I'll have more to say on this later (probably tomorrow morning), but I want to note today that Greg and I organized a brunch at Kaveh Kanes with a group of local bloggers and candidates for Houston city office in 2005. About ten candidates turned out - see Greg's post for a full list - and what followed was a freewheeling and very interesting conversation about Houston and how these folks would like to serve it. The Houston Democrats crew took advantage of the free WiFi at Kaveh and liveblogged the event, so check that out for a play-by-play. In the meantime, I'd like to also thank everyone who showed up. This was a success, and we're already talking about doing another event with a broader audience. Check back tomorrow for my impressions. I'll link to as many other writeups as I can find as well.

Nancy Sarnoff says that WiFi is beginning to get built in to new suburban housing developments.

The developer of Seven Meadows, a new master-planned community in Katy, has made wireless Internet access available at its six-acre park and recreation area.

[...]

The high-tech capabilities will soon span the entire 1,000-acre neighborhood, according to developer Newland Communities. The company plans to launch Wi-Fi in its other Houston projects, including Summerwood and Grayson Lakes.

"Wireless Internet service is fast becoming an essential amenity for residents of quality master-planned communities," said Lisa Chahin, vice president of operations at Newland.

Other places are embracing the wireless world.

Wi-Fi access will soon be available in Sienna Plantation, a 10,500-acre development in Missouri City.

General manager Doug Goff said it will be available in areas like the swim park, fitness center and golf club.

"We're at a point now in the community that there seems to be a growing demand for it," Goff said.

And parts of The Woodlands have adopted Wi-Fi, as well.

The Woodlands Waterway Marriott Hotel and Convention Center and parts of The Woodlands Mall have been outfitted with wireless capabilities.

And Market Street, a new outdoor shopping center, recently installed the technology in its central park.

Our little solar system has grown.

Astronomers have discovered an object in our solar system that is larger than Pluto. They are calling it the 10th planet, but already that claim is contested.

The new world's size is not at issue. But the very definition of planethood is.

[...]

The new object, temporarily named 2003 UB313, is about three times as far from the Sun as is Pluto.

"It's definitely bigger than Pluto," said [Mike] Brown, a professor of planetary astronomy [at Caltech]. The object is round and could be up to twice as large as Pluto, Brown told reporters in a hastily called NASA-run teleconference Friday evening.

His best estimate is that it is 2,100 miles wide, about 1-1/2 times the diameter of Pluto.

[...]

Some astronomers view it as a Kuiper Belt object and not a planet. The Kuiper Belt is a region of frozen objects beyond Neptune.

Pluto is called a Kuiper Belt object by many astronomers. Brown himself has argued in the past for Pluto's demotion from planet status, because of its diminutive size and eccentric and inclined orbit.

But today he struck a different note.

"Pluto has been a planet for so long that the world is comfortable with that," Brown said in the teleconference. "It seems to me a logical extension that anything bigger than Pluto and farther out is a planet."

Offering additional justification, Brown said 2003 UB313 appears to be surfaced with methane ice, as is Pluto. That's not the case with other large Kuiper Belt objects, however.

"This object is in a class very much like Pluto," he said.

NASA effectively endorsed the idea in an official statement that referred to 2003 UB313 as the 10th planet.

Couple of articles of interest regarding the state of the special session...

Via Aaron Pena, a very complimentary piece in the Star Telegram on his House colleague, Bob Griggs (R, North Richland Hills). One gets the feeling from the piece that if we had more Bob Griggses in the House and fewer Kent Grusendorfs, we'd have a workable school finance plan by now.

Via Eye on Williamson, here's a Dave McNeeley column in which he says the biggest beneficiary so far of the endless legislative summer has been Carole Keeton Strayhorn.

And finally, from PinkDome, a story on poison pills and closed doors.

The Texas Senate emerged Thursday evening from a daylong session behind closed doors as deadlocked over public education as it was when it started the day.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst insisted he had the two-thirds vote necessary to begin debating Senate Bill 2, which overhauls state spending on schools. But he worried that the Senate, taking a cue from House colleagues, might implode the special session by adding a "poison pill" amendment to the measure that would raise teacher salaries, pay to distribute new textbooks and do little else.

Dewhurst, a Republican, never allowed the bill to come to the floor, avoiding the fate of Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, who two days earlier saw the House repudiate the Republican leadership's attempts to pass public education and tax measures.

Instead Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, said she will file a new version of the school legislation today.

That measure won't provide more than the $2.8 billion in new money in SB 2, but she said it would give superintendents more discretion in how they spend the money.

To the public, it must have appeared that nothing was happening Thursday.

At one point, senators called the governor's office to inquire whether he would call them back for a third special session this summer if the Legislature quit over the impasse.

They were assured Gov. Rick Perry would not let the issue die.

I posted earlier that I'd heard a report which indicated that State Rep. Joe Crabb would not be running for reelection after this session. One of Stace's readers contacted Crabb's office and was told quite emphatically that this is not the case. Though it's obviously my bad for not pursuing that myself, it's not clear to me that this is the end of the story. Crabb might prefer to announce his retirement on his own terms rather than let word dribble out via constituents and nosy bloggers, and if so then his staff person's denial is perfunctory. That said, until he does make such an announcement, we should not consider his status to have changed. My apologies for any confusion this may have caused.

Memed again.

List ten songs that you are currently digging ... it doesn't matter what genre they are from, whether they have words, or even if they're no good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying right now. Post these instructions, the artists, and the ten songs in your blog. Then tag five other people to see what they're listening to.

Bearing in mind that I don't own an iPod and can't listen to music at work, here we go...

1. I'll Tell Me Ma, preferred version by the Flying Fish Sailors. One of the things they don't tell you about parenthood is the vast number of earworms you get from all of the baby objects that play music. If I never hear "Skip To My Lou" or "Polly Wolly Doodle" ever again, it'll be too soon. Your best line of defense is the realization that old-fashioned folk music is not only (usually) appropriate for kids and always easier on adult brains, it's also generally easy for adults and kids to sing along to. I've been singing this one to Olivia, which she seems to like.

2. Whiskey in the Jar, Metallica. Another old folk song, which works really well as a straight-on heavy metal piece. Note that Metallica's version of the lyrics are not universal.

3. and 4. Dizzy Atmosphere and Chameleon, by Dizzy Gillespie and Maynard Ferguson, respectively. Both were songs I learned while playing in bands conducted by Laurence Laurenzano. They've both been going through my head a lot since his death.

5. and 6. Fall Behind Me and Heaven, by The Donnas and Los Lonely Boys, respectively. Two songs I discovered when I first started listening to 89.7 KACC and began to realize how much else is out there once you escape the world of demographically appropriate radio formats.

7. and 8. Antifreeze and Old Blevins, by the Asylum Street Spankers and the Austin Lounge Lizards, respectively. Because every music-related list I ever do has something by each of these guys.

9. Stayin' Alive, The Bee Gees. It's Tiffany's fault - she watched an A&E biography of the Bee Gees last night. Actually, it reminded me of how talented these guys were, and how massively successful as well. Of course, I still think of the parody of this from Airplane! when I hear this song, but I consider that a bonus.

10. Any of the 40 Most Awesomely Bad Dirrty Songs Ever, which had Tiffany and me in stitches last week.

All righty then. Ted, Linkmeister, Sarah, Nate, and HellieMae, you're up.

Some action on the overcrowded jail front: Sheriff Tommy Thomas is going to ask for more monry to get more jailers.

More than half of the 1,300 Harris County Jail inmates sleeping on mattresses on the floor because of crowding will have bunks by early next week, Sheriff Tommy Thomas said Friday.

The remaining 550 prisoners will get beds in the coming months as the sheriff's department begins to rely on overtime and new hires to work in areas of the jail closed because of staffing shortages, Thomas said.

But improved conditions will come at a price. The sheriff's department will ask Commissioners Court at its Aug. 9 meeting for additional funds to pay overtime for jail employees.

In the coming months, the department may ask the court for as much as $8 million to hire more than 150 corrections officers, Chief Deputy Mike Smith, who oversees the jail, told the county's criminal justice committee.

Swelling inmate populations will plague the county, as well as the state, for years to come, Thomas said.

In the short term, the county will hire more officers and look for ways to reduce the inmate population.

The long-term solution, several officials said, may be to build more jails, including inexpensive, barracks-like facilities in outlying areas.

However long it took him to pay attention to the problem, I applaud Sheriff Thomas for taking action. Now make sure what you do isn't just a Band-Aid, and maybe we can avoid this sort of thing in the future.

When I checked the ActBlue page that we Texan bloggers had set up for Paul Hackett earlier this morning, it stodd at 11 donors and $295. At 4:45 PM, Richard Morrison sent an email to his list urging people to support Hackett, including a link to that page. It now stands at 36 donors and $920. Like Greg says, you are a class act, Richard. Maybe by the morning it'll be over $1000. Not too shabby at all.

Two more bloggers to thank for linking: Easter Lemming and Matt Glazer, who will hopefully next year be the recipient of similar grassroots generosity.

In the end, whatever happens on Tuesday, I agree with Chris Bowers. Win or lose, the Hackett campaign has been a success on many levels: making the NRCC spend $500K on a race that should have been a cakewalk for them (the DCCC has now gotten involved with a more modest splurge; thanks to the nearly $400K raised online, they didn't need to spend as much), engaging locals who'd long been ignored, proving the viability of a 50-state strategy, and delivering a great message not just to the people of OH-02 but to the national media and its audience. Pretty darned good for a race that some folks would say we shouldn't have bothered with. Will Democrats do as well in CA-48 later this year? Let's hope they start with as good a candidate as Paul Hackett, and I'll feel fine about the odds.

UPDATE: It's now $1275 from 45 donors. Woo hoo! Karl-T has the accounting breakdown. Also, add Houtopia and Texas Politics to the linkers. Thanks, everyone!

Another piece of Houston history is biting the dust.

Houston's most famous homegrown retail name is officially disappearing.

Federated Department Stores announced Thursday that 330 of the stores it's acquiring in its $11 billion purchase of May Department Stores Co. will be renamed Macy's in 2006. That includes 69 Foley's.

Federated also will close 68 "duplicate" locations, starting in 2006, including the Houston Galleria Macy's, which shares the mall with a Foley's. Macy's will move into the Foley's space, which is newer than the current Macy's location and in a more highly trafficked spot.

[...]

The first Foley's, Foley Brothers Dry Goods Co., opened near Buffalo Bayou in 1900 and carried calico, lace, linen and furnishings. Twenty-two years later it was Houston's biggest department store.

[...]

Throughout its life, Foley's has been an integral part of the Houston community.

"The president of Foley's was somebody and had great civic responsibility," said Ray Miller, a longtime newsman who has chronicled Houston's history. "Foley's wasn't just a business, it was a way of doing business. It had character." Decades ago, during the holiday season, he recalled, "nobody else decorated their windows like Foley's."

The takeover is also creating a big hole at the Galleria.

Federated Department Stores said Thursday that the Foley's store there will become a Macy's, as it drops the Foley's brand, leaving the old Macy's location empty.

This switch, prompted by the merger of Federated and May Department Stores Co., which owns Foley's, will occur in 2006. It will be the second big loss for the Galleria of late. Lord & Taylor closed its store there in January.

While mall manager Simon Property Group won't yet say what will be done with the 256,000-square-foot Macy's space, real estate experts say the possibilities could include movie theaters, outdoor shops or even high-rise apartments.

The one thing that seems least likely is another department store.

It's a programmer versus astronomer smackdown over the nature of time! How can you not love a story like that?

I can't do it justice with an excerpt, so go read the whole thing. I actually don't have any strong feelings either way, but I'm sufficiently fascinated by the topic that I want to hear more about the debate. More info on leap seconds can be found here, and an overview of the problem and the proposed US solution is here.

My favorite bit from the whole article:

Ending leap seconds would make the sun start rising later and later by the clock -- a few seconds later each decade. To compensate, the U.S. has proposed adding in a "leap hour" every 500 to 600 years, which also accounts for the fact that the Earth's rotation is expected to slow down even further. That would be no more disruptive than the annual switch to daylight-saving time, said Ronald Beard of the Naval Research Laboratory, who chairs the ITU's special committee on leap seconds and favors their abolishment. "It's not like someone's going to be going to school at four in the afternoon or something," he said.

Thanks to Kevin Drum for the awesome link.

The Senate is trying to salvage some form of school finance reform from this week's special session wreckage, with Sen. Florence Shapiro doing the heavy lifting.

Action planned Monday Late Thursday, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and Senate Education Chairwoman Florence Shapiro announced that a revised education bill will be heard by the committee Monday.

The measure was rewritten to meet the objections of school superintendents and other educators whom they blamed for thwarting the Legislature's progress.

[...]

Two provisions removed Shapiro said the new Senate education bill would delete two provisions that had been particularly objectionable to superintendents — a uniform school start date after Labor Day and November elections for school board members.

She said the bill, like previous proposals, would include a teacher pay raise, more oversight of charter schools and increased accountability standards. She said it would include the same amount of new money — almost $3 billion in the next two years — for the public schools but that superintendents would be given more "discretion" in how some of the money was spent.

In related reading, this DMN article gives a good overview of how the opposition to HB2 eventually succeeded. As Eye on Williamson notes, maybe having a special session on school finances during the summer when all the superintendants and teachers have more free time on their hands wasn't such a hot idea after all.

It's never a good thing for a police force defending itself against various lawsuits to be labelled almost totalitarian by the judge.

Calling the operation "almost totalitarian," a federal judge says a Houston police plan that led to 278 arrests in a Kmart parking lot almost three years ago was unconstitutional.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Nancy Atlas allows all 10 lawsuits filed in the wake of the Aug. 18, 2002, mass arrest, and a smaller operation the previous night, to proceed.

The "plan to detain all persons ... with no regard for the existence of open businesses and their customers, is facially unconstitutional," Atlas wrote in an opinion made public this week.

[...]

Atlas threw out a number of the lawsuits' claims, but allowed the plaintiffs to go forward with allegations that Bradford knew about the mass arrest plan, known as the "Jackson plan" for the officer who devised it.

"It reflected an unjustified, almost totalitarian, regime of suspicionless stops and was completely inconsistent with the Fourth Amendment rights Americans hold dear," Atlas wrote, referring to the right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures.

She also allowed them to go forward with an accusation that a police "zero-tolerance" policy customarily allowed improper arrests and that Bradford knew about it.

Bradford has denied knowing about the plan or the policy.

Joseph Lanza, an attorney representing more than 60 of the more than 100 plaintiffs, called Atlas' ruling "a signal victory for the plaintiffs because it continues to allow them to press their claims in federal court."

Senior Assistant City Attorney Robert Cambrice said it was merely another step in a long process. He predicted the lawsuits will never reach trial.

"When you look at the total picture, the city is still in great shape," Cambrice said.

On the other hand, with ten suits total, there's sure to be some wide variance in the level of risk acceptance among the plaintiffs, meaning that one or more may decide to take that dice roll and hope for the best. If so, then whatever the outcome is of those cases, I'll bet the others that follow will either get dropped or quickly settled once a verdict is in.

But I'm just guessing. Any actual lawyers want to weigh in on this, please be my guest.

Still time to donate to Paul Hackett for our Texas Thursday foray today. As of this writing, we've generated $240 for him from 9 donors. Which doesn't sound like much, but it's still $240 and nine donors he wouldn't have had otherwise. You can bump those numbers upward if you'd like.

Thanks to the following blogs for participating:

Burnt Orange

Pink Dome

Greg Wythe

The Red State

Annatopia

Nate Nance

Brains and Eggs

Texas Truth Serum

Latinos for Texas

Eye on Williamson

Save Texas Reps

Southpaw

StoutDem

It was even mentioned on the National Journal Blogometer, which was cool. (By the way, if you do a Google search on "blogometer", it will ask if you really meant to search for bogometer. I thought that was funny, but then I'm a geek.)

If I missed citing your link, or if you missed finding out about this in time to do your own link, please drop me a line and let me know. Thanks.

Finally, if you happen to see this post on Friday or over the weekend and feel guilty that you missed out on donating today, fear not. The election is on Tuesday, August 2, so chip in anytime before then.

UPDATE: I should point out that the main ActBlue page for Hackett has raised $310,813.70 from 5834 donors as of this writing. Wow.

Here's the full text of Chris Bell's official announcement that he's in the race for Governor. And I must say I'm suitably impressed with the Chron story, which not only covered the reason for his long exploratory phase (his wife, Allison, is recovering from breast cancer), it actually includes a link to the announcement. Compare it to the AP story that I spotted earlier today and you'll see what I mean.

Anyway. Time to get down to business. We all expect Perry and Strayhorn to blow a sizeable chunk of their campaign war chests in the GOP primary, but we should also expect that whoever wins will get it all back in short order. With that said, now's a great time to get Chris started on making up the ground he'll have to cover to be competitive.

As for the continued speculation about John Sharp, well, he's welcome to come in any time, and may the best candidate win. Greg has a post from a few days ago on former Congressional candidate Felix Alvarado, who has also announced a bid. As long as everyone keeps their focus on Rick Perry and not slagging each other, the more the merrier. Let the campaign begin!

There's quite a lively debate going on at James Campbell's About:Chron blog regarding their level of coverage of the Houston Comets. Personally, speaking as a six-year season ticket holder, I think the level is about right. Campbell's point about all the other things that the Chron covers in its sports section rings true to me. Some of the complaints in the comments about the Comets beat writer also being their boxing columnist seem unfair to me. I mean, the WNBA season is three months long. Whoever covers the Comets is always going to have another gig; for sure, also being on the boxing beat as well isn't going to take too much of W.H. Stickney's time.

What amuses me is the level of vehemence that some of the commenters have about the "irrelevance" of the WNBA in general and the Comets in particular. Some of those folks seem to be paying an awful lot of attention to a sport they claim no one pays attention to. What's it to you? Houston's a big city. It can support things that you don't care for.

Thanks to Off Wing Opinion for the catch.

So now that the shock of seeing HB2 and HB3 go down in flames has subsided, it's time for the where do they go now stories. It's the usual lot of speculation from the usual sources, but today's installation is good for a couple of laughs as well.

First, we have this quote from Bill Miller:

"Miracle is a precise word that fits perfectly," observed Bill Miller, a consultant with ties to Speaker Tom Craddick, in summing up what it would take to mend political differences the governor and lawmakers haven't been able to resolve despite three previous efforts since last year.

Bill Miller: Whoo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much. It just so happens that your special session here is only MOSTLY dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do.

Tom Craddick: What's that?

Bill Miller: Hit up some lobbyists for loose change.

"I don't think there's any question that the governor and I, and I believe the speaker, would like to come out with a good solution on school finance reform," Dewhurst said.

Two words, guys: sine die. You'll feel better afterwards, I promise.

Since Paul Hackett has been named an Honorary Texan, it's only right to celebrate by pretending it's Texas Tuesday time and makng a donation to his cause. According to the Swing State Project, there's a Republican poll which shows Hackett trailing by only five points in this nominally 70-30 GOP district. The NRCC is set to dump nearly $300K on ad buys down the home stretch, so every little bit you can give will help counter that.

There's a bunch of stuff on this race at the Swing State Project, so just keep scrolling down. Or simply read this MyDD post and see if you can maintain normal blood pressure. Hackett is winning the newspaper endorsement battle, and come Tuesday he has as good a chance at winning a seemingly impossible electoral battle as one could want. So give him a hand. You'll feel good about it.

Got an email today from Shane Sklar, who has announced his candidacy for CD14 in 2006. He's a former staffer for Rep. Chet Edwards, the Executive Director of the Independent Cattlemen's Association of Texas, and a full ten years younger than I am, which just makes me want to chug a bottle of Geritol and turn on a "Matlock" marathon. You can read his bio here, and he sent me the following statement as a brief intro for himself:

I learned from my former boss, Congressman Chet Edwards how a Democrat can win in a Republican leaning district and I plan to use the knowledge that I gained in my tenure with Congressman Edwards in my campaign.

Washington needs to change and I want to be part of making it happen. I am running for Congress to solve problems, not to serve the special interests. I'll fight for the working families in District 14 on issues that are important to them.

Our nation is outsourcing more and more jobs everyday and this simply is not right. Our sovereignty is at stake and I will be the leader that works to reverse that trend, not encourage it!

This ought to be an interesting race to watch. On the one hand, Ron Paul is the rare maverick who lives up to the title, and he's got grassroots appeal. He's in a fairly strong GOP district, and he actually outperformed George Bush in several counties. Paul's eccentricity is a plus, and he's the one Republican in Congress who can't easily be tied to the DeLay machine.

On the other hand, Paul is new to most of the district and didn't have to campaign in 2004. The biggest county in the district by far is Galveston, and it was the least pro-Bush of them all. (Galveston also contains a piece of CD22, and that piece was 50-50 in the Presidential race; I have not checked the precinct data yet, so "least pro-Bush" may mean 60-40 in context.) I'm told there will be a strong challenger for State Rep. Geanie Morrison in Victoria, at the other end of CD14, which ought to help Sklar out a bit.

And then there's the money situation. Ron Paul doesn't have that much, though he's far from broke. He doesn't take PAC money (at least, none shows up in the Open Secrets report), and the maverickness that makes him popular with the grassroots doesn't exactly endear him to the state or national GOP. I can't imagine the NRCC would be thrilled at the prospect of having to help him out. If Sklar can raise some cash, he can make a real race out of this.

And if he loses, so what? Democrats aren't supposed to win that district anyway, but maybe (as with Paul Hackett) if we run some good candidates like Sklar in places like CD14 we can get our message to people that need to hear it and start reversing the tide. We have to do better, and this is the way to start. So check out Shane Sklar, and if you're in the area drop him a note and maybe volunteer to help out. Every little bit helps.

BOR's Damon McCullar has the scoop - Chris Bell will make his formal announcement about the Governor's race tomorrow. Check back in the late morning for the answer.

UPDATE: And the answer is...he's in!

Here are a few toll road-related stories I've spotted lately:

Anne points to this story about a connector from the Fort Bend Parkway toll road to the West Loop and associated uncommunicativeness from Commissioners' Court on the issue. The good news is that according to CTC's Robin Holzer, recent rabblerousing has had an effect. From an email I just got:

In June, Harris County released the new Capital Improvement Plan which identifies 5-7 new priority toll roads to be developed. On Tuesday, CTC volunteers demanded that Harris County open up the toll road planning process, and we came home with a victory.

[...]

Community leaders from Cottage Grove, Westbury, Willowbend, and Meyerland expressed concerns about traffic, noise, flooding, air quality, and other impacts from proposed toll road construction. We called on County Commissioners not only to hold public meetings in every affected neighborhood, but also to ensure toll road planning addresses community concerns.

When the Toll Road Authority Director, Mike Strech, said there was no need to hold meetings until future plans are ready, the Commissioners disagreed. Commissioner Lee agreed meetings are important, Commissioner Garcia said they need to happen in every affected neighborhood, and Art Storey pledged to come participate. Judge Eckels asked us to help make sure good information gets out to the community.

As I write, civic club leaders in southwest Houston are organizing a town hall meeting about the Fort Bend Parkway Toll Road and related road widenings. Others may follow. In the meantime, you can stay informed and join the conversation in CTC's new forum.

Eye on Williamson notes this Statesman story which suggests that the Corte eminent domain bill (if it passes before this session dies) would put some interesting restrictions on the Trans Texas Corridor. I spotted a different aspect of this bill which may have a similar effect. Is this a trend? We know the TTC isn't popular, so perhaps the death by a thousand cuts approach will eventually cripple it.

And speaking of everyone's favorite statewide boondoggle, Rep. Aaron Pena flags a piece about an appearance by Carole Keeton Strayhorn at another anti-TTC rally. I'll be very interested to see if she ever gets any traction in the polls from this.

UPDATE: PerryVsWorld has more on the Strayhorn story.

Now that we know there's going to be an east-west rail line from UH to the Galleria, the question is where exactly will the tracks be? Residents of Afton Oaks, on Richmond near 610, say not in my front yard.

In the face of strong and vocal opposition from Afton Oaks residents, Metro President and CEO Frank Wilson said a future light rail line to the Galleria area likely would bypass the neighborhood and its oak-lined Richmond Avenue median.

Wilson said an alternate route probably would combine parts of Richmond, Westpark and a connection over the Southwest Freeway.

"But which of those alternates, which of those crossings, which of those connections, is something we have to take a closer look at," Wilson said.

Wilson's comments followed a three-hour meeting with Afton Oaks residents Monday night.

[...]

The Metropolitan Transit Authority's maps of the proposed University (formerly East-West) line show Westpark and Richmond as alternative routes west of Main, with a possible crossover at Timmons, Weslayan or the Union Pacific rail tracks. Monday night, several residents suggested Edloe as a crossover.

Splitting the route that way would prevent the loss of homes required to widen Richmond for the rail tracks, as well as spare the trees and calm residents — who told Wilson repeatedly that a rail down Richmond would lower their home values and impede their access to a street already busy with traffic. But Wilson said the route cannot run solely on Westpark, which he described as a "desert" separated by the broad Southwest Freeway from Greenway Plaza, Lakewood Church and other sources of riders to the north.

That means, he said, the Westpark route as initially designed would be "a non-starter" with federal funding authorities, who look at a project's benefit-to-cost ratio.

By contrast, the transit CEO said, Richmond is "the shortest line between two points" and would have more riders than Westpark, lowering costs and increasing benefits.

The line does not need to go wholly on Richmond to achieve that, he said. He added: "A split may be the winning solution."

On a side note, I'm just impressed that Frank Wilson actually attended that three-hour meeting with the Afton Oaks folks and seems to have listened to their feedback. I wish TxDOT and HCTRA were half that accomodating.

Philip Martin sends a letter to the whiny Rep. Kent Grusendorf. I second that emotion.

I got some upsetting news a few days ago when I heard via her husband Tom that Julie Boyle, the proprietor of the Midlothian Family Network website and an outspoken critic of the cement plants in that area and the Congressmen who let them pollute at will, has been diagnosed with breast cancer. She wrote about that in the Star Telegram this past weekend, and as you can see she's doing her best to be positive about it. I know from my correspondence with Julie that she's a strong person, and I feel confident that she will get through this. If anyone can, she can.

Frontburner, which carried a great story on the Boyles' fight to clean up their hometown awhile back (it's unfortunately archived behind a firewall at this time), has three update posts on Julie's diagnosis and the goings on in Midlothian - be sure to read that first one, in which the Boyles share some email from other residents who have experienced unusual health problems.

I'm told that mediation with TXI (see here for more) is still in the works; I'll check back when there's something to report.

In the meantime, a note from Julie in that last Frontburner post brought a smile to my face:

If Joe Barton doesn't stop favoring industries at the expense of families, come the primaries, a bald Republican mother of three undergoing chemo might just take him on.

Get well soon, Julie! We're all rooting for you.

More news on the overcrowded Harris County jails.

Crowding and unsanitary conditions in the Harris County Jail have spurred a group of community leaders, clergy members and civil rights advocates to request a meeting this week with county officials to seek solutions.

"We know it's not supposed to be comfortable for people who are incarcerated, but it is supposed to be humane," Yolanda Smith, executive director of the Houston chapter of the NAACP, said Tuesday.

Smith and other community leaders expect to meet Friday with county criminal justice officials and judges to discuss ways to limit the number of people placed in jail and help probationers stay out.

County Judge Robert Eckels said he is aware of the problems and will work with other officials to fix them. Public safety is paramount, he said, and the county will consider streamlining the booking process and the bonding-out system to help move people with misdemeanor arrests through the jail more quickly.

County leaders are scheduled to meet with the state commission Aug. 4 to discuss the problems.

I knew that the Hochberg Amendment nearly passed in the previous special session. I've said all along that agreement among the Perry/Craddick/Dewhurst troika on HB2 and HB3 didn't mean those bills would survive a vote in the House. And I'm still a bit in shock by what happened yesterday.

Speaker Tom Craddick said he wasn't willing to declare the school funding effort dead, but he said he didn't immediately know where a weary House goes from here.

He said he never had the votes for the tax bill, approved in a quickie meeting by a special, all-Republican committee shortly after the second summer session convened last week. He said the education bill failed after Democratic House members, in a rare victory, substituted their school finance plan for a Republican one.

"People are tired of voting. The members are just basically worn-out from voting on these different proposals," Craddick said.

[...]

The Senate could revive the school finance bill, but Senate action on the issue was delayed for a second straight day on Tuesday in the face of strong opposition from several senators. They were scheduled to try again on Thursday.

The death of the tax bill, however, could all but doom the tax overhaul because the Republican-led House, under the state constitution, must initiate action on tax legislation.

Craddick said a different tax bill could be filed, but the lopsided defeat of House Bill 3, which would have raised several state taxes in exchange for school tax cuts, signaled a strong anti-tax sentiment in the chamber.

[...]

"There's discontent, disagreement and a lot of fatigue. The Legislature needs to recharge," said Austin political consultant Bill Miller.

Perry, who promised school finance changes and property tax cuts during his 2002 campaign and now faces re-election with that pledge unfulfilled, could order lawmakers into another special session, the third of the summer, following a five-month regular session.

But Miller said such an effort would be a waste of time, considering the inability for more than a year now of the Republican governor and Republican legislative leaders to hammer out agreements on school funding and taxes.

"Bringing people back would produce the same result," Miller said. "There's always going to be heartburn among Republicans for tax bills."

I don't expect Perry to give up, but it's clear that any further effort must be a departure from the useless tinkering around the edges that they've been doing these past few weeks. Jim Keffer, the House sponsor of HB3, said "This is not the bill we need at this time" as he voted against his own measure. He wants a broader business tax, something which would probably be able to pass muster with most House members but which Perry can't abide. This Express News article from last week (link via Texas Ed Equity) gives some analysis of this dynamic.

Lawmakers started out with broader tax reform ideas that would have involved more businesses, but the House and Senate couldn't agree. Perry suggested simply plugging loopholes in the franchise tax on corporations as an achievable goal.

But doing so has provoked opposition from affected businesses that don't want to be singled out.

