fleck notes that Orlando Sanchez still can't decide if he's for rail this time around or if he still opposes it like he did in 2001.

Sanchez reported that he'd met with the Metro board and its chairman, Arthur Schechter, as well as agency officials the previous Friday, and "there was some confusion because they showed me two active resolutions…So I'm sort of making sure that I have all the data necessary that Metro gets its house in order and gives me all the information."

When Sanchez campaign consultant Dave Walden was asked about the meeting, he had a few corrections to make to his candidate's comments. The get-together was on a Thursday rather than a Friday, no Metro board members were there, and chairman Schechter did not attend either. According to Walden, who was present, the participants included Metro Vice President John Sedlak and the agency chief financial officer, Francis Britton.

The consultant explains that because the resolution voted on by the Metro board had some handwritten addendums, Sanchez wanted to see a final version to make sure the pivotal commitment to continue road and street subsidies for area municipalities was intact.

"I'm getting the sense that Ambassador Schechter has not signed the resolution, so it seems that things are still in flux," comments Sanchez. "And I want to make sure that Metro says without equivocation, 'This is it, this is what we're going to put out.' "

That's news to Metro legal adviser Jonathan Day. He says the Metro board did consider the resolution twice, but took its final vote on August 28. "There is no question or ambiguity about their action," says the attorney. "They called the election." As for Schechter's not signing the resolution, Day explains that a signature is not required to make it valid.

Sanchez's reticence to take a position is understandable. If he opposes any rail, he alienates downtown power brokers who want the nascent Main Street rail connected to the suburbs and the airports. If he gives even a half-hearted endorsement for the transit plan, he drives westside conservatives and rail opponents into the arms of Berry.

Pathetic. No wonder his campaign is treading water. Sanchez was full-throated against rail in 2001, going so far as to support City Counil member Rob Todd's moronic and wasteful lawsuit that would have stopped the existing construction in its metaphorical tracks and forced a vote on whether to keep building it or rip it all out. (Yes, the anti-rail forces around here are that zealous.)

Unfortunately for Orlando, opposition to rail, which was tightly wound up in opposition to Mayor Lee Brown two years ago, isn't as popular now with Brown vacating office as it was then. He's still smart enough to read the tea leaves, even if he can't figure out what to do about them.

You know, if I were a tad bit conspiracy minded, I'd say that one explanation for John Culberson's recent move to block the Metro referendum is to provide cover for Sanchez (whom Culberson endorsed before and is endorsing again) and his waffling. Who cares if he has no position if it's a moot point, right? Makes as much sense as any other motive I could ascribe to the man the Chron is now calling Tom DeLay's Mini-Me.

- Speaking of endorsements, one endorsement that Sanchez will not be getting this time around is from the Bush clan. A little grist for the mill for those who are following the President's falling appeal nationally:

[A] recent Houston Chronicle/KHOU-TV poll indicates that support from the Bushes could be insignificant or even risky.

Bush's ratings in Houston have sagged in the face of a sputtering economy and concern about the war in Iraq.

Houstonians are about evenly split on whether they approve of Bush's performance as president (43 percent) or disapprove (46 percent).

Sadly, I can't find this poll anywhere on KHOU. I'll keep looking.

- As long as we're talking about Presidential involvement in this race, there's this Rick Casey column wich suggests that despite what the story above suggests, the White House really does want Orlando Sanchez to win the election, and is planning to covertly induce Michael Berry to drop out in return for a Congressional district created just for him (carved, presumably, out of Nick Lampson's CD 9). I suppose anything is possible, but given my earlier impressions of Casey, I won't be putting much stock into it.

What Texas Democrats Should Do Next

(This post is part of a blogburst.)

Whatever else you may say about our neverending legislative session and the incessant push by the state GOP to redraw Congressional boundaries, one thing that you can't deny is that Democrats wouldn't be in this position if they'd done a better job in recent years getting people to vote for them. Here are my thoughts for how Democrats in Texas can do better in the future. For all I know, some or all of these things are already being done. I will be more than happy to print a response from someone on the inside detailing what they are doing.

1. Share the wealth

I'm going to talk about money first, because it's both the most distasteful aspect of politics as well as the most important. Democrats in Texas are seriously outfinanced. That's partly the result of being the minority party, partly the result of the Republicans' relentless pursuit of money, and partly their own damn fault for not using the resources they do have as wisely as they should. See if you can read this John Williams column about the differences between the Harris County Democratic Party and the Harris County GOP without steam coming out of your ears.

Though they rely on Democratic voters to return them to office, they don't really want to get involved in local party politics.

Go to a Harris County GOP Executive Committee meeting and there is a line of elected officials waiting to be introduced and say a few words.

Few, if any, elected Democrats attend the Harris County Democratic Party Executive Committee meetings.

"I tried to get our local officials involved," former Harris County Democratic Party Chairwoman Sue Schechter has said. "But it's hard."

The money matter is especially problematic for Democrats.

Without paid staffers, the party has no one dedicating a full-time effort toward organizing grass-roots operations and developing issues.

No money? No paid workers to answer the headquarters phone, or to schedule volunteers to help out.

The local GOP has an annual operating budget of about $250,000, with money that also comes from companies such as Continental Airlines and Reliant Energy.

The Democrats' budget is about $50,000.

Last year, state Rep. Sylvester Turner and state Sen. John Whitmire each gave the party $1,000. Justice of the Peace David Patronella provided the next highest contribution -- $420.

State Sen. Rodney Ellis, who has a campaign war chest of at least $170,000, gave $120.

Democrats who gave nothing include U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee ($150,000 campaign cash balance), state Sen. Mario Gallegos ($50,000 cash balance) and U.S. Rep. Gene Green ($380,000 cash balance).

In contrast, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay ($302,000 cash balance) gave the Harris County GOP $2,500 two weeks ago.

The Harris County Democratic Party got more contributions from candidates who eventually lost than from incumbents.

This is disgusting and it needs to change now. I don't know how it is in other counties or at the state level - I'm told that Dallas pols support the local party more than Harris ones do - but there's simply no reason for this.

Whether a new Congressional map passes or not, there will be a lot of Democratic officeholders who will face no or token opposition in their next races. Every single one of them will have way more campaign funds than they will need to get elected. It's time for all of them to make a commitment to the state party and to their county parties to spread some of that money around so we can grow some new Democrats.

In addition, members of the Killer Ds and Texas Ten have done some national fundraising and are being treated like rock stars. That's great, but if it doesn't contribute towards winning elections here, it doesn't mean anything. Use the spotlight while you have it, and use the money to strengthen the party.

2. Get on the same page

If there's one lesson to be learned from the Ardmore and Albuquerque excursions, it's that the Democrats can get a lot more accomplished when they work together than when they pursue their own individual interests. There was a lot of encouraging talk out of Ardmore about finding common ground with each other. That needs to continue, and needs to be built on. Texas Democrats these days are largely minorities, rural whites, and some urban whites, all with different constituencies and priorities, none of which will get anywhere without cooperation.

I've talked in the past about how state and local Republicans have a "brand identity" that gives them a common philosophy from which to work and enhances their campaign advertising. Developing this sort of brand identity will help encourage the kind of cooperation I'm talking about. Individual Democrats may stand for different things, but all of us share a core set of values. We need to revisit what those values are and get everyone to start talking about them and acting on them.

Two specific items for the immediate future:

• Resolve the John Whitmire situation one way or another. Either mend fences and get on with life, or mount a primary challenge and hope to get rid of him. Just be sure that if you choose the latter, you win - the only thing worse than the present situation would be to try to knock him off and fail.


• Protect vulnerable incumbents like Patrick Rose and whichever Congressmen still have a fighting chance to hold on after all the mapmaking is completed by ensuring they have the cash they need to win reelection in 2004. As noted in item 1, unopposed incumbents have a duty to help out their embattled colleagues. We cannot afford to lose any more ground.

3. Get wired

It should be a priority for every county and statewide group that is officially affiliated with the Democratic Party to get its own domain and web page, one that is managed by someone who will take the task seriously. A little funding to help defray their costs (see Issue #1 again) would probably go a long way. I don't mean to pick on the Harris County Democratic Party, but a quick survey of the Party section on their links page shows five broken links and a sixth that is "under construction". (The state party links page is better.)

Having a web page with all the usual resources - voter registration information, news, links, etc - is nice, but content is king. My biases may be showing here, but I firmly believe that every single one of them ought to at least look into installing some blog software. Whether or not you believe that blogging is The Next Big Thing or just a callow fad, blogging software makes it ridiculously easy to provide regular updates to a web page. You don't have to muck with HTML, you just write. Putting up something new on a frequent basis, along with accessible links and archives, makes it that much easier to bring people back to your page. There's a reason that the other Democratic Presidential nominees have followed Howard Dean's lead.

Weblogs do a couple of other useful things. They can build a community, as Dean's blog has done, which in turn can be used to help recruit volunteers. They allow you to get your own message published without having to rely on a reporter or editor. They also help by making it easier for people to find out about you. Quite a few people have told me that they've found my blog by Googling on a particular topic - redistricting, light rail, etc. I'm willing to bet that the only way most people ever stumble across a party or candidate's web page is by searching specifically for that party or candidate. Wouldn't it be nice if the next time a voter sat down to look up some information about "tort reform" or "school finance" or "health care" they wound up here?

And of course fundraising will benefit from a strong online presence. The national party has its ePatriots program, which is essentially fundraising by distributed computing. We all know how successful Howard Dean has been at reaching new donors, something he could not have done without first building the online community that he has. Message, community, fundraising - what more do you want?

4. Tap into the support that already exists

The first time I ever gave money to a political campaign was 1996, when I contributed to Nick Lampson's successful challenge to the nutball Steve Stockman. The next time I ever gave money was 2002, when I donated to Ron Kirk in his Senate bid. I've voted in every Democratic primary since at least 1992, I've owned a home since 1997, and I've been on Planned Parenthood's mailing list since at least 1989. Yet somehow, in all that time, no one connected with the Democratic Party has ever solicited me for a contribution.

I cannot begin to understand that. How hard is it to cross-reference primary voting with property tax valuations (both of which are public records) to put together a list of People Who Have Money And Also Vote Democratic? Hell, I could probably write a Perl script to do it. If the answer from the state or any county party is "We don't have the money to hire a programmer", go back to Item #1. This is an investment. Donors are out there. The redistricting issue has them fired up. Start soliciting!

Next, make a concerted effort to find and encourage unaffiliated grassroots groups, something I've mentioned before. Anyone who has taken the time to buy a domain and some web space on their own is a precious resource, even and especially if they live in hostile territory. Talk to these people. Link to their web pages. Recruit them to be precinct captains. Offer to provide speakers to their meetings. This is what grassroots activism is all about.

As long as I'm building on prior themes, I'll go back to Item #3 and talk about blogging again. There are an awful lot of liberal Texas bloggers out there, many of whom are participating in this effort. We do this on our own time and out of our own desire to make something good happen. Get to know us.

There's lots more that I could say, but I think this is enough to get started. I believe that the state party can hold the line in 2004 and possibly be in a position to win some statewide offices in 2006, and I believe we need to operate on those assumptions. Thanks for reading this far and for reading what my colleagues have to say.

Texas Monthly rethinks Dewhurst

Texas Monthly, which named Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst one of its Ten Best Legislators of 2003 for his great birpartisan work during the regular session, is having second thoughts now. I'll try tosay more about this later, so go check it out.

Metro responds to Culberson

Metro has contacted the FTA in an effort to placate the Little Napoleon of West Houston, John Culberson.

Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston, sent the Metropolitan Transit Authority a letter Monday asking it to amend its ballot language. Culberson attached a letter he received Sept. 12 from the Federal Transit Administration's chief counsel, ruling that Metro's ballot language would disqualify it from federal funding if a bill pending in Congress is enacted.

Metro responded with a letter to the FTA the same day, asking Chief Counsel William Sears to reconsider his opinion that the transit authority's failure to list proposed rail segments on the ballot would violate the amendment Culberson added to the fiscal year 2004 transportation appropriations bill.

The transit authority enclosed the board's 22-page resolution with its letter to Sears. The resolution, which Metro plans to publish for voters before Election Day, spells out in detail the elements of the 2025 plan that Metro wants voters to endorse, including each rail segment.

Culberson's provision "does not specifically contain the word 'ballot,' " Metro wrote. "Therefore, we believe that the requirements of (the provision) can be met in alternative ways."

Culberson strongly disagrees with that statement and said Friday he does not believe Sears will change his opinion.

"I'm fully prepared to stamp my feet and hold my breath till I turn purple until I get my way on this," Culberson did not add.

As Ted noted in the comments to my earlier entry, Culberson's office phone number is (202) 225-2571, Houston office (713) 682-8828. Feel free to call and tell them (politely!) how you feel about this issue.

Why does Rice play Texas?

Rice renews its rivalry with the Texas Longhorns tonight in the first game of a six-year series, to be played at Reliant Stadium. The Chron's Mickey Herskowitz reminisces about the 1994 Rice win over UT, in a game that was played in a nasty thunderstorm. Herskowitz speculates that the Owls would be perfectly happy to get those same game conditions this time around, but alas, Reliant has a little feature which makes the point moot.

Game time is 8:22 PM CDT on ESPN2. Be there!

The Staples map

The more I read about the latest version of the Staples map that was passed out of the Senate Jurisprudence Committee yesterday, the more I think that it's the Republicans' best chance to get a map that increases their delegation and withstands judicial scrutiny. How does the map affect current incumbents?

The map approved Friday by the Senate Jurisprudence Committee chaired by [Sen. Robert] Duncan would only guarantee the Republicans a gain of three seats in next year's elections. Defeat would be certain for Democratic U.S. Reps. Max Sandlin of Marshall, Jim Turner of Crockett and Nick Lampson of Beaumont.

[Rep. Charlie] Stenholm and Democratic U.S. Reps. Chet Edwards of Waco and Ralph Hall of Rockwall might have difficulty winning re-election. But the map the committee approved made Stenholm's district safer than it was in any previous plan considered by the panel.

The issue that will be argued in the courts will be whether or not minority voting strength has been diluted. Here's how Sen. Staples addresses that:

Mr. Staples said his map would make no change in the percentages of black and Hispanic voters in seven of the districts now represented by Democrats.

It would increase or decrease the minority-voter percentages by less than 3 percent in eight others, Mr. Staples said. And his plan would increase the minority vote by 3.6 percent, to 71.3 percent, in the district of U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Dallas; and by 5.6 percent in the new home district of Mr. Lampson.

Like I said before, it's a shrewd move. Doesn't mean I like it, doesn't mean I think it'll ultimately prevail, but Sen. Staples has clearly been paying attention to his side's biggest weakness. The Democrats' rejoinder has mostly focused on the 9th CD, currently held by Rep. Nick Lampson of Beaumont.

[Sen. Royce] West especially objected to its placement of about 5,000 blacks and Hispanics from Galveston County and southern Harris County into the district of U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, a principal architect of the GOP redistricting effort.

"That renders them politically ineffective" and could violate a U.S. Supreme Court ruling this summer that encouraged states to draw political maps that support multiracial political coalitions, Mr. West said.

I don't think there's any map that can be drawn that both guarantees more GOP seats and doesn't affect any minority-influence districts. This is probably as close as the GOP can come.

Of course, before we get that far, there's still the little matter of the Craddick/Duncan tiff to be worked out. How's that going?

A key sticking point is that Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, chairman of the Senate panel, is at odds with House Speaker Tom Craddick of Midland on how to reapportion West Texas. The Senate plan, backed by Duncan, protects Democratic Congressman Charles Stenholm of Abilene.

The House plan includes a district based in Midland, which works to Stenholm's disadvantage. Duncan said he cannot support the Craddick-backed configuration.

"He's got to decide whether he wants to have redistricting," Duncan said, referring to Craddick, who embarked on the unusual middecade redistricting effort with far more enthusiasm than anyone in the Senate. "Are we going to have redistricting [or] are we going to have Midland? Is this about Texas or is this about Midland?"

An aide to the speaker said Craddick will stand firm.

"We're not going to get drawn into a battle negotiating in the press," said Craddick spokesman Bob Richter. "As far as we're concerned, the House has passed its map three times, and that's what we're sticking by. Once the Senate has acted, we'll go to conference and work on a compromise, but we're not compromising on Midland."

The Chron quotes Richter as saying that the House map is their starting point, and all negotiations will go from there. Any chance Duncan may back down? What is his constituency saying?

A poll by the Taylor County Republican Party found its supporters overwhelmingly prefer a congressional district that pairs Abilene and San Angelo.

According to an unscientific poll of party contributors, activists and business leaders, 1,276 preferred the district stay as is, 12 supported a district that pairs Abilene with Midland-Odessa and nine favored a district that contained Abilene and Lubbock.

"This is the only poll we have ever conducted that was nearly unanimous," party Chairman Paul Washburn said. "Republicans in Taylor County do not want the 17th Congressional District to change, and I am sure this feeling is even stronger in the smaller counties of our area."

Washburn praised state Rep. Bob Hunter and state Sen. Troy Fraser, both of whom represent Abilene, for opposing changes to the district pushed by House Speaker Tom Craddick of Midland.

Craddick is starting to make some novel arguments in support of his position.

To get what he wants, Craddick has even linked military base closures with congressional redistricting. Craddick’s spokesman suggested that breaking up the West Texas districts could keep San Angelo’s Goodfellow Air Force Base off the closure list in 2005. He claims that having two military bases in same congressional district — Goodfellow and Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene — makes one of them vulnerable to closure.

But anyone familiar with the base closure process knows that isn’t true. If that were the case, bases in the Corpus Christi area, San Antonio, Virginia, California and Georgia would be in jeopardy. The base closure process looks at military value, not the number of installations in a congressional district.

Doesn't sound too good for compromise, does it? If I were a Republican and redistricting were important to me, I'd probably pick Duncan's side, as I think he has the stronger case. Of course, I'm more than happy for Craddick to not want to take one for the team. Some other guys are a mite worried about it.

Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, said it would be a mistake "for us to be passing a bill out of the Senate that has West Texas in concrete keeping Midland and Lubbock together, when the House has sent a bill over that is in concrete that has Midland in a separate congressional district."

"To have gone through all this trial and tribulation, resulting in hard feelings and a loss in the bipartisan spirit of the Senate and not pass a map? That is just nearly unthinkable in my opinion," he said.

The word you're looking for is "hilarious", Jeff. Go talk to your Governor about it. Is there anything the Democrats can do to help?

After adjournment, Dewhurst said the Democrats seem intent on delay, but he said it's "mechanically" impossible for Democrats to stall redistricting to death.

Dewhurst said he will recognize Democrats for personal privilege speeches, but only if they remain in line with Senate tradition.

"We're not aware of any speech that's gone longer than 20 minutes, 30 minutes," he said.

Democrats declined to discuss strategy.

Oh, well.

KCC Lawsuit Update

If you want to know more about the Katy Corridor Coalition's lawsuit over the I-10 expansion plan, there will be a town hall meeting on October 2 from 7-9 PM at First Baptist Church, which is at I-10 and Loop 610. Check it out and stay informed.

I'm so mad I could spit

As Uncle Bob notes in the comments to this post, US Rep. John Culberson is stopping at nothing to impose his will on the city of Houston.

Culberson, a fierce rail opponent, used his position on the House transportation appropriations subcommittee to insert in July a provision -- applicable to no other city -- that no federal rail funds may be given for "any segment of a light rail system in Houston that has not been specifically approved by a majority of the participating voters." The 2004 transportation appropriations bill has passed the House and is awaiting Senate action.

Culberson's release of the [Federal Transit Administration] letter prompted the Metropolitan Transit Authority's board of directors to call a special meeting Wednesday to consider amending the ballot language.

The letter from William Sears, chief FTA counsel, throws Metro's election into chaos because changing the ballot language within 45 days of an election might run afoul of the Texas Election Code. And if the language isn't changed, Houston would see no more light rail in the near future if the FTA denies federal funding needed to build the lines.

Culberson asked Sears on Sept. 4 for the opinion on Metro's ballot language, which the board adopted Aug. 18 and tweaked Aug. 28.

In the letter to Culberson dated Sept. 10, Sears responded that "because the ballot does not identify the segments at issue, section 163 [of the pending bill] would prohibit FTA funding of the design, construction, or maintenance of any segments pursued under the authority of that vote."

This week's controversy follows a track familiar to Metro, which was banned from receiving federal funds for the Main Street light rail line three years ago. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, objected because there was no vote on that line. Metro then built the $324 million project, opening Jan. 1, using its budget.