An estimated 10,000 Texas companies use those legal loopholes to escape business taxes, including the San Antonio Express-News.

Express-News Publisher Lawrence Walker Jr. said executives of Texas daily newspapers agreed last year not to oppose efforts to close the corporate franchise loophole under one condition: "Everybody gets taxed."

"To put a bill in, which still exempts the law firms and the real estate firms and the oil and gas partnerships and the medical doctors, is just egregious," Walker said.

Closing the franchise tax loopholes would cost the Express-News "several million" dollars a year, he said.

Portions of the business lobby would retreat from its opposition to the proposed tax bill after all businesses are treated the same, Walker said.

"It's just about fairness and equity," he said.

Walker recently expressed his opposition to Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, who voted for the bill to close the franchise tax loopholes without expanding the tax to business partnerships.

Wentworth said he agrees with Walker and favors a low-rate business tax applied to all but sole proprietor, or "mom and pop"-type businesses.

But Wentworth said the "speculation around here is that there's a lot of limited liability partnerships — oil and gas partnerships in Midland, Texas — and the speaker is not going to allow them to be taxed."

Finally, the Biggest Whine award goes to Kent Grusendorf.

Mr. Grusendorf laid partial blame for defeat of the bill on school districts and education groups, who were almost universally opposed to the original measure because of what they complained was inadequate funding.

"I wish they had been for something instead of against everything," Mr. Grusendorf said.

Stunning.

The Texas House, after rancorous debate and major changes to a multibillion-dollar school funding bill, voted down the measure Tuesday.

Although the move appeared to spell trouble for the special legislative session called by Republican Gov. Rick Perry, another school spending bill remained pending in the Senate.

The 79-62 vote against the Republican-backed House bill came after the House approved a Democrat's plan to provide an additional $3.8 billion over two years to schools, including money for a teacher pay raise and more bilingual education funding.

That was substantially more money than the Republican measure included. Democrats and some Republicans joined to approve the amendment by Rep. Scott Hochberg, D-Houston.

The bill's sponsor, Republican Rep. Kent Grusendorf of Arlington, soon led the charge to vote against the overall bill.

An accompanying property tax reduction bill was still being debated in the House.

UPDATE: As promised, here's more AP coverage:

"This was the governor's plan. We worked on it, massaged it as much as we could. To be quite frank, we didn't get there," said Rep. Jim Keffer, a Republican from Eastland who sponsored the tax bill but urged fellow House members to vote against it.

They followed his lead with a bipartisan 124-8 vote.

Perry said he wouldn't give up and would keep pushing lawmakers to find a solution in the remaining 24 days of the special session.

The 79-62 vote against the Republican-backed education spending bill came after the House approved a Democrat's plan to provide an additional $3.8 billion over two years to schools, including money for a teacher pay raise and more bilingual education funding.

That was substantially more money than the Republican measure included. Democrats and some Republicans joined to approve the amendment by Rep. Scott Hochberg, D-Houston.

His plan also would have given an extra school property tax break to homeowners through a larger homestead exemption.

The bill's sponsor, Republican Rep. Kent Grusendorf of Arlington, later led the charge to quickly vote against the bill because it was so dramatically changed from its original form. Grusendorf said the more costly changes would have hurt Texas businesses and that the bill was doomed for failure.

Craddick agreed. Once Hochberg's amendment was added to the bill, it didn't balance financially, he said. But Hochberg disputed that and said his proposal was designed to fit with the amount of money available in Grusendorf's bill.

Craddick described the fast-moving series of events Tuesday as being "kind of like a mushroom-type effect" as both bills were defeated.

Democratic Rep. Rene Oliveira of Brownsville had urged against a swift vote on the tax bill, saying it could potentially wreck the special session if it were voted down.

"I think you're commanding the Titanic right now with that approach," Oliveira told Keffer.

Afterward, passage of a school finance bill in this session began looking less likely.

"The stars are going to have to be aligned for that and right now, they're not aligned," Grusendorf said.

I love this quote:

Rep. Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, the powerful chairman of the Appropriations Committee, bucked Republican leadership and voted for the Democratic-sponsored changes.

Pitts said that Hochberg's amendment had problems but that at least it allowed for debate on a school finance measure that his constituents despised.

"I have had over 1,000 e-mails and calls telling me not to vote for this bill," Pitts said during a recess after the vote. "They didn't like what I call the Highland Park provisions (that could allow property-wealthy districts to keep more money), the school starting date and the elections in November. People in my district wanted me to vote for their children."

More blog coverage: In the Pink, Common Sense, BOR, Rio Grande Valley Politics, and on a tangential subject, Latinos for Texas.

UPDATE: And Houtopia and Greg.

It pains me to see that Christus Saint Joseph's Hospital is facing an uncertain future. It's been put up for sale by its owner, it's transferred its residency program to Methodist, and nobody really knows if it will remain operationally viable in the future, even though its emergency services are badly needed in Harris County.

The impact of a decision to shut down St. Joseph could be considerable, and not just for sentimental reasons to do with its designation as "Houston's Birthplace," the hospital where, at one time, nine of 10 native Houstonians were born. It is one of the city's key providers of charity health care and home to one of its few trauma centers.

Christus Health Gulf Coast, St. Joseph's parent company, has pledged to find a buyer that will continue to operate the hospital as a full-service facility. But health-care analysts are skeptical, questioning the viability of a downtown hospital.

In the meantime, hospital staff have adopted a wait-and-see attitude.

"I think the next 60 days will be crucial," said Dr. Cristo Papasakelariou , St. Joseph's chief of staff. "The staff's a little more hopeful now than immediately after the announcement, but if there's not positive news about a potential buyer by then, the mood will probably turn negative."

Papasakelariou has launched a campaign of sorts to save St. Joseph, including proposing that local government subsidize the 118-year-old hospital, the oldest in the city. The idea met with little enthusiasm.

Most recently, Rob Mosbacher Jr. , head of Harris County's public health care council, has held meetings to put together a consortium that would make an offer to St. Joseph to share its assets. He said he hopes the consortium, to be made up of the Harris County Hospital District and some institutions in the Texas Medical Center, can put an offer before Christus Health by mid-August.

Analysts say negotiating a deal that would keep St. Joseph a full-service hospital will be a formidable task because any new owner would face the same sort of difficulties driving the sale: steep competition from the Texas Medical Center, financial drain from the jump in uninsured patients, old buildings that need rehabilitating and expensive real estate.

"It's a stranded asset," said Michael Barbour , a principal at the Houston office of Towers Perrin, a consulting firm. "That's why Christus Health doesn't want it. That's why prospective buyers are likely to be bargain shoppers, people looking to get downtown real estate for cheap."

Papasakelariou criticizes that attitude, stressing the hospital's role in providing care to Houston's indigent population. He notes that almost 30 percent of the nearly 5,000 babies born at St. Joseph last year were charity cases.

Much of St. Joseph's charity care, of course, comes at its emergency room, where the traffic of trauma cases has increased in the past year because Harris County's trauma-care system is so overburdened. Dr. Guy Clifton , head of a coalition of doctors and others calling for more emergency rooms, called the future loss of St. Joseph's ER "inevitable" and said it would be a further blow to the region's trauma-care problem.

In the mind of Clifton and many others, the ideal candidate to buy the hospital is the county's hospital district, which has a critical shortage of beds and a strategic plan to add a third hospital by 2015. It held discussions with St. Joseph late last year, though they broke down.

St. Joseph is attractive to the hospital district for a number of reasons: it's licensed for around 750 beds; it's on mass-transit lines, making it accessible for some patients; it could provide a ready-made staff (St. Joseph has 2,000 employees) instead of forcing the district to hire a new staff; and it would give the district a third emergency room to alleviate overcrowding at Ben Taub's and Lyndon B. Johnson's emergency rooms.

David Lopez, president of the hospital district, said the staff is "very seriously" looking into a possible purchase and will put "something" before the board and the Commissioners Court.

"I think if you look at St. Joseph's facility and its mission, we're a pretty good fit," said Lopez. "We just need to make sure whatever we propose is a benefit to the community and makes good business sense."

The issue will be money. In the talks that broke down last year, the financially strapped district offered $80 million to $90 million, less than half of what St. Joseph wanted. The county would also need sufficient funding to operate the hospital, knowing, as Papasakelariou notes, that converting the hospital to a county facility would drive off private patients who help subsidize the charity care.

Express News columnist Carlos Guerra has a blog now dealing with issues on and around the Texas-Mexico border. Some good stuff there, so check it out. Via Latinos for Texas.

I think of all the bad things I could say about this series of special session on something that used to pretend to be school finance reform, the certainty that we'll have to do it again is the worst.

HB3 would reduce local school operating taxes by 25 cents per $100 valuation in the upcoming school year and by another 4 cents the following year. It also would raise the homestead exemption, a special tax break for homeowners, by $7,500 if voters approve a related constitutional amendment.

The proposed cut would save the average homeowner in the Houston Independent School District about $225 in school taxes the first year. There would be no provision, however, requiring landlords to pass their property tax relief to renters, who make up most Houston residents.

To pay for the lost money, the House bill would increase the sales tax by three-quarters of a cent per dollar; expand the sales tax to auto repair labor, Internet access services and some computer goods and services; increase the cigarette tax by $1 per pack; and close loopholes in the corporate franchise tax.

According to the Legislative Budget Board, the property tax cuts provided in the bill would cost local districts about $6.6 billion over the next two years. The higher state taxes, if collections don't start until Nov. 1, would raise only $6.1 billion.

The higher state taxes would raise $6.7 billion — enough to cover the school tax reductions — if collections begin Sept. 1, the LBB estimated. But even then, the extra state taxes wouldn't keep pace with the property tax cuts for long.

Within five years, the deficit would be $1 billion or more, the LBB reported. That eventuality would force the Legislature to face the prospect of raising state taxes again when it meets in regular session in 2007.

So what's the point? Why are we bothering? This isn't a real tax cut, and it does nothing at all for the schools. If they insist on not considering any new approaches, then I say the hell with it. Wait for the Supremes to rule, be ready to override Perry if he re-vetoes the original school appropriations, declare sine die and go home.

There's more retirement rumors floating around than just Joe Crabb. We've already heard that Rep. Jim Solis is reportedly hanging up his spikes. Capitol Inside says quite a few more members, many from the Class of '93, are supposedly mulling the same thing.

The Class of `93 members could become part of a potential wave of retirements from a House that's divided, drained and somewhat disillusioned amid a thankless school finance fight that could get more brutal before the issue is resolved. The potential for a high turnover in the lower chamber appears ripe in the wake of a regular session and a special session during which lawmakers on both sides of the Capitol have been forced to cast numerous no-win votes on an issue for which they still have nothing to show with no end-game in sight.

There have been reports from the Capitol - most if not all unsubstantiated at this point - that the list of members who might not run again includes some of Speaker Tom Craddick's top lieutenants and committee chairs. Some Republican members are bracing for primary challenges within their own parties by opponents who will use votes on HB 2 and HB 3 as weapons against the incumbents. Some members from both parties have already been targeted for defeat by the opposing party in districts that conceivably could go either way. Some House members such as State Rep. Jim Keffer - an Eastland Republican who's sponsoring a controversial tax shift proposal as the Ways and Means Committee chairman - could end up facing multiple challengers in both the primary and general election campaigns as well in 2006 if early predictions hold true.

There's one school of speculation that State Rep. Peggy Hamric, a Houston Republican who chairs the House Administration Committee, will either move up as a candidate for an open state Senate seat or move out of elected office completely when her seventh House term expires at the end of 2006. Another veteran Republican - State Rep. Joe Nixon - is considered a probable contender for the Senate post from which State Senator Jon Lindsay has decided to retire.

A seat in the Dallas area could also be up for grabs if State Rep. Ray Allen decides against a re-election bid in 2006. A Grand Prairie Republican who chairs the County Affairs Committee, Allen was also a member of a 1993 class that produced 18 legislators who are still in the House today. He appears to still be undecided about a race for re-election in 2006.

The list of potential House retirees includes Republican State Reps. Bob Griggs of North Richland Hills and Anna Mowery of Fort Worth. Some observers are not convinced that former Democratic Speaker Pete Laney of Hale Laney will seek another term even though he would probably be favored to win big again in a West Texas district that has two Republican voters for every Democrat.

Why the emphasis on the Class of '93? Perhaps this will help clarify things.

With a swift vote and no debate, state representatives approved a boost in their own retirement benefits Monday as they gave judges a pay raise.

House Bill 11 by Rep. Will Hartnett, R-Dallas, won final passage, 105-26, amid criticism that House lawmakers have watched out for their own financial interests before those of schools and teachers.

[...]

The bill would raise lawmakers' pensions by 22 percent, Hartnett said, the first increase in seven years.

Currently, Texas' part-time lawmakers are paid $7,200 a year, although retired lawmakers can begin collecting pensions at age 50 if they have served at least 12 years. Benefits increase with each year of service. Under the bill, a retired official with a dozen years' experience would get a pension hike of $6,431 annually, bringing the total pension to $34,500.

I second Greg's sentiments regarding Paul Hackett, who's running a great race on some unfriendly turf in Ohio for a special Congressional election to be held this Saturday. Hackett is a Marine Corps veteran of the Iraq War and this year's online favorite. In a truly cowardly move, his suddenly underfunded opponent is resorting to Swift Boat tactics to hold off his charge. Today is Tuesday, so pretend it's a Texas Tuesday and visit this honorary Texan's ActBlue page to help him out.

UPDATE: More on Paul Hackett in Salon.

It's not in the news as far as I can tell, but I've heard from a source that State Rep. Joe Crabb (R, Kingswood) is planning to call it a career after this session. Crabb was one of the architects of the 2003 redistricting, and a nasty piece of work, so it'll be nice to see him go. Charlotte Coffelt took a run at him in 2004, the first time he'd been opposed in a decade, and though she didn't come close, she gets credit for taking the fight to a normally ignored area. As with SD7, this is a strongly Republican area, and as with SD7, it still deserves a Democratic candidate. Let's see if someone decides to make a go of it.

Nick Beaudrot, sitting in at Ezra's place, notes this news story about the energy bill and asks "Did Tom DeLay just lose a legislative battle?"

House and Senate conferees abandoned giving makers of the gasoline additive MTBE liability protection against environmental lawsuits on Sunday, removing the major roadblock to enactment of broad energy legislation.

Senate negotiators rejected a House proposal for an $11.4 billion MTBE cleanup fund that House Republicans had hoped would serve as a compromise and still provide the liability shield to the oil industry.

But Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, said "the proposal has not been accepted by the Senate" and that he would offer another MTBE proposal on Monday.

Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., leader of the Senate energy negotiating team, said while some MTBE issues were still being discussed, those did not include a cleanup fund, nor liability protection.

"Those are gone," Domenici told reporters as the House-Senate conferees held an unusual Sunday session in hopes of completing work on a sweeping energy bill by Monday night.

The legal protections have been championed by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), whose state is one of the main producers of the additive. Industry officials have contended that Congress was responsible for promoting the use of MTBE by requiring cleaner-burning gasoline in the nation's smoggiest regions.

The Chron's Rad Sallee devotes his weekly "Move It!" column to the proposed I-45 expansion and TxDOT's undercommunicative ways regarding it. He doesn't go into the attempted end run that was thwarted by GHASP, but he does give voice to some of the leading critics of the TxDOT plan, and as far as that goes, any publicity is good.

To answer Anne's question, I think there's two reasons why we haven't heard much about double-decking. One, from TxDOT's perspective, is the same reason the tunnel option has been mostly brushed aside: cost. The cheapest thing to do is to widen the existing freeway. They have no real incentive to consider anything else. From the perspective of the affected residents, a double-decked freeway sounds like it'd be extra noisy, extra dirty, and an eyesore to boot. All of the things that a tunnel isn't, which brings us back where we started.

I'm also not sure how exactly a second deck would work in this context - it seems to me that you'd still need a bigger footprint for the road just to put in the support columns, which puts us right back at the original objections. I guess I'd have to see a schematic diagram to know for sure. Personally, I'm a bit leery of it, but I could see how it might work, and I'd certainly prefer it to the condemn-and-widen default plan.

On a side note, this looks like as good a time as any to once again put out the CTC's call for volunteers to attend the Commissioners' Court meeting, which is tomorrow morning downtown. Click the More link for the details.

CTC is seeking neighborhood volunteers for the Harris Cty Commissioners' Court mtg this Tues July 26 at 10:00 am, downtown.

As you know, some of Harris County's 5-7 new priority toll road projects have had multiple public meetings, but others have had no meetings at all. While Harris County's Art Storey told us in June that it doesn't make sense to hold meetings for a project if you don't know when you're going to do it, neighborhood leaders want to know what the county does know, now.

We have 4-5 folks confirmed already. Your voice is needed if you live in a neighborhood near one of these projects:
* 290 Managed Lanes: Cottage Grove, Oak Forest
* Brazoria County toll road (SH 288): small cities of southeast Harris Cty
* Fort Bend Connector: Willowbend, Westbury, Precinct 287,
* Grand Parkway segment E: Katy, northwest Harris County.
Source (pp.17-18)

If you would like Harris County to host public meetings about one of these projects in your neighborhood, I hope you'll come tell them so. If you may join us, please RSVP to Peter Tyler at (713) 256-9205 or p_tyler@swbell.net.

The Commissioners' Court meeting agenda is now online.

Thanks for your help,
Robin Holzer
Chair
m (713) 301-5716

TBogg writes about his and his daughter's experiences with Little League, in context of the debut of the remake of The Bad News Bears.

Having spent seven years toiling in Little League hell, there is so much that is accurate in TBNB. It seems like Little League exists solely to take all of the joy out of baseball for both kids and parents alike. I was on the Little League board for six of those years in various capacities all leading up to being league president, which I wouldn't wish on anyone. From t-ball dads who can't understand why five year-olds shouldn't play 24 games in twelve weeks to mothers calling at night because the coach hates little (Austin, Cody, Aspen, Garfunkel...pick one) and won't let him pitch in games, when I've seen the kid and he can barely make the throw from second to first. Then there were the parents who would drop the kids off at practice and practically peel out of the parking lot so that they can go to the mall for a few hours because they had a free babysitter and then would they show up late to pick the poor kid up while we waited in the parking lot in the gloaming (a word only used with baseball).

Even worse than the meddling overbearing gonna-make-a-star-out-of-my-boy types were the ones who didn't even show up to watch. I had no problem with the parents who had to work or, with quite a few of my kids, the ones whose dads were in the navy and were out to sea. But to see a kid get dropped off before the game and then watch that car disappear only to show up a couple of hours later used to break my heart. For an eight year-old to slap a single through the hole or make their very first catch in the outfield (no small feat at eight) and not have a mom or dad there to see it is, in my opinion, far worse than missing their very first steps. Because that small achievement is a moment that should be shared by both a proud child and a prouder parent.

If you want proof (or maybe just reassurance) that even in a competitive atmosphere people can be levelheaded about the whole Little League thing, then I recommend you put the documentary Small Ball at the top of your Netflix queue. I saw it last weekend as part of the "Baseball as America" installation at the Museum of Fine Arts, and it rocked. Filmmaker Andrew Kolker was there to answer questions afterwards, and he confirmed when asked that he did not see any abusive or inappropriate behavior by the parents at the games he attended, either. See the movie and tell me if at least some of your faith in people isn't restored.

The hot new trend in movies: Drive in theaters.

Texas drive-ins are seeing the biggest surge in decades, as Galaxy is among at least five outdoor theaters to open since 2003. The latest debuted in Killeen, near the Fort Hood military post, on July 1, and a new two-screen one in the West Texas town of Midland is expected to open next month.

Several more are planned. Steve Rodman, owner of the Crossroads Drive-In in Shiner, between Houston and San Antonio, hopes to open a Houston theater with a more contemporary design by February.

And business has been so good at the three-screen Galaxy that Murray's wife, Marsha, a co-owner, points to a flat tract where the gravel and sod have already been groomed for a fourth screen. She hints that Galaxy may ultimately house as many as 12 screens. She also wants to franchise more drive-ins across the state.

"You'd probably have to go back to the 1960s to see them building this many in a couple years' time," said Gene Palmer, who has owned the Last Drive-In Picture Show in Gatesville for 50 years.

I don't know about you, but my weekend was much better for being almost completely special session-free. I'm even about a quarter of the way through Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince now - Tiffany, true to form, finished it up Saturday night. So I don't want to harsh anyone's mellow, but just in case you've been secretly craving some kind of analytic overviews (it's okay, you can admit it, we're all friends here), I've got a couple of pointers for you.

We'll start with this story which could be simply subtitled "Governing Is Hard Work".

Twice this year, the House and Senate have passed a pair of school finance proposals but have not yet voted on compromise plans worked out by negotiators from each chamber. One proposal rewrites the way the state pays for public education, and the other cuts school property taxes while raising sales and business taxes.

House and Senate leaders set out at the beginning of the year to reduce school property taxes by 33 percent but could not agree on a plan to raise other taxes to replace those dollars.

Lawmakers in each chamber steered away from a major overhaul of the corporate franchise tax, concerned that they would be labeled supporters of what some lobbyists were likening to a personal income tax if they extended it to partnerships.

They opted instead for a plan — pushed by Perry — to simply expand the corporate franchise tax to 10,000 businesses that now set up partnerships to avoid it.

The move has met heavy resistance from lobbyists for those businesses. It also pushed lawmakers toward a smaller property tax cut because they could not agree on another way to make up that revenue.

Next is this article which asks the question "Is Rick Perry gonna win his school finance gamble or not?"

"I think there is so much time, substance and dialogue invested that I don't think you can just go home," said GOP adviser Bill Miller. "The bug has taken hold. There's no way to get well without passing something."

Indeed, Mr. Perry's office is sounding that theme, warning lawmakers that they will be in the Capitol until an education plan is passed: "If they want to celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or Festivus in Austin, that's fine with the governor because they are going to stay here until they get this done," said spokesman Robert Black.

There is cause for optimism on one point, however:

A leader does not allow three regular sessions and five special sessions to go by without fixing our public schools. A leader does not intimidate or threaten. Rick Perry is no leader," [Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn] said.

Mr. Perry said such broadsides were an insult to the efforts of the Republican-led Legislature and that he would not dignify the criticism with a reply.

But Ms. Strayhorn might have a point, said Allan Saxe, a political science professor at the University of Texas at Arlington.

Most people remember the regular session, when lawmakers spent "all that time debating the lewd-cheerleading bill. They look at those frivolous bills and say, 'Why didn't you tend to the big issues?' "

Atrios says he's "always been puzzled by the fact that alt-weeklies have largely missed the blogging boat." I don't quite understand it, either. I don't know how things work at the Houston Press, but like Atrios I've long thought that they'd be ideally set up to do the kind of quick-hit reporting and commentary that would make for some compelling blogs, yet they've never even dipped a toe in the water. The same is true for the Austin Chronicle, which saw both the Statesman and the Observer jump on the Lege-watch blog train but never flinched themselves - if anything, their attitude towards blogging (scroll to the bottom) seems especially harsh towards the form, much more so than the dailies. Same no-blogging story at the Dallas Observer and San Antonio Current, too.

Maybe they don't have the workforce, maybe they don't think the ad revenue would be worth it, or maybe they don't feel any pressure to change what they're doing, I don't know. I do know that I'd be quite interested in knowing what their thought processes are on the matter. Four of the five major dailies (the Star-Telegram being the exception, as far as I know) have some resources devoted to blogging. Why is there no hint of this at the weekly level?

June was a slightly slower month, with about 50,000 total hits. I'm never sure what causes the monthly variations in traffic, though for the most part I suspect it's search engine referrals. I thought June would herald some summer doldrums, but the Special Session parade put an end to that line of thinking. The usual list of top referrers and search engine queries is beneath the More link. As always, thanks for stopping by.

Aggregators, collections, indices, etc
======================================
330:  http://www.bloglines.com
245:  http://blo.gs/

Weblog referrers

================

1764:  Daily Kos


771:   In the Pink Texas


395:   Pink Dome


392:   Dos Centavos


388:   Atrios


350:   TAPPED


328:   The Burnt Orange Report


202:   Greg's Opinion


105:   Slightly Rough




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Meant to write about this earlier in the week but didn't get to it: Terry McEachern, the Swisher County DA who helped railroad the Tulia defendants, got a very light punishment from the State Bar of Texas for his sins.

An agreement signed in June but not filed until this month concluded that former district attorney Terry McEachern engaged in misconduct during his prosecution of the Tulia drug cases. The agreement suspends McEachern's license to practice law for two years, but the suspension is probated, meaning McEachern will continue to practice as long as he abides by the agreement.

The State Bar filed a civil petition against McEachern in March 2004 alleging he engaged in misconduct in the prosecution of the cases.

The petition alleged that McEachern knowingly withheld information about Coleman's background and bolstered his key witness' reputation with statements he knew to be false.

McEachern, who denied the allegations in the past, could have faced punishment ranging from censure to disbarment in September, when the case was set to go to trial. McEachern and the State Bar's disciplinary commission were able to reach an agreement, however.

"The commission, I'm sure, felt they were able to reach an adequate agreed judgment with Mr. McEachern that satisfied the needs of protecting the public," said Mark Pinckard, projects director with the bar.

According to the agreement, McEachern will have to obey all laws and rules governing attorney conduct and pay $6,225 in attorneys' fees or his probation will be revoked and the suspension will be activated.

Rick Casey spells out what McEachern has admitted to doing, and suggests a more appropriate punishment. I'm sorry, but the State Bar dropped the ball on this one.

Here's a good followup story to the earlier piece which described overcrowded conditions in the Harris County jails and the dangers to guards and inmates that have resulted from them. Couple of items worth noting: First, despite the fact that the powers that be have known about this crisis since 2003, they've done exactly nothing about it.

"We've been watching it and looking at it," Budget Officer Dick Raycraft said.

Indeed, rather than help deal with the problem by putting more deputies to work in the jail, county officials in recent years have been diverting officers to patrol duty, Raycraft said.

"It was a collaborative decision by the sheriff and the Commissioners Court," he said.

[...]

[Chief Deputy Mike] Smith said the Sheriff's Office is working on ways to ease the crowding. He said 450 inmates who require less supervision were moved Saturday to lower-level security housing adjacent to the two main jails. That shift will still leave 1,200 to 1,400 inmates sleeping on the floor, Smith said.

[...]

According to Raycraft, Harris County pays $12,000 a year to Charles M. Friel, a professor at Sam Houston State's College of Criminal Justice, to forecast trends in law enforcement each quarter. In a report presented to Commissioners Court in September 2003, Friel predicted that the county jail population "could rise to 8,600 by the end of July 2004, a 12-month increase of 15 percent."

Additionally, while noting that a portion of the backlog consists of prison-ready inmates and parole violators, the report by Friel also pointed to the policies of Harris County's criminal justice system as a large reason for the increase in inmates.

Specifically, he cited the growing numbers of defendants unable to post bail while awaiting trial, as well as nonviolent offenders given jail time instead of alternative sentencing.

In subsequent reports, Friel has continued to warn the county about the expanding jail population.

[...]

After commissioners received Friel's report in 2003, Raycraft said the county would reconvene its Criminal Justice Committee. Made up of representatives from Commissioners Court and each division of the county criminal justice system, the committee was created in response to a jail-crowding lawsuit that kept the county jail under a federal judge's control for 23 years, ending in 1995.

However, almost two years after Friel's report, the committee has yet to meet. Raycraft said a meeting is planned for Friday.

The other item of interest is the cost to fix this.

As for the cost of resolving the problem, Raycraft estimated that if, for example, 150 new guards are needed, it would cost about $7 million.

Smith said Friday that the latest projections he has seen put the number of new jailers needed at almost 300.

This has the feel to me of a story that's still in the early stages. I'm sure there'll be more in the coming weeks.

I suppose this is standard operating procedure, but it's still amusing to come across a want ad for the job of Texas Lottery Commission Executive Director. At least, I assume it's standard procedure, since one presumes that Reagan Greer, who'd gotten the job as a patronage prize from Governor Perry, didn't decide to apply for it after seeing it in his Sunday paper. Let's see what the requirements are:

Performs highly advanced management activities with broad oversight responsibility. Exercises strict control and supervision over all lottery games conducted by the Commission.

Through leadership, example, and daily conduct, promotes and ensures integrity, security, honesty, and fairness in the operation and administration of the lottery.

The job is listed as "open until filled", so click the link to find out more. Many thanks to the eagle-eyed Anne for the tip.

Via Banjo, local blogger Slampo relates his experience as a juror in a mock trial for Enron Broadband a couple of years ago. There's quite a bit of grist for the mill there, but his discussion of former EBS CEO Ken Rice leaves me wondering if he's kicking himself nowadays for copping a plea. That's the risk of being risk averse, I suppose. Anyway, some interesting reading there, so check it out.

There's also this Q&A with outgoing Enron Task Force chief Andrew Weissmann, but it was done before the verdicts were returned. Still worth a read, though.

UPDATE: Tom comments on the Q&A with Weissmann.

With one special session on school finance already in the bag and another underway, Governor Perry is being criticized for not calling an election to replace the late Rep. Joe Moreno sooner than he did.

Under state law, special elections to fill vacancies in the Legislature should be set for the next uniform election date. But the law gives governors discretion on setting the date if the Legislature will be in regular session or if a special session appears imminent.

Two weeks after Moreno was killed, Perry scheduled a Nov. 8 election to fill his seat.

Since then, Perry has called two special sessions and urged lawmakers to overhaul the tax structure that pays for the state's public schools, leaving the 135,000 residents in Moreno's district without a voice in the debate.

Robert Black, Perry's spokesman, said the governor followed the law requiring him to schedule the balloting for the next uniform election date. He could move the date up, Black said, only if he knew that a special legislative session was imminent between the time the vacancy occurred and the next uniform election date.

State Rep. Jim Dunnam of Waco, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, pointed out that the power to call a special session rests solely with the governor. And if Perry didn't realize in late May that a special session would probably be needed to complete a school-finance overhaul, he was the only one in Austin who didn't, Dunnam said.