Culberson's 11th-hour maneuver puts the Metro board in a difficult position. State law requires an election, including a description of the measure, to be filed within 45 days of Election Day. For the Nov. 4 election, that deadline is Saturday. But Metro can't convene today or Saturday because another provision of state law requires 72 hours notice to hold a public meeting.

The timing of Culberson's release of the FTA letter is not likely a coincidence. He has battled Metro intensely, arguing the transit plan does nothing to reduce traffic congestion or improve mobility for his west Houston constituents. Almost all of Metro's rail expansion would be built inside Loop 610.

The next time any Republican tries to tell you about the virtue of local control and the evils of federal meddling in local issues, you have my permission to laugh in his or her face. John Culberson is a fraud and a pettyfogger. If he's so damn concerned about how the city of Houston spends its transportation dollars, then he can freaking run for Mayor. I need to stop now before I say something that I'll regret later. But for now, John Culberson can kiss my ass.

Senate committee approves map

Just an AP wire report with little detail right now, but a map was passed out of the Senate Jurisprudence Committee on a 4-3 vote along partisan lines. The map is apparently the Staples map with some tweaks, according to the Quorum Report. From here it goes to the Senate floor, then the House v. Senate battle is joined, with a bicameral commission on the horizon in the event that no quick agreement is worked out. Next week will be the key.

UPDATE: More from Jim at the Burnt Orange Report, including a link to the actual map.

Senate imposes double-secret probation on Democrats

So much for the brief displays of civility that occurred on Tuesday. Sanctions were lifted against the Democratic Senators yesterday on the condition that the Dems not break quorum again between now and the next regular session in 2005, meaning that they are on probation. The Democrats reacted very strongly against this, arguing (correctly, in my view) that the sanctions had never been properly imposed in the first place and thus should have been completely dropped. They accused the Republicans of discrimination, a charge the Republicans naturally took offense to.

There's not much variation in the coverage, so I'm just going to link to it here, here, here, here, and here. While I think the sanctions are invalid and should have been dropped, I hope that the emphasis on this issue is also dropped by the Democrats. The focus should be on redistricting, not parking and postage, and the more that gets talked about, the less seriously the real issue will be taken. This Statesman editorial should be taken by the Democrats as a warning that they're losing their audience.

Tactically, I think the smart thing for the Democrats to do is to lay low and let the Republicans squabble over their incompatible maps. Let everyone realize that even after all this time and money has been spent on special sessions, the GOP still doesn't know what its goal actually is. The Democrats are not going to walk out again anyway, so the probationary aspect of the Republicans' action, distasteful as it is, doesn't really amount to anything. The issue is redistricting. Let's keep fighting against that.

The world's largest rat

Meet Phoberomys pattersoni, a nine-foot-long, four-foot-tall rodent of yesteryear. If the artist's rendition of what this sucker may have looked like doesn't make you want to buy some bigger mousetraps, I don't know what will. As an extra added bonus, there's a bit at the end of the story about Diprotodon optatum, a "giant wombat-like creature that lived in Australia during the last ice age". Aren't you glad you live in the Holocene epoch?

Arr!

Avast, ye scurvy dogs! Once again, it's time for National Talk Like A Pirate Day. There must be a lot of interest in this holiday because I'm getting a pirate-shipload of Google referrals for last year's post on the topic, and because I can't get to the NTLAPD web page right now. You can still read the Dave Barry column that got these guys way more publicity than they ever imagined, you can visit the British headquarters for pirate talk, which includes this handy set of pirate-themed cellphone ringtones, and of course there's The Poor Man's rapper-to-pirate translation table.

So put on your eyepatch, crack open a bottle of rum, and let your inner Long John Silver come out for the day. It's fun for the whole family. Now be on with ye before I have ye keelhauled!

Are you now or have you ever been?

Hey, guess what? If you support MoveOn, you're a commie!

Snark fails me. No wonder Molly Ivins has never run out of material.

UPDATE: The R&D section of the Quorum Report has a nice free article by Edd Sills that takes the loonies at TexCAN to task. Check it out.

And that other big race

Good news and bad news for Metro - their rail plan has more than a 2-1 lead in a new poll, but it does not have a majority.

The poll shows 46 percent of voters surveyed said they will vote for Metro's plan while 21 percent intend to vote against it. The remaining voters were undecided or didn't answer.

"These numbers, only 46 percent in favor, are fairly surprising considering most voters have only heard one side of this issue," said David Hutzelman, director of the Business Committee Against Rail.

The poll of 815 registered voters in the Metro service area was conducted Sept. 10 through Tuesday by the University of Houston Center for Public Policy and the Rice University James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. Margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

When asked to name the No. 1 problem in Houston, 31 percent of poll respondents listed traffic, transportation or poor streets. Jobs and the economy came in second at 30 percent.

Most impressive for rail supporters is the poll's finding that 61 percent of those surveyed believe rail is a "vital" or "important" part of the region's comprehensive, long-range transportation solution. Only 14 percent labeled rail "not important" or believe it "has no place" in the mobility debate.

"The fact that 61 percent see rail as a vital part of a regional transportation plan is a clear indication that people are concerned about mobility and want alternatives and the freedom to choose how they will get where they want to go," said Ed Wulfe, a real-estate developer leading the political action committee pushing for passage.

Professors Bob Stein of Rice and Richard Murray of UH -- political scientists who supervised the polling -- said the proposition appears likely to win given the strong sentiment that Houston must add rail to its transportation mix.

Seems a reasonable conclusion to me. The referendum doesn't need a whole lot of undecideds to break the 50% line, and opponents are going to have to peel away support in order to have a chance. It's not a lock, but I'd bet on a Yes.

Poll position

Finally, after weeks of waiting, we have a poll for the Mayoral election, and it's very interesting.

[Bill] White, the Houston businessman who has spent more than $600,000 of his own money to help dominate early advertising, has support from 25 percent of likely voters.

[Orlando] Sanchez, with 20 percent, and [Sylvester] Turner, with 19 percent, are within striking distance as both candidates prepare to ratchet up their own campaigns in a race most believe will be decided in a runoff.

A distant fourth is Michael Berry with 7 percent.

Looking back through my archives, I see that these numbers are not substantially different than a poll commissioned by the White team in April, which had Sanchez at 27, White at 22, Turner at 15, and Berry at 8. This poll, assuming it's reasonably accurate, is obviously good news for White, not so good for Sanchez, and downright terrible for Berry.

If you've been reading here regularly, you'll know that I'm not surprised that White is doing well and that Sanchez is not capitalizing on his name recognition. I have to say, I'm shocked that Berry is in single digits, given how hard he's run, how indifferently Sanchez has run, and how many endorsements he has picked up. His support level is about half of what I thought it would be.

It's still early, and the margin of error is plus or minus four percent, so it's dangerous to read too much into this. Only White has spent real money on advertising (not counting the money the county GOP has spent on a hit piece against him; given that White has 23% support among Republicans, it would seem they missed their target), so there will be time for everyone to improce their numbers. Nearly half of Hispanic voters gave no preference. Sanchez got 62% of the Hispanic vote in the 2001 election, so he needs to improve his 38% figure there if he's going to contend, while White can seriously undercut him if he grabs some more of those votes. Turner is heavily dependent on support from black voters; he's got a good lead there now but will also need to improve on that number.

It's a horse race, and it should get better. Greg is pretty excited, too. Go, Bill!

It's getting (more) confusing

I'm starting to have a hard time figuring out all the implications and corollaries of the different redistricting plans. You'll see why in a minute.

The Chron paints a potentially bleak picture for the Democrats:

[T]he Senate Jurisprudence Committee began hearings on a new congressional redistricting proposal that would give the GOP a gain of at least five seats in next year's elections.

The Senate proposal is one of the toughest maps to face the Democrats so far because it makes almost no changes to minority and minority-influenced districts that are now protected under the federal Voting Rights Act.

If the Senate proposal became law, the Democrats would be left trying to defeat it on vague minority voting protections outlined by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year.

[...]

The new Senate proposal by [Sen. Todd] Staples would achieve at least a 20-12 majority mostly by redrawing the boundaries of rural districts held by Democrats.

The map would all but guarantee election losses for Democratic U.S. Reps. Max Sandlin of Marshall, Jim Turner of Crockett, Nick Lampson of Beaumont, Chet Edwards of Waco and Charles Stenholm of Abilene.

It also would increase the chances that U.S. Rep. Ralph Hall, D-Rockwall, could not win re-election. A Hall defeat would give the Republicans a 21-11 majority.

In the Harris County area, the districts of U.S. Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee, Gene Green and Chris Bell, all D-Houston, would remain almost unchanged. But Lampson's district would be split into two Republican districts.

A key to the map is that by leaving existing minority and minority-influenced districts intact, the Staples plans would make it difficult for Democrats to challenge in court under the federal Voting Rights Act that protects minority voters.

The map makes no changes in the seven Hispanic districts or in the black 18th District in Houston. The black 30th District in Dallas would retain 74 percent of its population, but its black population would be almost exactly the same as now.

Democratic lawyer Gerald Hebert called the map "tough." Texas Legislative Council lawyer Jeffery Archer told the committee he saw no "obvious legal problems" with the map.

Instead, the Democrats would have to focus on vague standards set by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year in George v. Ashcroft. It said that districts are protected if minority voters make a difference in the outcome of elections. But it did not set a firm standard for how to measure that.

"Ashcroft doesn't answer the hard questions," Archer told the committee.

In questions to Archer, Gallegos focused on how minority voters are split in Lampson's district to create the two new Republican districts. He also asked whether Edwards would have won election to Congress without the support of black voters in Waco.

"If you took minority voters out of that district, he would not win the election," Archer said.

Point one: This is a shrewd move by the Republicans, as it would improve the odds of the map withstanding a court challenge. It would also be a fulcrum for resolving the Craddick/Duncan feud, on the grounds that the Craddick plan would be denied by the courts. Finally, it officially means we'll never again hear the fiction that this year's redistricting effort was somehow intended to increase minority Congressional representation. (Quick! Alert Ron Wilson!)

Point two: The reason why Sen. Robert Duncan's constituents oppose the House redistricting plan is that they don't want Charlie Stenholm to be unseated and thus lose his senior voice in the House Agriculture Committee. It therefore makes no sense for Duncan to go along with a Senate plan that accomplishes the same thing. Duncan is the chairman of the committee in charge of redistricting, and I can't imagine him voting down a plan in his own committee, especially since that would kill it before it reached the Senate floor. Something here doesn't add up.

Point three: If this plan does wind up getting signed into law and surviving a court challenge, then John Whitmire should accept the blame for allowing it to happen and resign from his Senate seat. If, on the other hand, no plan gets adopted, which would be a major embarrassment for Rick Perry and the GOP leadership, then the Texas Ten owe Whitmire a public apology for the nasty things they said about him.

As it happens, the Dallas Morning News paints a very different picture.

Republican House Speaker Tom Craddick, who lives in Midland, says he's committed to a new district based there. But Republican senators, led by Robert Duncan of Lubbock, are firmly opposed.

"Somebody's got to blink," said Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay.

[...]

"I'm not going to surrender, and I can't," said Mr. Duncan, who heads the Senate's redistricting panel. Mr. Craddick says neither will he.

The article outlines the other obstacles the GOP faces: Waco, East Texas, public squabbling, and the clock. This is one of those times when I'm going to say "read the whole thing", because its viewpoint is very different from the Chron's.

Most of th rest of the coverage (here, here, here, and here) is about how the sanctions issue still isn't settled and how some Democratic Senators are getting angry about it. Must be loads of fun to be David Dewhurst right about now. One point of interest that was mentioned only in the Express News:

[T]he Senate Jurisprudence Committee began taking public comment on a proposed map of Texas' congressional districts that its author said would have minimal to no impact on the districts where Hispanics or African Americans constitute a majority.

[...]

Throughout the day, witnesses gathered to give their opinion on the redrawing of congressional lines, which has become a Republican priority during the regular session and the three subsequent special sessions.

The current Texas delegation in the U.S. House of Representatives comprises 17 Democrats and 15 Republicans. The GOP says four to six new Republican seats from Texas should be added to more accurately reflect state voting trends.

But of the more than 28 people who attended the hearing to express their opinions on redistricting before the Senate Jurisprudence Committee, only one said she favored a plan that will reconfigure the state's 32 congressional districts.

Seems like old times, doesn't it? Stay tuned.

Polstate is back

The Political State Report, which was down earlier due to a registration lapse, is back up. I've just posted my Duncan v. Craddick piece there.

Maintenance

I've done a little blogroll maintenance, as you can see. I'd been unhappy with the state of my blogroll - its length made the sidebar less useful than it could have been as well as discouraging me from considering additions, and it just wasn't as convenient to me as I wanted it to be. So, I've created two blogrolls, a shorter one that you now see on the sidebar, plus a full blogroll linked just above it that has more or less everyone that I wanted to link to. I've also added a link to a page of bloggers I know from Real Life, and of course the Texas Political Bloggers page continues to grow. There are new and newly linked blogs on all of these pages, so please check them out.

It is entirely possible that in doing this housework that I have overlooked or accidentally dropped someone who belongs on one of these rolls. If that's you, I assure you it's not intentional. Please whack me upside the head via email or comment and I'll rectify the error along with my abject apologies.

More on WUSA's woes

Should have known that Eric McErlain would be the place to go to get all the links you need on the story of the WUSA folding. See here and here, and then check out Women's Hoops (start there and scroll down) for more.

This story shocked me:

The fact that the WUSA folded Monday after three years of financial struggle isn't hard to fathom. Trying to grasp how the organization ripped through more than $100 million in hard cash over that time frame is a bit harder for the everyday fan to digest.

After all, how expensive could it be to run a professional soccer league?

When the league started in 2001, on the heels of the success of the American women winning the World Cup in their home country, investors put in an initial $40 million. This investment paid for the creation of team logos, promotional marketing and advertising costs, the negotiation of leases throughout the country and the salaries of some of the league's employees. It was supposed to be five years worth of money, but it was fully "invested" after the first season.

They lost a hundred million dollars in three years? They went through five years' worth of money in the first season? Did all of their executives come from failed dot-coms? Holy crap, that's a poor business plan. One can only hope that whatever comes next will do a better job.

Lasso this!

The Statesman blog Lasso makes a couple of points about redistricting stuff from yesterday that I hadn't contemplated:

- Nobody is even pretending any more that redistricting is something being done by the Legislature alone. Instead, the maps are being negotiated through the mind of Rep. Tom DeLay of Houston. Again, the Statesman reports: "DeLay, who has engineered the Republican mapping efforts from Washington, D.C., met Sept. 9 in Austin with (House Speaker Tom) Craddick, Duncan and Sen. Todd Staples, R-Palestine and the Senate's chief mapmaker."

- When negotiations don't work, they are trying bribery. Both Austin and Houston reported a deal that offered U.S. Rep. Stenholm an endowed chair at Texas Tech University if he would resign his seat in Congress. "I did talk to Charlie about some sort of concept like that, but Charlie is not interested in retiring," Rep. Robert Duncan told the Chronicle. With Stenholm out of the way, there would be fewer objections to a new map that changes the boundaries of West Texas congressional districts.

According to Lasso's dictionary, a bribe is "something serving to influence or persuade." Stenholm declined the "offer," saying he wanted to stay in. There was no comment from Texas Tech on the abuse of a public university to solve an intramural Republican Party dispute.

Indeed.

A little action out west

Here's a story about some Democratic activity going on in Tom Craddick's back yard.

To develop a strategy and move ahead with honing a local political voice steeped in Democratic political ideology, Democrats have forged the West Texas Convocation. Slated for Saturday, the all-day event is billed as "04 and Beyond: A New Era of Optimism."

The event will include speeches, special events and dignitaries to address building a cohesive support system. For the past several months, local Democrats have been meeting to develop an action plan to attract more local Democratic voices.

"The whole idea is to try and get these people out to vote. There are a lot of (young) people ... who say they see no difference. One party gets in power. Another party gets in power. No one really is listening to (the young) age group," [Midland County Democratic Party chairman Gilberto] Garcia said. "We're going to see what we can do to get the 25 to 35 age group to get out and exercise their rights. That's one of the things we'll be looking at ... how to energize the party."

A luncheon at noon will feature a keynote address from Liz Carpenter, White House secretary for President Lyndon B. Johnson. Bettie Richie, of the Texas Democratic Women, will focus on "Solutions for Winning," with other sessions billed as "Getting Started" and "Building a Core of Young Democrats." A second keynote address will be delivered at 7:30 p.m. by State Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, a member of the group of 50 Democratic House members who fled the state to Oklahoma and became known as "Killer D's" to thwart a vote on a redistricting bill in May.

Glad to see it. Every little bit helps.

"I think whoever the Democratic [Presidential] nominee is will have a real chance to win," said Gloria Grier, event chairman for the convocation. "If I didn't think he did, I wouldn't be doing this. There is always hope."

If you can maintain optimism in West Texas, you can do it anywhere. Let that be a lesson to us all.

Kicking Ass

Hey, look, the DNC has a blog, called Kicking Ass. That would be way cool and worthy of a spot on my sidebar even if they didn't include me in their blogroll. Well done, ladies and gents, and thanks very much!

As Atrios notes, now is an excellent time to throw a few bucks at the DNC, not that there's ever a non-excellent time. I don't get the same reward Atrios does if you use my donate link instead of his, but I do get a commemorative Tom DeLay dartboard if I raise a thousand bucks. (For $2000, I get the autographed model.) So the choice is yours, but either way it's a winner.

Duncan v. Craddick

Two main themes in the news today: The Senate returned to its usual level of collegiality, as everyone played nice with each other and sentiment turned towards dropping the fines that were levied against the boycotting Democrats, and the dispute between House Speaker Tom Craddick and Sen. Robert Duncan went public, with Lt. Gov. Daiv Dewhurst catching a little collateral damage.

Let's lead off with the Chron, which has the best overview of the feud.

House Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, and Dewhurst blamed each other for the lack of agreement on a plan.

One of the biggest sticking points is how to draw West Texas districts. Residents in Lubbock and Abilene want to keep the districts as they are currently drawn, with representation by U.S. Reps. Randy Neugebauer, R-Lubbock, and Charles Stenholm,D-Abilene. Craddick wants a new district created for Midland.

Dewhurst said Craddick has been unwilling to negotiate on a redistricting map. He said he has offered to send several senators over to negotiate with state Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford, sponsor of the House plan.

"As of last week, the speaker didn't want that to occur until we'd reached an agreement. Be that as it may, I'm hoping we can reach a consensus here in the Senate on a map that's fair," Dewhurst said.

Craddick said Dewhurst didn't show up for a meeting last week that he had with state Sens. Todd Staples, R-Palestine, and Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, as well as U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land. The meeting was designed to work out differences over West Texas, but no agreement was reached.

Craddick also accused Duncan of reneging on a May deal to accept the House version of West Texas. Duncan said there never was a final agreement.

"We drew a plan out that we called the pancake plan that we agreed to," Craddick said. "He said things had changed and he didn't want to do that now."

Craddick said the deal was made before House Democrats staged a walkout in May that killed redistricting in the regular session. Public attention increased after that walkout, and delegations of public leaders from Lubbock and Abilene came to Austin to oppose the House redistricting plan.

Craddick said Duncan may have been under pressure from his constituents. "Maybe so. But to me, if you make a deal, you stick with it," Craddick said.

Duncan said he told Craddick in May he liked the map, but he said he then learned his constituents opposed it. Duncan said he delivered the news to Craddick before the first special session met in June.

"I'm surprised he misunderstood that as a deal," Duncan said.

Duncan said Craddick's proposed map would have pitted Neugebauer, who won in special election this year by about 500 votes, against Stenholm, whom Duncan described as a 25-year incumbent popular in West Texas.

Duncan confirmed that he talked to Stenholm last week about retiring to take an endowed chair in agriculture at Texas Tech University.

"I did talk to Charlie about some sort of concept like that, but Charlie is not interested in retiring," Duncan said.

When asked whether the dispute could kill the passage of a Republican redistricting plan, Duncan said, "It depends on the speaker."

Dewhurst spokesman David Beckwith said the lieutenant governor was never supposed to attend the meeting with DeLay. Beckwith said DeLay was supposed to act as a mediator at the meeting.

The Star Telegram also focuses on this.

House Speaker Tom Craddick of Midland accused fellow Republican Sen. Robert Duncan of Lubbock of reneging on a deal cut in mid-May that would establish a congressional district anchored in the speaker's hometown.

Craddick also accused Duncan, who heads the Senate's redistricting committee, of trying to protect a longtime Democratic congressman, Charles Stenholm of Abilene.

"Duncan has now changed his mind and doesn't want to do that plan," Craddick said. "He said things have changed. I don't know what has changed. ... I think he's concerned about Stenholm. I think he's protecting Stenholm, yes."