"Everyone knew by the middle of May that the school-finance plan was on life support," Dunnam said. "And Perry was saying all the while that if we didn't get it done [in the regular session], he'd call us right back."

Black rejected the assertion.

"The governor had every reason to believe that lawmakers would complete their work on time," he said. "Hindsight is 20-20."

Greg has a roundup of reactions to my Run Every Race manifesto (and here's another from Hope that came later). Marc Campos says he "will address later" the issue of "running races we can't win". I'll be sure to check back.

Meanwhile, if you haven't already done so, you ought to check out Step Up Texas, which is a grassroots effort to suggest and offer feedback on nominees for offices across Texas. I see a lot of effort spent in various places talking about who we wish would run for this or that position. What Step Up Texas provides is a central place for that conversation to happen, as well as a place for those who want to commit their time and energy to a given campaign to publicly say so. Movements to draft candidates have to come from somewhere, and I think it'd be a better idea to have them come from a place where anyone can join in on it.

Some of what's there is a little goofy - I'm pretty sure Molly Ivins will not be running for Lt. Gov., though I'm sure she'd be flattered to be asked - but I like the idea and hope it will gain some traction. In addition, I love the thought of a one-stop shop for information (and website URLs) on every candidate we've got. So check it out, offer some endorsements, and let's generate some buzz.

In the Pink and Drive Democracy were on this yesterday: Documents which were ordered to be released by the Texas Association of Business as part of litigation against it have led to the identity of many of its secret corporate donors from the 2002 elections. Almost all of them came from the insurance industry.

Among the 18 identified corporate donors, only AT&T Corp., the National Federation of Independent Business and a small data company in the Rio Grande Valley are not involved directly in insurance matters. But those organizations also had an interest in controlling insurance costs and limiting lawsuits.

The insurance firms included giants such as United HealthCare, Cigna, Aetna, Humana, PacifiCare, Blue Cross of California, State Farm and Allstate.

The donations ranged from $100 to $300,000, with most of them at least $40,000 per company.

Officials with most of the corporations either declined to comment because of the threat of litigation or the criminal investigation or did not respond to inquiries from the American-Statesman.

Officials with Liberty Mutual Insurance Co., Allstate Insurance Co. and the business federation confirmed donating to TAB's voter effort. And they emphasized that the money was used to educate voters, not to campaign for candidates, which would be illegal.

"Our contribution to TAB was to help the business community, which we are major part of, publicize a pro-growth business agenda in Texas through a voter education project," Liberty Mutual spokesman Joe Cusolito said.

"We certainly wanted to educate voters on business issues that were important to us," Allstate spokesman Joe McCormick said. "If we wanted to contribute to a candidate, we'd do it through our PAC and not an effort like that."

Unlike the other TAB donors, which just donated money for the overall effort, NFIB designated its $1,000 for a mailer discussing the differences between Supreme Court candidate Dale Wainwright and his opponent.

"We believe we acted within all campaign finance laws," NFIB spokeswoman Nancy St. Pierre said.

Some companies, however, may have not understood the nuances of the ban on corporate money in connection with a campaign.

Allstate, for example, labeled its $20,000 donation as a "political contribution" on the check stub.

What's Andy Taylor got to say about all this?

TAB blacked out the corporations' names and many other identifying marks but left untouched several pieces of information: original documents without the names blacked out, bank account numbers that could be compared to other checks or invoices, and some signatures left exposed.

TAB's lawyer, Andy Taylor, invited reporters to examine the pages, assuring them "nothing's there."

On Thursday, Taylor denied that TAB may have made a mistake in editing the documents, except in two or three instances when original checks or invoices were released without the corporate names adequately blacked out.

He said he had no choice but to follow the court order: "We had to give everything but the names. We didn't have the right to redact anything else."

All things must end, and that includes my Saturday morning stint on BizRadio 1320 AM. Host Jon-Michial Carter emailed me earlier this week to say that he had to stop doing the show because of other time commitments. I greatly enjoyed the experience, and who knows, maybe another opportunity will pop up some day. You can hear the last segments I did here and here. Thanks again to Jon-Michial and Grace Carter for having me on the air, and thanks to Kevin for putting me in touch with them in the first place.

Forwarded to me from the DFA-Houston list, there's going to be a town hall meeting to discuss the Double Secret Illegal Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment tomorrow morning. Click the More link for the details.

The Houston Equal Rights Alliance (HERA) and the Houston GLBT Political Caucus PAC are pleased to announce that the organizations will host a Town Hall to educate the community about the Texas marriage amendment on the ballot in November.

The Town Hall will be held at Bering Memorial United Methodist Church located at 1440 Harold on Saturday, July 23, 2005 at 10:00 a.m. Speakers include Matt Foreman, Executive Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF), and Glen Maxey, state-wide Campaign Director.

The Houston Equal Rights Alliance and the Houston GLBT Political Caucus PAC are hosting the Town Hall with cooperation from the Human Rights Campaign, Lesbian/Gay Rights Lobby of Texas (LGRL), New Covenant Church, Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), Foundation for Family and Marriage Equality, and the Houston GLBT Community Center.

A panel of experts will answer audience questions.

Panelists include:
. Matt Foreman, Executive Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF)
. Glen Maxey, state-wide Campaign Director
. Ken Upton, senior staff attorney with Lambda Legal
. Phyllis Randolph Frye, transgender activist and local attorney with Nechman, Simoneaux, and Frye
. Connie Moore, local attorney who specializes in second parent adoptions with Moore & Hunt
. Rev. Marilyn Meeker-Willams, pastor of Bering United Methodist Church
. John Nechman, local attorney who specializes in bi-national immigration law with Nechman, Simoneaux, and Frye

The Houston Equal Rights Alliance (HERA) is an alliance of individuals and organizations committed to building a sustainable strategy to promote equality and respect of all people through one-on-one conversations, community mobilization, education, and advocacy. Please visit www.HoustonERA.org to learn more about the Houston Equal Rights Alliance. Contact the Houston Equal Rights Alliance at info@HoustonERA.org or 713-522-HERA.

I'm happy to say that it looks like the Texas Lottery Commission really is serious about finding a good director.

A lottery critic, the executive director of the State Bar of Texas and a member of the Texas Ethics Commission have joined a committee to help search for a new state lottery chief, the lottery announced today.

[...]

The search committee, under the leadership of Texas Lottery Commission Chairman C. Thomas Clowe, will review applications and interview the top candidates. The committee will then recommend three to five candidates to the commission.

The three-man commission may consider and select any candidate, but the ones identified by the search committee will receive serious consideration, Clowe said in a letter to Francisco Hernandez, the ethics commissioner.

[...]

One of the committee members is Gerald Busald, a San Antonio College math professor who oversaw a student project that persuaded the commission to change the way it advertises odds for winning from scratch-off lottery tickets.

At last week's lottery commission meeting, Busald criticized what he called the agency's culture of secrecy, saying top officials have covered up information they thought would hurt sales.

Busald said today he would look for honest candidates with the courage to change the agency's culture.

"I think I will have some tough questions to ask the candidates about those integrity issues," he said.

Dawn Nettles, another longtime lottery critic, was named to the committee but immediately stepped down. She said participating in the search would conflict with her duties publishing her "Lotto Report" newsletter and Web site.

"I was honored that they asked," she said. "I report the things that go on and I don't think that it's fair to my readers to be in that position."

Lottery spokesman Bobby Heith said Clowe was surprised by Nettles' decision and would not appoint a replacement.

UPDATE: To take from Ken Rodriguez, as long as they don't nominate Gary Grief for the job, the TLC will almost surely be better off. Via Save Texas Reps.

I think pretty highly of my City Council member, Adrian Garcia. This is a good example why.

On a tolerable summer morning, it's not unusual to see Ofelia Bennett and her friend and neighbor, Bobbie Sheppard, on the porch or walking through the yard.

"Ms. Sheppard is just like my own child," Bennett said.

It's the only exercise the 88-year-old gets.

"I have a cane and I used to walk in the yard," Bennett said. "Now I don't want to walk around there because I don't know what's out there."

Out there, Bennett said, are rodents and insects living inside wood and bricks that a storm blew off the next-door building onto her yard. And she wants it picked up.

"I called the 311," she said, "the mayor's office, ever since trying to get some help."

After four months of complaining, Sheppard was told, "the city has no funds for doing anything like that."

But Councilman Adrian Garcia in District H does, so he created "District H. Cares."

"I spend my campaign money buying the equipment," Garcia said. "The weed eaters, the chain saws, the trailers, all the equipment … so I could put this program in place."

The idea is to quickly move in to clean up neighborhood nuisances already cited by the city.

"To me that's enough," said Garcia. "Literally, my crew can be right behind them to take the corrective action. We should not wait until the lien process comes into place."

(I saw this on the 6 PM News yesterday, as apparently did Anne, who had it posted last night.)

The good news: Our copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince arrived yesterday from Amazon UK.

The bad news: Tiffany got to it first, so I have to wait until she's done reading it.

The good news: She's a really fast reader.

The bad news: Neither of us has much free time for reading these days.

So, the ban on telling me anything about this book will please continue until I say otherwise. I thank you for your indulgence in the matter. In the meantime, if you want to discuss something Potter-related here, try this US News article on how the Potter books are (slowly) helping to arrest a trend of not reading by kids.

The Chron reports on the end run that TxDOT attempted regarding plans for the I-45 expansion.

As part of the IH-45 North Hardy Corridor Planning Studies, TxDOT and Carter Burgess first presented the idea of the managed lanes project to the public during meetings at Jefferson Davis High School and Greenspoint Mall in October.

But since then, members of the Citizens Transportation Coalition and the I-45 Coalition say the transportation department has left them out of the loop.

The latest example of that, they claim, was that despite promising to keep community input on the project high, TxDOT did not present either its completed Alternatives Analysis Report or the executive summary of its findings to its community partners.

Representatives from both groups say the department has done an "end around" to keep them out of the planning process. And one member of the HGAC advisory committee agreed.

A letter mailed to members of the HGAC's Technical Advisory Committee, which included a CD containing the Carter Burgess and TxDOT report, stated, "Please be aware that the complete report is still a preliminary draft being transmitted only to TAC members at this time and is not to be reproduced for any other purpose."

To some, including TAC member John Wilson, that message was indicative of a process that he says TxDOT has continuously tried to keep from the public.

"I'm offended and embarrassed that HGAC was asked to (keep this secret)," Wilson said. "TxDOT has taken what was an example of excellence in planning and turned it into an exercise in arrogance."

The Galveston-Houston Association for Smog Prevention, which received a copy of the CD containing the report, posted the report and its executive summary on its Web site.

The group did not comply with TxDOT's request to keep the information private, writing on its Web site that "GHASP is disregarding this improper request because we believe that the effected community has a right to this public information."

"We knew in May that the report was coming out in July," said Robin Holzer, chair of the Citizens Transportation Coalition's board of directors. "Then we got the TAC agenda a week before the Fourth of July, saying that the report was going to be presented. I sent an e-mail to HGAC asking when they were going to post the report, and they said they weren't posting it."

At the July 13 meeting, Holzer asked the committee to hold off on approving the TxDOT plan until the community had a chance to review the department's report and present a response.

Once the Technical Advisory Committee makes its recommendation on TxDOT's report, the plan will be presented to HGAC's Transportation Policy Council, which must approve it before the department can move forward with the planning process.

"This is the report these neighbors have been waiting for," Holzer said. "TxDOT has had the ability to let these folks know that this report was available, but chose not to. It seems unlikely that citizens will have an opportunity to see, read and analyze this report before this committee next meets and would likely vote on it. We respectfully ask you to defer any decision until your September meeting."

On Friday morning, TxDOT will present their recommended alternative for expanding I-45 North to our region's Transportation Policy Council (TPC). Neighborhood leaders from the I-45 Coalition and the Citizens' Transportation Coalition (CTC) will be joined by Houston City Council Members Adrian Garcia and Ronald Green, to press TxDOT to revise the plan to address major flaws and give the public time to review the report, prior to TPC approval.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACTS:

Jim Weston
m (713) 816-0444

Ken Lindow
m (832) 754-1202

Robin Holzer
m (713) 301-5716

TXDOT TO PRESENT HUGE EXPANSION PLAN FOR I-45 NORTH. PROJECT MAY TOP $3 BILLION.

Neighborhood leaders and Houston City Council members demand changes to flawed plan.

(Houston) - The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is planning a massive expansion of IH-45 North. On Friday, the Transportation Policy Council (TPC), chaired by Harris County Judge Robert Eckels, will hear TxDOT's "recommended alternative" for the IH-45 expansion project.

TxDOT's plan will require expansion from 225 feet of right-of-way to 392 feet. However, TxDOT's study fails to disclose possible right-of-way requirements for any of the alternatives studied.

Further, the report claims the project might cost only $395 - $455 million, or $13.2 - 15.2 million per centerline mile. In contrast, the IH-10 Katy Freeway expansion project is now estimated to cost $2.67 billion - or more than $106 million per mile. At 30 miles long, the IH-45 project will rival the Katy Expansion project in scope and may cost as much as $3.18 billion.

Neighborhood leaders are calling for TxDOT to fix the study and let the public review the revised plan for 60 days prior to approval by the TPC. TxDOT has yet to post the report on the department's website or otherwise notified citizens that the draft report is available. Houston City Council Members Adrian Garcia and Ronald Green will ask TxDOT to revise the study and ensure both citizens and elected officials have access to the revised report.

What: Presentation of IH-45 expansion plan
Meeting of the Transportation Policy Council
Public comments by Houston City Council Member
Adrian Garcia and concerned neighborhood leaders

When: Friday, July 22, 2005 at 9:30 am
Please note: public comments are at the very
beginning of the meeting

Where: Houston-Galveston Area Council offices, 2nd floor,
conference room A
3555 Timmons Lane at Richmond Ave, Houston, 77027

I have to say, I'm at a loss to understand why the concept of running a candidate in every race has less than unanimous acclaim among my fellow Democrats. Still, just as some of us were cheering at the prospect of an open Senate seat, even one in solid Republican turf, here comes Marc Campos to be the wet blanket.

Yesterday, an internet opinion suggested that Dems field a candidate in SD 7. They said Dems can go from 25% to maybe 40% - from a severe a__ whipping, to a solid a__ whipping. Bad idea. It costs $1250 to file for state senator. Better idea to send that money to Ellen Cohen.

Marc's point is that there's only a finite amount of money available, and races like Cohen's challenge to Martha "No Thong" Wong is a higher priority than a quixotic assault on SD7. I'll readily concede that, but I say that viewing campaigns and the funds for them as a zero sum game is wrong. By my count, there were over 83,000 people in SD7 who cast a vote for John Kerry last year. Almost all of them - 162 of 167 precincts, to be exact - have no Democrats representing them at any level. Only eight precincts, five represented by Wong and three by Scott Hochberg, featured a competitive non-countywide race. How many of those 83,000 people do you think were visited by a Democratic candidate and asked for their support? My guess would be not very many, which means there's lots of potential there for new donors.

If we truly care about our own values, we'll strive to bring candidates who promote them to voters who share them, wherever those voters may be. If we do that, I'm willing to bet we'll find that the support we get, both in terms of votes and donations, is greater than we think. We Democrats in Texas have been complaining about the national party hitting us up for cash for it to spend on races and candidates everywhere else. We should be treating our allies in places like SD7 the same way that we want the DNC to treat us.

Another odd argument I've heard against fielding candidates even in solid GOP territory is that by doing so you'll just drive up Republican turnout in those races. See the first comment here for an example of that genre. Well, hell, by that logic we shouldn't run in any statewide races. I sure hope no one's advocating that. Maybe some of those Republicans who wouldn't bother to vote in noncompetitive races sit them out because they're not really all that committed to the GOP. Maybe some of them, if presented with an alternative, might consider taking that alternative. For certain, we're not going to convince too many people to vote for us if we don't have the decency to ask them to do so.

(For an interesting take on where we might find some Democrats to run otherwise overlooked races, see what Bogey has to say.)

City Council District C candidate Brian Cweren spent a little money on various domain names and bought himself a pile of publicity.

Cweren's twist — directing people who type those addresses to his own site — is more unusual, his campaign acknowledges .

Go to some sites containing all or part of the names of Cweren opponents Anne Clutterbuck, George Hittner, Ray Jones, Mark Lee or Herman Litt, and you'll get this message:

"I realize you were looking for someone else, but I would be honored if you would visit my website." It helpfully provides a link to Cweren's site.

Cweren's campaign purchased 29 sites including variations on his name or the others.

"It was a strategy designed by our Web designer. We thought, 'Why the hell not?' It's not anything malicious. I thought we were being smart," said Don Hooper, Cweren's political consultant. "It's perfectly legal to do, as long as you aren't using it for nefarious purposes. I don't know why she didn't register AnneClutterbuck.com."

Clutterbuck doesn't know either, saying she regrets it.

"I never imagined that this would be an issue," she said. "I don't even know how to research this. I'm trying to focus on running my campaign and not focus on those shenanigans."

I don't consider this sort of thing to be a dirty trick, whether you sit on the names, use them as attack sites, or simply redirect them to your place. It's a bit tacky, but it's well within the bounds, and again, it's not like it should come as a surprise to anyone any more. And I definitely have to tip my cap to Cweren, who will for sure get way more hits via this story than he ever would by redirecting anneclutterbuck.com. In this environment of no Mayoral race to drive coverage, you gotta do what you gotta do to get attention.

Stop me if you've heard this one before: Governor Perry has called another special session to deal with school finance.

The special session that Gov. Rick Perry called to fix the state's school finance system staggered to an end Wednesday with no education reforms, no property tax cuts and a heap of frustration among lawmakers who can't agree on how to address the state's largest political problem.

Technical questions and a filibuster by Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, that began at 9:46 p.m. appeared to seal the fate of a major education bill in the Senate that would have increased spending on schools, awarded teacher raises and reduced the money that property-wealthy districts send property-poorer districts. And as of late Wednesday night, the House had taken no action on the measure.

[...]

Sen. Kim Brimer, R-Fort Worth, said House and Senate negotiators were so close to a deal that quick progress in the next special session is possible.

With a deal in hand — and Brimer conceded it isn't — a bill could be rammed through the Legislature in five days, he said. But if the Legislature starts with a blank sheet of paper or chooses to go through the full-fledged process of committee hearings and debate, Brimer said, two weeks to a full 30 days might be on the horizon.

Let's pause for a moment to engage in something that actually is fun: the blame game.

A spokeswoman for House Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, said House negotiators had to hang tough during talks with the Senate because the tax-swap bill earlier this month passed the House by only one vote.

"The House is the harder chamber to pass the bill in," Alexis DeLee said.

Senate tax writers said Mr. Craddick, though never in the room with tax bill negotiators, was the main obstacle to reaching an agreement.

"It was just offer, counteroffer, offer, counteroffer," said Sen. Kip Averitt, R-Waco, a certified public accountant who was one of the Senate's negotiators. "I don't think the speaker wants to vote on a tax bill this session."

Mr. Averitt added: "We thought we were making progress and making legitimate counteroffers. But we couldn't quite make [Mr. Craddick] happy. The overwhelming sentiment in the Capitol is the House doesn't want to vote on a tax bill because they can't pass one. The speaker may have been protecting his members."

Another Senate negotiator, Sen. Kim Brimer, R-Fort Worth, said of Mr. Craddick: "He just kept moving the target. He was looking to blame us. We just really saw it as a posturing."

Ms. DeLee replied: "That is not the case. We've been committed from the very beginning to getting [tax and school finance bills] done."

As for Mr. Averitt's suggestion that Mr. Craddick may have been protecting House members, she said: "The speaker knows what he can pass in the House. Every proposal that we gave them included both what we needed and what they needed to pass a bill."

(If you think I'm being unfair to Highland Park, look at the chart at the end of this story, and read Scott Hochberg's analysis as quoted by Greg.)

The call for the session is for today, and as I understand it they'll be in recess until Monday. After that, I expect more of the same. Do keep in mind that at least until the Texas Supreme Court makes a ruling on the school finance lawsuit, there's technically no need for the Lege to act at all, as the latter DMN story notes:

The House voted Wednesday to send Gov. Rick Perry a bill restoring the $33.6 billion education budget he vetoed when he called lawmakers into special session last month. The move had been intended to help force the House and Senate to reach a deal on school finance and property tax overhaul, but one of the few bills both chambers passed was to reauthorize the spending Mr. Perry cut. It's unclear whether Mr. Perry will sign the measure, but it passed both chambers with enough votes to override another veto. Also, provisions in state law allow for the money to be spent regardless, so schools are certain to open on time.

Holy crap. I did not expect this.

Three months after the Enron Internet fraud trial began, prosecutors failed Wednesday to win a single conviction against any of the five defendants.

After deliberating less than 24 hours over four days, a Houston federal court jury acquitted three of the men on some charges and deadlocked on most of the Enron Broadband Services case.

"This verdict is a reflection of the complexity of this pro- secution," said Robert Mintz, a New Jersey-based legal expert who follows the cases. "It spells trouble for the government trying to convince jurors in this case and others in the future."

He and other legal experts said the acquittals and mistrial can only bode well for ex-Enron executives Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling and Rick Causey, who face off with the humbled prosecutors next January.

But Mintz also said the judge was "quick on the trigger for a mistrial" noting that "in cases this complex jurors sometimes go weeks and say they are deadlocked and judges send them back and they finally reach a verdict."

That happened most recently in the Richard Scrushy case. The former chief executive of HealthSouth Corp., was acquitted of fraud after 21 days of jury deliberations including a period when jurors said they were deadlocked.

After being told by each juror that they were hopelessly deadlocked, Judge Gilmore made the jury deliberate for a little more than another hour.

She asked them to reconsider and break the deadlocks because so much time went into the case and another jury would just have to start over again. But the jurors insisted there was no hope.

After that the judge accepted the not guilty verdicts on 24 counts, leaving no defendant completely exonerated.

As for the potential effects on the Skilling/Lay/Causey trial, this certainly knocks a lot of wind out of the prosecution's sails. Obviously, those charges have to stand or fall on their own, but you'd think at the very least there'd be a psychological effect. If this were a sports story, there'd be a whole grab bag of cliches we could reach for, about things like "chemistry" and "momentum" and stuff like that. It would be mostly hot air, of course, but it would sound good.

As always, Tom has some sharp analysis of what happened. Former EBS workers react to the verdicts here.

Matt Glazer, recently mentioned as a possible challenger to Frank Corte in HD122, tells us where he stands on entering the race. Whatever decision he makes, I hope all the eventual Democratic challengers have his level of dedication and passion.

Be sure to also check out The Jeffersonian's analysis of this district.

Last week, I blogged about this story in the Chron regarding the proposed demolition of a historic home in the Old Sixth Ward. The subject of the article, Maria Isabel, has left a lengthy comment which appears to be a copy of a letter to the Chron. In the interest of equal time, I'm reprinting it here so everyone will be more likely to see it. Click the More link to see her response.

7.16.2005

Mr. Bob Carlquist
Executive VP & General Manager
The Houston Chronicle
801 Texas Avenue
Houston TX 77002

re: Zest story “ There goes the neighborhood”

Lisa Grey printed a story that reads like an editorial with attacks to our character, both personal and professional. Without fully researching sources and facts, Lisa peppered the story with sensationalism including such statements as “monstrosity”, “McMansion on steroids“, “aggressively modern”, “defeating the principles of good architecture“, and even a quote by Texas Anderson suggesting us as an “obnoxious neighbor“.

According to British Historian Sir Banister Fletcher, the style known as “Queen Ann” merged with the Gothic in England in the 1860’s. It was characterized by segmentally pedimented windows, dormers, handsome brickwork, and imposingly grouped chimneys. Terra-cotta decorative details and Dutch gables were also part of the Queen Anne idiom, which became the hallmark of the London Board Schools designed in the 1870’s. This “little Queen Ann cottage” built in 1885 was originally a modest two room home, built by the working class of it’s time, and does not contain any of those details typical of the Queen Anne style.

Over the course of history the footprint of this little house was extended to accommodate needs and requirements. These additions were made with no attention to a particular architectural style, and using lowest cost construction techniques and materials. One major addition includes a tin roof and shingle style siding. The last time this house was worked on it was created into a duplex for leasing purpose. Professional experts found very little historic architectural interest or value. In fact the house has six different floor materials and multiple floor levels, five types of base, five styles of windows, and six different door configurations. This little house has not been properly maintained over an extended period, with roof leaks leading to ceiling collapse, structural and floor deterioration. The house has been abandoned for years during which time it has been used as a refuge for vagrants and as a dump. This careless treatment has led to the extensively damaged condition in which it’s found today.

In regards to the statement "he knew he was buying property in a historic neighborhood, but he had no intentions of keeping the little Queen Anne Cottage"; when we contacted Karpas Properties, Wendy the agent handling the account for the Taylor’s, informed us that the property was not available for inspection due to the hazards of structural failure. Our closing documents confirm this noting that "This property is being sold for lot value only". We purchased the property from outside the fence. Recently we found that the Taylor’s decided to sell the property because they could not afford to renovate the little house, and the commission would not approve demolition.

After the closing we launched a tremendous investigation effort to discover the actual historical value, the materials and architectural details, and the condition of the building. We met with historic commission members and associates, including JD, Bart, and Lynn to assess and discuss the possibilities for refurbishing, and or relocation. We met with four local builders, including Doug Smith who has a column in your paper, and two craftsman to establish renovation costs. From Oct 9th, 2004 till March 11, 2005 we continued our research. We found that the actual cost to meet city code, and refurbish the home, in addition to the lot investment, would set the property outside market value. Due to Lisa’s lack of research and knowledge about our case and our efforts to save the little house, she failed to post in the article that we are offering a $5,600 incentive to help with the moving expenses.

In the story, it is erroneously stated that (he) “in fact was applying for permission to tear it down“, when in fact the original application form to the planning committee on March 11, 2005 was to “relocate”.

Regarding "aggressively modern", the materials were carefully chosen to mirror elements existing in the neighborhood. Our intentions as stated in the application to the planning committee were to encompass inspired modern style concepts, developed during the Victorian period from the 1860’s through the 1920’s by Norman Shaw, Mackintosh, and Frank Lloyd Wright. The dimensions of the proposed structure are incorrectly stated. The actual height of the proposed two level home is 29’, in scale with similar two level Victorian “like” houses in the area. On the southeast corner of the building we created a small 14-foot square exterior space, a Widows Walk, which rises above the main house to a total height of 37’, not 49’9”.

Preservation of the 30 year old Palm and other trees in the front of the property are the source for “the setback” of this plan. Alternating the placement of houses in consecutive lots on any given residential street allows the side windows of the homes to gaze at the neighbor’s garden landscape, a clever “architectural principle” used in urban communities where properties are often close in proximity. Concerning the adjacent neighbors, Maria on the west side has become a friend, she is excited that we are building a home for our family and chasing the bums away, eliminating the dump site that now exists, cleaning up the standing water that harbors pests and odor. She also expressed her concerns about the teenagers in the area using the abandoned house for unmentionable activities. The property on the east side is a parking lot for the business next door. Our back neighbor Mark, facing Kane Street, has a two level home with the typical gable roof, and in the rear of his property stands a two story dilapidated, rusty, dented, metal, non Victorian building he calls “the apartment“. By the way this apt is encroaching on our property by one foot. I also have established a relationship with Mary across the street. She is looking forward to “viewing” something nice from her front porch. A few weeks ago Maria and I were attending an Astros game, and she called to let us know that our gate was open and she suspected trouble. We have made it a point to know our neighbors and let them know our intentions.

The garage entrance is a typical two-car size and set back 17’ as per code. The size and design of the interior of the garage space is personal. Perhaps Lisa and the commission would prefer we keep the RV and other vehicles outside the fence on the driveway or street. The proposed driveway is made up of stone tiles, set on a sand bed, and framed with dwarf grass. We are also planning a garden outside the fence and around the culvert.

We would like to invite Lisa for a visit to the property at 1814 Lubbock, to look at our proposal for new construction, and to walk our street and meet the neighbors. We believe that if she were to do so she could see for herself that our proposed home is carefully designed, will be an asset to the neighborhood, and that the real “monstrosity” is the dilapidated homes in the sixth ward, some of which are owned by members of the HAHC and OSWHA.

Committed to the Revitalization of OSW,

Barry Norman and Maria Isabel
1518 Washington Ave, Apt H
Houston TX 77007
713-542-0681
maria@isabeldesign.com

The following is a message from the I-45 Coalition:

I-45 Town Hall Meeting on August 13
We need you to be there!

The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) will present findings from the I-45 Corridor Study at a Town Hall Meeting on Saturday, August 13, at 2:00 pm. at Jeff Davis High School Auditorium (1101 Quitman, six blocks East of North Main).

The I-45 Corridor Study includes reconstruction recommendations from TxDOT’s consulting firm.

• Public intervention at this point is critical so that alternatives to a wider highway can be considered. Your presence at this meeting will have a big influence on the outcome of I-45 design.
• Hear expansion alternatives presented by the I-45 Coalition and supported by our elected officials. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, State Senator Mario Gallegos, State Representative Jessica Farrar, Commissioner Sylvia Garcia, City Councilman Adrian Garcia and others will be there to show their support for the neighborhoods.
• High turnout counts!

Let’s make it a giant turnout to make ourselves heard! Form a carpool or, if you need a ride, contact your civic association. See you there!

James Doohan has been beamed up for good.

James Doohan, the burly chief engineer of the Starship Enterprise in the original "Star Trek" TV series and movies who responded to the command "Beam me up, Scotty," died Wednesday. He was 85.

Doohan died at 5:30 a.m. (1230 GMT) at his Redmond, Washington, home with his wife of 28 years, Wende, at his side, Los Angeles agent and longtime friend Steve Stevens said. The cause of death was pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease, he said.

He had said farewell to public life in August 2004, a few months after being diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

The Canadian-born Doohan was enjoying a busy career as a character actor when he auditioned for a role as an engineer in a new space adventure on NBC in 1966. A master of dialects from his early years in radio, he tried seven different accents.