Duncan, who did not dispute that he has no desire to derail Stenholm's 24-year career in Congress, spent much of Tuesday meeting with constituents back home in Lubbock. But he disputed Craddick's assertion that the two had reached an agreement on how West Texas would be reapportioned.

"I regret that he thinks we had an agreement ... in blood," said Duncan, who will preside over a hearing on a Senate redistricting plan today. "The last time I checked, my job is to represent my constituents."

[...]

Craddick said he intends to remain firm in his desire for a district anchored in Midland, saying the region is dominated by the oil and gas interests while its congressional representatives tend to be more familiar with the farming industry that dominates much of the rest of West Texas.

"Midland and Odessa have been given the short end of the stick for years," Craddick said.

West Texas has been a major bone of contention throughout this year's redistricting effort. The Craddick and Duncan camps have said they intend to protect their constituents' interests, but their previous public exchanges have always been cordial.

The signs of strain showed through Tuesday.

"To me, you make a deal -- you stick by it," Craddick said.

Asked if the standoff could scuttle the high-profile task of redistricting, Craddick hedged.

"I don't know," he said. "Obviously, we have to see what the Senate passes."

Duncan said the success of the redistricting effort depends on Craddick's willingness to seek common ground. The senator said he understands the desire for a Midland-Odessa district, but not at the expense of the remainder of West Texas.

"So far, he has not been willing to negotiate," Duncan said. "I am willing to work the issue out. The speaker is not."

Rep. Phil King, the House map's author, expressed hope that the two would work it all out.

"[T]here is room to negotiate, but definitely the West Texas issue has to be resolved, and it has to be resolved first. If we can reach an accord, the rest of (the differences) between the Senate and the House will fall into place pretty quickly."

Until they do, the Democrats are enjoying the spectacle.

"How can you go nine months and spend $5 million and not have a (GOP) map?" said Rep. Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, of the state's GOP leadership.

Dewhurst spokesman David Beckwith said the Democrats should not celebrate too soon.

"There's going to be a resolution within a few days to a week," he predicted. "Nobody will get everything they want, but almost everyone will be satisfied."

My thoughts exactly, Jim. As for Dewhurst's optimism, here's why I think this problem is more intractable than he wants to admit: There is no middle ground. Either Midland gets a Congressional district separate from Lubbock, or it doesn't. Either the oil interests in Midland get what they want, or the farm interests in Lubbock get what they want. In short, either Craddick or Duncan has to admit defeat and roll over.

Duncan can least afford to do this. He knows fully well that his constituents are opposed to any redistricting effort that splits up their area. All of the state reps from his Senate district have voted against it. From Abilene:

Residents of Taylor and Nolan counties overwhelmingly oppose redistricting, said state Rep. Bob Hunter, R-Abilene. Hunter is one of the few Republicans who voted against redistricting plans passed in the regular session and previous special sessions.

"Democrats, independents and Republicans are very happy with the districts we have," Hunter said. "People in our area are against congressional redistricting of any kind."

From Lubbock:

The map passed by the Republican-controlled Texas House drastically alters Congressional District 19, which is represented by [Lubbock Republican Randy] Neugebauer.

The plan pairs Neugebauer with U.S. Rep. Charles Stenholm, D-Abilene, meaning the two would square off in an election.

Both now serve on the U.S. House Agriculture Committee, and Stenholm is the panel's ranking Democrat. Under the Texas House redistricting plan, a West Texas voice on the House Agriculture Committee would be lost.

Duncan would have to answer to his constituents if he gives in, and what's more he may face a credible Democratic opponent if he loses - Stenholm himself, who is one of three current endangered Democratic Congressmen who have been rumored to run for the Texas Senate if they lose their House seats. (Chet Edwards and Jim Turner are the others, at least according to a blurb in the Quorum Report awhile back.)

Craddick, on the other hand, has no electoral fears, and if he gives in he's not actually losing anything that he didn't already have. However, his first term as Speaker has been very rocky, and especially if he thought he had a deal in place he may not feel that he can afford to back down.

This is not to say that a deal can't or won't be reached. There's plenty of pressure that can be brought on either or both of them, and there's always other incentives that can be dangled in front of them in order to add a spoonful of sugar to the medicine. There just isn't an outcome that gives both of them what they want.

On the issue of sanctions, the Morning News has the best overview.

In a move to ease tensions in the upper chamber, a leading Republican senator on Tuesday called for canceling the monetary fines and assorted penalties that the GOP majority levied against the Democrats for breaking the Senate quorum in the last special session in August.

Each Democrat was assessed $57,000 in fines and lost parking and other privileges – although the Democrats challenged the legality of those sanctions.

"It is my belief that since we are back working together, and with there not having been a previous rule [on breaking a quorum], the important thing is to do away with them and get back to work," said Sen. Chris Harris, R-Arlington, chairman of the Senate Administration Committee.

That stance was supported earlier in the day by Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who said of the fines: "It's my personal preference that we have this matter behind us."

This is not a unanimous opinion as yet - Sen. Jeff Wentworth was quoted in the Statesman saying that while he may be willing to reduce the fines, he's "not in a no-money mood". I'm about ready to predict that the issue goes away, though. As for future sanctions, there has been some discussion but no firm decision yet.

Mr. Harris' committee on Tuesday endorsed proposed Senate rules that would allow the body to take action in future legislative sessions against senators who are absent from the chamber without good cause. The main punishment would be loss of seniority and its privileges, such as first choice of Capitol offices.

[...]

Leticia Van de Putte of San Antonio, Senate Democratic Caucus chairwoman, did not speak directly against the proposed rules during the committee meeting but voiced her belief that they will have little effect on senators who strongly believe in their position.

"There is no penalty that will deter any senator who is committed strongly about any particular issue," she said, adding that even with the rules in place, the Democrats still would have left the state over redistricting this summer.

Finally, MoveOn has started airing ads with some of the million bucks it raised.

According to spokesman Glenn Smith, MoveOn.org spent $100,000 to air a 30-second spot on cable TV systems in Dallas, Houston and Austin.

It accuses Mr. Perry of calling "frivolous special sessions" and doing the bidding of Mr. DeLay at a time when the economy is flat, jobs are scarce and property taxes too high.

Gene Acuna, a spokesman for the governor, said "congressional redistricting could've been taken care of during the regular session had Democrats not bolted in May." He was referring to the regular session, when Republican House members fled to Oklahoma to prevent a quorum and block a redistricting bill.

Only if you believe that the Senate, whose members practically lined up to publicly piss on the House map during the first special session, would have passed that very same map during the last few days of the regular session. If someone has a time machine handy and wants to test this hypothesis out, I'll be happy to take bets on the outcome.

UPDATE: Glenn Smith of MoveOn has an op-ed today about the "good ol' bully system in Texas".

Piling on the RIAA

Boy, suing 12-year-olds sure was a great move for the RIAA, if by "great move" one means "great way to draw attention to their misleading claims and outdated business model". Let's take a look at some of the varied and interesting commentary I've come across recently.

First, there's this Motley Fool article, which not only attacks the RIAA's sue-'em strategy and its reluctance to find a way to monetize file sharing, but points out what a tangled web our media conglomeration is:

Earlier this week, the picture of a 12-year-old New York honors student accused of unauthorized downloading sprees was a fixture on the America Online log-in page. It evoked an outcry of overwhelming public support for the young girl. Facing the first of many public relations nightmares in this fight, the RIAA scrambled to save face by quickly settling with the pre-teen's mother for $2,000.

It's easy to see why America Online threw gas on this incendiary topic. Challenged by stagnant subscriber growth, the Internet specialist is trying to juice revenues by upselling members into costlier high-speed connections. Why would folks pay the company roughly twice as much for its AOL for Broadband service? Clearly, downloading MP3s -- illegal ones, in most cases -- is the killer app driving DSL and cable modem growth. Sure, America Online would rather pitch legal alternatives, and it's clearly marketing the upgrade around its exclusive broadband content, but who are they trying to kid? The need for speed is almost exclusively driven by the demand for faster peer-to-peer file-sharing exchanges.

But here's the kicker: America Online, despite serving as a high-speed hub of P2P commiseration, is part of the same AOL Time Warner (NYSE: AOL) media giant that owns Warner Music, one of the five major record labels. It's a conflict of interest that became notoriously transparent when the RIAA's list of 261 violators reportedly didn't include a single AOL subscriber.

So as the names trickle in (including the likes of a repentant Yale professor and a 71-year-old man who claims he was unaware that his visiting grandchildren were loading up on song files), one has to wonder how differently this all would have played out if they had signed up with America Online -- or if Verizon (NYSE: VZ) owned a record label.

I can't even keep track of the incestuous relationships among corporate behemoths any more. Via Joanne McNeil, who also recommends this legal analysis of the RIAA's subpoenas. For more legal-beagling, there's this piece by a senior intellectual property attorney for the EFF, who claims that the RIAA's "amnesty" offer is a sham.

How do the big-label artists themselves feel about the RIAA's efforts, which are supposedly on their behalf? Well, given that many of them see precious little in the way of royalties from their labels, it's not surprising that they're pretty darned ambivalent about it.

"On one hand, the whole thing is pretty sick," said John McCrea, a singer and songwriter in the rock band Cake. "On the other hand, I think it'll probably work."

Many musicians privately wish file sharing would go away, though they are reluctant to admit it, because they do not want to seem unfriendly to their fans. So they have been happy to have the industry group play the role of bad cop. But with the escalation of the battle last week (with lawsuits filed against, among others, a 71-year-old grandfather and a 12-year-old girl), some musicians say they are beginning to wonder if the actions being taken in their name are a little extreme.This is especially true because, regardless of file sharing, they rarely see royalties.

"It would be nice if record companies would include artists on these decisions," said Deborah Harry of Blondie, adding that when a grandfather is sued because, unbeknownst to him, his grandchildren are downloading songs on his computer, "it's embarrassing."

The artist Moby, on his Web site, offered a similar opinion, suggesting that the music companies treat users of file-sharing services like fans instead of criminals. "How can a 14-year-old who has an allowance of $5 a week feel bad about downloading music produced by multimillionaire musicians and greedy record companies," he wrote. "The record companies should approach that 14-year-old and say: 'Hey, it's great that you love music. Instead of downloading music for free, why don't you try this very inexpensive service that will enable you to listen to a lot of music and also have access to unreleased tracks and ticket discounts and free merchandise?' "

Via Linkmeister. One group of artists that doesn't seem too worked up about file sharing and the actions of the big labels is artists who don't record for big labels. The big five may be claiming that downloading is killing them, but the past couple of years have been very good to the indies.

Profits are up - in some cases by 50 to 100 percent. That's in contrast to overall album sales, which dropped about 11 percent in 2002.

"We don't do too much crying over here," Cameron Strang, founder of New West Records, admits proudly. The home of artists like Delbert McClinton, the Flatlanders, and John Hiatt has doubled its business for the past three years and is projecting a $10 million income in 2003.

Paul Foley, general manager of the biggest independent label, Rounder Records of Cambridge, Mass., happily brags, "2002 was actually Rounder's best year in history. We were up 50 percent over 2001."

Via Kevin. I'll get back to this in a minute, but first I commend you to read this speculation on what a post-RIAA world might look like (via Crooked Timber), and this response, which gives some good reasons why that scenario won't work.

I've been thinking about this since I first came across all of these articles, and I've decided that it's not necessarily the high cost of a CD that keeps me from buying more of them. Oh, I'd buy more if they were cheaper, but not because I've got a CD-or-food decision to make in my monthly budget. It's because I'm reluctant to shell out $15-$20 on an unknown. As I've noted before, I hardly ever hear anything new to me on the radio. I don't have a lot of spare time to poke around various download sites. Most music I listen to these days is groups I see live in town and from recommendations from other folks. $15 is a price I'm perfectly happy to pay to a group I know I like, or whom I have a reasonable expectation of liking, especially when I know the performers themselves will get a fair cut of that money.

How should the music industry restructure itself if it wants to pry a few more of my discretionary dollars out of my hands? I'm glad you asked.

1. Give me some decent radio options so I can easily hear new music that I might like. I do most of my music-listening in the car, and I've been burning a hole in my CD collection because I just can't abide Houston's godawful radio scene any more. I'm starting to get tempted by Sirius and XM, despite my allergy to their monthly fees, just so I can get some variety.

2. Give me a service that makes recommendations based on stuff I already like, and gives me a few samples so I can make an informed decision. I'm thinking something along the lines of the Book of the Month Club, where for a reasonable monthly fee I get a regular email with information about new music that might truly interest me, along with links to a page with downloads to try out, plus of course links to buy or burn stuff that really gets my attention. I have more money than I do time, so if you give me something easy, convenient, and attuned to my tastes, I'll pay a premium in return. From a business perspective, what could be better than a subscription service? It's a win-win.

3. Give me some reasonable assurance that the money I'm spending goes to the artists and not some anonymous suits in New York, LA, or Nashville. We all know that CDs themselves are cheap. Most of us, I think, harbor a lingering and quite reasonable suspicion that most of that $15-$20 we're shelling out is going to overhead. Why should I support that?

I don't think any of that is unreasonable, nor does it depend on radically altering the current business landscape or depend on micropayments. It seems to me that if the big labels would make an effort to understand why their model is failing and make some adjustments instead of lobbying for what is essentially protectionist legislation, they could rebound and be better off than they were before. Every other successful business has had to adapt to changing times and changing realities. I don't see why the recording industry should expect a pass.

The price of progress

Sure sucks to be a resident of Spring Valley, where the I-10 expansion will destroy its tax base in addition to uprooting a bunch of homes.

Land is finally being cleared for the long-awaited freeway-widening project, and a chunk of Spring Valley's homes and almost all of its businesses are about to be razed -- reducing the city's tax base at a time when aging streets and sewers badly need to be replaced.

To offset the loss, city officials are proposing a 6 percent property tax increase for fiscal year 2003-04, raising the rate on homes to 40.7 cents per $100 assessed value from 38.4 cents.

[...]

The freeway expansion will strip the city of at least 90 percent of its commercial property, valued at $15.3 million, said [City Manager Richard] Rockenbaugh.

This includes buildings occupied by two restaurants, Ciro's Cibi Italiani and The Great Charcoal Chicken Co., and another by 24-Hour Fitness. All three are in a shopping center at Old Katy and Campbell, and their disappearance will mean the loss not only of city property tax revenue but sales tax as well.

Although the exact amount of sales tax revenue is unknown, Rockenbaugh said city officials are budgeting for $250,000, down from $484,000 two years ago.

If the businesses are forced to move in the next three months, he said, sales tax revenues for the fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1, could drop to $150,000 or less.

Spring Valley's tax rolls will dwindle further with the loss of 56 houses, mostly on Bunningham and Lariat, with a taxable value of $9.2 million.

Pretty harsh. Spring Valley has the misfortune of being on the wrong side of the tracks, an unusual situation for a wealthy enclave.

Other small cities along the Katy Freeway -- mostly on its south side -- will be largely unaffected by the expansion.

Transportation Department officials said they chose a northern expansion because the south side of the freeway is more heavily developed with both businesses and residences and because the north side included a broad swath of former railroad right of way.

Makes sense, insofar as any part of this unholy boondoggle makes sense. Still sucks to be Spring Valley, for whom this will be of little solace. If only there were a better way.

Back to business

Both chambers of the Texas Lege were back in business (however briefly) yesterday, though on the Senate side it was strictly show business. I'm not going to spend too much time on that aspect of it in this report, but you can get a flavor of it from these pictures.

On to the nuts and bolts. As I noted yesterday, there's a new map being proposed in the Senate.

As the opening-day drama played out, work went on toward drawing a new map. Sen. Todd Staples, R-Palestine, filed a plan far different than one he authored a month ago.

The new version, he said, more nearly reflects the districts that elected 19 Republicans and 12 Democrats to the Senate.

The proposal, set for a hearing Wednesday in the Senate Jurisprudence Committee, leaves Travis County largely as is, split into districts now represented by Democrat Lloyd Doggett of Austin and Republican Lamar Smith of San Antonio.

Williamson County would dominate an East Texas district that would include northern Bastrop County. The southern half of Bastrop would be in a Gulf Coast district. Hays County would remain in Smith's district.

On the House side, it's the same old, same old.

Across the rotunda, House Republicans ran over Democratic members on procedural votes as they suspended rules and railroaded a congressional redistricting bill to a full House debate today.

House Democrats complained that the Republicans are pushing for a vote on a redistricting plan that has never been the subject of a public hearing. House public hearings were held on the subject of redistricting but never on the map voted on by the chamber.

Speaker Tom Craddick said the Democrats are "grasping." He said there has been "adequate" time for input on a map that has been public for more than two months.

The House Republican majority passed the same bill in each of two previous special sessions.

Democrats currently hold a 17-15 majority in the Texas congressional delegation. But if the House measure becomes law, Republicans likely would hold a 21-11 majority after next year's elections.

I'm pretty sure Joe Crabb's former intern would disagree with Craddick's sentiment, but never mind. More on the House actions:

Rep. Robert Puente, D-San Antonio, said redistricting supporters are trying to "just ram it through, like they've been trying to do since May. There's absolutely no reason why they have to put this on the fast track. They have 30 days."

Eleven bills not related to redistricting also were approved by committees soon after the House recessed, including measures on transportation and government reorganization.

Also, the Redistricting Committee approved a resolution supported by both Republicans and Democrats to specify that previous testimony taken on redistricting will be made part of the record of this session's redistricting measure.

Opponents of redistricting already were looking ahead to a court challenge when lawmakers complete their work.

"At they end of the day, they'll have to get Department of Justice clearance, and even if they jump that hurdle, they'll have to explain themselves to a federal court," Puente said.

More on the promise of court challenges, from the Chron:

Meanwhile, League of United Latin American Citizens President Hector Flores and Texas NAACP President Gary Bledsoe announced they will sue to halt the implementation of any redistricting plan adopted by the Legislature.

"I don't think there is any question that what they will propose will violate the Voting Rights Act," Bledsoe said.

Before we get that far, the two chambers still need to agree on one particular map. More on that:

The House moved rapidly Monday, winning quick adoption by a House committee of its version of a new congressional map. The matter could be considered by the full House as early as Tuesday, but House Speaker Tom Craddick did not say when it would be taken up.

The desire by Republican House leaders to move swiftly resulted at one point in a logjam in which a key House panel scheduled its meeting to place a redistricting bill on the full House agenda before it even had a bill.

"These boys know how to rule. They just don't have a clue as how to govern," said Rep. Barry Telford, D-DeKalb.

Mr. Craddick rejected Democrats' complaints about the speed and order of the process, including the failure of the House committee to hold hearings on the map. Committee hearings were held on House versions of a remap during earlier sessions.

On the Senate side, a proposed new congressional map was set for committee hearings Wednesday.

Both the House and Senate proposed maps could give Republicans an extra four or five seats in next year's elections. But the maps are markedly different.

In particular, the House version would divide Midland from Lubbock, putting each city in different districts. The Senate would keep Midland and Lubbock in the same district.

In central Texas, the House version would split McLennan County into two districts. The Senate version keeps McLennan, Bell and Coryell counties in same district.

Both House and Senate proposals target four incumbents who are white Democrats, but they do it in different ways. Both leave the Dallas-area district of Mr. Frost largely unchanged.

Republican leaders say the disagreement between the House and Senate over the West Texas district could prove a problem because Mr. Craddick has served notice that he wants Midland to have its own district, and some Senate Republicans have said they are equally committed to keeping Midland and Lubbock on the same district.

"West Texas still needs a bit of work," said Mr. Staples.

Let's take a look at the still very murky future. We know that Sen. Robert Duncan has a problem with the House map, since it gives Midland its own district. We know Sen. Kip Averitt also has a problem with the House map, since it splits McLennan County into two districts. This is the same House map that was declared "dead on arrival" at the start of the first special session, and I'm sure it's no more likely to pass the Senate now than it was then.

The nightmare scenario for Duncan and Averitt is for the whole shebang to get sent to a joint House-Senate committee, from which a "consensus" map may emerge that screws one or both of them. If this happens, would they promise to protect each other's flank and vote against any map that screws at least one of them, even if it means the map fails to pass? Note that if Duncan and Averitt both oppose a map, we can probably count 15 No votes (those two plus the Texas Ten, Whitmire, Ratliff, and possibly Armbrister), one short of the total needed to sink a bill in the Senate. Would each one decide to abandon the other if a map that just screws the other guy is voted on? Or would they decide that there are at least 16 votes to pass no matter what and start working on an explanation to their voters why they had to go along with the party?

I think the majority of possibilities favors some map getting passed, but until I hear of a news conference at which Duncan and Craddick have announced a compromise (which is to say, at which one of them admits defeat to the other), I believe it will cause a lot of tension on the GOP side of things. Which is fine by me.