"The producers asked me which one I preferred," Doohan recalled 30 years later. "I believed the Scot voice was the most commanding. So I told them, 'If this character is going to be an engineer, you'd better make him a Scotsman.'"

[...]

James Montgomery Doohan was born March 3, 1920, in Vancouver, British Columbia, youngest of four children of William Doohan, a pharmacist, veterinarian and dentist, and his wife Sarah. As he wrote in his autobiography, "Beam Me Up, Scotty," his father was a drunk who made life miserable for his wife and children.

At 19, James escaped the turmoil at home by joining the Canadian army, becoming a lieutenant in artillery. He was among the Canadian forces that landed on Juno Beach on D-Day. "The sea was rough," he recalled. "We were more afraid of drowning than the Germans."

The Canadians crossed a minefield laid for tanks; the soldiers weren't heavy enough to detonate the bombs. At 11:30 that night, he was machine-gunned, taking six hits: one that took off his middle right finger (he managed to hide the missing finger on screen), four in his leg and one in the chest. Fortunately the chest bullet was stopped by his silver cigarette case.

After the war Doohan on a whim enrolled in a drama class in Toronto. He showed promise and won a two-year scholarship to New York's famed Neighborhood Playhouse, where fellow students included Leslie Nielsen, Tony Randall and Richard Boone.

[...]

In a 1998 interview, Doohan was asked if he ever got tired of hearing the line "Beam me up, Scotty."

"I'm not tired of it at all," he replied. "Good gracious, it's been said to me for just about 31 years. It's been said to me at 70 miles an hour across four lanes on the freeway. I hear it from just about everybody. It's been fun."

Remember that bill to restrict eminent domain? Looks like it's hit a snag.

Legislation to protect private property owners from certain land seizures appeared dead Tuesday when the House refused to negotiate a final version of the bill with the Senate.

Although Senate Bill 62 may be doomed for this special session, which ends at midnight, lawmakers are likely to revive the issue if another special session is called.

[...]

Because the House and Senate passed different versions, each chamber needed to appoint members to a conference committee to work out a compromise agreement.

The Senate had agreed to negotiate with the House.

But Rep. Frank Corte, R-San Antonio, persuaded 91 representatives not to negotiate with the Senate, which he said would result in weakening the bill. Forty voted to negotiate.

"We need to do something for the property owners of Texas, and this is the only thing we have right now," Corte said. "If it's watered down, it's not worth passing."

Sen. Kyle Janek, R-Houston, who authored the bill in the upper chamber, said he will not accept the House's version.

A major sticking point, he said, is a provision that would require governments to pay replacement value — rather than fair market value — when property is seized.

"That's just a litigation nightmare," said Janek. "I didn't like that. We have to be very careful about the wording of that bill."

The House version would have made cities pay more in compensation to the owners of homes and business that would be condemned under eminent-domain laws. It also would have closed a loophole that would have allowed governments to define whether a particular project was for economic development – what proponents said was akin to the wolf guarding the henhouse.

The Senate version left those provisions out of its bill, with its author, Houston GOP Sen. Kyle Janek, saying it would have destroyed the cities' abilities to proceed on community development projects.

As there almost certainly will be another session, there ought to be the time to put together a proposal that has broad agreement overall and which is limited to the original scope of clarifying state law in light of Kelo. If legislators can't do that, then they can always go back to working on school finance like they were called to Austin to do.

There's apparently a UT angle in this as well. BOR's John Pruett has more on that.

There'd been speculation before that there could be a contested primary in Jon Lindsay's SD7, and now thanks to Lindsay's announced retirement, there will be.

Lindsay has been a fixture in local politics, serving eight years in the Senate and 20 years as county judge.

Lindsay, who turns 70 in December, said he announced his decision now to give prospective candidates time to gear up their campaigns.

A number have indicated an interest, as Lindsay has not discouraged months of speculation that he might retire from elective politics.

[...]

Some of the potential candidates are:

•Harris County state Reps. Peggy Hamric, Joe Nixon, Corbin Van Arsdale and Dwayne Bohac
•Term-limited Houston City Councilman Mark Ellis
•Mortgage banker Ben Streusand of Spring, who lost an expensive 2004 GOP primary runoff for the newly drawn 10th Congressional District.

We all know this is a safe Republican district, and as such the main action will almost certainly be in the GOP primary. That most certainly does not mean that the Dems should let the Republicans fight this one out amongst themselves. This is a rare opportunity, since Senate seats don't come open very often, and especially if Moldy Joe Nixon is the nominee there'll be many chances to do some good for Democrats overall, especially for whoever winds up running for Nixon's State House seat. Finally, as Anne notes in Greg's comments, there's a ready-made issue for the Democrat to champion, and that's reigning in the Harris County Toll Road Authority, which is not only Lindsay's prized offspring but also a direct threat to SD7's constituents in Spring thanks to the proposed Grand Parkway extension. People can be remarkably single-issue-focused, especially in local elections, and here the issue is sitting on a silver platter for us. Someone needs to take it and run with it.

At this point, HB2 (the school finance bill) seems to be headed towards acceptance (or at least an up-or-down vote), while HB3 (the tax bill) is still unresolved. Since HB2 won't take effect until HB3 does, that means we're still at a point of no accomplishment, which in turn means another special session to follow on the heels of this one.

The Statesman has a good summary of HB2, which is considerably smaller in scope than it was originally intended to be.

[HB2] boosts school funding by about $2.4 billion over two years, increases teacher pay and reduces the amount of money that property-wealthy school districts must send away to property-poor districts as part of the state's share-the-wealth funding system.

"It will provide more money for every Texas school district, including more money for districts serving at-risk and limited English proficient students, small and rural districts," said House Speaker Tom Craddick, adding that it also boosts spending for transportation and technology.

Democrats and at least one teacher group assailed the final proposal as unfair and inadequate, and its fate remains uncertain.

[...]

The spending plan calls for $1,000 across-the-board raises for teachers this year, plus money for a $500-per-teacher increase in each of the next two years that local school districts would decide how to distribute.

They could use that money to give another across-the-board increase or find another way to distribute the money, such as giving more money to teachers who mentor colleagues or work in subjects that tend to lack certified teachers, such as special education.

Teacher groups say the across-the-board raise is really $500 because it includes the restoration of a health insurance stipend that the Legislature cut from $1,000 to $500 in 2003.

"The bill is highly insufficient for public education," said Brock Gregg of the Association of Texas Professional Educators.

The legislation also requires school to start after Labor Day beginning in fall 2006, gives bonus pay to teachers who work in low-income schools that show improvement, allows private companies or other outside groups to take over schools that consistently have low test scores and moves school board elections from May to November.

Under the plan, per-student spending in the Austin school district in two years would be 7.6 percent higher than if the current school finance system remained law, according to projections released by House officials late Tuesday. Spending would be 8.8 percent higher in Eanes and 4.3 percent higher in Round Rock.

The plan reduces the amount of money that districts with higher property values, such as Austin, have to share with the rest of the state. Legislative estimates show Austin sending $155 million to other districts in two years under current law; under the proposed plan, the district would send away just $348,000.

Districts with the highest per-student property values in the state, such as Eanes, would not have to share more 38 percent of their local tax revenue with the rest of the state through the share-the-wealth system, though that cap could fluctuate in the future.

Some of the districts share more than 70 percent of their local taxes under the current system.

Under the cap, wealthier districts would be able to raise more money with a lower tax rate than districts in other parts of the state.

But under a complicated format, the spending increases allowed for wealthier districts would be tied to overall revenue growth for schools around the state. So the more that spending goes up for property-poorer districts, the more money the wealthier districts can raise and keep in local taxes.

As for the companion tax bill HB3, the picture looks bleak.

Several factors have complicated the push for a tax-swap proposal, including questions about whether there is sufficient support in the House. Lobbyists for companies that would have to start paying the corporate franchise tax have worked to build opposition to the bill.

"It's questionable as to whether this would pass the House floor in its current form," Rep. Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth, said Tuesday of a recent House proposal.

Senate Democrats have also threatened to filibuster any bill that raises the state sales tax, currently at 6.25 percent, higher than 6.75 percent.

Sen. Steve Ogden, a Bryan Republican and the lead tax negotiator in the Senate, said balancing tax increases and tax cuts has proved difficult.

"This is not really a tax-cut bill, this is a tax-shift bill," Ogden said. "It's hard to build a solid constituency around a tax shift, because for every person that gets a break, another one has to pay a higher tax. And so every time you make somebody happy, you make somebody else mad."

More coverage can be found here, here, and here. On the blogs, Aaron Pena notes this story about business' dissatisfaction with the various tax plans; Nate, Matt, Eileen, Eye on Williamson, PinkDome, and Save Texas Reps also comment.

So what kind of shape did Carly Fiorina leave HP in after she grabbed the golden handshake? Here's a hint.

Hewlett-Packard will cut 14,500 jobs worldwide, including an unspecified number from its Houston campus.

Most of the reductions will come from support staffs.

"The job reductions are targeted at areas where our cost structure needs to be reduced, and more than half of the actions are targeted at support functions, such as information technology, human resources and finance," said HP's President and CEO Mark Hurd in a conference call this morning.

While the company is hoping some employees will leave voluntarily, it expects the majority of the reductions to come through layoffs.

UPDATE: Loren Steffy is unimpressed by HP's announcement, and as Anne notes in the comments, he has a better suggestion for cost cutting in the future.

According to Karl-T, San Antonio blogger (and fellow Trinity alum) Matt Glazer was really serious when he said awhile back that someone needs to step up and challenge State Rep. Frank Corte in HD122. Matt, I salute you, I encourage you, and when you have a website up I'll donate to you, but I want to warn you: From a Democratic perspective, this district sucks.

How bad is it? See for yourself (Excel spreadsheet). The best any Democratic candidate did in this district was 31.8%, achieved by Ralph Lopez in the Bexar County Sheriff race. I hate to say it, but there's a reason no one ever challenges Corte.

(On a side note, how is it that after the otherwise extremely effective 2001 Legislative Redistricting Board gerrymander of the State House districts, Bexar County - which leans slightly Republican at the statewide level - wound up with eight Democrats out of ten representatives? Okay, there were only seven after the 2002 election, but still. They've got two extreme GOP districts, 121 and 122, one lean-Dem district (Leibowitz's 117), and seven others whose 2002 statewides ranged from 54 to 64% Dem. Don't get me wrong here, I'm totally not complaining, just failing to comprehend how some of the Republicans in the 70%+ GOP HD121 and 122 failed to get allocated to some of these other slots.)

To answer Karl-T's question, HD122 mostly intersects Henry Bonilla's CD23, not Lamar Smith's CD21. There were about 87,000 votes cast there in the Presidential election, with 58,000 ballots from CD23 and 26,500 from CD21. It's all in the spreadsheet. The Jeffersonian has some other info on the district.

Like I say, Matt, I absolutely support your entry into this race, and look forward to profiling you for Texas Tuesdays. I just want to make sure you have the information you need to run the kind of race you hope to run. Good luck!

Awhile back, I noted that the Lottery Commission had gutted its security division, then tried to cover that fact up. This is the sort of work that the Lottery investigators did.

A former employee of the Texas Lottery Commission has been indicted for allegedly defrauding retailers, including one in Houston, who applied to become Texas Lottery vendors.

The indictment charges Taneil Gage with one count of theft by a public servant of more than $500 but less than $1,500. The offense is a state jail felony punishable by up to two years behind bars.

The alleged scam in June and July 2003 preyed on retailers who didn't meet minimum credit ratings, said Mindy McCracken, assistant Travis County district attorney in the public integrity unit.

[...]

The lottery commission became suspicious when a certified letter sent to a potential vendor was returned unopened, according to McCracken.

McCracken credits former lottery investigator Charlie Brune, now an investigator at the Texas Department of Transportation's motor vehicle division and a former Texas Ranger, with quickly cracking the case.

"The investigators on this case did a great job. I know the lottery's getting some bad press lately, but on his watch, they did a good job," McCracken said.

However, since that scam was discovered, the agency's security division has been reduced. The number of commissioned law officers was slashed from 35 to four and investigative field offices were closed in a reorganization in November.

I've written before about the way the Bush Administration has tried to shaft the Veterans' Affairs Department by grossly underestimating its budgetary needs. At long last, they've owned up to this failure.

The Bush administration admitted yesterday that its request for veterans' health care in fiscal 2006 is short by nearly $2 billion and asked Congress to fund the shortfall.

The request comes two weeks after the administration conceded that the 2005 amount passed by Congress and signed by the president -- already more than Mr. Bush had requested -- was short and that Congress must pass a $975 million emergency spending bill to make up the difference.

Although the House passed that $975 million request, over the objection of Democrats who sought still more, the Senate has twice passed amendments to spending bills calling for an additional $1.5 billion in 2005.

White House Office of Management and Budget Director Joshua B. Bolten testified to the House Budget Committee yesterday that part of the problem is that Congress and the Bush administration had overspent from 2002 to 2004.

"The appropriations have exceeded the VA medical care needs in the preceding three years by over half a billion dollars in each of the preceding three years," Mr. Bolten said, according to Democrats on the committee, who said they were "appalled" by the statement.

"Anyone willing to visit our VA hospitals would know that there are hiring freezes, delays in veterans getting doctor's appointments and postponement of important medical equipment purchases because VA health-care funding has not kept up with veterans' needs," said Rep. Chet Edwards, Texas Democrat.

Fellow Republicans warned House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Leader Tom DeLay more than a year ago that the government would come up short — by at least $750 million — for veterans' health care. The leaders' response: Fire the messengers.

Now that the Bush administration has acknowledged a shortfall of at least $1.2 billion, embarrassed Republicans are scrambling to fill the gap. Meanwhile, Democrats portray the problem as another example of the GOP and the White House taking a shortsighted approach to the cost of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and criticize their commitment to the troops.

New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith, as chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, had told the House GOP leadership that the Veterans Affairs Department needed at least $2.5 billion more in its budget. The Senate passed a bill with that increase; the House's bill was $750 million short.

Smith and 30 other Republicans wrote to their leaders in March 2004 to make the point that lawmakers who were not the usual outspoken advocates for veterans were troubled by the move. Failure to come up with the additional $2.5 billion, they contended, could mean higher co-payments and "rationing of health care services, leading to long waiting times or other equally unacceptable reductions in services to veterans."

Still, the House ignored them.

Smith was rebuked by several Republicans for sounding the spending alarm, and House leaders yanked his chairmanship in January. Rep. Rob Simmons, R-Conn., lost his chairmanship of the VA health subcommittee, and Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., is no longer on the committee. They too had signed the letters to Hastert, R-Ill., and DeLay, R-Texas.

Smith's problem has been failing to salute smartly when the leadership gives an order. That is the demand of Tom DeLay, the most effective majority leader in my 45 years of House-watching. DeLay found it intolerable that Smith functioned not as an obedient Republican soldier but as a fervent advocate of former U.S. foot soldiers. At the end of the last Congress, the DeLay-headed leadership purged Smith from the Veterans chairmanship and from the committee itself for wanting $2.6 billion more for the Veterans Administration (VA).

Smith's vindication came June 28 when the Bush administration admitted that its estimate of 23,553 veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan for medical treatment fell far short of the real number: 103,000. The VA's reason was that it relied on two-year-old assumptions. The administration estimated its need for additional funds, coincidentally or not, at Smith's $2.6 billion.

Rep. Steve Buyer of Indiana, who was leapfrogged by the Republican leadership over two more senior congressmen to replace Smith as chairman, at first followed the party line by saying the shortfall could be covered by shifting funds. However, Buyer quickly had to change his position and say more funds were needed, just as Smith had insisted all along.

Before Congress adjourned for its Independence Day recess, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi led a parade of Democrats chiding the administration for its blunder. There will be more of the same when the 2006 VA appropriations bill comes up for House and Senate votes the week of July 25. Republicans have been silent, but some in the House were smirking over Smith's vindication. There is little doubt that Smith would easily have defeated Buyer had there been an open vote of the House Republican Conference without leadership intervention.

Similarly, Smith would be the conference's most likely choice for the International Relations Committee chairmanship against two other well-regarded conservatives, Reps. Dan Burton of Indiana and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida. But the choice will be made by the DeLay-dominated Steering Committee, and so Smith is a long shot.

Edwards Reacts To Administration Admission of $2 Billion VA Shortfall

Says OMB Director Is Dead Wrong in Saying VA Health Care Has Been Over-Funded

(Washington)- After the Administration submitted yet another request for veterans' health care, U.S. Representative Chet Edwards called on Congress to immediately remedy the shortfall for this year. The Administration officially requested an additional $2 billion to cover shortfalls in the Veterans Affairs budget for 2005 and 2006 late Thursday. The new request would provide an additional $300 million for this year, on top of the $975 million that the White House submitted two weeks ago, and an additional $1.7 billion for the upcoming year.

"Just 15 days ago, the VA testified that $975 million would cover the VA shortfall in 2005. Senate Republicans and Democrats in both the Senate and House felt the real shortfall was larger, but the VA and House Republican leadership said "No".

Now the Administration has revised its numbers yet again. Congress should not wait another day to provide our veterans the health care they need now.

Even with this correction to the correction, I believe VA healthcare will be woefully under funded in 2006 because the number assumes that Congress will double prescription drug co-pays and impose a new enrollment fee on veterans making over $30,000 annually. Congress has repeatedly sent a clear message that it will not.

But the criticism surrounding the VA funding shortfall didn't have to happen. Democrats and some Republicans have warned since 2003 that increased funding was needed to address growing VA needs. Chris Smith, the Republican chairman of House VA Committee, was fired by House leadership as chairman and removed from the committee altogether for alerting the House Budget Committee of this fact in 2004.

Resistance to veterans' funding continued in 2005 when the House Budget Resolution cut VA healthcare by $14 billion over the next five years. That budget said, in effect, if you make $1 million a year in dividend income, you can keep every dime in your $220,000 a year tax cut, but if you serve our country in uniform, we will have to cut corners on your medical care," said Edwards.

The $2 billion request to cover VA budget shortfalls in 2005 and 2006 comes after director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Joshua Bolten testified yesterday before the House Budget Committee that the Administration and Congress spent too much money on VA healthcare from 2002-2004.

Bolten: "There have been 3 consecutive years preceding this one in which there was more money requested by the Administration and more money appropriated by the Congress for the medical care portion of veterans services than was actually needed in that year. The appropriations have exceeded the VA medical care needs in the preceding three years by over half a billion dollars in each of the preceding three years."

Edwards disagreed.

"I am appalled that Mr. Bolten is so out of touch with the needs of our VA healthcare system. We are facing a VA healthcare crisis today in large part due to the under funding of this important priority over the past four years. In January 2003, the VA was so short of funds that it had to block veterans from enrolling in the VA system if they had no service connected injury and made more than $30,000.

It appears to me that Mr. Bolten is spending too much time in Washington D.C. and too little time listening to veterans and visiting veterans hospitals. Every major veterans organization including the Disabled American Veterans (DAV), American Legion, and VFW have been pleading with the White House budget office for more funding over the past several years to prevent cuts in VA healthcare services.

It is not surprising to me that Congress will have to fund $2.5 billion over the Administration's request for VA healthcare in 2005, given that the OMB director thinks we have been spending too much money on veterans healthcare. Anyone willing to visit our VA hospitals would know that there are hiring freezes, delays in veterans getting doctor's appointments, and postponement of important medical equipment purchases because VA healthcare funding has not kept up with veterans needs.

I realize it is expensive to pay for veterans healthcare during a time of war, but it is morally wrong not to do so. For the benefit of American veterans, I would urge Mr. Bolten to get out of his Washington D.C. office and make firsthand visits to VA hospitals to realize the impact of having under-funded veterans healthcare over the last four years," said Edwards.

Edwards serves on the Budget Committee and is the ranking member of the Military Quality of Life and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee.

Every time I read an article like this, I'm glad to be a Costco member. I also never cease to be amazed at the values of the people who criticize Costco for how they do their business.

[N]ot everyone is happy with Costco's business strategy. Some Wall Street analysts assert that [CEO Jim] Sinegal is overly generous not only to Costco's customers but to its workers as well.

Costco's average pay, for example, is $17 an hour, 42 percent higher than its fiercest rival, Sam's Club. And Costco's health plan makes those at many other retailers look Scroogish. One analyst, Bill Dreher of Deutsche Bank, complained last year that at Costco "it's better to be an employee or a customer than a shareholder."

Emme Kozloff, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, faulted Mr. Sinegal as being too generous to employees, noting that when analysts complained that Costco's workers were paying just 4 percent toward their health costs, he raised that percentage only to 8 percent, when the retail average is 25 percent.

"He has been too benevolent," she said. "He's right that a happy employee is a productive long-term employee, but he could force employees to pick up a little more of the burden."

Well, if shareholders dislike how Costco does its business, they're free to dump its stock in favor of a more Wall Street friendly retailer like, say, Wal-Mart.

Costco's stock price has risen more than 10 percent in the last 12 months, while Wal-Mart's has slipped 5 percent. Costco shares sell for almost 23 times expected earnings; at Wal-Mart the multiple is about 19.

Anyway. Ezra finds a nice little metaphor in the comparison between Costco and Wal-Mart that some clever candidate might consider using. Me, I'm just going to keep spreading the word.

In the interest of not having my head explode, I'm going to do a few posts on something other than school finance reform. I'm sure I'll be back to the sausage grinder later on.

Via Dwight, I see that IBM is officially discontinuing OS/2, which (to join in on the snarkery) is kind of like your local music shop announcing that it will no longer sell eight-track tapes. (*)

I supported OS/2 servers in a past life. It was on a token-ring network with DOS LAN Requestor. Those were the days, let me tell you. In retrospect, I wish someone other than IBM had been OS/2's daddy. It coulda been a contender, if only it had been given a chance. Esther Schindler's remembrances give you an idea of what might have been. Alas.

(*) - I was going to say that it was like the Cincinnati Zoo announcing that they were closing down their passenger pigeon exhibit, but the zoo folks are way more dedicated than Big Blue ever was.

Now that I've got all the news on the special session out of the way, I want to call your attention to this Express News editorial. There's a narrative that needs to come out of this farce, whether it ends with a deal or not, and this editorial touches on it:

After watching this governor and this Legislature over the past few years, we sadly have reached the conclusion that they are unable to govern effectively.

They may enjoy small successes, but on the big issues — which they face now — they are unable to solve the state's problems.

If, at the last minute, they pull a bill out, that doesn't mean they have succeeded. That only means they will try to convince citizens that a sow's ear is a silk purse.

Don't let them fool you.

You know the old joke about Texas weather (if you don't like it, wait a few minutes, it'll change)? That's what the news on the special session over the last few days feels like to me. Feel free to try and make sense of all of this.

Chron

Gov. Rick Perry and the top House and Senate leaders met for three hours late Monday to try to salvage agreements on school property tax relief and education funding during the closing hours of the special session.

The governor's office announced that an "agreement in principle" had been reached between Speaker Tom Craddick and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst on an education bill.

But with lawmakers facing an adjournment deadline on Wednesday, expectations nevertheless increased that Perry may call a second special session, beginning as early as Thursday, to achieve his goal of school property tax relief.

[...]

Spokeswoman Kathy Walt said Perry would call another special session, beginning on Thursday, if the tax trade-off is killed by a filibuster.

She said he may also call another session if his goal of property tax cuts fails for any other reason.

[...]

The only way Perry might not call a special session is if the entire House votes down a tax trade-off bill, two Senate tax negotiators — Sens. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, and Ken Armbrister, D-Victoria — agreed.

Craddick issued a written statement, saying he was "hopeful" that the House could pass both the education and tax compromises, if Senate negotiators agreed.

But there was widespread speculation that there weren't enough votes in the Republican-dominated House to pass a tax agreement that would give Texas one of the highest sales tax rates in the country — 9 cents per dollar, including local sales taxes in cities such as Houston.

[...]

Tobacco giant Philip Morris has been running a radio ad campaign against the tax package, which includes a $1 per pack increase in the cigarette tax.

And a number of refineries and oil and gas companies were lobbying against the tax package because — by merely closing loopholes in the franchise tax — it continued to single out corporations rather than broadening the business tax base to most partnerships as well.

One business lobbyist, who didn't want to be identified, even speculated that Craddick could instruct the House conferees to strike a deal on the tax bill and then allow the full House to kill it.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and state senators abruptly left the Capitol on Monday night without a deal on overhauling the state's school finance system, fueling speculation that Gov. Rick Perry will call another special session if a deal is not reached before midnight Wednesday.

The senators' decision came about an hour after Perry and House Speaker Tom Craddick had reportedly signed off on a plan that would raise the state sales tax to 7 percent, up from 6.25 percent. Senators have repeatedly rejected such a steep increase, saying it would hurt low-income Texans.

Dewhurst was asked Monday night if the Senate would approve such a plan.

"No," he said as he was leaving the Capitol.

"We're leaving tonight. We're going to send them a good bill in the morning, a bill that doesn't raise the sales tax higher than it should be and does not unfairly shift taxes from businesses to consumers."

[...]

Sources close to the negotiations said Perry and Craddick had also agreed on the tax swap plan in the meeting and that Dewhurst agreed to review it with senators.

"The ball is in the Senate's court," said a source, who did not want to be identified for fear of disrupting the negotiations.

But senators' responses were swift and severe.

"They've got people trying to box the Senate in, and the Senate is not going to be boxed," said Sen. Ken Armbrister, D-Victoria and a key negotiator. "No one ever got hurt in an election year by killing a tax bill."

[...]

"The governor has said if they don't finish their work, we're coming back," Perry spokesman Robert Black said earlier Monday. "This is the number one issue the Legislature faces, and they must deal with it."

Asked when Perry would call them back, Black said, "One step at a time, but Thursday looks like a good day."

Mr. Perry met with Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and House Speaker Tom Craddick Monday evening at his Capitol office to try and find a way to break the logjam. But the school bill has virtually no support from educator groups, and opposition to the tax-swap bill was mounting.

"I've got 98 school districts. I haven't had one call me and say, 'Man, we've got to have this,' " said Sen. Ken Armbrister, D-Victoria.

Rep. Tony Goolsby, R-Dallas, said he's hearing only criticism of the tax bill.

"I'm getting a lot of calls from smokers and people who just don't want the tax bill," he said.

[...]

Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, told reporters he had soft-sole shoes ready to wear if he launches a filibuster to try and kill the tax bill. [...] Citing nonpartisan studies indicating that the tax-swap bill would benefit only Texas families earning more than $140,000 a year, the Democrat said: "This legislation is a tax increase on nine of 10 Texans, just so one in 10 Texans – the wealthiest in the state – can have a tax cut."

He also complained about the Legislature's decision to abandon an overhaul of the state's main business tax, the franchise tax. "The business lobbyists have come in here day in and day out, and stripped business taxes from every bill," Mr. Shapleigh said.

Mr. Armbrister, who has served in the Legislature since 1983, predicted that a filibuster would be thwarted by Mr. Perry calling another session.

"If we're this close, we could be here Thursday for a three- or five-day session," he said. "It's happened before with different governors when we've had very close deals."

Representatives, who earlier this month approved their tax bill by only one vote, appeared buffeted by opposition from oil and gas interests and heavy industry, which would see their business tax loopholes closed and not as much property tax relief as they had hoped.

"I just heard there's 89 votes against it," Mr. Goolsby said of the tax bill. The House has 150 members.

Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, the Senate's lead negotiator on the tax-swap bill, said: "The business lobby is actively trying to kill this bill over in the House."

Mr. Ogden said the only way to dissuade the governor from calling another special session immediately would be for the tax bill to be "voted down decisively" on the House floor.

He said enough senators support his chamber's version of tax legislation for it to pass, and he scoffed at widespread reports that any version would be soundly defeated in the House.

"I've never seen a case where the speaker couldn't round up the votes – ever," said Mr. Ogden, who spent eight years in the lower chamber.

House Bill 3, the tax proposal, meanwhile, was kicked by powerful business interests for its proposed expansion of the state franchise tax, settled on at Perry's urging after a more ambitious business-tax overhaul failed in the recent regular session.

Business lobbyists weren't alone. Advocates for low- and middle-income Texans voiced concern that for such families, higher state taxes would outstrip any advantage of lowering property taxes.

"I think it's dead," said Sen. Juan Hinojosa, D-McAllen, a Senate negotiator on the tax measure. "It's just a matter of who's going to point the finger at who."

[...]

The bills have GOP opponents as well in the Republican-majority Legislature.

Sen. John Lindsay, R-Houston, who once voted for a version of the school funding bill, said he now plans to oppose it if a final vote is called, complaining the new plan would erode too much local control of schools.

In addition, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who presides over the Senate, no longer can count on Sen. Eddie Lucio, D-Brownsville, for school funding and tax bill votes.

Lucio alerted Dewhurst that he's returning to South Texas to prepare "for the impending disaster that Hurricane Emily threatens to inflict" on the region he represents.

Even if they do get a deal, advocates pushing for long-awaited textbook funding worry that children will be heading back to school without the books they need.

At issue are about $295 million for new fine arts, foreign language and health textbooks scheduled to go into Texas classrooms next month. The State Board of Education has approved the books, and publishers have printed them.

"They are in the warehouse and ready to ship now," said Charlie Evans, a former Tarrant County legislator who is a lobbyist for textbook distributors in Texas.

Negotiators from both the Senate and House have agreed to pay for the books, but the legislation is being held up while lawmakers argue over school finance.

"Anytime a child doesn't have a textbook in his hands at the start of school, it is a concern," said Rep. Bob Griggs, R-North Richland Hills, a former Birdville school superintendent.

The delay could have other consequences. An extensive telecommunications bill may not make it out of the special session. Although the House and Senate have approved versions of the bill, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst has said he won't consider the final negotiated version of that bill or any other noneducation bill until the school finance issue is resolved.

State Sen. Troy Fraser, the Horseshoe Bay Republican who sponsored the bill in the Senate, said he's willing to agree to House changes to the bill. But he remains unsure whether Dewhurst will let him bring it up on the Senate floor before the session ends.

Unless the Texas Legislature manages to "pull a rabbit out of its hat," it doesn't look like its members will reach any type of agreement on public school finance before the current special session ends at midnight Wednesday, state Rep. Jim McReynolds, D-Lufkin, said Monday.

McReynolds said even if state lawmakers come to a consensus, House bills 2 and 3, which deal with school reform and property taxes, respectively, are bad for school districts like Lufkin, Central and Huntington if they remain unchanged.

"We've got some immensely serious problems that we have to address," McReynolds said. "When I talked to Gov. Perry the other day, he asked me what we need to do to make school finance work. I told him that we need to come up with a school bill that 150 of us can agree on.

“That's not impossible — we just need to make sure our children get an adequate and equitable education. If we do that, the tax bill will follow."

[...]

Once HB 2 went to the Senate, McReynolds hoped its members would change the parts that troubled him.

“They got worse,” he said.

[...]

While Perry could call another special session Thursday, McReynolds said many state lawmakers think the Legislature should wait until the Texas Supreme Court makes its ruling on the school finance issue so that they can get an idea just how far out of compliance the state's public school system is.

The timing of this is rather curious.

The Enron Task Force, which has filed 34 criminal charges against ex-Enron employees and their associates at other businesses since its inception in January 2002, has just gotten its third director.

Sean Berkowitz joined the Enron Task Force in December 2003 after working in the criminal division of the Chicago U.S. Attorneys Office for the Northern District of Illinois. In his five years there, his work ranged from the securities fraud prosecution of officers at Anicom Inc. to a capital murder case involving the death of a federal witness.

He was assigned to be a prosecutor in the upcoming case against former Enron Chairman Ken Lay, former CEO Jeff Skilling and former Chief Accounting Officer Rick Causey.

Berkowitz is a Harvard Law School graduate who graduated first in his undergraduate class in 1989 at Tulane University.

Berkowitz replaces Andrew Weissmann, who's served on the task force from its beginning. Weissmann was assistant director under Leslie Caldwell and then took over as director himself in March 2004.

[...]

Weissmann is expected to stay with the Justice Department for some weeks or months, as Caldwell did before him. Typically prosecutors enter private legal practice or academia when they leave the government, but not all do that.

Postcards from the Lege and the Quorum Report are now saying there's an agreement in principle on both HB2 and HB3. Presumably, if the powers that be are happy with what they've hammered out, the looming deadline of this session's end won't matter - Governor Perry can simply make good on his promise to call another session and pick things up from there. So if this is all true, and there's no looming gotchas to torpedo things - I mean, it's not like we haven't heard this sort of thing before - then the question becomes "can this sucker pass?" What will Rick Perry's next move be if either or both of them fail?

You know the drill - stay tuned.

As I write this, there's still no deal - in fact, QR now says that the earlier reports of a deal on HB2 were premature - and Governor Perry is making noises about keeping everyone in Austin for another 30 days.

Gov. Rick Perry said today he'll immediately call lawmakers back into another special session starting Thursday if a filibuster kills any school finance tax bill the House and Senate can agree on.

The looming end of the session makes success more likely for Democratic senators contemplating a filibuster, in which legislation can be killed by a senator who stands and talks until the legislative clock runs out.

It was unclear early today if lawmakers could even get that far, with House and Senate negotiators still huddling on House Bill 3, a proposal to raise billions in state taxes — partly through a sales tax increase and closing of escape hatches in the current franchise tax.

Word this morning of a deal on House Bill 2, proposed school finance legislation, apparently was premature.

Lawmakers also said they'd heard there were 87 or more votes against the tax bill among the 149 House members. But they said they would keep working.

Perry, who met with lawmakers on HB3 behind closed doors, said, it's “up to the senators” to pass a measure in time to avoid a filibuster.

“I would not want to be the senator who filibustered a bill that is a good bill that has the support of the House and the Senate for no other reason than, I guess, to make a point,” Perry said after meeting with the negotiators.

“But what that individual needs to also keep in mind is that we're going to be back on Thursday, so they could explain to their constituents and the people of the state of Texas why we're having another special session just so that they could make a point that, quite frankly, didn't make any difference,” Perry said.

“I think the clear message to someone who wants to filibuster is if both of these houses have the votes to pass a bill, that to filibuster something in a special session is a good ticket back here the next morning,” he said.

Asked what he'd do if there weren't the votes to pass the measure with or without a filibuster, Perry said, “You're playing too many what ifs, now.”

As for what "that individual" (read: Sen. Eliot Shapleigh) could say to his constituents after killing off this session, well, he could start by reading them Scott Hochberg's newsletter. Or he could say something like this:

The school funding bill, HB2, that House and Senate negotiators came close to approving would have pushed property poor school districts with large populations of low-income students “three giant steps backward,” said Paul Colbert, a school finance expert and former Houston state representative.

The San Antonio School District actually stood to lose about $5 million compared to what it gets today if HB2 had passed, Colbert said.

Prospects for education reform floundered Sunday, and state Sen. Kevin Eltife, R-Tyler, says he’s ready to go home.

“If we can not achieve equity for our districts, we should stop the process and go home,” Eltife said today. “No deal is better than a bad one.”

Eltife said neither conference committee — the one on education reform in HB 2 and on property tax reform in HB 3 — has yet come to agreement.

The special session called in June by Gov. Rick Perry ends Wednesday.

“I am very concerned about House Bill 2,” Eltife said. “I want to make sure the Senate holds firm and does not give up 98 percent equity and the $3,000 pay raise for our teachers.”

“Those of us representing rural school districts must hold firm because we can not afford for our school districts to go backward,” he concluded.

If the big Congressional target for Texas Democrats is Tom DeLay, then the big prize for Republicans - really, the only realistic prize - is Chet Edwards, the one person designated for redistricted extinction who survived in 2004. I'd been wondering when we'd start to hear about some action in CD17, and I see now that we have. I won't bother quoting from the story - Nate and The Jeffersonian have all that, plus their analyses. Suffice it to say that the five-pack of potentials consists of no one you've heard of, none of whom have held office before. Not that either of these is a handicap - for one thing, as Nate comments, Arlene Wohlgemuth's legislative record was more of a libility to her than anything, and as Cincinnatus points out, her high profile in Waco, where she was on the wrong side of a water dispute, didn't help her either.

Whoever the nominee is, you can be sure that he (all five named prospects are men) will have all the money he needs from the NRCC and the state GOP. As with Harris County, there just aren't that many viable takeaway targets for the GOP, so those few that do exist will get plenty of attention. I feel good about Edwards' chances, but it'll be a white-knuckle affair, and he can use all the help he can get. I'm sure I'll have a word or twenty to say on that subject in the coming months.

UPDATE: From an Edwards press release:

Jump-starting his reelection effort for 2006, Congressman Chet Edwards announced today that he is raising money at a record pace with over $560,000 in the bank, $250,000 more than in July 2003. He also raised $429,000 in contributions in only three months.

[...]

Last Friday, Edwards’ campaign submitted its “July 15th Quarterly Report” to the Federal Election Commission, detailing contributions and expenditures for the period covering April 1 through June 30, 2005. During the three month period, the Edwards campaign exceeded past “off-year” numbers by raising over $160,000 more than during the same period in 2003 and exceeding the campaign’s July 2003 “cash on hand” total by over $250,000.

“In our winning 2004 campaign, we raised and spent over $2.5 million. To raise enough money to be successful in 2004, we had to raise money early in the campaign cycle. We now have over a quarter of a million dollars more in the bank than we did two years ago, which is a good indication that we will not only meet, but surpass, our 2004 fundraising totals,” commented Edwards. “Of course, while I am pleased by this show of support and know that we will be well prepared for the campaign; working for our district has always been and will always be my first priority.”

Local blogger Beldar had himself a bit of a scare last week, but everything turned out okay in the end. My best wishes to you for continued good health, Beldar. Via Banjo.

Meanwhile, as we wait for that ever-elusive consensus to kick in regarding school finance, the House took care of some other business yesterday. Item One was approval of the telecom bill. But don't celebrate just yet if you've got stock in SBC or Verizon.

Big phone companies won passage of major legislation Sunday that would let them set their own residential rates and ease their move into the television business.

The House passed Senate Bill 21 by a wide margin and with only modest changes from the version that the Senate approved. Normally, that would send the legislation to a conference committee for quick negotiation and on to the governor's desk for signing.

But Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst has said he is reluctant to finish any legislation until there's agreement on school finance, the issue for which the special session was called.

And prospects for such an agreement are dwindling, with only three days until the session ends. That puts the fate of Senate Bill 21 in limbo.

[...]

Rep. Harold Dutton, D-Houston, on Sunday called the proposals "a special interest handout."

"The cry of SBC is, we can't make it without special rules," Dutton said. "We're telling other businesses: Don't mess with the bully in the backyard. Take on a poor little conglomerate like SBC, and you take on the Legislature as well."

Dutton was one of six to vote no on the legislation, which received 135 votes on final reading.

[...]

[Bill sponsor Rep. Phil] King and other backers of the legislation say that it's time for Texas to update its laws to match the rapid changes in the telecom industry and that the changes will benefit consumers.

"I think five years from now, we will see this accomplish its goals" of boosting competition and lowering prices, King said.

The outcome of the Texas legislation is being closely watched by lawmakers in other states, such as New Jersey and California, who are also considering changes to their public utilities laws.

The House version of the eminent domain bill was amended to stop the city of Freeport from seizing waterfront land from a family-owned shrimping company to make way for a private marina project.

Buried deep within the story is something that sounds like a real curb on the Trans Texas Corridor.

The House bill also requires local approval from county commissioners courts for state use of eminent domain to seize land for gas stations, convenience stores, hotels and other commercial enterprises in the median of the Trans-Texas Corridor, Gov. Rick Perry's ambitious toll road project.

There's some more info here, but I'm not sure that it clears things up.

Eminent domain still would be allowed for roads, airports, water projects, pipelines and utility easements. Property can still be seized to build the Trans Texas Corridor, the governor's top transportation priority, which plans to build toll roads, railroads and pipelines across the state.

But the bill restricts the Texas Department of Transportation's use of eminent domain.

The department could condemn farms and other property to build a corridor and allow for gas stations and convenience stores to be located in a corridor's median – though not within 10 miles of an interchange with an interstate highway.

But the bill would rescind the authority the Legislature gave the department in 2003 to use eminent domain to provide "ancillary facilities" to a toll road – such as hotels, restaurants or other commercial operations.

Anyway, as with the telecom bill, this one still has to go through the joint committee process, and as such may wind up being killed by deadline pressures. If not, expect to see it on your ballot this November.

You know the drill...Still no agreement, but they're oh so close. Today is the drop-dead day for any kind of agreement, and then they still have to get it passed without it being filibustered to death.

Here's a brief roundup. I'm sure there'll be more soon.

Chron

The House passed a full cent increase, but agreed Sunday night to meet the Senate midway at three-fourths of a cent. The House also agreed with a Senate provision to increase the $15,000 homestead exemption by $7,500.

[...]

Lawmakers have been working to find a way to lower local school property taxes and replace that money with higher state sales and business taxes. They have agreed to close loopholes in the existing corporate franchise tax that about 10,000 companies use to avoid the tax, but have dropped plans for a broad-based business tax that would reach law firms and other professional partnerships.

Oil and gas firms and petrochemical companies that pay the franchise tax oppose it.

Jon Fisher, senior vice president of the Texas Chemical Council, said it's unfair to single out corporations rather than broadening the business tax base.

Lawmakers spent a fourth full day negotiating behind closed doors on a separate bill to spend $2.6 billion in new money to boost teacher salaries and improve student performance.

House Public Education Chairman Kent Grusendorf, R-Arlington, noted that the education and tax bills narrowly passed the House earlier during the special session.

"We don't really have a lot of votes to spare," he said.

With three days left in the special session, the oil and gas industry's opposition to the tax swap plan also drove debate Sunday. Lawmakers said they had been told by lobbyists that more than 85 of the 150 House members are committed to voting against any measure that would require more corporations to pay the state's franchise tax.

"The longer we wait, the harder it is, but it's never over till its over," said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Steve Ogden, R-Bryan. "It's harder to score with one minute left in the fourth quarter than it is with 15 minutes left in the fourth quarter."

[...]

At least three key pieces of the tax swap remained unresolved Sunday, according to Ogden and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jim Keffer, R-Eastland.

•How much to raise the state's 6.25 percent sales tax.

The measure that cleared the House would raise the tax by a penny. The Senate says that would hurt low-income Texans and, instead, wants to raise it by just a half-cent.

The sides inched closer Sunday, with House negotiators pitching a 7 percent sales tax and Senate leaders saying they would accept a 6.95 percent tax but only if the House backs higher tax exemptions for residential property.

•How much to increase the residential property tax exemption.

The first $15,000 of the value of most homes is exempt from taxation. The Senate Finance Committee approved a constitutional amendment Sunday that would increase that to $22,500, though Democrats wanted to raise it even more to help the owners of less expensive homes.

House leaders said late Sunday that they'd be willing to back the increase to $22,500.

•Whether to include goods that are sold out of state in determining a business's tax.

Both chambers have broadly agreed not to create business taxes but to require more companies to pay the corporate franchise tax. The Senate has included a provision to stop taxing out-of-state sales. The House has no such provision.

The House tax negotiators had their offer printed as a bill and said they planned to sign it and send it to the Senate. But Mr. Ogden protested that that amounted to "sending ultimatums back and forth." He confronted Mr. Keffer on the House floor and asked that the two sides present their tax plans in a public meeting this morning.

"The House needs to explain their proposal and try to do this in a more professional manner," Mr. Ogden said. "I don't think you should be passing tax bills by just having bills fly back and forth by carrier pigeon."

Mr. Keffer said he had hoped to conclude a deal Sunday but "didn't give an ultimatum." He agreed to meet today.

[...]

While few lawmakers wanted to have the special session, many fear that Gov. Rick Perry will immediately order another if they don't pass the two bills by Wednesday.

"We really don't want to be here during the month of August," said House education committee Chairman Kent Grusendorf, R-Arlington.

Asked if Mr. Perry will call another session if this one fails, Mr. Craddick said: "I have no idea what he'll do."

Mr. Dewhurst was expected to use the threat of a prolonged stay in Austin to try to persuade Democratic senators not to filibuster any compromise. But Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos, D-Austin, warned that he and three colleagues stand ready to try to talk the tax bill to death because, they say, it would benefit only the rich.

Officials say the session is teetering on the brink of failure over a couple of key issues. For example, the House plan would tax bottled water, something the Senate has resisted. And the Senate plan would raise alcohol taxes, but House negotiators say that idea is dead on arrival in their chamber.

Another major dividing line: how much property tax money a small number of super-wealthy districts, including Highland Park in Dallas, would keep under a system that relies more heavily on sales and business taxes.

House negotiators -- led in part by state Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas, whose district includes Highland Park -- have been advocating a formula that allows those districts to keep more of their property tax money than the Senate negotiators want, officials said.

"The issue is fairness, and the exorbitant tax rates in districts," Branch said before going into a meeting with House Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland. The speaker said later that capping the amount that the wealthy districts have to give up for poorer ones is necessary to pass the legislation.

State Rep. Pete Gallego, D-Alpine, said the proposal would allow a few wealthy enclaves to spend more on their students than other districts -- at lower property tax rates.

"All this leadership seems to be about is widening the gap between the haves and the have-nots in school finance, between the first-graders that have access to a good public school education, and a first-grader who doesn't," he said. "It's all a matter of ZIP codes."

As negotiations draw down to the wire, senators planning to talk the legislation to death have a better shot at success.

If compromise is reached today, Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, who has vowed to fight the plan he calls "the great Texas tax shift," would need to remain standing and talking for about 36 hours to kill the bill.

Death to the current school finance proposals would be a best-case scenario for local schools, said Paul Colbert, a lobbyist for the El Paso Independent School District. He said the planned $3 billion in new money for schools doesn't even come close to meeting their needs.

"It doesn't matter how you slice and dice it, what they're giving is insufficient money," Colbert said.

Senate and House leaders also were haggling over equity issues in the separate school-funding bill, HB 2, with the House insisting on limits in the amount of money that property rich school districts must share with poor schools.

House leaders want to limit that amount to 35 percent of tax revenues raised in property wealthy school districts.

"This is basically saying there will be a limit to how much of your money you send back to Austin, Texas," said House Public Education Chairman Kent Grusendorf, R-Arlington.

The Senate opposes any limit, but there were indications Sunday evening that Senate leaders were willing to back down from that position.

The sharing requirement was established in response to a court ruling to even out funding available to school districts in the system, which relies heavily on local property taxes. Lawmakers now are laboring under another district judge's ruling that the system is unconstitutional.

Grusendorf said House negotiators could not compromise much on the 35 percent figure because the bill only passed by three votes in a first-round vote earlier this month. About 15 House members from property-wealthy areas remain adamant about limits on the tax revenue their districts are losing.

UPDATE: Missed this before - Aaron Pena thinks the Lege will not have an agreement on school finance before the session ends.

UPDATE: The Quorum Report says that there's agreement on HB2, but not yet on HB3. As the latter is the bill to pay for HB2, the whole thing dies if HB3 goes down. And of course, agreement in the joint committee is not the same as being approved by the House and Senate. So as before, stay tuned.

Damn. I had no idea that there was such a real estate boom going on in Central Texas. I mean, I knew that Travis and Williamson Counties were hot stuff, but that's not what this is about.

In the Kerr County resort community of Hunt, land shoppers are sometimes floored by the asking prices, said real estate agent Emily Petty.

"They still think that they should be able to come here and buy a little cabin on the river for $150,000, and they are just appalled," Petty said. The shock is felt most by those who don't preview land on the Internet.

"You won't find much under $200,000, $250,000 out here," for land only, Petty said.

[...]

Rural land is appreciating throughout the state — the median price was up 15 percent in the first three quarters of 2004 compared to the same period in 2003.

But some parts of the Hill Country showed even higher increases, according to A&M data that showed typical prices were up 27 percent in the western hills around Real County, and up 24 percent in the Highland Lakes, where the number of transactions jumped by 54 percent.

Rural land in the northern Hill Country near Lampasas rose 13 percent, though fewer sales were recorded last year as the number of highly desirable tracts diminished.

In the region's southern counties — Kendall, Kerr, Bandera and Blanco — prices rose 11 percent in the first three quarters of 2004. Although that was less than the statewide trend, it was based on only a 7 percent increase in transactions, another reflection of the tough market for buyers. Even so, the area's median price has remained among the highest in the state, $4,448 per acre, data shows.

"Buyers will get focused on an area like that and pretty soon there aren't very many attractive properties for sale anymore, so they start looking further and further afield," said research economist Charles Gilliland.

That's why areas in the western Hill Country, such as Real and Uvalde counties are increasingly popular, and it's also why people who set out to buy a waterfront cabin wind up with "river access" land — not directly on flowing rivers or creeks — or they settle for scenic land away from the hottest areas, experts said.

Nowadays, all-cash purchases of $500,000 or $1 million are routine, although borrowing remains common, real estate agents said.

People from Florida, California, Arizona and a smattering of foreigners have joined in the Hill Country land rush. The influx — some settlers, some speculators — raises eyebrows, but the interest is understandable, Gilliland said.

"They may be casting a broader net, coming out here and seeing if they can probably buy more here than they could get at home," the researcher said.

[...]

[M]any buyers are looking for more than an investment, said real estate agent Shirley Shandley in Leakey. They want a secluded getaway, and some find the region to be a bargain compared with other resortlike areas of the United States.

"A lot of people come out here and say 'Oh, we didn't know Texas looked like this — hills and all that stuff,' " she said. "We get people from Arizona and California, and they're real impressed with our prices, and our taxes are less than what they're used to."

"The hardest part is finding good listings. It seems like it's getting harder every year. There's less and less riverfront coming up and more of it gets tied up into commercial use," like lodges, she said.

As a result, Shandley said, "the country here is changing."

A longtime ban on liquor sales was recently lifted. Businesses are popping up — just like land prices.

The Derek Jeter and Curt Schilling subregionals in the Road from Bristol tournament of ESPN "personalities" are over, with one upset and some big wins for the heavier favorites. Voting concludes tomorrow evening in the Kobe Bryant subregional, which features pre-tournament favorite Stephen A. Smith and the badly underseeded Jim Rome, with the next subregional (I presume the Kareem one) to start tomorrow morning.

If you haven't voted yet, you're missing out on some seriously therapeutic venting. My favorite comment so far: "Remember a few years ago some woman used to go into seizures upon hearing Mary Hart's voice? That's basically what the Sports Reporters does for me." Go, read, vote, and feel better about it all afterwards.

As of this evening, prospects on a school finance compromise are not looking good.

"I wouldn't kid you, this thing is flying on empty right now," said Republican Sen. Steve Ogden, who is the chief Senate negotiator on the bill designed to change the way Texans pay taxes. "I hope we'll make it. We don't need any more headwind."

The special session ends on Wednesday, but legislative rules require more time for bills to go through a mandatory 24-hour wait period after they are printed and analyzed. Without an agreement on Sunday, approving legislation this session would be extremely difficult.

While a panel of House and Senate negotiators met on a bill that would spend billions of dollars on new education programs, Ogden, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and House Speaker Tom Craddick each spent several moments in Gov. Rick Perry's office, at different times.

Perry called the special session to restructure the way Texans are taxed to pay for public schools. Both the House and the Senate have approved their versions of the two bills and now panels of 10 lawmakers for each must work out the differences.

[...]

Negotiators were still stumped on the issue of recapture, which is the term for money that property wealthy districts give back to the state to redistribute to poorer districts. The recapture element gave the system its nickname, Robin Hood. Lawmakers who represent property wealthy schools were working to allow those districts to keep more of their property tax revenue, rather than giving it back to the state.

Even if negotiators do reach a compromise in time for it to get a vote by the full chambers, Democratic Sen. Eliot Shapleigh of El Paso has threatened to filibuster the bill over an increased sales tax, which he says is unfairly burdensome to lower-income Texans.

Via Greg, a great summary of why we are where we are comes from Rep. Scott Hochberg. I encourage you to read it.

It's hard to say where the ball is regarding the school finance reform plans (remember those? This session was supposed to be about school finance reform), since on Friday there was a sense of gloom and doom, and today there are stories claiming a deal could be struck Real Soon Now.

Legislative leaders seeking to overhaul the state's school finance system said Saturday that they might agree on a plan by today after Senate negotiators appeared to back away from a pledge to hold any increase in the sales tax rate to a half-cent.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, the Republican who presides over the Senate, said the upper chamber remained hopeful that the state sales tax would go no higher than 6.75 percent -- up from 6.25 percent. But he left open the possibility that senators might accept a slightly higher increase if other taxes could be trimmed.

"Nothing's been agreed to," Dewhurst said. "The House has a proposal, the senators are looking at a proposal" and the two sides are close.

Since lawmakers began work on a plan that would lessen the reliance on local property taxes to pay for public schools, House leaders have advocated a full penny increase in the sales tax rate to help replace the lost revenue. The Senate has said any increase should be limited to a half-cent, largely because most of the chamber's 12 Democrats have strongly opposed a larger increase.

But with the 30-day special legislative session due to end Wednesday, that hard line could be softening as negotiations go down to the wire.

Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, has vowed to talk the tax bill to death if it would increase the state sales tax more than one-half percent. The current tax rate is 6.25 percent, and the House proposed raising it to 7.25 percent.

He said businesses should take on more of the tax burden. Proposals for substantial revision of the state's business tax failed in both the House and Senate.

"Every single time the business lobby strips out taxes, it then shifts them to the middle class, so taxes on them go down and taxes on you go up," Shapleigh said.

Tax negotiators met publicly twice on Friday but remained at odds over how much they should increase the sales tax, whether there should be increases in alcohol taxes and how much they can cut in property taxes.

Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, said the two sides need to reach an agreement by early Sunday to avert a filibuster attempt by tax bill critics in the Senate.

He and his House counterpart, Ways and Means Committee chairman Jim Keffer, R-Eastland, bemoaned the fact that Texas lawmakers will not cut property taxes as much as they had talked about earlier this year because neither side passed a sweeping reform of business taxes.

"Sometimes you've got to go in increments," Keffer said.

Perry and Dewhurst acknowledged that some oil and gas companies that would have to pay the franchise tax for the first time are trying to persuade lawmakers to vote against the tax plan.

"I would not want to be a member of the Legislature to go back to my district and to say that I could not support a revenue shift to those companies that should have been paying the franchise tax for the last decade," Perry said.

For what it's worth, one reason given for possibly bending on the sales tax hike is an alteration to the property tax cut:

Sen. Royce West, a Dallas Democrat and a key member of the school finance negotiating team, said that if lawmakers agree to increase the homestead exemption from $15,000 to $22,500, it could offset an increase in the sales tax.

"A homestead exemption is spread more equally through the different socioeconomic classes," West said.

So like I said, at this point who knows what they're up to, and who knows if they're close in a meaningful sense or in a we-have-to-tell-the-newsies-something sense. The only related item I see on the blogs is this Jeffersonian post, which says that Phillip Morris is running ads against HB3 because of the dollar-a-pack hike in the price of smokes. Probably won't have much more effect than those anti-telecom bill ads, but who knows, maybe it'll be the fulcrum to get another rep somewhere to vote No. Stay tuned.

Just this morning I saw one of those call-your-legislator ads by the lobbying wing of Texas cable companies regarding the reanimated telecom bill. Since it's already passed the Senate, they probably should have been more specific about which legislators to call, especially since the House could debate the bill today.

(By the way, I'm assuming that since there were two bills voted on during the regular session but only one here that this is an amalgam of the two. Anyone know for sure?)

Anyway, here's some more on the current status of the bill:

As TelecomWeb went to press, reports from the Lone Star State indicate the bill is on a fast track through committee in the Texas House of Representatives, and it could reach the floor for a vote on Sunday. Expectations are that the bill will pass.

The action had failed to get to the Senate floor for a vote in May, just as the regular session of the legislature was ending, and the telcos had been resigned to waiting two years – until the next session of the Texas legislature – before trying again. The governor, however, recently recalled the bicameral lawmakers to handle badly overdue education- financing matters.

Without legislative relief, the telcos would have to negotiate with every city and town in the state, one at a time, to get the franchise right to deliver IPTV. Indeed, Verizon already has done that with a small number of Texas municipalities in order to launch IPTV services over its highly touted "Fios" fiber-to-the-home network.

"In a stunning effort to give aid where none is needed, today the Texas Senate took the first step to authorize the state to allow multibillion dollar corporations to redline and divide communities in the delivery of vital cable and internet services," Tom Kinney, chairman of TCTA and president of Time Warner Cable-Austin, said. "SBC and Verizon can enter the video market today without the special favors the Texas Senate conceded to them. Instead, the phone monopolies, having lost in the regular session of the legislature, pled their case to the legislature for special treatment in the special session when the important issue of school finance hangs in the balance.

"Phone rates will increase under the telecom portion of the bill. The phone monopolies persuaded the legislature to further deregulate phone services while these companies at the same time continue to receive over $200 million in government subsidies from the taxpayers of Texas. Once again, Texas taxpayers are on the losing end of a massive lobbying campaign by SBC and Verizon."

As passed, SB 21 allows phone companies to set their own rates for residential phone customers. In addition, the legislation shifts the video franchise system from municipal authority to a state-issued system with no study on how this would impact cities or consumers.

Former Oilers coach Bum Phillips is back home after coronary bypass surgery.

Phillips, 81, returned home to his ranch in Goliad, about 150 miles southwest of Houston.

He underwent surgery July 8 at Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital after doctors discovered blockage in his arteries. They found no evidence of heart damage.

Hospital officials on Saturday said Phillips was progressing on schedule and will participate in a cardiac rehabilitation program, which is a standard course of treatment.

Phillips, with wife Debbie by his side, said his heart scare has led him to reflect on the last 81 years of his life.

"I really have enjoyed my life, enjoyed the people, enjoyed the people around me -- the players, the fans, everybody," Phillips said. "I've had a heckuva ride and I don't intend to give up now."

Phillips says he was never scared, despite his close call.

"Not really, you know. I don't know, I always felt like I was going to make it," he told Giff. "I didn't know how I was gonna make it right at that time, but I felt like I was gonna make it and I did."

Phillips says he appreciates the community's outpouring of love and support.

From the Saint Arnold's brewery newsletter:

COME TO OUR CHRISTMAS IN JULY / GARAGE SALE AT THE BREWERY!

On Thursday, July 21 we will have a special event at the brewery: a combination Christmas in July / Garage Sale. What does this mean? We'll be serving up Christmas Ale while you seek out great bargains as we clean out our inventory of odds and ends that we have gathered through the years. These include discontinued t-shirts, last year's Xmas tshirts, runners' singlets and other goodies (all in limited sizes). All being sold at big discounts! You can also avail yourself to some early Christmas shopping with all of our current goodies (at our very special regular prices). Your admission for the event: you must find some goodie to buy. But after a Christmas Ale, it will all look like a great deal.

Does this mean that Christmas Ale will be showing up on shelves soon? No! The Christmas Ale we'll be serving is a few special kegs that we saved from last year, although we have already begun our production of this year's elixir. And it will not be at the Saturday tour.

Since Scott is off on a well-deserved blog break, I thought I ought to link to this story on conditions in the Harris County jails, since it touches on several issues he's harped on.

Noting that almost 1,300 inmates are sleeping on mattresses on the floors while large sections of the jail sit empty because of a guard shortage, the Texas Commission on Jail Standards has decertified Harris County's lockup for the second year in a row.

While the action does not mean the jail could be closed anytime soon, the commission's executive director says county officials must show they are working to remedy the problem or they may be called onto the carpet.

County officials aren't in the mood for a scolding, however.

Calling the panel "a bunch of arrogant fools," Precinct 3 County Commissioner Steve Radack said Friday that the Texas prison system helped cause the problem by failing to take inmates off the hands of Harris and other counties on schedule.

"The state wants to send a proctologist down here to see what the problem is. And the problem is, (state officials) are the ones that have stacked up the system," Radack said. "If the state of Texas got its prisoners out of our jails and kept them themselves, we wouldn't have all these problems."