Anyway, there's a lot of coverage of the Democrats' reentry here (includes a useful timeline of events since May), here, and here, which sums up the atmosphere pretty well:

The display attracted plenty of onlookers. Republican staff members stood quietly and watched. The Democratic aides might have been there, but the Republicans voted not to let them on the floor of the Senate.

That left room for some House members to come over and see the pomp and unusual circumstances.

Rep. Gene Seaman, R-Corpus Christi, stood to the side and quietly marveled.

"I think it's great," he said, pausing before he added, "I love a circus."

Governor Goodhair, naturally, is exhibiting his usual level of self-awareness.

"My environment's just as clean as it can be," Perry said after a Houston appearance where he pushed for passage of Proposition 12 on Saturday's election ballot. "If it's poisoned, it's poisoned by someone else, not on my side."

Good thing we're in the Responsibility Era, I always say. Remember, if Perry had done his job in 2001 and called a special session then instead of punting responsibility to the federal court that he now disparages, we wouldn't be in this situation today. If it's so important for the Legislature to do redistricting, then their failure to do so two years ago rests squarely on Perry's shoulders. He abdicated his responsibility, and now he wants a do-over. Shame on him.

As for the poisoned atmosphere, the Quorum Report gives an update:

If Senate Democrats thought opposition to their ability to park their vehicles in their allotted spaces at the Capitol was easing off they can think again.

This morning, their parking spaces and those of their staff have been filled with heavy barrels with tires round them. The type of object TxDot uses to block traffic on highway construction projects, the barrels are too heavy for one person to move.

And so it goes.

The Krugman Interview

If you haven't read Kevin Drum's interview with Paul Krugman, run, don't walk, over there now. Top-notch stuff. I'm thinking it's time to start hectoring CNN and MSNBC to give Kevin his own talk show. Who's with me?

Insult to injury

It's bad enough to read that the women's professional soccer league WUSA is folding as a result of cash shortages, but this just rubs salt into it:

"This is a sad day for women's soccer and women's sports," U.S. international midfielder Judy Foudy said.

I'm pretty sure that actual U.S. international midfielder Julie Foudy is bummed by this as well. Someone ought to ask her.

(And to think this happened so soon after we finally got around to seeing Bend It Like Beckham...)

Senate meets and adjourns

Byron has most of the coverage worth reading. Basically, the Senate convened, a quorum was announced, and a motion to adjourn was recognized and approved, all before the Texas Ten entered. The gallery, which was packed with Texas Ten supporters, booed this action, then went nuts when the holdouts entered a few minutes later.

The Quorum Report has a number of highlights, including a report of a "peace offering" map that is not as aggressive as prior maps. The Statesman has some info:

The special session opened Monday with a new map filed by Sen. Todd Staples, R-Palestine. The map is much different than the one he authored a month ago.

He said the proposed congressional map more nearly reflects the districts that elected 19 Republicans and 12 Democrats to the Texas Senate. Some maps in the past would increase the Republican membership in Congress to 21.

[...]

Staples' latest map, which will be heard by the Senate Jurisprudence Committee on Wednesday, leaves Travis County largely as it is.

Williamson County would dominate an East Texas district that would include northern Bastrop County. The southern half of Bastrop would be in a Gulf Coast district. Western Travis and Hays County would remain in District 21, now represented by U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio.

Staples defended the map as leaving minority districts virtually alone.

Without having seen the map, I'll say this: There was no justification for carving up Travis County other than pure naked partisan greed. Not doing that, whatever else the merits or demerits of this map may be, is at least a recognition of that reality, and for that I'll tip my hat to Sen. Staples. Doesn't mean I'd support this map, mind you, but at least now we're both probably on the same planet.

The fines are still in place, and some other privileges such as parking are still revoked. According to the Quorum Report, the Senate leadership is considering its disciplinary options:

Senate Administration Committee Chairman Chris Harris (R-Arlington) has asked his staff to research what other state legislatures do to enforce a quorum.

Harris recessed his committee pending this information following a request from Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst.

In a letter to Harris, Dewhurst asked the administration committee to make recommendations early this week to the full Senate regarding any necessary changes to the Senate Rules on establishing and maintaining a quorum.

QR also speculates on what will come next:

It has long been our premise that there are 6-8 Republican senators prepared to pour gasoline on the current battle with their Democratic colleagues. Similarly, the Senate Democratic Caucus has 3-4 with armed grenades ready for today (symbolically speaking).

That leaves nineteen senators for whom the last month was passionate but not determinative -- an episode that should be gotten past so the Senate can return to normal.

The two parties will caucus separately this morning before the session begins to figure out their opening tactics..

This is a moment for the Lt. Governor to assert himself and enable the center. He has the most to lose if the Senate devolves into open warfare.

Passions are high, but it is time to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

We shall see. Remaining coverage is here in the Chron, Statesman and Statesman again, Morning News (AP wire story), Express News, and Star Telegram.

Finally, QR has an amusing cartoon that sums it all up pretty well.

Roy Moore in Houston

Ugh.

Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, whose efforts to install a monument to the Ten Commandments in the rotunda of his state's Judicial Building were thwarted by federal courts, spent a busy Sunday in Houston promoting his cause.

The same courts that ruled against him open their daily sessions with the call, "God save the United States and this honorable court," and swear witnesses in with the phrase "so help me God," Moore told congregants at the 11 a.m. service of Grace Community Church in Clear Lake City.

"But you can't say who God is," he added with irony.

Moore spoke to some 4,500 people in three morning services at the non-denominational church, then addressed what was billed as a 7 p.m. citywide rally in Houston's First Baptist Church.

He received vigorous applause several times at Grace, and a standing ovation when he finished. Then pastor Steve Riggle asked the audience for donations to pay legal fees for an appeal, which Moore said the U.S. Supreme Court could hear in October.

"Make an investment in the future of this nation," Riggle said. "Every single penny you give will go to the legal fund ... Some of you can give thousands," he said.

Afterward, Moore said his visit was educational and not intended as a fund-raiser.

"You can't stop people who want to help," he said.

Any money raised, Moore said, would go to the Foundation for Moral Law in Birmingham, Ala., not to him personally.

I do hope someone keeps a close eye on his books, just to make sure that Holy Roy keeps that promise. It's a sin to tell a lie, after all.

And lest I get too smug about Holy Roy and his crusade:

AUSTIN -- Texans might know more about Alabama's Ten Commandments flap at the Southern state's capitol than a similar, but quieter, dispute brewing right here at home.

A Texas-based challenge to a nearly 7-foot-high red granite depiction of God's law on Capitol grounds could become the Ten Commandments case eventually decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Some in the legal community are speculating it could become a test case, clarifying similar lawsuits challenging government displays of the Ten Commandments across the nation, where federal courts have handed down mixed opinions.

Shoot me now...

A curious underestimation

Several people have noted this Salon interview with Tucker Carlson, mostly for his unflattering words about Karen Hughes. Reading through the interview for myself this morning, I was struck by a comment that I haven't seen anyone else mention so far:

Q. But that's not true of a lot of these guys. A lot of the Fox stars, for example, come from right-wing radio, where a blowhard, black-and-white approach that strictly follows a partisan line works really well.

A. Well, what I think the problem is in general and, not just with Fox, but the genre, is that it encourages you to use a straw man. So for example you see hosts bring on, "This is Jeffrey Mohammed X, and he's the president of the Association to Kill White Motherfuckers," and he'll be presented as a spokesman for black America. And then the host will say, "Well, how can you support lynching white people? That's just wrong!"

Well, of course, it's wrong! This guy doesn't represent anybody! The classic flipside, which I've seen much more, is that you get some 62-year-old, semi-retarded cracker whose like the lone member of his chapter of the KKK, and he represents white supremacists. How many white supremacists are there in America? There are about nine, and they're all mentally retarded.

I'm pretty sure the Southern Poverty Law Center, which lists 708 active hate groups in America in 2002, would be surprised to hear that. I understand Carlson's basic point, and he does have a point (though of course I'd argue that not having actual mainstream liberals on the air to represent liberal viewpoints is a much more widespread problem), but that doesn't mean he should downplay a very real problem. To paraphrase a well-known Senator from the South, if what Carlson said about white supremacists were true, then we wouldn't have all these problems.

Peter Ueberroth

It's just as well for Kevin that Peter Ueberroth has dropped out of the California recall election. Gary Huckabay at the Baseball Prospectus wrote on Friday in a behind-the-paid-firewall article that Ueberroth gets an awful lot of credit for doing a basically lousy job as baseball's commissioner.

In particular, Ueberroth advised owners to ignore the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) of 1985 in dealing with free agents in order to help keep salaries down. The end result was that almost no free agents after the 1985 season changed teams, and most of them wound up with one-year deals. A few years later, an arbitrator awarded the players $280 million in compensatory damages for grievances stemming from the owners' collusion, which in turn was an action they took on Ueberroth's advice.

(I'd totally forgotten about this incident, and am kicking myself for not writing about it before now.)

Even better, Ueberroth has never accepted any responsibility for this debacle.

Ueberroth has never accepted responsibility for the worst stain on his career, charges that the baseball owners colluded to restrict the bargaining power of free agents in the 1980s when he was commissioner of baseball.

Though arbitrators ordered the owners to pay the players more than $280 million, Ueberroth has said the owners' actions were reasonable to stop a flood of red ink.

"I don't think there was any actual collusion," he told The Times in 1988. "I think there was cultural change, an embarrassment It was like a sore each one had that they didn't want to expose. But once it was exposed they said this is not a sore, this is a disease. But I think that it will all smooth over."

With a track record like that, he almost makes the tax dodging illegal immigrant Schwarzeneggar look good.

Perry's Mulligan

Although I expect Texans will be disappointed with the inability to accomplish this task, I believe Texans would be even more disappointed if we expend considerable sums of taxpayer money to call a special session that has no promise of yielding a redistricting plan for Congress.

That's what Governor Rick Perry said to Bill Ratliff and Pete Laney, then the Lt. Governor and House Speaker, on July 3, 2001. In doing so, Perry, who now insists that the only proper way to do redistricting is via the Legislature, chose to let the courts draw the lines instead.

Two years and two wasted special sessions later, Perry will finally get the mulligan he has craved since April. Special Session #3 begins at noon, and barring intervention from aliens or another flipflop from John Whitmire, it will have a quorum and not have a blocker bill in the Senate, meaning that like a playoff contender in the stretch run, the outcome is in the Republicans' own hands.

So what now for the Democrats? Greg Wythe makes a strong case for giving the Republicans exactly what they want, on the grounds that it will make the ensuing court challenge that much tighter. It's pretty persuasive.

What about the sanctions? The GOP continues to play good cop/bad cop, with Sen. Todd Staples playing the good cop this time around. I'll say again, the smartest thing the Republicans can do is to find a way to drop this issue (they can call Beldar if they want some suggestions as to how).

Have I mentioned, by the way, that the Republicans still apparently don't have an agreement on a map? The Quorum Report a couple of days ago alluded to a couple of maps that could get the 16 votes needed to pass the Senate, but there's been no update on that since then, and every article I've read still refers to the Craddick/Duncan feud. Time to put up or shut up, fellas.

Four hours till the curtain goes up on the Lege for (one can only hope) the last time this year. Let's get ready to rumble.

Blog policies

The following is an enumeration of the philosophy and policies of this weblog. A link to it will be placed on the sidebar for easy reference in the future. I've avoided having one of these for a long time, but events last week have convinced me that I cannot avoid it any longer.

Disclaimer

All of the content on this blog is sole opinion of its author, which is to say me for all of the posts (unless otherwise specified) and individual commenters for any feedback. I do not speak for anyone but myself, and I am not paid by or for anyone in any way on this blog. Linking to this blog or to a specific post on this blog does not imply agreement with or approval of anything said here, and the same is true for any links from here.

Purpose

This weblog is about things that interest me. When I first started it on January 1, 2002, it was to keep a promise to myself that I would write on a regular basis. I had no idea that I was going to write so damn much about politics - I originally intended this blog to be more sports-oriented - but life is like that sometimes. The other main purpose of this blog is to have a convenient and relatively coherent archive of my writings and of news stories that I have followed. So far, I'm pretty happy with how both of these have worked out.

This blog is a personal statement, and I put a lot of time and energy into it. As much as I value my readers, I have always written for myself first, and almost always been surprised to discover that other people have enjoyed what I've written. Because it is a personal statement, I will always be the sole author. There are many fine multi-person blogs out there (I contribute to one of them), but this blog is my solo voice.

Comments

Comments are encouraged and welcomed. I'm a believer in feedback, and I believe blogs that don't have comments are missing out.

That said, this is my house. I'm paying for the domain name and the server space. This is not Usenet - I expect everyone to behave in a civil manner. Feedback and debate are only valuable if they are transmitted in a constructive fashion that attempts to engage rather than attack. I have been involved in too many mailing lists and too many comment threads on other blogs that have degenerated into continual flamewars. I will not allow that to happen here.

Therefore, I reserve the right to edit or delete comments if I believe that they are harmful to my readers, my content, or myself. I reserve the right to ban commenters who exhibit this behavior. I don't like to do this, and I don't want to be made to do this, but I will do what I must. I am not censoring you if I do this. Your right to speech does not include someone else's responsibility to provide the forum. Blogger and Blogspot are still free.

Comment spams, advertisements, and abusive behavior are all grounds for deleting and banning. I don't have a hard and fast rule for the latter, but the "my house" analogy is apt: If you behave in a manner that would cause me to ask you to leave my house, you can be sure I'll ask you to leave here as well.

UPDATE: As of November 13, 2003, I have installed and enabled Jay Allen's MT Blacklist. If for some reason you encounter any problems posting a comment now, please please please send me a note ASAP to kuff - at - offthekuff dot com and I will investigate it. Please if possible send me the text of the comment you tried to enter and the message you saw when you hit Submit.

UPDATE: As of January 2, 2004, I have configured the Blacklist to reject all comments that contain a .biz domain name. If this causes you a problem, drop me a note. Thanks.

I try to read all my comments, but I don't respond to all of them. Movable Type lets me see the last five comments left, but it doesn't identify the post they're on. If you're leaving a comment on an old post, I may not see it. Especially if you have a question related to that old post, you're much more likely to get a response via email than a comment.

Email

I reserve the right to publish information sent to me in email. I will credit the sender in the event that I do publish it. If what you're sending me is off the record, please say so. I welcome tips and links from readers, but I cannot use all of them and may not use yours.

Editing and corrections

I will note a substantive change to any post that's made more than a short while after the post was first put up. Grammar, spelling, bad HTML and the like do not count as substantive. I sometimes hit the Publish button before I mean to, and I sometimes realize that I left out a key point afterwards, and I will note that if there's a reasonable expectation that people have already read what was originally published. I will always give credit to a reader who points out a factual error, whether in comments or via email.

Links and blogrolling

As noted above, I welcome links to stories and posts from readers, though whether or not I use them is a judgment call. I'm much more likely to link to an amazing blog post that someone has sent me if 1) it really is something that interests me, 2) has something to add to a post I've previously written, and/or 3) doesn't look like the link was spammed to every blogger in the known universe.

I'm still evolving a policy for my blogroll. I used to always give reciprocal links, but that's just not practical anymore. My blogroll is primarily there for my convenience. Even with a tool like BlogRolling, editing it is a pain and I'm pretty lazy about it. Rest assured that if I'm reading your blog, sooner or later I'll be blogrolling it.

I have added blogs to my blogroll in the past after receiving email from the author proposing a link exchange. I'm much more likely to look upon this sort of thing favorably if I get the sense that the person asking for a link is someone who already reads (and links to) this blog, and again if I don't get the sense that the asker has sent this request to every blogger out there. As with everything else here, it's pretty much a judgment call.

Advertising

Like many other bloggers, I was contacted by the folks at BlogAds with the opportunity to run ads on my site. I declined at the time, mostly because I didn't want to lose my amateur status. Recent events involving Daily Kos and various Democratic campaigns have convinced me that this was the right decision for me. As noted above, I speak solely for myself. I don't want to worry about how my words might affect someone who is supporting me financially. I may change my mind at some point in the future, but for now trhis blog will remain ad-free.

Candidates and fundraising

I can and will endorse candidates for office, link to their Donations pages, and urge readers to support them in whatever way they can. At the risk of beating a dead horse, doing so does not imply any official relationship on my part to their campaigns. I'm just a guy with an opinion and a domain, OK? If at some point I do enter into any kind of formal relationship with a campaign, I will disclose it and update my policies accordingly.

Anything else?

I think that pretty much covers it. If something new comes up, or I realize I've grossly overlooked something, I'll edit this post.

Election returns

Our overburdened state constitution is now 22 amendments longer, which sadly means that the evil Prop 12 also passed, though by a narrower margin and in heavier voting than what was originally expected. I look forward to better access to health care for all Texans and lower insurance rates in the near future. That is what this amendment was about, right?

Proof that Alabama isn't the only state where voters can be convinced to vote against their own economic self-interest:

The measure lost in Harris and Dallas counties, but won in South Texas, where doctors last year closed their offices for a day to protest high insurance rates.

We all know how interested Governor Perry is in the plight of South Texas residents. I'm sure he'll do everything in his power to help them out now.

UPDATE: Byron has an excellent analysis of the Prop 12 vote.

Ruling roundup

Feeling a bit lazy on this beautiful Saturday, so I'll point to the news coverage and leave the rest to you. Key points: Dems will probably appeal, no word on whether the GOP will try to enforce sanctions, and of course Session 3 begins Monday. Without further ado, here's the word from the Chron, Statesman, Morning News, Express News, and Star Telegram.

Vote!

If you don't know about today's Special Because We Make It Special Election, it's not my fault. Polls are open from 7 AM to 7 PM, and the evil tort reform amendment Prop 12 is the big issue. You know what to do, so go forth and do it.

UPDATE: I've already gotten two phone calls reminding me to vote against Prop 12, one a recording from Sen. Mario Gallegos, the other a live person with Save Texas Courts. Save your dime, folks - I've already voted!

UPDATE: With 4764 of 6701 precincts counted, passage of Prop 12 is leading 562,790 to 531,285, or 51.44% to 48.56%. The early vote was nearly 57-43 in favor of Prop 12; the tally today has shaved nearly 25,000 votes off the lead. There's still hope! You can follow the result here.

Grand jury examining Yates trial testimony

A Houston grand jury is looking into some erroneous statements made by Dr. Park Dietz, an expert witness for the prosecution during his testimony in the trial of Andrea Yates.

Nationally renowned for his work on cases such as those of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer and Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski, Dietz was a key prosecution witness in Yates' trial. He was paid $50,000 for his services.

Shortly before the end of testimony, defense attorney George Parhnam asked Dietz, who is a consultant for the television drama Law and Order, about his work on the show.

Dietz told jurors that an episode about a mother who drowned her children and was acquitted with an insanity defense had aired before Yates killed her five children in the same manner.

In his closing arguments, prosecutor [Joe] Owmby implied that Yates had been influenced by the episode Dietz described, saying Yates saw the show as a way out of her trapped marriage.

The jury rejected Yates' insanity defense and found her guilty of capital murder. It was not until two days after that verdict that the defense learned that no such episode existed.

Defense attorneys and prosecutors, who said they learned of the mistake from Dietz after closing arguments, wrote a statement about the error that was read to jurors before they decided on Yates' punishment -- life in prison.

Since then, defense attorneys, on the Yates case and others, have questioned the nature and impact of Dietz's inaccurate testimony, which he and prosecutors have labeled as an honest mistake.

I'm willing to accept that this was an honest mistake by Dr. Dietz, and I'm willing to accept that he and the prosecutors did everything they could to notify the court once it came to light. I'm not willing to cut them any slack about it, and frankly I think it should be grounds to void her conviction. In Texas, to be acquitted on grounds of insanity, one must prove that at the time the crime was committed, the defendant did not know that what he or she was doing was wrong. It's a very tough standard to meet, and it's rarely successful. The prosecution used Dietz's false memory to help knock down the insanity defense, and I for one am willing to bet that this story did a damned good job of it. I hope the appeals court takes a very dim view of it.

That said, I have no clue, and the story gives no clear indication, why a grand jury is looking into this. I suppose a perjury charge against Dietz is one possibility, but beyond that I can't say. Any lawyers wanna speculate for me?

Federal panel rejects Dem lawsuit

No surprise, really.

A three-judge federal panel in West Texas today dismissed a lawsuit filed by senate Democrats hoping to derail a new round of redistricting in Texas.

The Democrats argued that Senate rule changes by Republicans to further the redistricting effort violated federal law.

The judges, who listened to two hours of oral arguments Thursday in Laredo, dismissed those claims but withheld a decision on an amended complaint of threats to arrest Democrats and require them to pay fees for their failure to appear at a special legislative session on redistricting.

"The arrest issue likely will become moot," the judges wrote in their opinion. Democrats "fear of being coerced to appear at a legislative session is shifting to a fear of being prevented from appearing. For reasons discussed at the hearing, neither the facts nor the law on the issue of threatened monetary sanctions are sufficiently developed at this point to permit an informed decision. Moreover, it is possible that future developments could also moot this issue."

[...]

During the court hearing Thursday, judges closely questioned the Democrats' attorney, Paul Smith, who argued that dropping a Senate rule requiring two-thirds of the 31 members to agree to debate a bill violated the federal Voting Rights Act, enacted to protect minority voters.

"This is a very significant piece of how the Legislature operates," Smith said of the long-standing rule, which was eliminated by Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst after it was used to stymie redistricting during the first special session.

The judges seemed wary of Smith's arguments in light of a ruling last month by the Justice Department that the Voting Rights Act provision on getting prior approval of changes that may impact minority voters does not apply in this case.

The panel also seemed comfortable with an argument by state Solicitor General Ted Cruz, representing Republican officials, that the Democrats were in court too soon because no redistricting has taken place.

"There has been no clear action. Nothing has been done yet," Cruz said. "At this point the Legislature is arguing back and forth about what it might do."

Full report later when the papers have non-AP wire stories. Note that the issue of sanctions and arrest warrants is still in play, though it could be rendered moot by the Senate if they choose to drop the issue.

Turnout may not suck for Saturday

Early voting for the Special Double-Secret Amendment-Only Election tomorrow was higher than for the boring old regular election of 2001, leading Secretary of State Geoffrey Connor to predict turnout of about nine percent.

Voter turnout in the past six constitutional amendment elections has ranged from 6.9 percent (in 2001, the last such election) to 12.6 percent of registered voters.

Connor made his prediction based on early voting on the 22 proposed amendments in the state's most populous 15 counties, compared with the vote for the last constitutional amendment election in 2001.

"It is wonderful to see that more Texans voted early this election cycle than in 2001," Connor said. "Traditionally, this indicates we will see a higher turnout on Election Day as well."

In the top 15 counties, 3.7 percent of registered voters cast ballots through the close of early voting Tuesday, Conner said. In 2001, 1.6 percent of registered voters cast early ballots.

Connor said early voting is up in all of the top 15 counties except Harris. He attributed that to a Houston mayoral race that also was on the ballot in 2001 and drove up turnout.

This year's constitutional amendment election was scheduled for a different date than the Nov. 4 Houston mayoral election.

Remember, it was scheduled for tomorrow specifically so that all us Houston voters couldn't have an undue effect on Prop 12. Vote No on Prop 12!

Nine percent turnout, by the way, while large (about a million) in absolute numbers, is still only about five percent of the state's population. In effect, you're voting for 20 people on Saturday. Use that power wisely.

Weird Al on NPR

This happened a few weeks ago, but I'm just now getting around to finding the URL and listening for myself - Weird Al Yankovic was on Morning Edition for a nice long interview. Check it out here.

Panel hears arguments, may rule today

The three-judge panel heard arguments from both sides yesterday in the Democrats' federal lawsuit which alleges that scrapping the traditional two-thirds rule in the redistricting battle harms minority representation.

Judges Patrick Higginbotham of Dallas, Lee Rosenthal of Houston and George Kazen of Laredo, through their questioning, expressed skepticism about the Democrats' case.

The Democrats' lawyers argued that changing the legislative rule so only 16 senators, instead of 21, could consider a redistricting bill could hurt minority voters.

Kazen suggested that it might be easier to gauge the effect on minority voters once a map is approved: "It's the bill itself that affects voters, not how it comes out of the process."

Lawyer Paul Smith, who represents the Democrats, said the Justice Department routinely reviews any changes in electoral practices. The state noted that justice officials, in a letter last month, said they didn't have to review Dewhurst's plans to drop the two-thirds rule. Smith dismissed the letter as a break from departmental policy and subject to the judges' review.

After almost two hours of arguments, Solicitor General Ted Cruz, representing the state, said he thought the case was close to being resolved.

"We believe this should be decided on the Senate floor, not in the federal courts," he said. "I think we're a step closer today."

Austin lawyer Renea Hicks, a member of the legal team representing the Democrats, acknowledged that the judges directed most of their questions to the Democrats.

"I'm deeply disturbed that they're skeptical because I think it's a dead-on case," Hicks said. "Maybe it's just 'hope springs eternal,' but I'm so convinced that we are right that I can't imagine when they reflect on it they won't see it our way."

That's from the Statesman. Other coverage is similar, with both sides expressing various degrees of optimism and certainty about their positions, from the Morning News, Chron, Express News, and Star Telegram.

One issue that was raised in the hearing was the fines and sanctions levied by the GOP against the boycotting Democrats. The Star Telegram has the most complete coverage of that:

The Democrats were encouraged when U.S. District Judge George Kazen, a Laredo Democrat, said he is troubled by the Republicans' decision to ban the senators if they didn't pay the fines. Such a situation, he said, "would be an abomination" and "a severe crisis."

"They say, 'You [the Democrats] are disbarred from the Legislature until you pay a lot of money' and it's ad-hoc voted without a quorum. … Nobody could review that?" Kazen said.

Ted Cruz, solicitor general for the state, answered that the fines were part of the senators' constitutional right to compel their colleagues to return to the floor and make a quorum.

But they won't be banned from the floor during the next special session, Dave Beckwith, a spokesman for Dewhurst, said Thursday.

They will still be penalized with the sanctions, which include loss of parking spots and mailing privileges, unless action is taken to set aside the fines or the senators pay up, he said.

Kazen, who will rule separately on the legality of the fines, said that if senators reward [Sen. John] Whitmire for his voluntary return by forgiving his fines, "that would certainly be an equal-protection issue."

The third judge, U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal of Houston, nodded in agreement, but made no comments about her opinion on the matter.

Beldar has some useful suggestions, which I endorse in principle, about how the issue of sanctions should play out. (Can't help you on your suggested fee, Beldar, but best of luck collecting on it.)

Whether this is an indication of how the Senate will treat its returning members or not I couldn't say, but Rep. Garnet Coleman, one of the leaders of the House Democrats' walkout during the regular session, is alleging that Speaker Tom Craddick is out to get him by trying to have him removed from the National Conference of State Legislatures' executive committee.

Coleman said Craddick took the action because the Houston lawmaker opposes Republican congressional redistricting plans that Craddick supports.

He made his allegation in letters to Craddick and Utah Speaker Martin Stephens, who is president of the conference's executive committee.

Coleman said he had learned that Craddick recently told the group's executive director, Bill Pound, that there "could be financial consequences" for the conference if Coleman is not removed from the executive committee.

"I am extremely disappointed but not surprised that you would attempt to insert partisanship into the operations of a national organization that was founded on the spirit of bipartisanship," Coleman wrote to Craddick.

Gene Rose, public information officer for the conference, said Pound confirmed that Craddick had asked him about removing Coleman from the executive committee. But he said the issue of dues or services was not raised in the conversation.

"The indication I got was it was because Rep. Coleman is a Democrat and a majority of the Legislature is Republican now," Rose said. "They (Craddick) felt someone from the majority party should be on the executive committee."

Rose said Coleman was elected to his final one-year term on the executive committee in July and would leave the committee in July 2004. Rose said each committee member can serve a maximum of three consecutive one-year terms.

I think that's petty and sleazy, regardless of what Craddick's actual motivations were. You can read Coleman's letter to Craddick here (PDF file).

Finally, the Houston Press weighs in on Sen. Whitmire. One item of interest:

The legislator says he spent much of the weekend chatting with community leaders and neighbors, and "realized that the district is generally opposed to redistricting but generally believed we ought to be fighting it on the senate floor."

This is very frustrating to read. The whole reason for the walkout was because in the absence of a blocker bill, the Democrats had no means to fight redistricting in the Legislature. Its passage hinges only on Republicans working out their differences. I understand Whitmire's desire to do as his constituents asked, but would it have killed him to explain that to some of them?

RIP, Johnny Cash

The great Johnny Cash died early this morning at the age of 71. Music in general, and country music in particular, is the lesser for it.

In March 1998, Cash made headlines when his California-based record company, American Recordings, took out an advertisement in the music trade magazine Billboard. The full-page ad celebrated Cash's 1998 Grammy award for best country album for Unchained. The ad showed an enraged-looking Cash in his younger years making an obscene gesture to sarcastically illustrate his thanks to country radio stations and "the country music establishment in Nashville," which he felt had unfairly cast him aside.

I know at least one person who'd agree with that sentiment.

UPDATE: Norbizness has a simple but moving tribute to The Man In Black. Via Rhetoric & Rhythm, who offers his own personal remembrance.

More Prop 12 stuff

The debate over the evil tort reform measure Proposition 12 is still heating up, as seen in this article which covers a debate between State Rep. Joe Nixon, the sponsor of the bill that led to Prop 12, and former Texas Supreme Court Justice Deborah Hankinson, the treasurer of the anti-Prop 12 group Save Texas Courts. Apparently, Nixon is none too happy about being featured in STC's latest mailout.

The pair's rivalry has been exacerbated by a recent mail-out by Hankinson's Save Texas Courts that claims Nixon "got the gold mine" for authoring the bill while "you got the shaft."

The advertisement refers to the more than $300,000 paid to Nixon by Farmers Insurance Group for a mold claim. One former company employee has indicated Nixon got the award because he is a state legislator. Nixon has denied the allegation.

Read this article if you haven't already for some background on Joe "Moldman" Nixon. I love this bit of political theater:

Outside the law center, Proposition 12 protesters held signs attacking Nixon. One man wearing a rubber mask of former President Nixon, no relation, held a sign that read, "Do you trust a Nixon to rewrite the Texas Constitution?"

Meanwhile, in another demonstration of why current campaign finance laws are useless, we have a bunch of telcos who are waiting on a ruling from the Public Utility Commissions lining up to give money to pro-Prop 12 forces.

Three telecommications giants embroiled in a high-stakes battle at the Public Utility Commission over the future of phone service in Texas have another thing in common.

They have chipped in amply to the campaign for a constitutional amendment that Gov. Rick Perry is working hard to pass. Perry also appoints the members of the PUC, whose duties include some phone service regulation.

Perry has been on a statewide tour drumming up support for Proposition 12, a proposed amendment allowing caps on noneconomic damages in medical malpractice lawsuits. Voters will consider the measure in an election Saturday.

Time Warner Cable, SBC Communications Inc. and AT&T Corp. have contributed more than $360,000 to Yes on 12, the political action committee mounting a high-dollar campaign favoring the amendment.

State law says that corporations cannot give to individual candidates, but they can give all they want to "special purpose" campaigns like this one. Naturally, they deny that the gobs of money they've given in support of a referendum that does not directly affect them and for which the Governor has personally advertised has anything whatsoever to do with the case they have pending before a commission whose members the Governor appoints. No quid pro quo implied or expected here, nosirreebob!

Finally, this Chron editorial mentions an article in Business Week (registration required) by Gary S. Becker which advocates a more measured approach to punitive damages. Becker suggests that rather than hard caps, punitive damages should be proportional to economic damages, as is the case in antitrust lawsuits.

[T]o deter harmful behavior, punitive damages should not be capped. They should rise with the size of compensatory damages. It makes little sense to impose similar punitive damages for behavior that causes harm of $50,000 and $20 million.

Strict limits on the ratio of punitive to compensatory damages would elevate the importance of accurate measurement of compensatory harm. For example, loss of life in automobile accidents caused by drunk drivers, or wrong statements by producers of drugs that cause severe harm or death to inappropriate users, damage victims and their heirs in ways that go far beyond the loss of future earnings. Although economists have developed techniques to gauge the monetary value to individuals of the loss of future activities due to wrongful deaths, juries have been reluctant to rely on them.

Becker, in case you've never heard of him, is a Nobel Prize-winning economist from the University of Chicago and is also a fellow at the conservative Hoover Institute. I think he may know a bit more about this than Joe Nixon, don't you?

Saturday is Special Referendum Election Day. Vote No on Prop 12! Here are Byron's endorsements on other measures. Doug at Rightward Reasonings has his choices outlined as well if you want a different perspective.

UPDATE: According to the Quorum Report, a "bipartisan group of House Committee Chairmen" sent a letter to Deborah Hankinson asking her to pull down the ads that attack Joe Nixon. You can read the letter here (PDF file).

Libertarians for Dean

Previously, I mentioned that while there is a Libertarians for Dean Yahoo! group, there was not a webpage for them, an omission that I found rather curious. Last night Logan Ferree left a comment saying that there is in fact a Libertarians for Dean weblog, and a quick check shows me that it's on the Dean blog sidebar. I apologize for the oversight. In my defense, I note that the LfD blog did not yet exist at the time I wrote my original post. A flimsy excuse, I know, but the best I can do on short notice. Anyway, check it out.

The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003

Morat and Different Strings are trying to drum up support for Rep. Rush Holt's HR 2239, known as the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003, which would:

1. require all voting systems to produce a voter-verified paper record for use in manual audits and recounts
2. ban the use of undisclosed software and wireless communications devices in voting systems
3. require all voting systems to meet these requirements in time for the general election in November 2004
4. requires that electronic voting systems be provided for persons with disabilities by January 1, 2006
5. require mandatory surprise recounts in 0.5% of domestic jurisdictions and 0.5% of overseas jurisdictions

I support all that, and I join in with Morat and Thorswitch in urging people to write to their Congresspeople and Senators in support of this bill. In fact, I think this would make for an excellent project for Flood The Zone Friday and will suggest the same to the Not Geniuses boys . (Note that I mean a project of writing to one's reps, and not just to the local fishwrap.) Take a moment and check it out.

On comments and banning

I've gone over a year and a half on this blog without any kind of policy statements, but after the recent dustup I suppose I can't avoid it any longer. I'm checking out other blog policy pages for inspiration, starting with Ginger's and Kevin's, and will try to have my own such page up in the near future.

In the meantime, there's my ban of Owen Courreges from comments, which was sparked by some highly offensive (to me, anyway) words in the thread I linked to above. A number of people whose opinions I respect - William Hughes, Byron, Mike, Kevin, ElGato - have left comments in that thread saying that I have done the wrong thing. That concerns me, and I've been considering what to do about it.

It's difficult for me to discuss this topic in any depth without saying unkind things about Owen. (I'm not surprised to learn that he has no qualms about doing the same to me, however.) Suffice it to say that my opinion of the value of his comments is not as high as some other people's.

This is my blog, and I will do what I think is necessary to maintain its integrity, including removing comments and commenters whose actions are harmful to my readers, my blog, and myself. I do not, however, want the cure to be worse than the poison, and I refuse to let someone like Owen goad me into doing something that will cause others to think less of me. As such, I'm removing the ban on Owen and on another poster whom I blocked a few weeks ago for similar behavior. I will not hesitate to reinstate their banishment if I feel they cannot act in a civil manner.

I apologize to you, my readers, for taking up so much time on this subject. I hope this will be the last time I have to address it.

Texas Ten return

I'm a little pressed for time this morning, so I'll pass you on to Byron for the news accounts of the Demoratic Senators' return. Instead, I'll discuss a couple of other points, as sort of a preview for next week.

There are two items of interest on the Quorum Report that are sadly behind their paid firewall. One says that the Senate now has two maps which can get 16 GOP votes to pass, the other discusses how sanctions may be applied to the returning Democrats. On the first, it says that the Duncan/Craddick West Texas dispute has not been worked out. From that, I infer that the two Senate maps referred to are ones that would keep Lubbock, Abilene, and Midland together as Sen. Robert Duncan wants. If so, the House will presumably still pass its own map, which gives Midland a separate district, and the fight will eventually be moved into a joint House/Senate committee. We'll find out soon enough.

On item two, my best guess is that the GOP will try to impose some sanctions, and the Democrats will tell them to go pound sand. Tactically, I'd guess the Democrats are hoping that the Republicans insist on fining them and restricting their access to supplies, conference rooms, parking lots, etc. It fits in well with their renegade-victim-of-oppression story line, and will serve as a continuing rallying point for them both in Texas and nationally. As such, the smartest thing the GOP can do is to be magnanimous and drop all of the punishments in the name of restoring harmony. The fate of redistricting is entirely in the GOP's control now, so it hardly costs them anything to let bygones be bygones, and it would take a lot of wind out of the Democrats' sails if they did so. I don't think anyone will be surprised to hear me say that I seriously doubt that Rick Perry is smart enough to advocate this. But hey, I could be wrong. Again, we'll know soon enough.

The Austin Chronicle explores this a bit:

Like nearly everything associated with the Lege this year, the latest reversal has its comic aspects. For example, just what will the Republican senators do about the fines and other sanctions they imposed on the Democrats for playing hooky during the second-called session? In theory, [Sen. John] Whitmire delivers a quorum -- but will they try to make him pay $57,000 for the privilege of doing their dirty work? And should they decide not to fine Whitmire, how will they justify maintaining the fines against the others? On Friday, Whitmire dismissed the question out of hand, saying, "I've always considered [the fines] just play money, and I don't expect anybody will ever have to pay them." Having been banned from the pressroom, Whitmire spoke on the Senate floor, prompting reporters to tease Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Carleton Turner about the curious inconsistencies of the Senate "sanctions." Turner sighed, "I don't make the rules, I just do as I'm told."

The AusChron also comes down against John Whitmire, and expands on the experience El Paso Times reporter Gary Scharrer had with Rep. Joe "Eeeeeevil!" Crabb.

9/11

I second Patrick's recommendation of this Jim Henley piece.

Hatch wavering on copyright crusade?

Seems that Sen. Orrin "I'll kill you and burn your computer, vile filesharer!" Hatch is getting a little worried about the RIAA's subpoena fetish.

Hatch says he agrees with many of the concerns raised in a Tuesday committee hearing by William Barr, general counsel of Verizon Communications. The ISP has fought subpoenas from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) as the music labels sought out copyright violations. After losing two court rulings, Verizon handed over the names of four customers accused of heavy song swapping over peer-to-peer networks.

[...]

"We need both of your ideas on how to solve this, because much of what (Barr) says I agree with," he told RIAA and Verizon representatives. "But the RIAA should not have to put up with wholesale pirating of its content."

Both sides have good points, and Congress should be able to come up with a compromise solution to protect copyrights, Hatch added.

"I have no doubt that (the DMCA) is not perfect," Hatch said. "On the other hand, I think we may be able to resolve some of these problems in a way that would be mutually beneficial."

It's a step in the right direction. Maybe something good will come out of the Brianna LaHara incident. Joanne McNeil, from whom I got the above link, has some more info on Brianna and some thoughts about the RIAA's future.

A new twist in forwarded scare stories

So my mother forwarded me an email yesterday that contained a warning from the Petroleum Equipment Institute about using cellphones while gassing up one's vehicle. According to the email, some form of electrical charge from cellphones had ignited fumes at gas stations on at least three different occasions, and goes on to give warnings about using cellphones while refueling and four rules for safe refueling, of which one is "don't use your cellphone".

What I found curious, and indeed unique, about this email was that unlike every other forwarded scare story I've ever received, it contained a link to its pruported source material. It was therefore a trivial matter to follow the link and see for myself that this warning, not unlike every other forwarded scary story I've ever received, was pure bunkum.

Our report does not pertain to cellular telephones.

In fact, PEI has not been able to document a single refueling fire incident related to a cell phone. For more information on that issue we provide these links.

Only refueling fires that appear to be started by static electrical discharge are detailed in our report.

Following one of those links to this Wired story, I see that this mismessage has been going around for awhile, and that Snopes has addressed it. No surprises there.

I don't understand why anyone would write a supposedly informative piece of mail that contains the exact key needed to prove its contents false, but then I don't understand why someone would write one of those emails in the first place. We live in a strange world.

Glisan pleads guilty

Former Enron treasurer Ben Glisan pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire and security fraud, earning him five years in Club Fed plus some post-prison supervision time. All other charges against him, which were part of a 109-count indictment against him, former Enron Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow and former Enron finance executive Dan Boyle, were dropped.

What intrigues me about this arrangement is what didn't happen:

Glisan, who had been indicted on two dozen charges, did not enter into a cooperating agreement with prosecutors. Thus, only if his actual presence in prison sobers other Enron suspects will his plea speed up the extensive criminal investigation into the demise of the energy trading giant. That work is still expected to continue several more months.

"He was viewed as one of the whiz kids. It has to be chilling," Leslie Caldwell, lead prosecutor of the Enron Task Force, said of the prison term's possible effect on other Enron executives.