But commission Executive Director Terry Julian maintains that the problem lies with Harris County.

"They need to get adequate staff in there so that they spread those inmates out," he said, noting that some inmates sleep next to toilets and there is not enough room in the dining areas for all inmates to eat at tables.

[...]

Harris County is far from alone in being cited by the commission, which oversees 265 county-level detention facilities. Currently, jails in 40 counties are listed as noncompliant, largely because of staffing and safety concerns.

Radack and others maintained, however, that the failing of the state prison system has caused the problem here and in other counties.

"The state's not taking its prisoners," said Sheriff Tommy Thomas. "And that's not just here; it's statewide."

A spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice denied that.

[...]

State Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, expressed concern this week about a possible return to overcrowding in state prisons and county jails.

Whitmire, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, noted that TDCJ recently leased space for 300 inmates to deal with its expanding population. He also voiced disappointment about Gov. Rick Perry's recent veto of Whitmire's legislation that would have lowered mandatory probation terms from 10 years to five — a measure that Whitmire said would have reduced the prison population.

[...]

Of the 77,000 offenders who entered prison in fiscal 2004, 11,311 were incarcerated because of parole violations and 24,490 because of probation infractions, prison officials told lawmakers.

There's still a question to be answered here, though, which is why in the world is there a guard shortage in Harris County?

In January, nearly 500 of the more than 8,000 inmates in the Harris County Jail system were former state prison inmates picked up for such parole violations as missing a meeting, a county jail official has said. On Friday, the system had 9,127 prisoners, records showed.

The Harris County Jail has a total capacity of 9,372 inmates in four downtown facilities. But the county has closed almost 1,600 jail beds, including two floors at its 1200 Baker Street facility, because of a staffing shortage, according to the commission report.

Thomas, the sheriff, conceded that the county doesn't have enough jailers to deal with its prisoner population.

He also acknowledged that he has not asked county commissioners for money to hire more jailers but said he now believes he must.

However, a deputies union official said jailers already are being forced to work overtime.

"We have deputies complaining that they can't get time off," said Sgt. Humberto Barrera, vice president of the Harris County Deputies Organization.

Meanwhile Friday, an American Civil Liberties Union official charged that no one is dealing seriously with Harris County's problem.

"Harris County needs to step up and address this issue," said Alison Brock, director of the Prison and Jail Accountability Project for the ACLU of Texas. "People are worried about the situation getting back into crisis mode. But you know what? It's already in crisis mode."

From Robin Holzer of the Citizens Transportation Coalition, here's how you can do something about the stealth toll road plans:

CTC is seeking neighborhood volunteers to attend (and ideally, address)
Harris County Commissioners' Court on Tues July 26 at 10:00 am, downtown.

Background: As you know, Harris County identified the next five priority toll road corridors in their new Capital Improvement Plan (CIP):

* Beltway East mainlanes,
* Brazoria County toll road,
* Grand Parkway segment E,
* Hardy toll road extension into downtown,
* Hempstead Road managed lanes

and two possible priorities:

* Fort Bend connector project (phase 2) from US 90A to IH 610 loop
* Fairmont Parkway/Red Bluff project from SH 146 to Beltway 8 East
Source, pp.17-18.

If you live in a neighborhood near one of these projects (i.e. Katy, Willowbend, Westbury, Cottage Grove, Oak Forest, etc.), your voice is needed.

What we've already done: On June 21st, CTC board members asked commissioners to delay adoption of the CIP and commit to holding meetings in affected communities. Judge Eckels told us that they've held "countless" meetings on these projects and few people came. Art Storey told us it doesn't make sense to hold meetings for a project if you don't know when you're going to do it.

We don't buy that. If you would like Harris County to host public meetings about one of these projects in your neighborhood, I hope you'll come tell them so.

If you are ready to discuss this further, especially if you wish more background before speaking at Commissioners Court, join us for an Advocacy committee meeting: Tues July 19 at 7:30 pm. Please RSVP to Peter Tyler at (713) 256-9205 or p_tyler@swbell.net.

Some fundraising numbers are in for the two open At Large City Council races, and they look good for Jay Aiyer and Peter Brown. According to the press releases I got, Brown will report raising $372,120.22 as of June 30th, while Aiyer raked in $269,779.54, much of which he says came via the Internet. Greg has a few more numbers, and I'm told there'll be an article in the Chron tomorrow with more. I'll update this post when that appears.

UPDATE: Here's that Chron story. It's mostly about the Lampson and DeLay numbers, which I blogged about on Wednesday. The main bit of new info is about Mayor White and his huge war chest. Not a peep about the Senate race, though.

I'll be back to my usual not-in-the-studio guest gig on BizRadio 1320 AM again tomorrow circa 10:30. It was really cool doing the show at the mike last week, though it's a bit nerve-wracking to work without a net like that. I mean, I'm seldom at a loss for an opinion, but there's no Draft mode on the air, you know? I've got eight MP3s from the show, one for each 15-minute segment, which I may post later if anyone wants to hear them. Drop me a note or leave a comment if you're interested.

I've received email from Cid MacNamee that the funeral services for Tim McGlashen, the musician who passed away on Tuesday, will be tomorrow (Saturday) at noon at the Unity Church at Unity and Richmond. Here's a map if you need it. More information about McGlashen himself can be found here and here.

My apologies for not writing anything related to the All Star Game this year. I try, but I never can work up too much excitement about an exhibition game. I'm happy that the American League has continued its recent dominance over the Nationals, but I'm way happier that the real season has started again.

The Chron asks if the Astros, who became only the the fifth team in the last 40 years to reach .500 by the All-Star break after being 15 games under .500, can duplicate last season's magic. They're a much better team now that Lance Berkman is healthy again, and they're only 4.5 games out of the Wild Card, so for sure there's some hope. For what it's worth, the boyos at the Baseball Prospectus have a regularly updated page listing each teams' odds of making the playoffs, based on a million simulations. It pegs the Astros' chances at a bit better than 11%, which may not sound like much, but is surely better odds than you've have gotten six weeks ago. There's only one way to find out for sure, though, so - Play ball!

The Chron goes all Harry Potter as the hours tick down to the official release at 12:01 AM. Bookstores all over town will be open along with eager kids and their bleary-eyed parents, no doubt lined up with randomly-drawn numbers so there's no rioting over who gets to be first.

Of course, if you really really wanted to be the first kid on your block to have a copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, you should have done this.

Not about to let this marketing opportunity disappear, The Fairmont Newfoundland has conjured up a Hocus-Pocus Package ($160, double), which includes a voucher for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince when it goes on sale at midnight at the local Chapters bookstore — a half-hour ahead of the East Coast, thanks to the province's unique time zone.

As for us, we established a pattern of buying the British versions of the books, so we'll be a few days behind as or order ships across the pond from Amazon UK - I got the email confirming its departure earlier today. Those of you who'll be up reading all night tonight, please don't tell me anything about it for the next two weeks or so.

Bluebonnet from PinkDome published an interview with Chris Bell the other day, and the question of gay marriage came up:

BB: What do you think about gay marriage? For real, now.

CB: I don't support gay marriage, but the constitutional amendment doesn't make sense. It's designed to drive a wedge instead of building bridges. I support civil unions, because everyone deserves equal protection. President Bush agrees! There shouldn't be a referendum on gay marriage.

I received an email from Carl Whitmarsh's list yesterday that suggests a different approach. It's taken from a March 10 article in the National Journal's Hotline. I present it beneath the fold for your review. I think it has a lot of appeal, and at the very least deserves some discussion. What do you think?

UPDATE: Commenter Drew at the PinkDome post notes that Chris Bell had a 100 percent rating from the Human Rights Campaign in 2004. Greg Moses expands on that and gives the relevant details.

National Journal's Hotline
March 10, 2005

Same Sex, Different Response

In our ongoing "Great Debate" series, we tackle the Dem response to gay marriage. To kick off the conversation, we asked CA-based Dem consultant Eric Jaye, an advisor to San Fran Mayor Gavin Newsom, to share what he's learned.

One of the Dem consultants whose on the frontlines on the gay marriage issue is Eric Jaye, founder of Storefront Political Media, a CA-based firm specializing in general consulting and media. His recent campaigns and clients include No on 36 in OR (a gay marriage ban), the MI Dem Party and Gavin Newsom for Mayor of San Francisco. Because gay marriage is among the cultural issues that many Dems believe is the cause of many of their problems, we thought it would be good to see what consultants and strategists are advising on this issue. We asked Jaye to share the advice he's giving in column form.

Among the arguments Jaye makes on the gay marriage issue is that no campaign against a gay marriage ban is going to succeed if those campaigning against the ban are not making the case FOR "something else." The something else, in his opinion, is gay marriage or civil unions. This is a topic Dems all over the country are wrestling with; we hope Jaye's article starts a debate and we're open to printing the responses from other strategists who are trying to figure out this issue.

A Democratic Strategy on Gay Marriage
by Eric Jaye

Last year the Democrats had numerous opportunities to stand on principle -- and in doing so show they had the courage to stand for something. No opportunity was greater than the raging debate over gay marriage.

Facing an evenly divided electorate, Republican strategists surmised that victory in 2004 lay in driving turnout among their base voters. That's why they placed attacks on gay marriage on state ballots in swing states. They believed that such a debate would drive turnout, particularly among low-turnout Christian evangelical voters.

What did the Democrats do? By and large they ducked, with poll-crafted drivel that made them seem like typical politicians, not courageous leaders.

Most voters do not yet support gay marriage - although support for equal matrimonial rights has risen dramatically in the past decade. Polls show a sharp generational divide, with the majority of voters under 40 in support of gay marriage and the majority of voters over 60 strongly opposed.

But in this day and age, most swing voters reserve more venom for vacillating politicians than they do for two gay people deciding to adopt the bourgeois convention of lifetime commitment and matrimony.

It is this disdain for vacillating politicians that allows President George Bush to take so many controversial stands yet still win elections for himself and his party. It's called leadership and voters reward it.

On a woman's right to choice, Iraq, environmental protection, outsourcing and Social Security - Bush is 'wrong' from a pollsters' perspective. Yet, why does he still seem so right to so many voters?

Bush wins by being "wrong" because his controversial positions resonate as authentic. American voters don't agree with him on key issues -- but they tend to believe he "stands up for what he believes." In a political landscape in which character matters more than ideology, Bush wins by seeming "real" to voters.

So while Bush seems authentic at the very moment he is pursuing a political ploy to excite his right-wing base - Democrats seem weak and untrustworthy - not just to their base supporters, but to the broad mass of swing voters.

With a few exceptions, most Democrats simply lack credibility when they say they oppose gay marriage. We have the honor of belonging to a party that has been on the forefront of the civil rights movement for more than 50 years. Most voters, in most states, expect us to stand for civil rights - even when these very same voters are taking a go-slow approach.

So who do we think we are fooling when we mumble finely nuanced positions on gay marriage? The truth is we are only fooling ourselves.

We have now survived an entire generation of poll-tested politicians and incremental politics. Finely crafted "agreement" messages, once an innovation, are now an invitation to ridicule. Not just late at night on television, but at almost any hour, we can all enjoy a good laugh at the expense of a politician who is merely reading from a poll-tested script.

So what's the right answer when Democrats are asked, "Do you support gay marriage?" The right answer, in almost every case, is the truth. And in most cases, the truth is "Yes."

First and foremost - by saying "Yes" we are standing for something, even when the majority of voters don't yet support our position. And telling the truth makes us sound like real people, not like robo politicians. But more than this - by saying "Yes" we can seize political terrain that allows us to drive the debate, not duck it.

And we are finding that when we take the offensive on the issue of gay rights and gay marriage, we can make real progress. At the very least, we have a fighting chance when we stop ducking the issue of gay rights and start debating it with clear and concise language.

Along with a team of top-notch consultants, we worked on the successful campaign in 2004 to repeal Article 12 of the Cincinnati City Charter, which allowed discrimination against lesbian and gays. Just this month we helped defeat the Topeka City Question in Topeka, Kansas that would have allowed discrimination against gays. Both campaigns were played out in the context over the debate on gay marriage.

Last year, as former consultants to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, we were closely involved in presenting the "winter of love" gay marriages to the public. We were also part of the unsuccessful effort in Oregon in 2004 to defeat the attack on gay marriage.

We took away from those successes, and that failure, the belief that when it comes to gay marriage the simple truth is better than a complicated lie.

But more than that - in the long run we can't win if we don't debate. And let's not fool ourselves, this debate is not going away. The Republicans put it on the agenda, and they will keep it there, particularly so long as we refuse to even articulate our own position.

Cautious Democrats should face the fact that no position on gay marriage is the weakest possible stance. Silence is read as support for gay marriage. And your silence is seen as political at best, cowardice at worst. As a party, we might not have chosen this fight. But it is here. Unilateral surrender is not a workable strategy.

And to my fellow consultants I would offer this hard-learned lesson. Anti-gay marriage amendments are being fought on the basis of gay marriage -- not some "hidden flaw" or "costly consequence." These measures are not analogous to some down-ballot initiative that we can define. Voters know what they are about -- gay marriage.

In California, we found during the San Francisco gay marriage insurrection that support for gay marriage increased slightly across the state, and support for civil unions increased dramatically, after we captured the airwaves with images of couples who were absolutely unremarkable in any way other than in their desire to profess life-long love and responsibility for each other.

First in Cincinnati, and then in Topeka, we won campaigns against discrimination in part by seizing the language of morality, rather than ceding it to our opponents.

We crafted mail pieces entitled "Not Just on Sunday," and "Daily Bread," that took up the language of the Lord's Prayer in defense of tolerance and equal rights every day.

We didn't hide from the issue. We didn't run from the moral debate. We embraced it - and won. Democrats around the country have nothing to lose, and so much to gain, from doing likewise.

Now that David Dewhurst has said no more legislation until school finance is finished, one might wonder how that's going.

Five senators and five representatives are trying to work out their differences before the 30-day special session ends Wednesday. Many of the differences are the same ones that could not be resolved during the regular session earlier this year.

Issues still being debated include teacher pay raises, funding for schools with high numbers of low-income and non-English-speaking students, shifting from textbooks to computers, and how much in local school taxes property-wealthy districts must share with other districts.

[...]

Negotiators on HB 3, the related tax bill, scheduled a public meeting for today.

That committee is trying to decide how much to cut local school property taxes and how to pay for those cuts.

"The numbers were drastically different in the House version and the Senate," noted Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland.

One Senate negotiator on the tax bill, Sen. Juan Hinojosa, D-McAllen, said it was on "life support."

"That would be a fair assessment," said Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa.

Rep. David Swinford, R-Amarillo, said, "I'd say it's on life support every day. Tax bills are hard to pass."

But he said he remains optimistic that the House and Senate will reach an agreement on a tax bill.

Rep. Jim Keffer, R-Eastland, co-chairman of the tax-writing conference committee, said he cannot begin negotiations feeling pessimistic.

"As chairman of the committee, I don't want to go in with that kind of negative attitude," Keffer said, "but we're not going to pass anything (just) to pass anything."

What's Rick Perry been up to during all this? Well, he's applying pressure where he thinks it needs to be applied.

Already, the Senate has ceded a restructured business tax under pressure from Perry and opposition from the House.

"The fact of the matter is, during this short special session, coming up with a new business tax wasn't going to go anywhere, it wasn't going to pass the House," Perry said.

More importantly, of course, Perry is tending to his reelection campaign.

This is Governor Rick Perry. Let’s send a message to legislators in Austin. Tell them you want a property tax cut. All corporations to pay their fair share. And more education for your money, not just more money for education. Let’s close tax loopholes. Make home ownership more affordable. And put more money into the classroom.

It’s time to act on the 3 R’s… Results, resources and reform for Texas schools.

At least, as PinkDome reports, Rep. Marc Veasey has joined in with Garnet Coleman in running a more truthful ad.

Elsewhere, State Sen Eliot Shapleigh has vowed to filibuster if the final package includes a sales tax hike greater than one-half percent. Latinos for Texas brings us a letter from Rep. Mike Villareal to his daughter explaining why HB3 stinks, a column from Carlos Guerra on the same subject, and a lament from the San Antonio Independent School District that they expect to get shafted when all is said and done. The Jeffersonian also comments on that.

And last but not least, a few suggestions from John Kelso as to how the Lege could have better spent its time this week.

The Senate has approved the proposed constitutional amendment restricting eminent domain, but not without some grumbling.

"While most people, including me, think they knew what public use was, the Supreme Court said that public use could include things like economic development," said Sen. Kyle Janek, R-Houston, the bill's author.

"The ownership of land is precious to the people of this state," Janek said. "I think people value those investments as much as they do anything else, perhaps maybe more than we do our pickup trucks."

Janek said he agreed to an amendment exempting a proposed $650 million stadium in Arlington for the Dallas Cowboys because he thought it was necessary to move the bill forward.

However, he successfully fought off attempts by Houston Republican Sen. Jon Lindsay, who wanted to subject the bill to required review in two to four years.

Houston Democrat Sen. John Whitmire and Janek engaged in a heated debate as Whitmire repeatedly urged lawmakers to slow down and study the issue more, pointing out that local officials wanting to pursue economic development projects are elected officials.

I guess what I'm saying here is that this session was supposed to be about school finance. Even putting aside the fact that there still isn't an actual agreement on that yet, squeezing issues like this and the telecom bill into the last ten days pretty much guarantees that they'll be underscrutinized. Besides, as The Red State pointed out previously, none of these other agenda items really qualify as "extraordinary occasions". School finance is the reason they're there. Until that's signed, sealed, and delivered, anything else feels like a distraction.

(Oh, and speaking of the main attraction, it got another editorial thumbs down today.)

UPDATE: Lt. Gov. Dewhurst agrees with me.

Dewhurst told reporters and a handful of tourists who caught him in a Capitol hallway this afternoon that the Senate would not vote on conference committee bills that deal with any other issues until a final school finance plan is passed.

“We’re not going to pass out and agree to other conference committee reports until we pass school finance,” Dewhurst said. “That’s why we’re here. The sooner we pass school finance, the sooner I’m going to let the Senate take up other pieces of legislation.”

My friend and Trinity classmate Robet Nagle sent me a note about an upcoming panel discussion/debate he's organizing. Called Copyright, Technology & the Arts, it'll be on July 27 at the Nexus Cafe on Rogerdale near Westheimer. Debate topics will include:

Does current copyright law help or hurt artists?

Will technological innovation increase or decrease copyright infringement?

What is the impact of Grokster vs. MGM Supreme Court decision on publishers, web site owners and inventors?

If you ever wondered why SBC lobbied so hard for the anti-municipal networking provision in the telecom bills from the regular session, Dwight has the answer for you: SBC is rolling out its own WiFi network in a big way. The service is pretty cheap, too, if you're already an SBC DSL subscriber. (Which I might be today if they'd been willing to sell me the damn service back in 2002 when we moved into the new house. Apparently, even though I live within walking distance of downtown, the infrastructure wasn't in place to wire up my house at that time. So AOLTimeWarner of Borg got my business instead.) Anyway, expect a big ad blitz soon.

Almost as fast as you can say "Telecom bill added to special session agenda", that bill got passed by the Senate.

Approved 25-3, it allows phone companies to get a TV franchise from the state rather than require them to go to each city for a franchise, which cable companies have to do under existing law.

The bill also allows phone companies to offer TV service in only the areas in a city they choose to serve.

Current law generally forces cities to require cable-franchise holders to offer service to all homes. Companies that receive a state franchise would be required to pay a fee based on their gross revenues and would be subject to other requirements.

Agreements between cities and companies would remain in effect until they expire.

[...]

The bill also addresses telephone rates and lets phone companies in areas with populations of 100,000 people set their own phone rates if the service is packaged with other services, such as call waiting.

Phone companies could start offering their own rates in suburban markets in 2006 as long as there are three other competitors in the area.

The Public Utility Commission would have to determine whether rural areas are competitive before phone companies could set their own rates there.

Companies would be required to reduce their local access rates charged for long-distance telephone calls within Texas from 6 cents per minute to 1 cent per minute, though the reductions will take place during several years.

[Voting against Fraser's bill] were Sens. Kip Averitt, R-McGregor, Jon Lindsay, R-Houston, and Bob Deuell, R-Greenville.

They raised concerns including the financial impact on cities that rely on cable franchises for millions of dollars in revenue and what they said were unfair advantages for big phone companies. They also said the Legislature was needlessly rushing to act on a complex issue that needed more research.

"I am concerned that the Senate hasn't had enough time," Averitt said. "I think there are issues here that need to be fully vetted out."

[...]

A statewide association representing Time Warner Cable Inc. and others said the legislation will let phone giants cherry-pick the most affluent customers for their new television ventures instead of providing service communitywide as cable providers are required to do.

"Texas taxpayers are on the losing end of this massive lobbying campaign by SBC and Verizon (Communications Inc.)," Tom Kinney, chairman of the Texas Cable & Telecommunications Association and president of Time Warner Cable Austin, said in a statement.

He said the legislation would allow phone companies to "redline and divide communities" on television service. Kinney also said phone rates would rise under the proposal, while allowing SBC and other phone companies to hold on to several hundred million dollars a year in state subsidies for phone service in rural areas.

[...]

On Tuesday, the mayors of Austin, Dallas, Houston and other large Texas cities sent Fraser a strongly worded letter opposing the legislation, saying that it will reduce city revenue from franchise agreements and allow SBC and other new providers to offer service only in affluent neighborhoods.

Texas cities remain opposed, but a spokesman for a statewide coalition said Fraser's legislation is an improvement over earlier proposals.

"Do I wish we weren't headed that way? Yes," said Frank Sturzl, executive director of the Texas Municipal League. "But I think that the handwriting is on the wall."

The good news, according to Save Muni Wireless, which expressed similar concerns as the mayors, is that the dreaded anti-municipal broadband provision was not in this bill. However, they say "having the bill in play raises the risk of amendments, as we saw in the regular session". I think that's unlikely to happen at this point, but nothing is ever certain in the waning days of a legislative session. Barring anything strange, look for SB21 to get adopted by the House today.

Remember how bad Rick Perry's poll numbers were in May? They're worse now.

Do you approve or disapprove of the job Rick Perry is doing as Governor?

38% Approve
53% Disapprove
10% Not Sure

Now, we know that everyone's approval suffers while the Lege is in session, and I'd say that effect is magnified when the Lege goes into overtime, as Perry mandated. He may get the bounce he's looking for if the House and Senate find a way to reconcile their school finance and tax reform plans, or he may find that what they come up with is so completely unpopular that he'll wish he let sleeping dogs lie. Either way, I'm pretty sure this isn't how he envisioned things would go. Thanks to Jim D for the link.

Local musician Tim McGlashen, lead singer of eclectic rock band The Buddhacrush, died unexpectedly yesterday after a brief illness. HandStamp has some information. I heard about this from Cidnie MacNamee of Paisley Close, whose bandmate (and our mutual friend) Amy Price had played in The Buddhacrush when it debuted. She had some nice things to say about McGlashen:

Tim was a huge factor in keeping Houston a musical city, not just by performing but by being an incredible support to other musicians and actively promoting the Houston music scene at every opportunity. Tim kept things going for all of us.

Enron prosecutors tells the jury they saw what the defendants were really doing behind the scenes.

Final arguments began Tuesday in the Enron Broadband Services trial, with the prosecution telling jurors they got to see behind the scenes and under the rocks at Enron — a view carefully hidden from investors.

"You learned the inside story never matched up to the outside story," prosecutor Ben Campbell told the jury in U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore's court.

On trial for the past 13 weeks are five former Enron Broadband Services executives accused of conspiracy and fraud in two schemes to fool investors and Wall Street about Enron's earning and technological capabilities. All five defendants testified that they did nothing wrong.

"We all know that money can corrupt people," Campbell said. "These five men lied for personal profit and professional advancement."

He said the simple motive was greed.

Tony Canales, lawyer for Scott Yeager, said the prosecution has presented witness testimony from cooperators and witnesses with immunity who've tailored their message to what the government wanted to hear rather than to the truth.

Lawyers for Kevin Howard said that the key witness against him probably bent her testimony to please the government for fear she would be charged or deported.

And Barry Pollack, attorney for Michael Krautz, said the power of suggestion obviously altered the memory of government witnesses such as ex-Enron Broadband Services CEO Ken Rice, who recalled his reaction at a 2000 conference to seeing a video that wasn't actually shown there.

Confession time: Despite being a high school student in the 1980s, I've never actually seen any of the John Hughes high school movie trinity. No Sixteen Candles, no The Breakfast Club, and no Pretty in Pink. I know, it's hard to believe they let me enter the Nineties with such a glaring hole in my cultural resume, but there it is.

So I'm therefore not sure if I'm allowed to be snarky about the possibility of a sequel to The Breakfast Club or not. Thankfully, I don't have to be as long as Pete is on the job. I will say that if they use the treatment suggested by Michael in the comments, I might actually be tempted to watch it. Hell, I might even consult the source material first so I'd know where all the in-jokes are. I suppose I'll have to understand it sooner or later so I can fully explain the 80s to Olivia some day as boomer parents had to explain the 60s to their kids.

Nick Lampson had himself a fine fundraising quarter for the period that ended June 30.

We're proud to announce that, as of June 30th, you've helped us raise $502,736 towards our campaign to return honor and integrity to the 22nd Congressional District of Texas. It's an amazing total for any House candidate in any quarter -- and all the more amazing that you helped us achieve it in only 8 weeks.

Mr. DeLay, R-Sugar Land, has raked in nearly $800,000 – his best three-month tally in 22 years.

Analysts said the totals foretell a competitive, potentially nasty and expensive contest next year – probably topping $5 million on each side, not counting the outside interest groups likely to pitch in.

[...]

As the second-ranking Republican in the House, Mr. DeLay has long been a master of fundraising. He has spread his largesse to most GOP incumbents, and many or most would return the support if necessary.

[...]

The new tally pushes Mr. DeLay's total for the 2005-06 election cycle to nearly $1.3 million.

One last thing on the DMN article:

After the Legislature redrew districts last year, Mr. Lampson spent $2.3 million in a losing bid for a fifth term. Republican Ted Poe, a former trial judge, beat him handily while spending just $1.5 million.

Elsewhere, The Jeffersonian notes that Richard Raymond's campaign website is up. Barring any changes, he's going for a primary challenge to Henry Cuellar in CD28. No word that I'm currently aware of regarding former Rep. Ciro Rodriguez and his previously stated desire for a rematch against Cuellar.

Do you ever find yourself wishing that ESPN would go back to how it was in the old days, when SportsCenter was about scores and highlights, and not the incessant, over-the-top stylings of a bunch of walking billboards for Prozac? If you do, Mac Thomason has a new site that you might enjoy, in which you can take out your frustrations in a socially acceptable manner. Here's the basic concept:

Our task is simple: to determine, via a time-tested method (the 64-team elimination tournament as seen in the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, which ESPN used to show in its pre-sucking days) which ESPN broadcasting personality is the most totally loathsome and most deserves to suffer permanent paralysis of the vocal cords.

Governor Perry didn't waste any time getting a boatload of other items on the special session agenda once there was the slightest movement in the school funding debate. Here's a brief look at a few of these add-ons:

A bill by Rep. Frank Corte to restrict eminent domain in light of the recent Kelo decision sailed through the House yesterday.

Reflecting widespread support from Republicans and Democrats, the proposed amendment to the Texas Constitution was approved 132-0 and will go on the Nov. 8 ballot if it wins approval from the Senate.

The Senate was expected to debate a related bill today. That measure would spell out details of the new restrictions should voters approve the constitutional amendment.

[...]

Corte's constitutional amendment would prevent the state and local governments from taking private property if the purpose is primarily for economic development.

Corte told legislators that his proposal wouldn't affect the ability of public port authorities to expand their facilities or interfere with the condemnation of property for other public purposes.

The only dispute over the measure was over a provision that would require a local government, if it condemned a homestead for primarily economic development purposes, to pay the homeowner the house's fair market value or its replacement cost, whichever was greater. That proposal by Rep. Harold Dutton, D-Houston, was adopted 66-63.

[...]

The Texas Municipal League, which represents city governments, has expressed opposition to the amendment. Frank Sturzl, the league's executive director, has said property owners could use the legislation to argue that any attempt to seize their land is for economic development and take cities to court.

The controversy has called attention to Freeport's plans to seize the property of two seafood companies to be used for an $8 million marina.

Freeport Mayor Jim Phillips has said the constitutional amendment wouldn't affect the city's effort because the city already has a contract on the marina and filed eminent domain proceedings a year ago. But the pending legislation has raised some uncertainty about his claim.

The House used a nonrecorded voice vote Tuesday to pass a bill to raise judicial pay and lawmakers' pensions, while Senators voted on the record with two senators casting "no" votes on similar legislation.

[...]

Currently, lawmakers earn $7,200 a year in pay, and retired lawmakers can begin collecting pensions at age 50 if they have served for at least 12 years.

Under the House and Senate bills, a retired official with 12 years' experience would get $6,431 more a year for a total pension of $34,500. Benefits increase with each year of service.

I noted yesterday that the telecom bills may make a reappearance. Well, here they are.

Anticipating the issue would get added to the current session agenda, Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, has introduced and held hearings on a bill that phases out state controls on local phone rates and establishes a statewide franchise for cable providers, including phone companies.

Fraser said he hopes to get his measure through the Senate as soon as today.

Other measures authorize electric companies to start delivering high-speed Internet service over power lines and boost renewable energy use in Texas.

The telecommunications reform bill has drawn concern from several groups, including SBC Communications Inc., the Texas Cable and Telecommunications Assocation and the Texas Municipal League, a statewide coalition of cities. The groups have applauded the bill's goals to further competition in telecommunications, but they have expressed concerns over the bill's approach.

Phone giant SBC Communications Inc., which was initially opposed to the proposal, now supports several provisions of the bill following negotiations with Fraser.

Fraser's counterpart in the House, Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford, expects to file his own legislation soon.

As noted in the article above, the Senate passed a bill on renewable energy, which of all the bills I've seen so far sounds like the only one that's unambiguously in the good.

The Texas Senate approved a bill Tuesday that would boost the amount of energy produced by renewable sources in Texas.

Current law requires the state to produce 2,880 megawatts of renewable energy, or about 3 percent of the state's electricity needs, by 2009.

The bill by Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, would require that about 5,880 megawatts of Texas' installed generating capacity come from renewable sources by 2015.

A megawatt provides enough electricity to power 300 to 400 homes for a year.

Finally, The Red State takes a look at all these bills and asks a pertinent question about the whole thing.

My mailbox has been humming with items of interest lately, so I'm going to list a few of them here:

- Peter Brown, candidate for Houston City Council At Large Position 1 is having a Summer Celebration at Blanco's (3406 W. Alabama) on July 18 starting at 6:30 PM, featuring the music of Sammy Relford and the Friends Band. There's a link on Peter's site to a printable invitation for this, but as I blog this it's currently 404'd. Check back later, I'm sure it'll get fixed. (UPDATE: Fixed now, so click away.)

- Former State Rep Glen Maxey will lead the fight against the Double Secret Illegal anti-gay marriage amendment this fall. The Lesbian/Gay Rights Lobby has a press release with the details. Though I feel sadly certain that this is a losing cause, it's nonetheless one that's absolutely worth fighting for.

- I almost surely can't make it to the DNC's annual Hispanic Leadership Summit, which will be held in San Antonio from August 5th through the 7th at the Hyatt Riverwalk Hotel, but that doesn't mean you can't go. Andrew D has more on what sounds like a fun event.

Further updates as events warrant. Let me know if you have any questions.

Well, this is potentially refreshing.

In a gesture of openness, Texas Lottery commissioners announced Monday that, for the first time, a committee of state officials and private citizens outside the lottery will help find the agency's next leader.

[...]

Commission Chairman Tom Clowe, mindful of criticisms that the lottery's culture is closed, stressed that the search will involve outsiders whose sole mission will be finding the most qualified applicants for the three-member lottery commission to consider. But the commission will make the final decision on a new executive director.

"What we want is a broad involvement of people who are interested in the lottery to participate, and that's a first," Clowe said. "To me, that represents a change in the culture and an outreach to people who want to be involved and say they'd like to make it a better operation."

Clowe said the search for the new executive director will "cast a wide net" and that its goal will be to "reach for excellence and find someone who is qualified, experienced and will do an outstanding job."

Commissioners named Greer's former deputy and longtime lottery employee Gary Grief as acting executive director while they advertise the position to lead the $3.5 billion state agency.

[...]

Clowe said he supported Grief for acting director because he believed him to be the most qualified. But lottery watchdogs, including a lawmaker, and several former employees, disagreed with the decision.

Some say Grief should have lost his job as well because a staffer notified him last month that Lotto sales would fall short of the June 8 estimated jackpot, but Grief failed to act.

Greer said he signed off on a form recommending an $8 million jackpot because he trusted his staff to recommend the right amount and didn't notice another spot on the form that estimated Lotto sales at only $6.5 million.

Clowe noted Monday that it wasn't Grief's responsibility to oversee the estimate. But critics say he could have done something to prevent an overstated jackpot to be advertised.

Ned Anderson, a former lottery investigator who lost his job in a November reorganization, said Grief is part of the institutional problems at the agency and is the wrong choice to lead it during a crisis.

"It's a bad thing," Anderson said. "I think that what they've done is they haven't really improved the problem at all."

And Rep. Ismael "Kino" Flores, who chairs the House committee that oversees the lottery, said the commission should take a closer look at support staffers who have been a "common denominator" in the troubled agency, including Grief. "They should be held responsible as well," Flores, D-Palmville, said.

"My hope is they figure they're going to hire somebody who's going to come in and fire everybody else," she said.

Other coverage of yesterday's Lottery Commission meeting, from the Express News:

Dawn Nettles, a lottery commission watchdog and publisher of the online "Lotto Report," asked commissioners Monday to do away with guaranteed jackpots and instead pay winners 50 percent of ticket sales, rather than the current 39 percent.

Commissioners also heard testimony from Gerald Busald, a professor of mathematics at San Antonio College, who criticized the $3.5 billion agency for fostering "a culture of hiding things," ignoring public input and sometimes concealing the truth in favor of increased sales.

"They need to bring in an outsider, someone with a real charge to clean things up and make truth the No. 1 issue," Busald later said.

Clowe said a search committee that will include state officials and members of the public will "cast a wide net" to find an executive director the public can trust.

And from the Morning News:

Rep. Kino Flores, who leads the House committee that oversees the agency, noted that each of the agency's four executive directors has resigned or been fired but that the second level of management has never been disciplined.

"The people in command under the executive director are the common denominator," he said Monday. "They should be held responsible as well."

Finally, an amusing tale from Valley Politico, who tells the tragic Shakespearean tale of "Griefius" and "Greerian". Sounds more like Goofus and Gallant to me, except for the fact that there's actually two Goofuses involved. Check it out.

Money laundering: Still illegal.

State District Judge Bob Perkins today said he believes two officials with Texans for a Republican Majority should stand trial on felony charges of money laundering.

The judge ruled that the state election code is constitutional and said he disagreed with arguments that the money-laundering charges had to refer to "cash" instead of a $190,000 check that the pair is accused laundering during the 2002 legislative elections.

Perkins, a Democrat who must run for office, referred to his own fundraisers: "All the funds I ever received were checks. In my opinion, funds would include checks."

[...]

The follow-up hearings are required because a Travis County grand jury last week re-indicted the pair on the money laundering charges after the defense objected that the original indictment referred to a check instead of cash. The defense lawyers contend the state's money-laundering statute refers only to cash transactions.

It is the second time in as many months that a judge has found the state law constitutional, but the first time a defendant has been ordered to face trial on criminal charges arising from the use of corporate contributions during the 2002 legislative elections.

The Galveston-Houston Association for Smog Prevention, also known as GHASP, is looking for some help with its website. Please click the More link for the details, and if you or someone you know can help them out, please contact John D. Wilson at wilson@ghasp.org. GHASP does some excellent and valuable work (among other things, they were the ones who made public the Secret TxDOT Plans for widening I-45), and I know from having lunch with John a few days ago that what they've got in mind for this project is really cool. Drop me a note if you have any questions. Thanks!

GHASP is currently evaluating whether we could become more effective and informed advocates for clean air by providing more information, organizing it to be responsive to individual interests, and expanding interaction with volunteers & visitors to the website. Specific goals (or phases) could be (1) to improve public access to the information GHASP has about air pollution issues, (2) to provide GHASP's perspective on issues covered (and not covered) in the media in a rapid-reaction format, and (3) to establish GHASP's website as the most user-friendly and informative website regarding Houston's air pollution issues, making it the destination of choice for our allies and even those who don't agree with us.

We need help with three tasks: refining the concepts, selecting a suitable technology platform, and implementing the plan (in phases). We would also need some ongoing help with website maintenance (mostly crisis management, not routine management or problem-solving). An appropriate person to fill this need would have a working knowledge of content management systems or blogging software (e.g., php systems and css style sheets), particularly with respect to establishing a fluid site design and ensuring that spamming and other hostile internet activity is blocked.

We are primarily looking for a volunteer who sees our cause as worth contributing time to, and who would enjoy the opportunity to design an innovative website. (Furthermore, our limited financial resources direct us to open source software or other low-cost solutions rather than more expensive commercial alternatives.) A successful volunteer could certainly demonstrate the GHASP website as a professional credential as well as enjoying the appreciation of our members.

Nevertheless, there are two possibilities for meeting this need with a paid position. First, we currently have a job opening for a Communications Director which could include the website development responsibilities; this job also includes newsletter publication with InDesign software and management of routine media communications (e.g., press releases). Second, if we hire a Communications Director at a more junior level than we currently anticipate, then some funds would be freed up in our budget to allocate towards consulting fees. So although we would like to find a capable volunteer, a paid position is a possibility.

Individuals with an interest in helping out as a volunteer should contact John D. Wilson at wilson@ghasp.org. Those interested only in paid employment should send an email to hiring@ghasp.org; please be aware that GHASP compensation is at a non-profit scale that is not competitive with the private sector, and we are not large enough to usefully offer health benefits to employees.

I admit, I didn't think it would be possible for a school finance agreement to get hammered out in this special session, but apparently I've underestimated David Dewhurst's willingness to sell out his principles. Now that all pretense of ever creating a fair and responsible method for taxing businesses has been dropped, the only hurdle left is how high to raise the sales tax.

Early Monday, the Senate approved a $4.8 billion property tax cut bill after eliminating a proposed tax on partnerships. The Senate and House bills both close loopholes used by about 10,000 corporations to avoid paying the franchise tax.

The Senate version also increases the sales tax by a half-cent per dollar and raises alcohol and cigarette taxes. It provides about $2.7 billion less in property tax relief than the House bill, which includes a penny per dollar increase in the sales tax and an expansion of the tax on motor vehicle repairs, computer repairs and bottled water.

House Speaker Tom Craddick and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst now must name a small group of lawmakers to try to negotiate a final version of the tax plan — all before the session ends in nine days.

Gov. Rick Perry supports closing the loopholes but has been opposed to new business taxes, saying they might hamper job creation.

"I feel relatively comfortable that the House and the Senate are not that far off now. These two bills are pretty close," Perry said Monday.

There's still details to be worked out, and I remain unconvinced that all this tinkering and buck-passing will survive the joint committee process, but as of today the odds are indeed much better than I'd have expected that Governor Perry will be able to declare victory on school finance. He'll have done it by raising taxes on most people while cutting them for a few, thus making our system even more whacked out than before. Some victory.

I may not know why we're not buying DVDs any more, but I can tell you how Americans spend their time online. Not too surprisingly, gambling and naughty pictures are huge growth industries. If only the Lege could figure out how to tax them, Texas might finally have a revenue source that kept up with population growth.

That probably also explains this

U.S. workers say they squander over two hours a day at the workplace, with surfing the Web, socializing with co-workers and simply "spacing out" among the top time-wasting activities, according to a survey released today.

[...]

Of 10,044 employee respondents, 33 percent said they engaged in time-wasting activities because they didn't have enough work to do. Nearly a quarter of those surveyed said they squandered their work hours because they were underpaid.

Men and women wasted an equal amount of time at work, but older workers were significantly more attentive than younger workers, the survey showed. Workers over 55 years old wasted an average of just 30 minutes a day, according to the survey.

Bill Coleman, senior vice president at Salary.com, said some time-wasting activities -- such as personal use of the Internet -- can be positive, resulting in new business ideas or a happier work environment.

"There is such a thing as creative waste," said Coleman. "Not all wasted time is bad."

I've heard about this technology before, and now it's looking like it's getting close to coming to the market.

CenterPoint Energy is testing a system to bring high-speed Internet access to consumers through the medium it knows best — the electric wall socket.

The company that owns the power lines throughout Houston is running a pilot of the system in a Greenway Plaza-area residential neighborhood, offering Internet access at speeds more than one-and-a-half times the speed of services offered through cable modems.

The technology, called broadband over power lines, or BPL, has long been used by power companies to monitor and manage their electric grids, said Thomas Standish, chief operating officer of CenterPoint's Electric and Information Technology business.

But it wasn't until recently that it could be used to offer high-quality data, video and voice services.

One thing that I wish had more to it:

State Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, introduced a bill during the recent legislative session to free utilities to offer BPL services without oversight by the Public Utility Commission. The bill failed to pass during the closing days but may be reconsidered during the current special session.

Former Houston Oilers Coach and Official State Treasure Bum Phillips is recovering from surgery.

Doctors discovered blockage in Phillips' arteries and performed triple bypass surgery on Friday after he was taken to the hospital with chest pains.

No evidence of heart damage was found, said Dr. Ronald Mahoney, a cardiologist with Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital.

The 81-year-old Phillips lives on his horse ranch in Goliad. He had experienced some symptoms of heart problems recently.

His son Wade, who is the defensive coordinator for the San Diego Chargers, said his father joked as he was going into surgery that if the operation didn't work, he expected to receive double his money back.

"He just wants to get back on his ranch," Wade Phillips said during a news conference today.

Phillips coached some of the Oilers best teams from 1975-80 and was responsible for drafting running back Earl Campbell in 1978.

He was fired on New Year's Eve of 1980 after the Oilers lost a playoff game to the Oakland Raiders.

UPDATE: Fuller story here.

I got the same press release Greg did (along with many others), I'm just a little behind in posting it.

State Representative Garnet Coleman (D-Houston) began airing a radio ad today in his hometown of Houston urging Texans to "say no to the Republican tax on our families." The ad will begin airing in Austin tomorrow. An audio copy of the ad and the text of the ad are attached.

"No matter what the Governor and the Republican leadership say, the plans they are trying to ram through the legislature would amount to a huge tax increase on our families," Coleman said. "Even worse, not a penny of the higher taxes we'll pay will go to our schools, our teachers, or other critical state needs."

Coleman said the radio ad points out the real effect of the Republican tax plan that passed the Texas House in a very simple, direct manner.

"Democrats had a plan to give Texas homeowners more property tax relief and put $2 billion more into our children's schools above what is in the proposed Republican tax on our families," Coleman noted.

Coleman said he paid for the ad from his own campaign funds, noting that he did not have $400,000 to match a "propaganda machine that is trying to sell a Republican tax increase as a plan that will cut taxes and help our schools."

"I believe it is important to encourage all Texans to make their voices heard by speaking out against a Republican tax plan that asks almost 90% of Texans to pay higher taxes and does nothing to help our neighborhood schools," Coleman concluded.

If you ever wonder why people like me have so little faith in TxDOT's reassurances about being considerate of existing neighborhoods as they make their I-45 expansion plans, the following email from Robin Holzer of the Citizens Transportation Coalition should provide a solid clue.

Dear I-45 and North Corridor Coalition leaders:

It appears that TxDOT is keeping citizens, stakeholders, and elected leaders along the I-45 corridor in the dark again...

As you know, many folks are waiting to see TxDOT's Preferred Alternative report for the I-45 North expansion project. It seems that TxDOT and Carter Burgess are on the agenda to present the study to the regional Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) at H-GAC this week. The meeting is this Wed July 13 at 9:30 am at H-GAC's Greenway Plaza offices: 3555 Timmons Lane, Houston, 77027.

However, TxDOT is presenting the study to regional approving bodies before they've shared it with their official "consulting party" partners like the I-45 Coalition, North Corridor Coalition, etc. For example, Jim Weston has been asking TxDOT's Pat Henry for updates on the project for several months and being told to "wait for the report."

This aggressive control of information is concerning. One of the TAC members agreed that as an official TxDOT "consulting party" on the project, the I-45 Coalition is entitled to see, review, and comment on the Preferred Alternative report BEFORE it is presented to the regional approving bodies (i.e. TAC and TPC) this month. He urged interested stakeholders to act now.

While a public meeting is planned for Sat Aug 13 at 2:00 pm with Congresswoman Jackson Lee, August is TOO LATE to start reviewing the study if TxDOT is seeking TPC approval on Fri Aug 26. Community leaders along the I-45 corridor have a right to see and respond to this study now. Neighborhood constituents deserve a meaningful opportunity to let our elected leaders know what we think about the study results.

Therefore, he has made the report public anyway. I've posted more info and links to the report in CTC's online forum.

If you wish to post comments or questions, please register for the forum. Instructions are here.

Individuals can make public comments at the beginning of Wednesday's meeting. However, it will be more effective if our elected leaders were present to ask some critical questions:

* Why is TxDOT presenting this report to the regional approval body when they have NOT yet shown it to the public consulting partners (i.e. I-45 Coalition, North Corridor Coalition, Greater Greenspoint, etc.) or affected elected officials?

* Will the public have 30-60 days to review the study prior to its approval by the TAC and TPC (i.e. with a big public meeting on Sat Aug 13, the public deserves until at least Sept 30 to review the study and submit comments both to TxDOT and to our elected leaders).

* Does this study reflect the results of the joint North Hardy planning study conducted by TxDOT and METRO and completed in 2003 (i.e. emphasis on upgrading major arterials and transit)? That process had great public outreach and consensus building and captured public comments that should be manifest in this study.

* Does this study reflect the public commitment to no additional ROW?

* Does this study reflect growing public interest in innovative alternatives that are sensitive to community needs? Does the North-Hardy planning process allow for studying the feasibility of these new alternatives?

Stories like this really depress me.

Yes, the house's new owner, Barry Norman, told the city commission, he knew he was buying property in a historic neighborhood, the Old Sixth Ward. But he had no intention of keeping the little Queen Anne cottage that stood at 1814 Lubbock since 1885. In fact, he was applying for permission to tear it down.

On the lot, Norman and his wife, Maria Isabel, proposed to build an aggressively modern house out of concrete block, metal and Hardiplank siding. Isabel, an architectural designer, had drawn up the plans herself.

With its tallest point (a meditation tower) at 49 feet 9 inches, the new house would loom over its one-story neighbors, blocking their views of nearby downtown. Though the neighbors' porches hug the sidewalk -- the old-fashioned setback is only 10 feet -- the new house would hang back 17 feet and more, creating an unsettling gap. And to the pretty street, the house would present a blank face: a wooden fence and the door to a garage big enough to accommodate five cars and the couple's RV.

Isabel and Norman's dream house would be, to say the least, very different from the dilapidated 1885 cottage currently on the lot. That cottage was built by Urbain Valentine, a son of Peter Valentine, the Houston valet of university founder William Marsh Rice (and no, not the one who famously murdered Rice in New York). When Rice retired to New York, he left his elderly Houston valet a large sum in appreciation for years of service. Peter Valentine died soon after, and his widow divided the money among their six children. Urbain Valentine used his share to set up housekeeping in what was then a middle-class neighborhood.

[...]

The neighborhood's last line of defense against the Norman house was the Houston Archaeological and Historical Commission, which rules on the appropriateness of permit-requiring alterations to officially recognized historic properties. At its June 3 meeting, Thomas McWhorter of the Greater Houston Preservation Alliance noted that though Norman's proposed house might be appropriate in many Houston neighborhoods, it would wreak havoc on the Sixth Ward. McWhorter pointed out that the city recognizes only seven historic districts, some as small as a single cul-de-sac. Taken together, they make up far less than 1 percent of the city's land. Norman's dream house would fit much better almost anywhere in that other 99 percent, he noted. Why not go there?

Lynn Edmundson of Historic Houston also railed against Norman's plan. Randy Pace, the city's preservation officer, judged that Norman's request to demolish the Valentine house was inappropriate in every category the commission considers. All seven members voted to deny the request.

The board deployed what its legal counsel advised was the strongest weapon in its arsenal: a 90-day delay for Norman's demolition permit. "If somebody is determined to be an obnoxious neighbor," explained chair Texas Anderson, "there is precious little we can do."

On Sept. 2, Norman and Isabel will be free to raze the house. "I want to get the neighborhood cleaned up," says Isabel, who likes the Old Sixth Ward for its proximity to downtown, Memorial Park and Buffalo Bayou. "Right now that lot is full of bums. People come and put trash there. Cleaning it up -- that's my thing. The historical movement, it's not my bag."

Anderson doubts that Norman and Isabel's new house will turn out to be a good investment: "We've seen developers try that, building big, new-looking things in old neighborhoods. People don't want to buy those. They look wrong."

By the way, I highly recommend you read this companion piece on Historic Houston, whose salvage warehouse on Houston AvenueWest Clay is one of the coolest places in town, at least if you're looking for architectural antiques. They've got an online auction coming up this Friday as a fundraiser. It's a great cause, so check it out.

UPDATE: Gah. I saw in the story on Historic Houston that their warehouse was now on West Clay. I used to live on a side street just off West Clay. And yet I put them back on Houston Avenue. Silly me. Thanks, Tiffany!

The Senate passed something early this morning. It's a muddle, but it's apparently closer to the muddle that the House passed previously, so that makes it a victory of some kind.

I'm not going to bother with any quoting because none of this is going to matter until we get to the joint committee stage. The fact that there have been several very close votes, with Democrats acting in total solidarity with a number of dissatisfied Republicans, says to me that the balancing act that each chamber has gone through may all fall apart once the differences are are ironed out and the jerryrigged compromise is duct-taped together for a final vote. Greg has some salient observations, while PinkDome asks the really important questions:

What in the hell is [Senator Florence] Shapiro wearing? White denim with some chain around her waist? Is white denim ok for the Senate Chamber? Was it casual tax bill day or something and only Flo got the memo?

One last thing. Here's a paragraph from the Statesman article that Greg linked to:

That vote also knocked out key provisions that Dewhurst had championed: new taxes on business partnerships. It also knocked out a voter referendum on those taxes. Both had been highly touted elements of the Senate version of the tax plan unveiled last week.

We've already seen several examples of how this special session on school finance has featured little more than a bunch of warmed-over ideas that failed to pass muster before, but Rick Casey finds one more that hadn't gotten any mention that I'd noticed before.

Buried deep within the bill (Section 47.052, to be exact), is a new $4 tax on admission to establishments euphemistically referred to as "gentlemen's clubs" — or, in legislative terms, sexually oriented businesses.

But whatever you call them, they are broad-based businesses, and this is a tax on them.

Actually, the tax is a little broader-based than that. It covers more than admission to ogle uncovered women.

It covers admission to ogle male strippers as well.

The defense rested on Thursday in the Enron Broadband trial, and the prosecution put on its brief rebuttal case on Friday, meaning that closing arguments (Tuesday) and jury deliberations are up next. Tom notes that there was some drama on Friday which didn't get any play in the Chron story.

Judge [Vanessa] Gilmore harshly rebuked Enron Task Force prosecutor Cliff Stricklan for asking a question on cross-examination of defendant Kevin Howard that, if not in direct violation of a limine order (i.e., a pre-trial order directing attorneys not to refer to certain subjects during the trial), at least violated the judge's prior instructions to the Enron Task Force prosecutors.

The rebuke came at the end of cross-examination of Mr. Howard when Mr. Stricklan asked a question about Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce ("CIBC"), one of the bank's that provided financing for the Enron Broadband unit. CIBC entered into this deferred prosecution agreement with the Enron Task Force back in December, 2003 and Judge Gilmore had apparently at least instructed Enron Task Force prosecutors not to ask any questions on that agreement during the Enron Broadband trial. The following is the exchange that occurred:

Mr. Stricklan: In fact, Enron went to CIBC often to fund such deals, isn't that correct?

Mr. Howard: We had set up a very large investment to fund with a number of banks.

Mr. Stricklan: Including CIBC, is that true?

Mr. Howard: Yes, sir.

Mr. Stricklan: And are you aware that [CIBC has] entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the Department of Justice . . .

Mr. Howard's defense attorney: Objection, your Honor!

Judge Gilmore: Stop! Mr. Stricklan, just stop it right now! Have a seat! That's the end of the questions!

With that, a clearly angered Judge Gilmore -- standing in front of her seat on the bench -- terminated any further questioning of Mr. Howard by Enron Task Force prosecutors and excused Mr. Howard as a witness. Taking advantage of Judge Gilmore's reprimand of Mr. Stricklan for emphasis, each of the attorneys for the five Enron defendants promptly announced that each of the defendants had completed putting on their defense.

As of Friday morning, Lea Fastow is a free woman after departing the halfway house she'd been in for the past month.

Lea Fastow, a daughter of the prominent Weingarten real estate and retail family, will now be on one year of federal supervision. That means she will have to report regularly to what is essentially a parole officer and her travel and living conditions can be monitored.

The former stay-at-home mom plans to go to nursing school.

I've been watching The Closer since it premiered, and have enjoyed it greatly. I just watched the most recent episode, "Show Yourself" today, and am puzzled about its resolution. Sadly, Television Without Pity has failed me by not assigning a recapper to this show, so I'm here to ask for your assistance. I'll put the rest of this post beneath the fold so as not to spoil it for anyone.

To be blunt, I don't understand the resolution at all. What I think is that Captain Taylor was ultimately correct about Col. Walters' son committing suicide and his being in denial about it. Maybe Col. Walters realized who the killer really was as he watched that piece of the hotel surveillance tape again, and in doing so faced up to his denial. If that's so, then I can understand why he killed the sniper as Brenda was arresting him.

All that said, and assuming all that is reasonable, then how did Brenda know it was the mailman who was the killer? Did I miss something? Maybe she just drew the same conclusions that Walters had done once she spotted the mail truck, but I'm at a loss as to the thought process. I mean, among other things, what would the mailman have had against the Quatorze gang? The son's motive was clear, but not the mailman's.

(If you're going to suggest the mailman really was Col. Walters' son - I saw no resemblance to the photos they'd shown, but I'll go with it for now - then why did Walters decide to kill him after going through so much trouble to get Brenda to want to spare him? I don't get it.)

The other episodes have all made sense to me, but this one just didn't. Maybe I'm being dense, but any enlightenment you can provide would be much appreciated.

It's a little hard to believe after all the Reagan Greer fiascos we've heard about lately, but there are still more revelations about Lottery-related shenanigans coming to light.

Texas Lottery executives were warned in a draft audit last winter that their decision to gut the agency's security force and fire most of its officers threatened the lottery's security and integrity, but lottery officials never disclosed those findings publicly.

A copy of the December draft obtained by the Houston Chronicle said that a reorganization ordered by lottery executives actually heightened the lottery's vulnerability to ticket theft, ticket counterfeiting and undetected fraud.

But those findings were not included in the 2004 Biennial Security Review provided to lawmakers and the three commissioners who oversee the lottery. Instead, the report said auditors found no issues that would "materially" impact the lottery's security and integrity.

And when the lottery commission chairman expressed concerns in December about the reorganization's effect on security, he was reassured the process would be smooth and beneficial.

There are two names mentioned in this story that need some attention paid to them.

The lottery has been subject to intense public scrutiny and ridicule since last month when then-Executive Director Reagan Greer admitted approving several inflated Texas Lotto jackpot estimates.

Greer resigned late Friday and was temporarily replaced by deputy director Gary Grief, who has worked for the agency since its inception in 1993.

Lottery commissioners plan to meet Monday to discuss the inflated jackpots and other issues.

Grief, who championed the November reorganization as a way to streamline, cut costs and improve coordination at the agency, refused to comment for this story. So did general counsel Kim Kiplin, who helped oversee the audit.

[...]

The reorganization dissolved the division and closed the field offices. Those who were left began reporting to Kiplin's legal division.

Investigators were ordered to stop investigating stolen ticket cases, which had been an invaluable service to local police departments who lack lottery technology and expertise, according to internal documents.

"Why would you want to get rid of your security division?" [State Rep. Kino] Flores said. "I would think that because of the nature of the business you're in, that security would be the division of your agency that would be the strongest."

Flores said executives never gave him a good answer to that question when he asked them about it late last year.

Lottery Commissioner C. Thomas Clowe expressed similar concerns to Kiplin and the others in a December meeting, according to an official transcript.

Clowe, one of three commissioners appointed by Gov. Rick Perry to oversee the lottery, asked if the agency still had enough officers to maintain the security standard set by the division.

"I believe we do," Kiplin responded. She assured the commissioner that executives shared the concern and if they'd missed the mark in the reorganization, they'd address it immediately.

"Well, OK," the commissioner replied. "I hope you haven't missed the mark, and I don't want to go around fixing problems as a result of this."

The great and highly prolific novelist Evan Hunter, who sold over a hundred million books as crime writer Ed McBain, has died at the age of 78 from cancer.

In a 50-year career, Mr. Hunter, sometimes as Ed McBain and sometimes using other names, wrote a vast number of best-selling novels, short stories, plays and film scripts. With the publication of "Cop Hater" in 1956, the first of the 87th Precinct novels, he took police fiction into a new, more realistic realm, a radical break from a form long dependent on the educated, aristocratic detective who works alone and takes his time puzzling out a case.

Set in a New York-like metropolis named Isola, "Cop Hater" laid down the formula that would define the urban police novel to this day, including the big, bad city as a character in the drama; multiple story lines; swift, cinematic exposition; brutal action scenes and searing images of ghetto violence; methodical teamwork; authentic forensic procedures; and tough, cynical yet sympathetic police officers speaking dialogue so real that it could have been soaked up in a Queens diner between squad shifts.

(Thanks to Matt for the tip.)

Who needs Skinemax when you have Houston MediaSource?

Until now, the battle over Houston MediaSource's programming largely has been waged on a limited front: the public-access channel's supporters against City Councilwoman Addie Wiseman.

Funny how airing nudity can change that.

Several council members who'd been ambivalent about the issue now say they can't support the channel's $800,000 contract with the city after a show featuring nude women aired Wednesday night.

"This absolutely has changed the dynamic of this whole debate," said Councilman Michael Berry, who said he now would vote against renewing the channel's contract. "This is no longer a free-speech-versus-censorship issue. This is about basic accountability and people who have no business putting on public programming."

[...]

Under its deal with nonprofit MediaSource, the city moves fees collected by cable providers to MediaSource to provide a forum for citizens that is free of government interference. No city funds are spent on the public-access channel.

MediaSource doesn't operate the separate government-access channel that broadcasts council meetings and other official programs.

Mayor Bill White said Friday that he hadn't seen Hough's video, and that he isn't yet sure whether he will support renewing the contract when it comes before the City Council on Wednesday.

He said he wants to ensure the channel has quality programming that complies with the law.

"I don't think that Houston MediaSource should get a contract unless there are some changes that would prevent an abuse," he said.

The Chronicle is running an online contest called Ultimate Houston, and its list of nominees in certain categories has generated some complaints.

What is odd is that CollectSpace.com was nominated [for Best Blogger]. It's a big website, but a website is not a blog. It doesn't even claim to be a blog:

Conceived as a hobby site, collectSPACE has since grown to become the leading resource and community website for space history enthusiasts and space artifact collectors through the provision of original news reporting, collecting guides, and as a virtual meeting place for a truly global audience.

The term "blog" is not to be found on that page. But apparently somebody at the Chronicle wanted to boost Pearlman's "website."

Welcome to the 2005 Ultimate Houston Reader Picks ballot. Last month, we asked you to nominate your favorites in more than 200 categories, and you did.