[...]

One lawyer familiar with the case previously said Glisan could be in a position to provide the government with a big leg up in its continuing investigation of Enron executives and those at other companies that participated in some of the side deals. But prosecutor Caldwell said they do not expect Glisan to cooperate and they expect this deal to be final.

From reading the rest of the story, it sounds like prosecutors feel his guilty plea alone is enough to give them a boost in their case against Fastow and their continued investigation into other former Enron execs. They make it sound like they didn't need his cooperation in future trials. What mystifies me, then, is why Glisan took the plea and the jail time. I suppose he's either very risk-averse (hard to imagine given how he got into this predicament in the first place) or the case against him was pretty strong.

No matter. One more down, however many more to go. I hope this causes Fastow and Jeff Skilling to lose some sleep.

Going back to Dallas, Texas...the hard way

Okay, I can understand the whole wanting-to-get-back-to-Texas thing, though I think being shipped in a box to get here is a tad, um, extreme. But Dallas? That's just weird.

Anyway. I believe I speak for all right-thinking Americans when I say that it is a matter of urgent national importance that the Austin Lounge Lizards write a song about this as soon as possible.

Governor calls third session

It's official: the third special session in our neverending legislative season will begin Monday at noon. The Democratic holdouts will be there. Full coverage, though there's not much different from what was in this morning's papers is in the Chron, Statesman, Morning News, Star Telegram, and Express News. There are eight items on the agenda, as noted by the Quorun Report:

The call:

To consider legislation relating to congressional redistricting.

To consider legislation relating to state fiscal management, including adjustments to certain school district fiscal matters made necessary by recent changes in state fiscal management; making related appropriations.

To consider legislation relating to the dates of certain elections, the procedures for canvassing the ballots for an election, and the counting of certain ballots voted by mail.

To consider legislation modifying the filing period and related election dates for the primary elections in Texas.

To consider legislation relating to the financing, construction, improvement, maintenance, and operation of toll facilities by the Texas Department of Transportation and the disposition of money generated by the driver responsibility program, fines imposed for certain traffic offenses, and certain fees collected by the Department of Public Safety of the State of Texas; making an appropriation.

To consider legislation relating to the reorganization of, efficiency in, and other reform measures applying to state government.

To consider legislation appropriating fees established by legislation from the 78th Regular Session of the Texas Legislature that remain unappropriated. This matter shall be strictly construed to only include fees that were established during that session of the legislature.

Legislation relating to making an appropriation for the purpose of returning to a fund outside of the state treasury cash that was transferred from the fund to the general revenue fund.

Note the items having to do with primary dates, which are there to allow enough time for the Justice Department to review any new map before the 2004 election. The Morning News also alludes to Perry's desire to do away with the blocker bill tradition permanently. As with the Wentworth nonpartisan redistricting committee bill, that's the sort of thing a majority party does when it thinks it will be the majority forever. I guarantee you that some day, when the Democrats are in charge again, the Republicans will rue the loss of that tradition if indeed it does go away. We shall see.

Choose Lawsuits

Hope gives a rundown of the various states whose legislatures have authorized license plates with the slogan "Choose Life", the fees for which go in part to antiabortion groups of some kind. (Her permalinks are screwy; scroll past the birthday greetings to her husband for the post in question.) She outlines three concerns about them, two of which have to do with the state sponsoring a particular political viewpoint, the other having to do with dollars and sense:

State legislatures know somebody is going to sue the state when they pass these laws. So they are essentially saying its okay to waste taxpayer dollars defending their law as long as they get...a license plate slogan. That's right. A #$!%ing slogan is more important to these guys than fiscal responsibility. Especially in these times of tight state budgets, that attitude is unforgiveable.

I've heard it said that the reason why the political fights in academia are so vicious is because the stakes are so low. Clearly, that sort of tenacity applies to state governments as well.

Texas does not have these plates, though not for lack of trying in the regular session. Had Rep. Wohlgemuth's bill passed, the inevitable lawsuit would surely have followed, and the state would have chosen to spend money defending it. Please note that the state has chosen not to spend money on computers and other technical equipment for schools and libraries. It sure does feel good to have the party of fiscal responsibility in charge of things, doesn't it?

The face of those who really do hate America

The top picture here is what Americans who hate America really look like. Via Angry Bear.

White plan for Houston homeland security

Mayoral candidate Bill White has unveiled a plan for homeland security in Houston.

A new city program called HoustonCARES -- Community Awareness & Response for Emergency Situation -- that would coordinate neighborhood efforts to plan for disasters.

· A permanent office of homeland security to address city and regional issues.

· Regional planning to coordinate efforts of governments, industry and nonprofit organizations.

White said the recommendations would not cost the city money because current resources can be re-allocated and because the city can apply for federal grants.

The recommendations are the result of a task force that White put together. Annoyingly, there isn't a link to the task force report or the plan itself on the White campaign page, so they can't really be evaluated properly. I will be at a candidates' forum sponsored by my neighborhood association tonight, and I plan to buttonhole any White campaign staffer I see about this.

Interestingly, while Michael Berry supported the idea of creating a new "cabinet-level" department to focus on homeland security, both Orlando Sanchez and Sylvester Turner said they'd leave the job to the police and fire departments. When was the last time Sanchez and Turner agreed on anything?

Opus to return

Hot dog! Berke Breathed will bring Opus back to life in a new Sunday comic starting November 23.

The Washington Post Writers Group, which will syndicate the strip, is expected to officially announce Breathed's return this Sunday. The reclusive Breathed, who rarely gives interviews, could not be reached yesterday for comment.

Hard to believe, as the article states later, that Bloom County ran for less than ten years (1980-1989). It was in the right decade, that's for sure. I can't wait to see what Opus (and hopefully at least a few other familiar faces) make of the world around them now. Time to send a letter to the features editor at the Chron...

UPDATE: Pete has a more nuanced take on this.

UPDATE: The Chron will carry tne new Opus strip. Woo hoo!

Democrats will return

The remaining members of the Texas 11 in Albuquerque announced late last night that they would return to Texas on Thursday for the hearing in front of the three-judge panel in Laredo.

"We will say goodbye to the great people of New Mexico, probably on Wednesday, and then we will be in court on Thursday" in Laredo, said Sen. Leticia Van de Putte of San Antonio, chairwoman of the Senate Democratic caucus.

The runaway senators had vowed to stay out of Texas until another redistricting session was called and a quorum established on the Senate floor. However, Ms. Van de Putte said, the decision last week of Houston Democrat John Whitmire to return to Texas changed the other Democrats' thinking.

They will still stay out of Austin until Mr. Whitmire helps the Republicans reach the 21-member quorum needed to do business but will return to their families in Texas, she said.

"We're not at risk of being captured," Ms. Van de Putte said.

Earlier versions of this story showed some differences of opinion regarding a return trip, but apparently that's been worked out. The next question is when a third session will be called.

A Senate source said there is little chance of a special session this week. Though there are many possible reasons for delay — including the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and a Thursday federal court hearing on a lawsuit filed by the Democrats — the source said the biggest reason for the delay is that the Republicans who control the Legislature haven't agreed on a map.

To recap the reason for why the Republicans still haven't agreed on a map, we go back to the Chronicle article:

One of the biggest problems facing the Republicans is a dispute between Sen. Robert Duncan of Lubbock and [House Speaker Tom] Craddick over how West Texas districts should be drawn.

Currently, District 19 is dominated by Lubbock and includes Craddick's hometown of Midland. U.S. Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Lubbock, represents the district.

But Craddick wants a new district created that would make Midland the population center. That would require pairing Lubbock with Abilene, which is now represented by District 17 U.S. Rep. Charles Stenholm, D-Abilene.

People in Abilene have complained that they could lose a congressional district focused on their needs. Lubbock officials fear Stenholm would defeat freshman Neugebauer and leave Lubbock without direct congressional representation.

Dewhurst said he has been talking to Duncan and Craddick in hopes of reaching a compromise. "I think we're going to reach an agreement on a whole map," Dewhurst said.

As noted in the Statesman, Dewhurst's optimism is not shared by Speaker Craddick.

"He would say there is no deal on West Texas," House spokesman Bob Richter said of his boss. "He has not talked to Duncan. He has not met with Duncan.

"He's got no plans to meet with Duncan, either."

For what it's worth, the statement given by Richter in the Express News was not absolute:

Craddick spokesman Bob Richter said Craddick has not met or talked with Duncan but will work on a compromise.

It's also not a direct quote, so draw your own conclusions. I've said before that I don't understand why the Republicans, who were oh-so-sure that they'd be able to wait out the Democrats, didn't use all that time to hammer out these differences amongst themselves so as to make their victory a swift one when the Dems finally did return. It's been nearly six weeks since the Texas 11 departed for Albuquerque. Why wasn't this Rick Perry's top priority during that time? It's fun and easy for a liberal like me to throw stones at his alleged leadership abilities, but you Republicans might want to ask yourselves why he hasn't locked Craddick, Duncan, Phil King, Joe Crabb, Todd Staples, Kip Averitt, and David Dewhurst in a room with orders to stay there until they have a map that's acceptable to all of them.

Meanwhile, the Texas Ten are doing a little travelling to appeal to national Democrats about the "three R's" - recall, recount, and re-redistricting.

"We want to make the case to Texas and the nation that there is a pattern of abuse going on at the hands of the national Republicans," said Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, one of three Texas senators who barnstormed through Florida on Monday.

Shapleigh, joined in Florida by Sens. Gonzalo Barrientos of Austin and Mario Gallegos of Houston, said the Republican-initiated redistricting effort in Texas mirrors a successful effort in Colorado earlier this year, and he said both are connected to the effort to recall Democratic Gov. Gray Davis in California.

Sens. Rodney Ellis of Houston and Leticia Van de Putte of San Antonio, who were in Washington last week, visited with party loyalists in Philadelphia on Monday.

I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, this will not endear any of them to anyone who isn't already convinced that the state GOP leadership is committing acts of evil here. The surest way to get Texans to turn against you is to say anything bad about the state (no matter how true it may objectively be) to people outside of Texas. Without acknowledging it themselves, this little barnstorming tour is an admission that they can't continue to fight as they've fought. Their last hope is the courts, if not now then later when the eventual map is challenged.

On the other hand, there is probably more to gain by getting as many Democrats across the country as possible involved in this fight. The redistricting effort in Texas is part of a national pattern by the GOP, so it's natural to fight it on a national stage. The best way for Democrats to win is to regain one or both houses of Congress in 2004, and the way for them to do that is to nationalize the races as the GOP did in 1994. To do that, the Democrats need to make the case that Dick Armey outlined that ten years of GOP control has led to arrogance and lust for power, and it's time for a change. If that is the purpose of this trip, and if that message continues to get broadcast by Democrats, then I'd consider the potential benefits to outweigh the likely costs.

UPDATE: Rob makes an interesting point:

That Steven Covey fellow made a lot of money with that book about effective people and their habits. They made us read it in the service. We went to workshops on it too.

One of the habits, as I remember, was to "start with the end in mind." Basically, figure out what you want to do before you start doing it.

One of people's major complaints about the Covey training was that it was all "just common sense." I always said that common sense often bears repeating. That's true here. I'm all for redistricting, I think it's very important that elected officials and not courts draw political districts. But we shouldn't have started down this road if we didn't have a clear goal, i.e., a target map.

It will be an unmitigated disaster for Rick Perry if after all this, he can't get enough support from Republican Senators to pass a map. I don't actually expect this to happen, but until the Craddick/Duncan dispute is worked out, the possibility exists.

The Right of Trial By Jury Shall Be Preserved

Here's one for Charles Dodgson's files on how private entities can limit one's rights as much as, if not more than, any government entities: Many consumer contracts now come with restrictive and expensive mandatory arbitration clauses.

[E]very day, consumers sign contracts that contain mandatory-arbitration clauses with insurance companies, investment brokers, car dealers, student-loan and mortgage lenders, or they provide their consent by making purchases with credit cards or by buying a product, experts said. For instance, some computer companies put the clause with the warranty in the box, said Celeste Hammond, a professor at Chicago-based John Marshall Law School and an arbitrator who works with the American Arbitration Association.

"Any disputes with them about the warranty will have to be resolved in Akron, Ohio, by an arbitrator there. That's what you've agreed to just by buying the computer," she said. Across all industries, "it's becoming ubiquitous."

[...]

"When you have mandatory arbitration in consumer agreements, most likely nobody knows they're there," she said. "What consumers don't realize is when you agree to this you cannot go to trial, the arbitrator is not bound to apply a rule of law, that if an arbitrator were to make an incorrect decision there is no appeal," she said.

Also, "usually the arbitrator doesn't give a reason for the decision. There's no rationale, no reasoning, which is what you would get in litigation. So you don't know if the person understood your point."

Some say the steep cost of arbitration prevents some consumers from pursuing their claims. "With our system of justice, the courts are supported by taxes. That's not true with arbitration. It's private," Hammond said. "The parties have to pay the judges and some of the judges bill at very high figures, $400 or $500 an hour sometimes."

"It can be extremely costly, depending on the rules of the particular arbitration provider," said Dale Pittman, a lawyer based in Petersburg, Va., who has represented clients in arbitration cases.

A recent arbitration case that was ultimately settled cost the consumer $10,000, Pittman said, whereas a court filing would have cost $175.

There's no question in my mind that this sort of thing is first cousin to all of the evil "tort-reform" laws that are being proposed. The sole reason for them is to reduce costs for businesses by shifting some of those costs, in the form of liability, to the consumer. It's something that doesn't show up in the price tag at Walmart or Target, but what it represents is a relatively small class of consumer - let's call them the "unlucky bastards" - subsidizing lower prices for the rest of us and better profit margins via greater cost certainty for producers.

The good news in this article is that the standard practice of shoving a binding arbitration agreement into a standard sales contract can be turned back on the producer.

Margo Rebar and her husband found a way to fight back [against a negligent termite inspection] when the pest-control company's clause seemed to be pushing them toward an arbitration process.

Her lawyer advised her to send a note to the company with her next payment, a note similar to that companies send to customers when they change a contract clause. The Alabama Supreme Court had ruled earlier that companies could edit contracts by sending such notes to their customers, and Rebar's lawyer figured that should go both ways.

The lawyer "designed for me a little clause that said I no longer accept binding arbitration," Rebar said. It said "you have X number of days to argue this, otherwise it goes into effect."

The company cashed her check without responding to the note. Last year, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled in the Rebar's favor. She and her husband are now suing the pest-control company.

Good for them. I hope everybody has a lawyer as smart as the Rebars' when they need one.

Identity politics

I don't usually link to specific posts by Atrios since I figure everyone is reading him anyway, but his post about identity politics is one that I really want to make sure everyone sees. I also recommend what Steve Gilliard says (no permalinks, scroll to "A real live minority viewpoint"). And just to show how "diversity" can manifest itself in ways you wouldn't normally think about, check out King Kaufman on Rush Limbaugh's "official" debut with ESPN's "NFL Countdown".

Early voting ends tomorrow

Just a reminder that early voting in Texas for our deliberately misplaced referendum-only special election ends tomorrow night. (I did my civic duty on Friday, in case you're curious.) As that article notes, turnout for elections like these generally sucks, so your vote will carry more weight than it normally does.

In the past six constitutional amendment elections, turnout has ranged from 6.9 percent to 12.6 percent. The high came in 1993, when a special election for U.S. senator also was on the ballot.

In 2002, there were about 12.5 million registered voters. A turnout of 7% based on that number means about 875,000 ballots will be cast. That may sound like a lot, but it's maybe 5% of the voting age population and just barely 4% of the state population. The voting on Prop 12 is sure to be close. A little more that two percent of people living in Texas will decide it. You want to make a difference, here's your chance. If you need to be reminded why voting against Prop 12 is The Right Thing To Do, read this and this. For guidance on the other propositions, check out Byron's recommendations. The actual election date is Saturday the 13th in case you miss early voting.

And speaking of mayoral candidates...

Greg Wythe attended a candidates' forum sponsored by the Houston Democratic Forum and the R Club last Thursday, and he was kind enough to write about it. Executive summary: He likes Bill White, too! There's a lot more than that, so go check it out. And read this Houston Press article on Michael Berry which I never got around to blogging about for more on why Boy Wonder would be a really lousy Mayor.

Bill White and one little letter

Now that we've all had our fun at the expense of Out Of Town Orlando Sanchez, Kevin is turning his attention to Bill White, who most of you know is my preferred candidate for Mayor of Houston. Says Kevin:

He's a pasty-American with ties to big energy.

He is not well known by most Houstonians.

He has ties to the Greater Houston Partnership.

He has virtually no experience in municipal government.

He has raised more money than any of the other candidates. Lots more money.

It appears he is determined to try and win the election by massive media buys -- one might even suggest he is attempting to "buy the election."

Sounds like a walking target for our left-of-center friends who decry the influence of money in politics.

Ah wait... what's that? Oh yes, that's right. He's okay, because he doesn't have that scarlett letter (R) beside his name. Well, in that case, he really must be smart. And a successful businessman in a volatile industry. And a guy with experience in municipal government after all (he chaired a task force once). And not as scary as that other left-of-center candidate. More moderate than that other "moderate." Yeah, that's it!

Let's deal with the peripheral issues first:

- I can't speak for anyone else, but I for one am not a reflexive basher of the energy industry. I know what city I live in, and I know what the biggest employer in this city is. Show me evidence that Bill White thinks that global warming is "just a theory", and then you'll have me rethinking my position.

- I'm willing to bet that most first-time candidates for city office have name recognition issues. That may be one reason why White, and for that matter Michael Berry, started their campaigns so long ago, as they couldn't afford to coast on the assumption that people already knew who they are.

- I have no opinion on the Greater Houston Partnership.

- Bill White's three main opponents in this race are an undistinguished former City Council member who's been living off campaign funds for two years, an even more undistinguished one-term City Council member, and a generally respected state legislator. There are times when I consider a lack of experience to be a deciding factor in an election, and times when it's less of a factor. This is one of the latter times. As someone recently commented, the most qualified candidate for Mayor in 2003 would be Lee Brown. I think we can all agree that there are other qualities that are worthy of consideration this year.

I think I can sum up Kevin's gripe here as "this guy has a lot in common with Republican candidates, but you wouldn't give him the time of day if he ran as one." To which I'll say: Yes and no.

First off, I do vote for the occasional Republican. I've voted for Justice John Anderson, who earned it after giving a correct ruling in what became Lawrence v. Texas and refusing to back down in the face of mudslinging from then-GOP Chair Gary Polland, and for County Treasurer Jack Cato, whom I know through playing bridge. Should Gabriel Vasquez, my party-switching Council representative run for another office some day, I'll give him due consideration for his excellent service. I don't punch the GOP chad often, but neither do I vote a straight ticket.

Second, there would be a big difference between Bill White running a generally non-partisan campaign yet happening to be a Republican, which would make him functionally equivalent to former Mayor Bob Lanier, for whom I voted in the past, and running a partisan campaign as a Republican, which would make him Rob Mosbacher circa 1997 and an easy no-vote decision to make. Frankly, the note in yeserday's Chron that White is being a stealth partisan with different messages to different audiences, is not something that I like. I can understand it, but I'd rather he didn't do it.

In short, White has some of the generally-associated-with-Republicans credentials that I approve of, and none of the ones that I don't approve of. What's the problem?

Now let's talk about money, which was probably the reason for Kevin's post in the first place. I had a long response in mind for that at first, but after what I've already written, I'll rein it in. My concern about money in political races is not its presence - I may as well be complaining about the presence of politicians. I specifically have a problem with secret donors, especially when they're funding phony "issue ads", I have a problem with corporate donors who help fund state races where they don't have a legislative stake, and I have a problem with quid pro quo for corporate donors. With the exception of soft money anti-White radio ads, I don't see how that has any effect on my choice of candidate this year.

(Hope this wasn't too boring for non-Houston folks.)

A tort reform plan I can support

RealityChecker suggests a way to help curb the scourge of frivolous lawsuits filed by corporate law firms: Public embarrassment of the firms responsible, much like Bill "Roll 'em!" Bennett's suggestion of same for unwed mothers. You can help by linking Hogan & Hartson LLP, the firm that filed Fox News' frivolous lawsuit against Al Franken at Bill O'Reilly's insistence, to RC's post. Do feel free to join me on this.

(The name of this tactic, by the way, since neither Kevin, from whom I got the original link, nor RC mention it, is Google bombing.)

UPDATE: I've removed links to RC's post that used the individual attorneys' names. I don't know enough about how big law firms work to feel confident about whether they had any choice in this matter or not. So, I'll cut them a little slack.

Whitmire will attend the next session

Just a brief overview from here: Sen. John Whitmire is now saying that he will definitely attend the next special session, whenever that may be, in order to fight redistricting on the floor of the Senate. This guarantees a quorum, barring any other boycotts (which is unlikely, to say the least). The remaining holdout Senators will probably return in this event as well - they may as well at that point.

Today's Chron has a profile of Whitmire, which has a lot of background quotes and he-said she-said stuff. It also has this bit, which the Chron curiously didn't expand on:

Under the regime of the late Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock, a Democrat, Whitmire played a major role on overhauling the state's Penal Code. Both men were born in Hillsboro (Whitmire moved to the Houston area as a child), and both had tough, independent streaks.

Often, Whitmire was the go-to man in the Senate for legislation that allowed cities to build new sports facilities.

In Houston, he was mentioned as a mayoral prospect, speculation he enjoyed.

John Whitmire is the brother-in-law of former Houston mayor Kathy Whitmire. He's well known to not much like her, but has also said that she took good care of his brother while he was dying, and he's always appreciated that. I'm surprised there was no mention of any of that.

Anyway, the article quotes some people making speculation that Whitmire's return to Houston may have been in part to benefit his law firm. I have no idea if any of that is true, but if it is, I'll for sure rescind my currently-neutral stance on Whitmire's actions. Until further notice, however, he still has the benefit of my doubt.

For what it's worth, the web page that was (finally) set up by the Texas Democratic Party for contributions to the Texas 11 still list Whitmire as one of them. Whether that's a sign of bygones being bygones or page updates being as slow to come about as the website itself was is for you to decide. (Link via Byron.)

August stats

I'm just back from an out-of-town trip and still feeling a bit mellow, so regular blogging will resume tomorrow. Meantime, I had about 27,000 hits in August, making it by far my best month yet. Having a full month of search engine hits among my Sitemeter-counted stats was a big part of that, but some big referrals from Atrios, Calpundit, Kos and Tom Spencer also helped.

I received the 100,000th Sitemeter hit for this site in August, which thanks to the search engine referrals was well ahead of projections. Filtering all that out, it feels like I have about 400-500 daily human visitors, which just amazes me. Thank you all very much for coming by and especially for coming back.

High referrers are beneath the More link for those who might be interested.

Aggregators, collections, indices, etc

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92:   http://www.weblogs.com/



Weblog referrers

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560:  Tom Spencer


545:  TAPPED


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242:  Oliver Willis


238:  Political State Report


170:  Pandagon


145:  Coffee Corner


118:  Matthew Yglesias


104:  Rob Booth


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83:   The Poor Man


81:   The Sideshow


78:   Cooped Up




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Spurs hire Mario Elie

The San Antonio Spurs have hired three-time NBA champion Mario Elie as an assistant coach for the 2003-04 season.

"I'm the happiest man in the world right now," Elie said. "When I retired two years ago, I let everyone know I wanted to get into coaching. I didn't burn any bridges and just tried to stay patient. Now I'm getting to go to a first-class organization where I know and like the guys. I'm just ecstatic."

I'm glad to hear it. Elie was a fan favorite in Houston when he played for the Rockets, and justifiably so. He deseves this opportunity, and I hope it eventually leads to a head coaching gig for him. Congrats, Mario!

It's my fault

Kevin Raybould notes the latest ravings from the best and brightest at the National Review and takes it to its logical conclusion.

I now see that the mess in Iraq is not the Administration's fault. No, the fact they involved the country in a counter-productive war on dubious justifications with no effective planning and with insufficient resources is not the cause of problems in Iraq. No, the fact that I and others like me pointed out that this was and is a counter-productive war based on dubious justifications and conducted with no effective planning and with insufficient resources. I must assume that we hurt the feelings of George and Donny and Wolfie with our bad, bad words so deeply that they just weren't able to fully concentrate on the task at hand. Its hard to do your job effectively with a broken heart.

I also see that this applies not just to Republican Administrations, but to many, many aspects of my life. Specifically, I owe the White Sox an apology. You see, last week, Jerry Manual, their manager, had to choose between pitching Mark Buerhle (one of his best young pitchers) or a just called up rookie in the last game of a series at Yankee Stadium. The Sox had taken the first two games in convincing fashion, and Buerhle practically begged Manual to let him try for the sweep. But Manual thought Buerhle needed more rest, so he pitched the rookie - who got shelled in a Sox lost. Since then, the Sox have lost some of their momentum and fallen back into a tie for first place in the Central. I blame myself. I questioned that decision to my friends and family, and I was not alone. Sports writers from all over Chicago questioned the wisdom of Manual's decision. The stress of playing for a divided fan base was obviously too much for the White Sox to handle, and, really, who among us can blame them? As Mr. Kurtz so eloquently taught me, its hard to concentrate on your job with a broken heart.

I, too, am guilty here. I have doubted Jimy Williams' managerial abilities since the Astros first hired him. It's clear to me now that I am responsible for their failure last year and for their faltering stretch run this year. I must be prepared to accept the consequences of my actions, and to put my full faith behind the boys at Minute Maid Park before the situation devolves into total, irretrievable chaos. I offer my humblest apologies to Astro fans everywhere and promise to never doubt their leadership again.

Texas Ten update

The remaining holdout Democrats are taking their case nationwide, with the support of MoveOn.

The tour, financed by the Internet-based liberal activist group MoveOn.org, will complement the organization's radio, TV and newspaper ads. MoveOn.org will spend about $1 million on the campaign — money raised in one week from an Internet appeal sent to the group's 1.6 million members, said Zack Exley, director of the MoveOn.org political action committee.

Exley said at least one of the boycotting Texas senators will travel to each city on the tour, using his or her marquee appeal to rally Democrats and tell a new crop of reporters that Texas redistricting is a power grab sanctioned by President Bush and quarterbacked by U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land.

The ads and tour will focus on states important to the 2004 presidential election, particularly those with cities that have large Latino populations, including Phoenix, Miami, Chicago and Los Angeles, Exley said.

The senators will carry the message that GOP-led redistricting efforts would disenfranchise 1.4 million minority voters by packing African Americans and Hispanics into a handful of districts or by moving minority communities into districts "where they would have no effective voice," said state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio.

Sen. John Whitmire, whose defection leaves open the possibility of a quorum when and if another special session is called, thinks this is a mistake.

At a news conference on the Senate floor, the Houston Democrat said his colleagues had asked him to join them on a national tour before he left New Mexico earlier this week. He said he turned them down.

"That's not what I was elected to do," he said "It's a mistake. We should put Texas first."

As far as attacking the president, he said: "George Bush is probably the most popular Texan today."

Whitmire said those attacks would make it more difficult for the Senate Democrats to work with their Republican colleagues when they return.

Whitmire may be worried about deteriorating relations between the parties, but so far his own return hasn't led to any magnanimity from the GOP, which barred him from using a conference room until he pays the $57,000 fine that was levied last month for his part in the boycott. That'll show those other Democrats that the GOP really does want them back.

If you're interested in hearing Whitmire speak about his decision to return, this streaming video is what you're looking for. Over at the BOR, they're split on Whitmire's decision, with Andrew accepting it and Byron rejecting it.

For a different view on the Texas 11 holdout, check out this Daily Show clip, in which Sens. Van de Putte and Ellis get interviewed by Steven Colbert. Hilarious!

Finally, as also noted by Byron, read this article about Lauren Kasprzak, a former assistant clerk to State Rep. Jow Crabb (R, Atascocita), the chair of the House Redistricting Committee. Kasprzak quit in disgust and sent Crabb a letter outlining her reasons after realizing what an utter nutball her boss is and what a total sham the public hearings on redistricting were. Here's a taste:

"The process that we went through during the regular session was a joke," she said in the letter. "The public was excluded in any real decision calculus of the committee. Sure, we held public hearings... on a plan that we never intended to go to the floor.

"And then we introduced the new plan... while someone was writing the other map that we actually intended to be voted out of the committee in a back room," she wrote.

She and her parents are Crabb's constituents. Lauren says her parents are Republican. She now calls herself an independent.

Earlier this summer, hundreds of people lined up to testify on a redistricting plan that Crabb knew was a sham, she says. The hearing lasted all night. People hung around to 4 a.m. ... 5 a.m. .. 6 a.m. to testify on a phony plan, unaware that backroom architects were drawing the real plan.

"They wasted the people's time. ... You have to honest with the public," she says. "You are changing their lives as well as other politicians' lives. There should be openness and honesty."

It would be appropriate at this point to share Crabb's perspective and his response.

But a meeting this week in his Capitol office didn't go very well. Crabb interrupted before any question about the letter and other observations by his former employee.

"What you are doing is evil. Leave my office," Crabb, an ordained minister, said while booting this reporter into the Capitol corridor.

Way to go, Lauren! I salute your integrity.

Flood The Zone Friday: America the Free?

The topic de la semaine for Flood The Zone Friday is that unholy and un-American abomination ironically called the PATRIOT Act. The Not Geniuses boys recommend support for the Murkowski-Wyden bill, which would place some limits on some of the more egregious excesses of the PATRIOT Act. They also recommend, in their Fund The Zone Friday corollary, becoming a card-carrying member of the ACLU, a suggestion that I heartily endorse and will do myself.

As always, you can get contact info for your local media here by plugging in your ZIP code. Whether you choose to use their facilities for writing your letter or just gathering the contact info is up to you. Either way, make your voice heard!

Old-fashioned punditry

New Houston blogger Jaye Ramsey Sutter has an op-ed in the Chron today in which she criticizes the new moment-of-silence and pledge-to-Texas state laws. She adapted the piece from a recent blog entry. Way to go, Jaye!

Don't Mess With Texas

Commenter Matt Weiner, over at Perverse Access Memory, asks about the origin of the phrase "Don't Mess With Texas". Is it true, he wants to know, that it was originally an anti-litter slogan?

That's right! What's more, it's still in use today. The best thing about this longtime campaign has been its use of Texas's broad and deep stable of musicians, in both TV and radio spots. Give some of them a listen, they're really pretty cool. Some are original compositions, others are reworkings of hit tunes - Willie Nelson croons "Mamas, dont let your babies mess with Texas", for example. Doesn't scan quite as well as the progenitor, but what the heck.

Aside: Back when Houston was a two-newspaper town, the old Houston Post would occasionally print editorial responses to letters it received. One day they printed a letter from someone who, for reasons I don't recall, rhapsodized for several paragraphs about how the phrase "Don't Mess With Texas" embodied for him an ideal of rugged individualism and indepedent Texan spirit. The Post's editors were moved to put in one of their Ed. Notes in which they stated without preamble that it was an anti-littering slogan. I still think that's the funniest thing I've ever seen on an op-ed page.

Ted "Crooked Timber" Barlow

Can't tell you how happy I am to see Ted posting at Crooked Timber. I know I speak for many when I say I've missed my regular fix of Barlow-y bloggy goodness, and he's been in fine form over there. Go drop in and encourage him to keep it up. I'm pretty sure there's a local reduction in entropy every time he hits the "Publish" button.

(I see Ginger is pretty pleased by this development as well.)

The Presidential shrug

Those of you who've been following the Bush Administration's rather indifferent treatment of veterans may be wondering if it's a story that's mostly being confined to the more obsessive corners of the blog world. Here's one indication, from the President's backyard, that it's not.

Rest assured, veterans who rumbled through Crawford Aug. 16 to protest the proposed closing of the Waco Veterans Affairs hospital didn't disturb George Bush's morning jog.

But the "Rolling Thunder" protest, featuring a motorcycle brigade, did catch the attention of the Wall Street Journal.

It reported that the drive-through protest — no stopping allowed in Crawford, except to buy George Bush souvenirs — was a "harbinger of political dangers ahead" for the president.

Veterans services are one area in which heartland-hewn conservatives are coming to appreciate the function of government, and are wondering why this government can't do what it promises.

It is an indicator that Bush's "don't worry, cut taxes" ditty is not soothing everyone whom he might have considered his core constituency.

It gets better from there. Check it out.

Whitmire fallout

Back in Houston, Sen. John Whitmire has his say about Albuquerque and his still-boycotting colleagues.

As the hotel walls grew more confining, the options of returning to Texas to deliberately get arrested or persuading 51 House members to take a 30-day out-of-state stint seemed increasingly remote.

Whitmire decided it was time to go home.

"We failed," he said Wednesday. "You've got to know when you've done the best you can."

[...]

His presence in the Senate, should Gov. Rick Perry order a third special session, would mean that a redistricting proposal could be considered because the boycotting Democrats would not have enough members to break quorum.

"We need to return the fight to the Senate floor," Whitmire said. But he also stopped short of saying he would voluntarily go to Austin.

Even if Whitmire stays in Houston, he could be arrested and forced to the Capitol once a special session begins.

[...]

Whitmire expressed frustration Wednesday that House members, who fled to Ardmore, Okla., for four days last spring, were not signing on for a longer term out of state. Democrats in the House would need 51 members to break quorum.

"They don't have 51 members willing to do it," Whitmire said.

But Rep. Garnet Coleman, a Houston Democrat who helped organize the Ardmore trip, said House members could gather enough people and might still leave the state, if necessary.

"We are taking this day by day, and a third special session has not been called," Coleman said. "We've gotten 51 people on board to do it before."

Whitmire feared that staying in Albuquerque would push Republicans to permanently scrap a Senate rule that gives a third of the Senate the power to block a bill from being considered.

Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst abandoned that rule during the second session, a move that prompted the Democrats to flee.

"Without it, 16 members run the entire Senate," Whitmire said, adding that he does not want that to be the case on other legislative issues. "Redistricting is really important, but so is school finance. So is criminal justice."

Whitmire encouraged his Democratic colleagues to return to Texas and fight redistricting on the floor. He knows they will lose the vote, he said, but they can debate vigorously to "build a record" to defeat the new maps in federal court.

[...]

Politics aside, Whitmire found the month in Albuquerque suffocating.

The other Democrats told him not to go in the swimming pool because it "might look wrong." He was forced to watch Senate meetings on the Internet, without the face-to-face interaction with friends and colleagues he thrives on. He had to live by consensus.

"You're talking to a guy who flunked the first grade because he couldn't stay in his chair," Whitmire said. "Now put me in a hotel for 30 days."

I'm neither going to praise nor criticize Whitmire. I can see his point (more on that in a bit), but I think he needed to explain himself more fully to his colleagues before he took his solo flight. (I suppose it's possible that he has, and that this is some kind of gambit that I don't fully grasp. Seems unlikely, but stranger things have happened.)

Not surprisingly, his colleagues were pretty harsh about Whitmire and his departure.

"He does not represent my constituency. He does not represent Rodney Ellis' constituency and, I'm willing to say, he is not representing his constituency," said Sen. Mario Gallegos of Houston. "He broke ranks, he's listening to the Republican Party, that's the only constituency he's representing."

Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, said Whitmire is having lunch with Dewhurst on Friday to discuss an exit strategy for the Democatic senators. But she said Whitmire does not represent the senators in New Mexico and does not have their authority to broker a deal for their return.

"We stand united when we say John Whitmire is not our representative. John Whitmire is not our leader. John Whitmire is not our negotiator, and only we will represent ourselves. We do not need him or anyone else to speak for us," Zaffirini said.

She said the senators called Whitmire on his cell phone Wednesday, but he did not return the call. She said Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos of Austin left a message with Whitmire's district office to inform him that he cannot speak on behalf of the boycotting senators.

I definitely understand the remaining Senators' frustration, but I hope they've gotten their anger at Whitmire out of their system. Public carping is not going to advance their cause.

Oddly enough, while Republican Senators were jubilant about Whitmire's return, they're now realizing that he's put them on the spot. The House has twice passed the same map that Lt. Gov. Dewhurst called "dead in the water", while the full Senate has never actually debated a specific map. There's also a major disagreement between the two chambers about certain Congressional districts.

A major sticking point in the GOP plan is a deadlock between Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, and House Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, over how West Texas should be drawn.

Duncan favors a congressional district dominated by Lubbock that includes Midland, while Craddick wants Midland as the population base for a new district.

"Can the Duncan/Craddick standoff be resolved? If it's not, we may have gone through all of this for nothing," said Sen. Bill Ratliff, R-Mount Pleasant.

Duncan said he is unsure whether the issue can be resolved.

"It could happen. It could not," Duncan said. "There are some strong feelings."

Craddick spokesman Bob Richter said he does not see his boss giving in on the issue.

"I don't see him backing down on that one," Richter said.

Speaking from my partisan viewpoint, it would be sweeter than a bowl of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs if redistricting ultimately failed because the GOP couldn't settle on a map that was palatable to enough Senators to pass on a majority vote. The Star-Telegram has more on the Duncan-Craddick tiff:

State Sen. Robert Duncan, the Lubbock Republican who chairs the Senate committee handling redistricting, said the GOP-friendly map that has been adopted by the House remains unacceptable to the upper chamber. Duncan said he cannot support the plan, which is backed by House Speaker Tom Craddick, because his hometown of Lubbock would lose influence to Craddick's hometown of Midland.

Several Senate Republicans and Victoria Democrat Ken Armbrister, who is not participating in the boycott, met behind closed doors for two hours Wednesday to examine redistricting proposals. But no consensus emerged.

"Everybody looked at the different maps that were out there, and we tried to find out what people preferred," Duncan said. "But we still don't have a specific map."

There is, of course, time for the GOP to work out its differences and emerge with a happy-faced consensus. You'd think, though, that with their serene pronunciations that the Democrats would have to come back someday and that redistricting would be Item One whenever they did, that they'd have done a little prep work to be ready for it when it did happen. It's not like they had anything better to do in Austin this past month.

Meanwhile, back in Albuquerque, the remaining Democrats have started to take the fight nationally.

Texas' boycotting senators, down but not out, are trying to draw President Bush into their fight over redrawing the state's congressional boundaries by taking their message to Washington D.C. today.

And a couple of Democratic presidential hopefuls, Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt, are weighing in by appearing today with some of the Democratic senators during a stopover in Albuquerque.

[...]

Sens. Leticia Van de Putte of San Antonio, Eliot Shapleigh of El Paso and Rodney Ellis of Houston will appear at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., this morning. They also are considering traveling to Philadelphia and Florida.

Dean and Gephardt are in Albuquerque tonight for a presidential debate. Both candidates have asked to appear this morning with the seven Democratic senators who stayed at the group's Marriott hotel headquarters.

The senators' message is aimed at Bush.

"President Bush's political advisor Karl Rove, with (U.S. Majority Leader) Tom DeLay's help, started this and the President can end it — with one phone call to his governor, Rick Perry," the group's statement read. "We intend to force the President's hand. He may either own up to his behind-the-scenes involvement or he can make the phone call that will stop this sham process."

The president, through his spokesmen, has declined to be drawn into the political fight.

The president is "always concerned about Texas. It's his home. It's a matter for the state of Texas," White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said in response to a question about the situation.

(Dean and Gephardt, along with the other Democratic candidates, are in ABQ for a televised debate which will be broadcast in both English and Spanish.)

The Senators' message is being heard in DC by Rep. John Conyers, who sent a letter signed by eight other Democrats to Rep. James Sensenbrenner, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, to ask him to hold hearings on "the potential civil rights implications" of the redistricting effort in Texas.

Finally, MoveOn has released its Defending Democracy ad, which is in today's NY Times. You can see a PDF of it here.

Editorials:

The Chron praises Whitmire and assigns primary blame to the Republicans for causing the "needless mess" in Austin.

The Dallas Morning News praises Whitmire for placing the state's interests above his own and his party's, then suggests that "one good turn deserves another":

We urge Senate Republicans to follow Sen. Whitmire's example and take the high road. Given the rancor surrounding the redistricting debate, we urge Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst to restore the Senate's customary two-thirds majority voting rule. The remaining AWOL Senate Democrats have said they also would return if the Senate's voting rule were restored. Restore the voting rule and hold them to that pledge.

And then vote on a redistricting plan. Up or down. Then move on.

More praise for Whitmire from the Express News.

The Statesman praises Whitmire (I'm detecting a theme here) and gives reasons why the battle isn't over.

Given how badly Perry, Dewhurst and Craddick have handled congressional redistricting so far, there's no telling what might happen once the Legislature comes back into special session.

Indeed.

The Hammer

Salon has a thorough look at the life and times of Rep. Tom DeLay and his moneymaking machine. It's pretty comprehensive, and more than a little appalling, so I commend you to check it out.

One side note that I'll comment on:

DeLay is also loyal -- not just to politicians who vote with him, but to his staffers, many of whom work for him for a few years and then move into lucrative lobbying jobs. When the Hill listed the city's top lobbyists, four were former DeLay employees. No other member of the House was credited with having more than one alumnus. Three of these alums are connected with ARM and the fourth, Drew Maloney, hasn't really left the family. Five of his clients at the Federalist Group gave at least $30,000 to DeLay's different fundraising organizations between January 2000 and December 2002. One of them, Reliant Energy, gave $75,000 to DeLay and, according to Roll Call, its Washington office last year hosted the baby shower of DeLay's daughter, Danielle Ferro, who has done heavy fundraising for Texans for a Republican Majority. Roy says, "It's always useful to have people both on the political side and lobbying who still consider themselves part of the organization and looking out for DeLay's best interest."

The Salon article does not mention this infamous incident involving DeLay's daughter:

House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), legendary on Capitol Hill for his aggressive efforts to cultivate corporate interests, hit on a new way of rewarding his friends last weekend, flying more than 30 lobbyists to Las Vegas for a golf tournament and a round of partying.

[...]

The weekend included a late-night party Saturday in DeLay's suite at the Rio Hotel and Casino, which featured a living room, bar and hot tub on the balcony. DeLay was not present, aides said; the event was hosted by his daughter, Dani Ferro, the campaign manager for DeLay's reelection campaign. After the party, Ferro told associates that a lobbyist poured champagne on her while she was in the hot tub.

Ferro did not return calls seeking comment yesterday, and aides said DeLay would not comment.

Never let it be said that Republicans don't know how to treat a lobbyist.

Finally, if you can stand an even longer, even more in depth, and even more appalling article on DeLay and his financial outreach, there's this piece in the Texas Observer which gives an update on the grand jury investigation into the Texas Association of Business (last noted by me here).

Latino voting again

Here's an article about another study telling us something we already knew - Latino voters are not a monolithic bloc.

The study, released Tuesday by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, surveyed 4,676 Hispanics and 79,000 respondents overall following the 2000 presidential election.

The results show that on economic issues, Hispanics tend to lean Democratic, while on questions like abortion and school vouchers, they are more likely to agree with Republican stances.

[...]

The study found that instead of a "Latino voting bloc" or "Hispanic voting power," there are distinctions within the Hispanic community based on country of origin.

For example, the poll showed nearly half of Caribbean Americans identify themselves as Democrats, while only 37 percent of Mexican Americans consider themselves Democrats.

Conversely, 39 percent of Cuban Americans identify themselves as Republican, but only 15 percent of those of Central American origins affiliate with the GOP.

There's more to these numbers than that. Look at the top graph on this page. The thing that stuck out at me was the fact that 25% of Cubans called themselves Democrats. That's a higher percentage of Democrats in a group normally associated with Republicans than there are Republicans in all but one other subgroup.

Those numbers, however, don't clearly reflect the "wiggle room" among many Hispanic voters, said Frank Guerra, a San Antonio ad executive who has worked on several Republican campaigns.

In national surveys conducted before and after the 2000 presidential election, 45 percent of Hispanics identified themselves as Democrats, 30 percent considered themselves Republicans and 25 said they could move in either direction, Guerra said.

"It was startling to a lot of people," he said. "That told us that there really is no monolithic Hispanic voting bloc. Twenty-five percent still hadn't fully made up their minds."

That translates into a large, untapped electorate many political candidates are beginning to see as crucial to their success.

Looking at the graph again, the numbers in this survey don't square up with the numbers cited by Frank Guerra. Taking the three largest subgroups (Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Central American), which account for about 90% of Latinos, the split is more heavily in favor of Democrats (on the order of 37-16) but also has about twice as many unaffiliated voters. My best guess for that is that the surveys in 2000 were done much closer to a national election, so there were more people who had a good idea which party they were going to favor when they entered the booth.

How will this shake out in 2004? Well, the Democrats are certainly paying attention to the other graphs on that page, the ones which show Latino support for specific issues like education and health care. In fact, some of them were talking about those very things in San Antonio yesterday.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe and U.S. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, D-San Antonio, said the [Bush] administration has hurt Hispanics by inadequately funding health care, education and jobs.

They made their comments after a tour of a San Antonio Head Start facility, where they read to young children.

"George Bush is wrong for the Hispanic community," McAuliffe told a classroom full of educators and members of the media. "He's been a dismal failure on the economic front."

The visit came two days before nine Democratic presidential hopefuls are expected at a DNC-sponsored debate in Albuquerque, N.M.

McAuliffe and Rodriguez stressed the devotion of Democrats to early childhood education while criticizing Bush's plan to reform Head Start.

More than 67,000 Texas children, many of them Hispanic, attend Head Start programs.

"When all is said and done, this program works," Rodriguez said. "We are committed to catering to youngsters who don't have sufficient resources. The fact is, he's a Texan and he's not helping us."

That's the way to do it, fellas. Keep it up.

Strayhorn for Governor?

The Statesman sees another sign that Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn is planning to run for Governor in 2006.

Strayhorn on Tuesday rehired longtime political operative Mark Sanders for more than $120,000 a year to oversee her public relations and press office.

When last we saw Sanders, he was the attack dog for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tony Sanchez. Sanders spent most of 2002 unsuccessfully trying to convince Texans that Perry was, in Sanders' own words, a liar, a hypocrite and a lapdog for big insurance.

[...]

Sanders, a former reporter, had worked for various Republican officeholders, including Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, before his first stint with Strayhorn from 1999 to 2002. He then worked for Sanchez in a race that was widely regarded as among the nastiest and most negative in Texas history.

Too bad Sanders oversaw such a crappy campaign. Tony Sanchez got off to a decent start, but in the end there was nothing but mushmouthed slogans, attack ads, and an ineffective get-out-the-vote effort. Strayhorn will need a lot more than that if she wants Perry's job.

UPDATE: Via Ginger, I see that Perry's none too pleased about Sen. Hutchison auditioning for his job.

Asked about the Park Cities editorial at a news conference Tuesday, he said he is not thinking yet about the 2006 primary.

As for Hutchison, he said, "I think the senator is doing a great job as the senior senator of the state of Texas and I have an idea that we need that kind of leadership in Washington, D.C."

Translation: "Jeebus, if she runs for Governor I'll have to get a real job!"

Big Trouble in Little China

My buddy Pete has been reviewing movies at Film Threat for a year now, and to celebrate he takes a fond look at one of his (and my) favorites, Big Trouble in Little China. (Note to self: put the DVD on your Christmas list.) Check it out.

Whitmire to return to Houston

Sen. John Whitmire has announced that he will return to Houston tonight, thus abandoning the ongoing boycott of the Senate in an attempt to kill redistricting.

Whitmire, who had not even unpacked his bags after returning today from Houston where he spent the Labor Day weekend, said his decision to return to Houston was not well-received by his fellow Democrats.

"There were varying degrees of disappointment is all I can say," he said. "The bottom line is that, redistricting is real important but there are other equally important issues such as allowing the Senate to function as it always has where people respect each others opinions. That is not the current situation.

"It's my job and my responsibility as dean of the Senate to attempt to restore some civility to the Senate and that's why I think we need closure to this matter."

Whitmire indicated he would keep his options open as to whether he would flee again if Gov. Rick Perry calls another special session to deal with redistricting.

"Disappointment" is a good word for it. The Quorum Report has statements by the remaining Senators and Whitmire's Houston colleague Sen. Rodney Ellis, both of which are Word docs and both of which convey that disappointment rather clearly.

The Chron has the best coverage of what Whitmire did while he was in Houston over Labor Day. He certainly wasn't sneaking around. His departure is the top story or close to it in all of the majors.

So now what? Well, Gov. Perry still hasn't announced another session yet, while Whitmire claims he may flee again if he feels it's necessary. If and when another session is called with a quorum present, it will be interesting to see if any of Lt. Gov. Dewhurst's good-cop lets-all-work-together rhetoric will mean anything or if some variation on either the King or Staples maps are rammed through again. In any event, the GOP still has to settle on a map that both chambers will pass, something they didn't do in special session #1.

It will not surprise me if Perry takes no action until after the September 13 election. The tort reform amendment, Proposition 12, is a huge GOP priority. I'm just speculating, but Perry may be under some heat to pay attention to other issues like that one instead of calling sessions at which nothing gets done. The Chronicle's theory about Perry not wanting to give Democrats a rallying point before this election may also have some validity. It may already be too late for a map to be agreed upon, passed, and reviewed by the Justice Department in time for 2004 primaries even if the Lege were reconvened tomorrow given that there's no consensus for one particular map within the GOP yet. Even with all that, the first thing that'll happen after a map passes will be a court challenge. Given all that, Perry may as well wait and try to hammer out an agreement among the differing factions (such as Sen. Robert Duncan, who wants to keep Rep. Charlie Stenolm's district intact, and House Speaker Tom Craddick, who wants a new district that includes his hometown of Midland) before having another go at it.

That all assumes a certain amount of leadership and patience on Gov. Perry's part, two qualities he's not exactly flaunted lately. So as usual, take my guesses with the standard measure of salt. We'll know when we know.

UPDATE: Updated stories from the Chron, Express-News, Statesman, Morning News, and Star-Telegram.

Whitmire calls for an end

Well, it looks like I was wrong about how much longer the Texas 11 will stay away, at least if Sen. John Whitmire gets his wish.

Sen. John Whitmire said today he secretly spent the last five days in Houston, and that it is time for his fellow Democratic senators to end their boycott over congressional redistricting.

"After being in my district for five days, I have concluded my constituents are opposed to redistricting, but they also believe the fight should be on the Senate floor," the Houston legislator said.

"I am returning to New Mexico to keep my commitment to the Texas 11. I will discuss with my colleagues that we need an exit plan, and we need it now."

[...]

Whitmire, in a statement, said he did not abandon the group.

"I returned as I had always planned -- not a bolt from the group, but a planned return after sine die (the official adjournment of the Legislature) on Tuesday, August 26," Whitmire said.

He said he got up at 3 a.m. Thursday and caught a 7 a.m. flight to Houston, arriving about 10 a.m.

Whether the Republican senator-catchers were looking elsewhere or just given the weekend off, that was a nice piece of misdirection by Whitmire. I just hope now that he's refreshed, he has some ideas for how to end this. I'm not mad at him for risking capture - I'll leave any tongue-lashings to Sen. Van de Putte - but I'd be a lot less blase if I'd found out about this via a GOP press release announcing that a quorum was at hand.

Interestingly, a sudden return to Austin could have one effect that Gov. Perry might not like. The story in yesterday's Chron mentioned that Perry wanted to wait until after the September 13 election to call another session:

One theory is that he wants to keep a low profile on the dispute until after the Sept. 13 constitutional amendment election. That ballot includes Proposition 12, a high-stakes measure on capping damage awards in medical malpractice lawsuits.

A high voter turnout in Democratic areas might threaten the proposition, which is being pushed hard by Republicans and by the insurance and health care industries and opposed by trial lawyers.

By not calling a third session, Perry is depriving opponents of a rallying point that might get Democrats out to vote against Proposition 12.

But for now, Proposition 12 is widely favored to pass. Perry is about to do television ads for its campaign, so he might be able to ride the coattails of success on the proposition to an improved public standing in the midst of the legislative stalemate.

That all seems a bit too subtle for our governor, but whatever. If an imminent return really is inevitable, then dealing a blow to the evil Prop 12 would be a nice consolation prize. (And as long as I'm dreaming, I wish I had a winning lottery ticket. And a pony.)

As always, stay tuned.

No good deed goes unpunished

Abar Rouse, the assistant basketball coach at Baylor who taped a conversation with disgraced former head coach Dave Bliss in which Bliss discussed labelling slain player Patrick Dennehy as a drug dealer in order to cover up Bliss' illegal payments to Dennehy and others, has been terminated as a coach. As Lasso noted, he was told he'd be paid for the rest of August, small comfort given that he was canned on August 28.

I'd be happy to pile on Baylor as much as the next guy for this, but Rouse was probably toast anyway since new coach Scott Drew had announced that he was not retaining any of Bliss' assistants, as is the norm in these situations. Rouse is not bereft of options. He can apply for another job at Baylor (unlikely), or try to be an assistant somewhere else.

Floyd Keith, executive director of the Black Coaches Association, said Baylor cannot be criticized for its handling of Rouse's situation because new head coaches are typically allowed to hire their own assistants.

Calling Rouse's actions at Baylor "admirable," he said the association could provide Rouse with assistance in landing another coaching job.

"He did the right thing," said Keith, formerly head football coach at the University of Rhode Island and Howard University. "There are probably friends of his previous employer [Bliss] he couldn't work for, but whether he'd want to work for them, I don't know. I don't think this young man is in a position to worry. Anybody who wouldn't want to hire him because of what he did, he shouldn't want to work for them."

I hope he's right, and I hope Rouse does find another, better position quickly. The hoops season starts in less than two months, so there's no time to lose.

DMN link via Writerrific.

Open Source Politics

There's a new group blog in town, Open Source Politics, which features a few bloggers familiar to me (such as Jack and Jesse and a number of people I'm not so acquainted with but who look interesting to me. They've got a nice design and a broad focus to go along with their diverse talent. Check it out.

Approaching the end?

Monday's Chronicle had an article that paints a pretty bleak picture for the Texas 11.

With almost all hope gone that state or federal courts will intervene on the Democrats' behalf, the self-exiled senators now appear to have two basic options:

· Remain in New Mexico until Christmas, as some have pledged, to keep the Senate from meeting to pass the redistricting bill.

· Return home and declare victory for having blocked the Republican leadership through two special legislative sessions, saving face with the claim that whatever redistricting bill passes now will be too late for use in the 2004 elections.

"Now the question is what do we do from here forward, and that's a big question," said [Sen. Mario] Gallegos.

Gallegos said he does not believe any final decisions will be made before a three-judge federal court panel hears the Democrats' voting rights lawsuit sometime in the next two weeks.

Even if that lawsuit fails, Gallegos said, there is a "magic date" sometime between mid-September and mid-October after which any redistricting bill passed by the Republican majority probably could not be used in the 2004 elections. He said the senators may have to stay out of state that long.

"That is the golden period," Gallegos said. "That's the breathing room that we're being asked to give them ... the lawyers, the congressmen, the people who support us and us, the Texas 11."

This timetable is based on the fact that any redistricting plan will require U.S. Justice Department clearance under the Voting Rights Act, and will inevitably be challenged in court.

The best they could ever do was to kill any redistricting for the 2004 elections. That remains an attainable goal, and I'll be surprised if they return to the state before a date on which they can feel confident that they've achieved that.

Interestingly, the Chron picked up that Park Cities editorial, then shot down the idea that Sen. Hutchison would challenge Governor Perry in 2006.

A Scripps Howard Texas Poll released last week showed Republicans support Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst in the redistricting battle, and Democrats are strongly backing the boycotting senators.

But the poll suggested that the populace as a whole is not happy with either side -- Texans oppose redistricting by a narrow margin but think the Democrats did the wrong thing by going to Albuquerque to stop it.

The same poll showed Perry's job approval rating dropped 6 percentage points since he called the first special session in June. Of those surveyed in early August, 48 percent disapproved of the job Perry is doing as governor, while 44 percent approved.

Perry said he was not worried because he tries to do "what is right" without fretting about a particular poll.

What Perry might fret about is an editorial in the Park Cities People Newspaper, a neighborhood newsletter for an affluent Republican area of Dallas that includes the home of U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.

"Won't you come home, Kay Bailey?" read the headline on an editorial urging Hutchison to return to Texas and challenge Perry in the 2006 Republican gubernatorial primary. It cites the redistricting standoff as a major cause of concern for Perry's leadership.

"The governor's political clumsiness has created a legislative crisis that leaves Texas unprepared and unarmed to fend for itself," the editorial said.

But while Perry's handling of redistricting may cause discomfort among the Republican elite, it apparently is playing well with the grass-roots members who vote in primaries. Perry received a positive job approval rating from 65 percent of the self-identified Republicans who responded to the Texas Poll.

Actually, 65% positive from Republicans seems low to me, given that President Bush regularly scores around 90% positive from Republican voters. It's still a high mountain to climb if you want to take someone on in a primary, however. I still believe that if Hutchison decides to run for Governor in 2006, Perry will run for her Senate seat, thus eliminating the primary battle anyway.

Finally, buried near the bottom of this Express News story is a note that the pro-Texas 11 ads for which MoveOn had raised a million dollars will begin running this week.

UPDATE: Ginger notes what could be a trial balloon for the Strayhorn-for-Governor campaign.

This almost makes baseball look like a well-run sport

Hey, what do you know? A couple of oligopolists are conspiring to restrain the market in NFL fandom.

You already knew this, but Houston isn't big enough for the Texans and Cowboys to co-exist, either on the football field or, beginning this year, the radio dial.

This is the first year that Infinity Broadcasting Corp., which owns broadcast rights for both teams, is abiding by a reported "gentlemen's agreement" between Texans owner Bob McNair and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones not to arrange broadcast affiliations for the Texans in Dallas-Fort Worth or the Cowboys in Houston.

Thus, the dulcet tones of Brad Sham and Babe Laufenberg on the Cowboys radio network will no longer be heard on Clear Channel's KPRC (950 AM) and KTRH (740 AM), ending a long run for Cowboys radio in this market.

I'm not a Cowboys fan (I'm not really a Texans fan, either, but I'm trying to warm up to them), so this doesn't affect me. It still stinks. I'm glad to see that Kevin can pick up the broadcasts from Beaumont, but he shouldn't have to do that. Anyone want to bet that some disgruntled Cowboys fan will file suit before the season is over?

On a sillier note, Norman Chad discusses pregame penalties.

This season, officials will be on the field 45 minutes before every NFL game monitoring both teams. If the referees see anything out of whack, they can throw a flag with the penalty being assessed at the start of the game.

Teams will be penalized for unsuitable behavior such as trash talking, shoving an opponent or even, I suppose, carrying a concealed weapon without a permit.

Of course, this means that, eventually, the Oakland Raiders will be kicking off from their own goal line.

[...]

The NFL is a great game. I just don't understand why it now has to extend to the pre-game.

Before you know it, a coach might exhaust all his "challenges" before the opening kickoff.

And if were going to pre-game penalties, why stop at 45 minutes before kickoff? Why don't they observe teams in the locker room two hours before game time? Why not shadow Brett Favre as he drives to Lambeau Field in his pickup listening to Hootie and the Blowfish?

After all, under current NFL rules, a player could rob a string of convenience stores en route to his 1 p.m. kickoff and not be penalized, but if he shouts, "Yo mama!" to a visiting linebacker during warm-ups, he's flagged for 15 yards.

The next time someone tells me that baseball is losing fans because it's too stuffy, I'll be sure to remind them of this story.

He's there if you know where to look

It's been way too long since Ted last updated his blog, but if the comments he posted on Soundbitten are any indication, he still has the blogging instinct.

UPDATE: Well looky here. I guess I no longer have any excuse for not blogrolling the Crooken Timber guys.

Lap dance customers of the world, unite!

From today's Chronicle:

DON'T YOU just hate it when it costs more to stuff your MasterCard card into someone's G-string than if you slipped the dancer cash?

Well, apparently Houston-area resident Paul Brian Meekey has had enough.

He is the plaintiff in three lawsuits filed last week in Harris County state courts, trying to end the scourge of $5 credit-card surcharges for $20 lap dances at Houston strip clubs.

"He's just a fellow here in town who is offended when people stick him with an illegal charge," said Houston lawyer David George.

The lawsuits state that Meekey visited three strip clubs in August and was charged $25 instead of $20 for a table dance, which the lawsuits say is when "patrons of the strip club are able to have the dancers dance for them individually."

The suits, against the clubs Treasures, Centerfolds and Rick's Cabaret, purport to speak not only for Meekey but on behalf of all other credit card-wielding table dance lovers.

Yes, George hopes to make these cases class actions to retrieve the $5 of every charging lap dance purchaser in the past four years.

"Texas law flat-out says you cannot charge a surcharge for a credit card transaction," George said. "This looks like a blatant violation."

He is asking for a declaratory judgment agreeing that the practice violates the Texas Finance Code.

The lawsuits ask that the money be returned to all class members and that attorneys' fees be paid.

Management at the clubs had no comment Friday.

"People find it amusing, but when they look at it they see we have a pretty good case," said George, who plans to sue more clubs.

A graduate of the Baylor University law school, George said he heard someone complaining about the lap-dance charge and immediately recalled his consumer law professor explaining why such a surcharge is illegal.

For now, he said, his client doesn't want to talk about the suits.

George said he's aware that, should he win, some of the lap dance aficionados for whom he's fighting might wish to remain anonymous rather than have their refunds arrive home in the mail.

Another lawyer tried filing similar cases in 1999 but abandoned them, in part out of fear that clients would only be angry when they received notice at home about refunds.

I'll bet his mother is so proud. I just want to know, if he wins the lawsuit, does this count as non-economic damages?