So is collectSPACE a blog? Well, they do have blog-like permalinks to individual entries on their main page, and their main page includes a note of gratitude to their readers for nominating them in the Best Blogger category (for some odd reason, the permalink for that post doesn't actually link to it - it's mysteriously absent from the associated Archive page; since they seem to be using Blogger for their publishing tool, I can't say I'm too surprised by that). Call me a bleeding heart, but that's good enough in my book.

One other point of interest:

The Houston Press's annual "Best Of" lists are always kind of fun. In contrast, the Chronicle probably ought to abort their bad imitation.

(Yes, technically the Music Awards are not the same as the Best of Houston. They are pretty closely related, however, with the Music Awards being essentially a special case of the Best Ofs.)

Last but not least, there's the matter of who you should vote for in this contest. If you have only one selection to make, it should be to name 89.7 KACC as the Best Radio Station. If you go ahead and fill in the whole thing, you might consider picking me as the Best Blogger. And thanks very much to those of you out there who helped get me on their short list. I do appreciate it.

The Senate has once again chosen to go its own way on a new tax plan.

The Senate Finance Committee late Thursday voted 9-5 to pass a bill that links property tax cuts to voter approval of a tax on all business entities, other than sole proprietorships. Under current law, only corporations are taxed, and many of those have used legal loopholes to avoid the franchise tax.

The full Senate debates the measure, which also includes a half-cent-per-dollar increase in the sales tax and higher cigarette and alcohol taxes, Sunday.

[...]

Senate leaders want to close those loopholes but broaden the tax base by also taxing service-related businesses that are organized as partnerships. Those include law firms, some medical practices and financial companies.

If voters approve, all companies except sole proprietorships would pay a 4.25 percent tax on net income plus payroll, with a deduction of $30,000 per worker.

This new tax would replace the corporate franchise tax.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said Friday that he'd heard some key business groups were lobbying against the plan.

"It may be the Texas Association of Business and the Texas Oil and Gas Association prefer the House plan. Golly gee, it moves $1 billion of taxes from business onto individuals and consumers. Duh, that's kind of easy," said Dewhurst.

There was a lot of action on the House side this past week. Here are some blog links to help you catch up:

Aaron Pena and his guest poster Scott McCown

By the Bayou

Common Sense

The Jeffersonian

PinkDome

Dos Centavos

Rio Grande Valley Politics

Roman Candles

Save Texas Reps

Chris Bell

Greg Wythe

Houston Democrats

The Red State

And finally, two from the Burnt Orange Report. Whew!

I'm disappointed to read that the International Olympic Committee has dropped baseball and softball as participating sports in the Games starting in 2012.

The first sports dropped from the Olympics since polo in 1936, both fell victim to a new sport-by-sport review system instituted by IOC president Jacques Rogge of Belgium. And it was Rogge whom pitcher Lisa Fernandez, a veteran of all three gold-medal teams that have compiled a 24-4 record in the Olympics, singled out as the villain of the piece.

"Rogge has basically conspired against the sports to get them removed. We had done our job as a sport worldwide to show we belong," Fernandez told the Associated Press. "I feel one person, the president of the IOC, a person from Europe, has taken it upon himself to ruin the lives of millions, actually billions of women."

Four Houston gold medalists — softball pitchers Cat Osterman (2004) and Christa Williams (1996 and 2000) and pitcher Roy Oswalt and infielder Adam Everett of the Astros (2000) — were saddened, angered and confused by the IOC vote.

"You're taking away a dream from not only us who are playing now but from future athletes," said Osterman, the youngest player on last year's team that outscored opponents 51-1 and, entering her senior year at the University of Texas, a top prospect for the 2008 squad.

[...]

Both women acknowledge that softball probably suffered from being lumped in with baseball in the minds of IOC voters.

In its 265-page report on the international federations, the IOC program commission noted that Major League Baseball's rules and schedule do not permit the best athletes to compete in the Olympic Games, and while MLB has tougher drug-testing procedures, they fall short of Olympic standards.

"I think we got lumped (with baseball), and I don't think that's fair, and I'm not saying that because we got booted out," Osterman said. "You can't lump us together. They're pro athletes, and we have athletes who train specifically for the Olympics for four years."

The report also noted that both sports rank toward the bottom in the number of participating countries. Only modern pentathlon and triathlon rank below both sports in the number of countries among the Olympic movement's 202 national governing bodies.

The lack of participation among competing nations is a problem, one which I hope gets addressed so that these sports can be reconsidered someday. I'm not really sure what the barriers are to that - some of them are surely cultural, as baseball and softball are so identified as being "American" sports - but I don't believe any of them are likely to be insurmountable.

I also think that while it's a shame that the softballers are losing the international stage like this, their sport is doing pretty well with viewing audiences in the US right now. It won't surprise me to see games from the new fastpitch league show up on my TV schedule in the near future.

As for baseball, MLB is never going to take a two-week break in August to allow its players to compete in the Olympics. I understand the IOC wanting the best players in the world to compete, but I still remember when the Olympics were about amateur athletes. I know we've gone all Dream Team in the past few years, but is it really so awful to have minor leagures and college players out there? And someone help me out here - back when the NHL existed, how did it handle the Games' intrusion into its regular schedule? What about the premier football leagues in Europe? I'm just asking.

So anyway. Enjoy these sports at the Beijing Games in 2008, because who knows when we'll see them in this setting again.

Now that I've got my legs back under me, let me extend a warm and hearty thanks to all of my guest bloggers from this past week. I think they did a great job, and it helped me to enjoy my time off more knowing that the site was in such capable hands. This was an experiment for me, and it's one that I'm filing under "Success". I expect to do this again in the future when travel plans do not allow for regular time online.

I'm very interested to know what you thought of this. Should I do it again? Would fewer guest hosts be better, or did this format work for you? Should I solicit nominations for future guest hosts? Please leave a comment or drop me a note (kuff - at - offthekuff - dot - com) and let me know. Thanks very much.

When last we discussed this story, I thought the omens for a return to the Rockets' broadcast booth by Calvin Murphy were looking decent, but it's not to be.

Calvin Murphy, who took a leave of absence last season as the Rockets' television analyst while facing a criminal trial that ended with his acquittal, will be replaced by former Rockets Clyde Drexler and Matt Bullard on the team's broadcasts next season, the Rockets announced Thursday.

Drexler will work with play-by-play announcer Bill Worrell on home games on FSN Houston and KNWS (Channel 51), succeeding Comets coach Van Chancellor. Bullard will work for a second season as Worrell's broadcast partner on road games.

After a Hall of Fame playing career with the Rockets that began in 1970, Murphy, 57, was a part of Rockets broadcasts from 1989 through March 2004, when he took a leave of absence to deal with his legal challenges. His contract expires Sept. 30 and will not be renewed, said Tad Brown, the team's senior vice president for sales, marketing and broadcasting.

"It's unfortunate that after 35 years that this is the end, but it's all about business," Murphy said. "I had 35 great years with the Rockets, and even the bad years were good.

"I was hoping for a few more years, but I understand."

Murphy was acquitted Dec. 6 by a Harris County jury after two hours of deliberations on charges that he had molested five of his daughters. Testimony included the revelation that Murphy has 14 children by nine women.

Brown, asked if Murphy's legal problems, in the wake of his acquittal, had any impact on the decision not to renew his contract, replied, "Not at all. Change is part of this business. Players change, executives change, broadcasters change. It's the nature of sports."

Jon Heidtke, general manager of FSN Southwest and FSN Houston, which acquired the Rockets' broadcast rights last year, said the network's contract with the team calls for talent decisions to be made by the Rockets in consultation with the network. He said Murphy's legal problems "did not come up in any of our conversations" about next season's telecasts.

Not everyone loved his act on TV, and when Les Alexander bought the team virtually his first move was to fire Calvin. The public outcry on Murphy's behalf surprised the new owner, and he quickly rehired him.

Personally, I kinda liked Murph's schtick, cornball and self-aggrandizing as it was, but then I grew up on Phil Rizzuto's cornball schtick with Yankee broadcasts. As for his replacements, I've enjoyed Matt Bullard's work with the Comets, and I'll be interested to see how Clyde Drexler does. I'm sorry Calvin Murphy won't get the kind of signoff he'd have wanted, but I'm okay with how things turned out.

There were straws in the wind earlier this week that embattled Lottery Commission Executive Director Reagan Greer might get fired by the Commission, but today he spared them the bother by resigning.

"It has become clear to me over the last weeks that the way this scenario was playing out, a change of leadership was needed for me and for the agency," Greer said in an interview shortly after submitting his resignation letter to Lottery Commission Chairman C. Thomas Clowe.

Greer, whose annual salary was $110,000, found himself in the center of a swirling controversy after the Star-Telegram reported that he had signed off on a recommendation to advertise the June 8 Lotto Texas jackpot at $8 million even though it was clear that ticket sales would not support a prize of more than $6.5 million.

Two weeks later, the three-member panel that oversees the lottery criticized Greer for lax management and said the inflated jackpot estimate undermined the public's faith in the agency that generates $1 billion annually for the state.

Greer and other top lottery executives were also chastised last week for the controversy by a legislative committee. The lawmakers also were critical of the decision to fire a lottery staffer who helped make the inflated jackpot recommendation but then later raised a red flag, saying the figure should have been revised downward before the advertisements went up.

The lottery's oversight panel also served notice last week that it planned to meet behind closed doors on Monday to discuss whether Greer and other top managers should be disciplined or reassigned. Greer said he met privately with Clowe on Thursday and came away with the impression that his position had become untenable.

"We had a very candid conversation, and he was very upfront," Greer said. "I just felt like after that meeting that it was going to give me some insight to what I needed to do in making a decision, and it did play a role."

Dawn Nettles, a Garland resident who first brought the false estimates to light last month, said Friday that Mr. Greer was falling on the sword for employees who were responsible for the problems.

Deputy Director Gary Grief, who has been with the lottery since it began, and General Counsel Kim Kipling were among those named by Ms. Nettles as being "just as responsible for this as Reagan Greer" for long-term deception in the state's lottery games.

"I feel sorry for him," said Ms. Nettles, who publishes LottoReport.com. "They [Ms. Kipling and Mr. Grief] have been deceiving the public for a lot longer. Even though Reagan was not qualified for the job, he was set up. ... Now let's see if the guilty ones resign, too."

Rep. Kino Flores, chairman of the House committee charged with overseeing the commission, agreed Mr. Greer was "a fall guy" for the "four or five employees directly under him."

"He either got forced, squeezed, or took the fall," said Mr. Flores, D-Mission. "He was being proactive and he had accepted the responsibility, but that enormous responsibility and the deception to that level should not have been put on one pair of shoulders."

Finally, what does the person who put Reagan Greer in this job have to say about his departure from it?

A former politician who saw his lack of lottery experience as an asset, Mr. Greer had been in the post for just less than two and a half years. He was tapped for the $110,000-a-year job after the commission changed the qualifications, allowing someone without a college degree to assume the position.

At the time, Mr. Greer, a Bexar County GOP operative, had lost a re-election campaign for county clerk, and Gov. Rick Perry reportedly championed him for the lottery job.

On Friday, a spokeswoman for Mr. Perry praised the director's decision to quit without directly blaming him for the troubles.

"Reagan Greer has served the state of Texas ably in his capacity as executive director, and his resignation will serve to restore public confidence in the lottery," said spokeswoman Kathy Walt.

We're back after a lovely week in Portland where (unlike Denver a couple of weeks ago) the weather was actually cooler than it is here in Houston. We had a great time, and of course everyone loved seeing Olivia. Tiffany and I are at peace with the idea that we're just the Olivia delivery service.

Though the plane trip was uneventful, I've no idea how Olivia will deal with the time difference. She woke up at 5:30 AM on our first morning in Portland, which bodes ill - if we get her to sleep by 10 PM tonight, I'll be thrilled. Thankfully, we've got the weekend to get back into the regular routine.

As for me, I'll actually in the studio tomorrow for the regular BizRadio 1320 AM gig. I'll be the fill-in cohost, so I'll be there for the full show, from 10 to noon. It should be available via streaming audio - see here for more.

Later in the day, I plan to be at Pete's shindig. I'm thinking a beer and some snarky conversation will be just the thing. Come join in if you're around.

And somewhere in the midst of all this, regular posting will resume. Possibly tonight, if the jet lag gets me, too. We'll see if skipping the Diet Cokes today was a good idea or not.

Today's Wall Street Journal has an article about the increasing number of mortgages granted to illegal aliens. I guess I've just been out of touch, because this completely surprised me. The piece notes that the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority is financing loans there. I can understand the negative reaction from some legislators - a state agency knowingly aiding lawbreakers is pretty odd - but I can also see the benefits of increasing rates of homeownership.

If you don't have a WSJ subscription but want to read the article, drop me an email at helliemae at gmail dot com, and I'll email you the access link.

A smattering of events here around town the last few days, so pardon the tactic of lumping together a handful of the best ...

I'm sure everyone has heard by now about the terrorist attack on London mass transit (Two BBC stories; Reuters is inaccessible.) I have always thought London would be better prepared for terrorist attacks after its experiences with the IRA in the 1980s and 1990s. I can't tell whether the low numbers of casualties we're hearing so far is a result of that preparation, British stiff-upper-lippedness, or suppression of news to avoid hysteria.

On September 11, most of the little net.community Chuck and I belong to got online to check in and make sure that everyone was OK. This time, it's no different. Here's hoping that the casualties are as few as possible, the bastards who did this--not just the bombers, who are probably dead, but the ones behind them--are caught and punished, and that London gets back to normal as soon as possible.

Today I'm thanking $DEITY that neither my husband nor I take mass transit to work here in the metro New York area.

I'm Ginger, I'm Chuck's blog-mother, and I post intermittently on my own blog, Perverse Access Memory. Chuck and I have been trading news snark for many years on blogs and mailing lists, but not as many as Matt and Ellen and Chuck have.

If the allegations against these folks are true, they are actually traitors. Now that we have a sterling example by which to compare other acts against, can we please shut up about innocent peace activists and Democrats who mildly-criticize President Bush being "traitors"? Furthermore, can we shut up about Karl Rove, and anyone else who may have done something extremely offensive and possibly illegal being "traitors"? We throw the dirty t-word around these days like it's going out of style.

Thank you for being reasonable and of good faith.

London, not New York, will host the 2012 Olympics, according to CNN. But at least the NYC boosters had an opportunity to stick it to the French:

In the first round, London got 22 votes, Paris 21, Madrid 20 and New York 19. In the second round, Madrid had 32 votes, followed by London with 27 and Paris 25, AP said.

In the third round, London led Paris 39-33 after picking up several New York votes. In the last round, Madrid's votes were spread about evenly, giving London enough to win.

Would it be too late to start bribing IOC officials for Houston 2016 (or at least attempting to woo them by noting the supreme irony of hosting the world's premier sports event in the America's - and possibly the world's - most obese city?)

Addendum: Seriously, if Houston wants it, it stands a good chance, according to the early buzz from CNN:

He and fellow delegates, clearly dejected at a post-election news conference in Singapore, said it was too soon to say whether the city would try for the 2016 Olympics, which stand a good chance of being awarded to the United States for the first time since the Atlanta Games in 1996...

Peter Ueberroth, president of the U.S. Olympic Committee, said New York -- despite its energetic campaign -- would not gain any special status if it entered the race to be the U.S. candidate for 2016.

"We will have a new process for the next four years," he said. "We'll open it up."

The mad scramble for U.S. cities should begin any moment now. And while we all love New York City, it's not September 12th any more, and there oughtn't be any guilt of waging a no-holds-barred contest (as in, a bit more enthusiastic than the 2012 talk) for the love and affection of the USOC.

BRING IT ON!

Arguments, that is. Today's the day the Texas Supreme Court will hear from both sides of the school finance case.

The latest Supreme Court case began in 2001, when a group of property-wealthy districts known as the West Orange-Cove plaintiffs, named for a school district in Southeast Texas, sued the state. They claimed that they had little choice but to set their tax rate for school operations at the maximum allowed under state law — and that the maximum rate had become a statewide property tax, which the constitution forbids. The Supreme Court said their claim should be heard by a trial court, which is how the case landed before Dietz last year.

Two groups of property-poor school districts later joined the West Orange-Cove plaintiffs. Although the three groups are not in sync on each claim, their key arguments are that the system violates the constitutional prohibition of a statewide property tax, that the system does not allow schools to raise the money that they need and that schools do not have equal access to education dollars.

Dietz agreed that the property tax has become a statewide levy, that there is not enough money in the system and that there is not constitutionally equal access to money to build new school facilities. But he also ruled that the disparity in daily operating budgets does not violate the constitution. Some of the plaintiffs have asked the Supreme Court to revisit that part of his ruling.

The lawmakers who unsuccessfully drove efforts to reform school finance during the 140-day legislative session earlier this year appeared to ignore much of Dietz's decision. State leaders set out to change the school finance system without raising taxes overall, a goal that seemed incompatible with the kind of overhaul that Dietz said was necessary.

The state's position is that the state Constitution gives the Lege all the authority on education policy and that the court should stay out of it.

"Deciding matters of education policy is not the appropriate role for the judiciary," said Ted Cruz, the state's solicitor general, who will argue Abbott's case. "The text of the Texas Constitution expressly assigns that responsibility to the Texas Legislature."

Abbott's argument against judicial action reflects a political sentiment that is particularly strong in conservative states such as Texas, said Maurice Dyson, a professor at the Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law. He said state lawyers around the country have argued that courts should have no role in determining education policy, but most courts have disagreed.

"The courts are the ultimate arbiter and interpreter of constitutional rights," Dyson said. "To not interpret the constitution would be an abdication of their duty."

Abbott thinks the courts should butt out and let the Lege carry out its Constitutional responsibility? Sure, if it is, in fact, doing so according to the Constitution. And there appears to be some disagreement on that one, Mister AG. However, it shouldn't surprise anyone if the Supremes end up siding with the state.

The justices, all of whom ran as Republicans or were appointed by a Republican governor, could be more sympathetic to the state's arguments than Dietz, a Democratic judge from Austin.

A news report last year claimed that Perry, a Republican, told a group near Dallas that he did not think the state would ultimately lose the school finance lawsuit. He reportedly pointed out that he had appointed or helped elect most of the justices on the court. Perry later said he had not talked to the justices about the lawsuit but made the remarks because he knew their philosophy, according to published reports.

If the court simply throws it to the Lege, Texans who want a good education for their children should be prepared to do one of two things: move into a property-rich school district or find a good private school.

This year's hurricane season has already set a record, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Cindy is expected to be more wet than windy and Dennis is not yet a serious menace to anyone, but together the two tropical storms churning the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean are making history.

Along with Tropical Storm Arlene, which blew across the Florida Panhandle in mid-June and short-lived Tropical Storm Bret, which soaked eastern Mexico in late June, the 2005 hurricane season — thanks to warmer-than-usual Gulf waters and favorable atmospheric circulation — has begun with an unprecedented flurry of activity.

Lee Frasier, captain of the charter boat Vamoose, secures the vessel with extra mooring lines in Biloxi, Miss., on Tuesday as Tropical Storm Cindy advanced toward the Gulf Coast. Barely a month into hurricane season, there have already been four named storms.

"This is the earliest date ever to have had four tropical cyclones in the Atlantic basin," National Hurricane Center forecaster Richard Pasch said Tuesday. Hurricane activity usually peaks in September and October.

The good news is that so far the first four named storms of the season have been relatively weak ones, a common characteristic of early season weather systems that arise in the Gulf or the Caribbean Sea.

The bad news is that the worst may be yet to come. Although early season activity is no statistical harbinger of the future, forecasters have been expecting the 2005 hurricane season, which lasts until Nov. 30, to spawn 15 named storms, including at least eight hurricanes.

They also say there is a 77 percent chance that at least one intense hurricane will strike the U.S. coast, most likely in Florida, which is still recovering from a record four hurricanes last year.

Meanwhile, as the whirl churns, the global-warming soap opera continues, with some scientists claiming that global warming may increase hurricane intensity, and others downplaying the threat. All told, most scientists seemt to agree the number of storms is probably not directly related to climate change.

Audit warns staffing shortage hampering Houston's 911 center

City Controller, Anisse Parker, has put out the results of her audit on the Houston Emergency Center and the results aren't good:

Parker's report cites "pervasively" low morale among the center's employees, who handle 911 calls, process them for the police and fire departments and dispatch accordingly.

The center also has been plagued by equipment and software problems. Another recent audit found most of those issues had been resolved.

Parker's audit found that the center, opened in 2003 to improve emergency service by bringing fire and police dispatchers and 911 call takers under one roof, could save $6.7 million with changes recommended by the auditors.

Yeah, cost savings are all fine and well. But here's to hoping the repairs make a dent in the service delivered, as well. Emergency Centers are, quite frequently, a hellish place to staff and organize. They take a backseat to the frontline services performed by fire, ambulance, and police work. It's a tough job that few aspire to, but it often makes a huge difference for the person calling. Here's to hoping Anisse, Mayor White, and the rest of council find a good balance in this mess.

JayForHouston.com :: Houston's Public Safety Crisis

Now THIS is what I'm talking about ... I've staked my claim as a supporter of Jay Aiyer for City Council from the get-go. The biggest part of this was due to the depth that Jay is willing to get into to address local issues, and this entry demonstrates the case rather vividly:

Why have we not trained more new officers? Cost -- it currently costs the city of Houston $2.8 million for a cadet class of 70. That number doubles when the overall cost of operations of the Police Academy is factored in. Fiscal reality makes any dramatic increase in training difficult under our current system.

There is an answer to this problem.

Currently, the Houston Community College System (HCCS) provides most of the continuing education training for HPD. It also trains new officers for most area law enforcement agencies at a far smaller cost per-officer than HPD.

As an educational entity, HCCS receives state and federal allocations that lower its training costs. HCCS’s core mission is education—training is what it does best. The City of Houston is not in the education business.

HCCS has proposed and is moving ahead with a new Public Safety Academy for the region, partnering with other area law enforcement agencies. It is the smartest option to provide state of the art law enforcement training at the lowest cost, and the City of Houston should join the partnership.

HCCS will train top-quality new officers at its Academy, while saving Houstonians millions in tax dollars. Moreover, it will provide HPD badly needed access to the students that comprise the recruitment base for future police officers.

We need a new approach on public safety, and a partnership to train new officers is a real solution for a very real problem. Solving the problem will require a willingness at City Hall to change direction. Let’s hope City officials are willing—the public’s safety depends on it.

Far from just being resolved to be supportive of more cops on the street, far from just running on a platform of seeking out ways to pay for the same, Jay just spells out a case for doing so at an effective cost, and that partners with the most effective resources to get the mission accomplished.

This specific issue is but one tangent of an earlier Op-Ed of Jay's that was published in the Chronicle. The Public Safety Academy concept ought to be stolen by every candidate hitting the hustings, but let's not forget which candidate is pushing it the hardest.

The new Medicare drug benefit that goes into effect in January will cover "dual eligibles", which are people on both Medicare and Medicaid. This group is generally in worse health and is costlier than either people on Medicaid only or those on Medicare only. At first, this news was greeted cautiously but potentially optimistically by the states, most of which currently provide drug coverage to these individuals through their Medicaid programs.

But then, the details came out (they always do, don't they?). The states realized that they were going to be completely rooked by the "clawback" provision, which basically says states have to send money they heretofore have spent on dual eligible drug coverage back to the feds, to defray costs of the Medicare drug benefit. The new Medicare law also places some administrative requirements on states that they estimate will, along with the clawback, more than offset any savings they will see from the feds taking over dual eligible drug coverage.

Well, the states aren't gonna sit still for this. And damned if Texas' own Rick Perry isn't leading the charge. In fact, Perry vetoed a provision that would have provided money for Texas' share of the clawback over the upcoming biennium.

Scott McClellan has said Bush isn't going to get involved in the Republican primary for Texas governor as he considers both Perry and Strayhorn friends. It will be interesting to see whether Bush uses his political support as a way to force Perry to cough up the money -- or if he uses the clawback issue as cover to help Strayhorn in the primary.

Intro: Hello, OTK readers! I'm Hope. I blog in an extremely random fashion at the Appalachia Alumni Association. I went to the LBJ School, worked two sessions as a Texas Senate staffer (for former Senator Mike Moncrief) and spent over three years in the Texas Health and Human Services Commission's Medicaid Office. Consequently, I feel highly qualified to make fun of all aspects of Texas state government. Nice to meet you all.

Being in Austin, away from home, for an entire regular session can be very hard on our state Senators and representatives. To then be called back into special session, just when they thought they could relax and resume their normal lives, has hit some of them particularly hard. One of our poor elected schmucks has gotten so desperate for...umm...companionship (cough)... that he has resorted to taking out an ad on the Austin-area cragislist.

I am a guy seeking a chick---must be hot to trot and pay her own way. I have been known to wipe my nose with the back of my hand and snort when I laugh. Drink and smoke to excess. Typically can be found most days waking at the crack of noon, then til 4 or so on the couch in my underwear hooting to Jerry Springer. I also become "all hands" very easily, and my eyes will regularly move up and down your body as you talk.

I posted the above previously, but forgot to add that my favorite time to get together is usually Sunday afternoon when I can watch car racing and golf on the TV and you will be there to get me cold brewskis (that's the correct word) out of the fridge when I need them, and are eager to warm up the nacho-cheese or to grab a new can of spray cheese out of the cupboard when mine goes cold or runs out.

Actually I am seeking a coffee drinker for evening-night sessions discussing mid-18th century British maritime policy, and or Paul Gauguin and if he actually put Mangos in his paintings or if those are bradfruits.

Isn't there some Capitol-struck messenger or intern over there who can help a brother out?

(Hat tip: Fellow Austinite Tim O. Thompson.)

Intro: I'm Matt Cohen, occasionally referred to in this space as "buddy Matt". Despite working professionally with the Internet since 1989, this is my first blog post.

Tomorrow morning (Tuesday, July 5th), I start a two month term on a Federal petit jury panel in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas. Since Federal jury service is much less common than state court service, I thought this might be an informative topic for my guest posts.

Over the coming week I plan to post some of my experiences and thoughts. I'll do my best to read the comments and answer any questions.

I was originally scheduled to serve in May and June, but had to reschedule because of a work conflict. I have a two-week business trip coming up, but hopefully I won't have to reschedule again and can start my service tomorrow.

Following up on Julia Sisyphus's post, a new poll shows patriotism remains near an all-time high in America:

Whether or not “patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,” as the British writer Samuel Johnson observed more than 200 years ago, it may be the first refuge of a broad cross-section of modern-day Americans, regardless of their ethnicity, religion or political affiliation...

The poll, conducted by the Roper Reports unit of NOP World, is based on personal and telephone interviews over several years. It found that 81 percent of Americans believed patriotism is “in,” meaning it is an important factor in their individual identities, compared with 14 percent of Americans who believed patriotism is “out.”

I wasn't aware that patriotism could be "in" or "out" like a fashion trend; one is reminded of Thomas Paine's thoughts on "sunshine patriots."

Nonetheless, it's always affirming to see an outpouring of positive feelings for my country. On the other hand, it's still refreshing to know that one may feel differently about Independence Day, as this week's editorial from AAN&I does. Dissent challenges us towards being a greater nation, ever-more deserving of adulation, because we can hope that Americans will never condemn our country to being a wasteland of broken promises and shattered dreams.

the annotated Declaration of Independence, on its birthday

How's it going edition.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776 The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refuted his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages[*] whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred. to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies,[**} solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. --And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

*the great wtf moment of the Declaration. Unfortunately, it's an Even-the-Rich-Class-Struck-Slave-owning-White-Guy kinda document. It's like watching a dog speak. The wonder is not how well it speaks but that it speaks at all.

** note who gets to say we mean well and who is providing the temporal authority

Since today feels like a Sunday, I thought it'd be as good a time as any to engage in a longwinded magazine-style blog post on a topic that Kuff and I have been doing a bit to emphasize. That point, running a full slate of Democratic candidates, may sound a bit too common-sensical to think anyone would dare oppose the notion. Yet it does. To a degree, that notion has its detractors on both sides of the aisle - more than a few Hispanic regions ran without GOP candidates in 2004, for instance. But being in the minority means you have to take the fight to the sound of the guns a bit more actively than the other side. Let them play defense, we'll play offense.

Ever since this post on my own fair blog, the idea has been bouncing around a bit more actively on the local front. But the bigger genesis for the idea, of late, has come from no less than DNC Chair Howard Dean. This week's Washington Post Magazine has as good a version of how Dean has been putting the concept into the minds of others:

Return of the Angry Man - Sally Jenkins
A student raised her hand. What was his specific plan for recovery? Dean ticked off several points. First, he would infuse state parties with cash and organizing help. The difference between the

Democratic and Republican operations in Ohio, where the presidential election turned, Dean hazarded, was that Democrats brought in thousands of volunteers from out of state. Republicans had thousands of volunteers in state, knocking on the doors of their neighbors. This lack of neighbor-to-neighbor presence, Dean suggested, was alienating.

Also, Democrats must contest races in all states, at all levels, in all years, not just presidential ones. "It is disrespectful not to come to Tennessee and Mississippi and Alabama as well as California and Michigan and Ohio . . . We need to come to Tennessee because what you could think of Democrats by watching [Republican] ads is all you're going to think of us unless we show up and make our case in person."

A young man stood up and asked what he could do to help the party, other than give money, which he didn't have. Dean bobbed on his feet, delighted with the question, because it allowed him to show off his best side -- the side that grew a presidential candidacy from a small Vermont operation with seven employees into a national campaign with 600,000 supporters.

"The number one thing you can do is run for office."

[Class giggles]

"I'm absolutely serious. I am not kidding."

The class grew quiet. Here was Dean as a Johnny Appleseed, sowing civics in the young. While Democrats have conceded parts of the country considered hostile, Republicans have left no office untested, he pointed out. The result is that Dems have no farm system, no ability to find young political talent in red states and groom it.

Run, he urged the students. Run for county road commissioner. Run for city council. "If you don't have people running for offices like county commissioner, who do you think is going to run for Congress a generation from now?

"You may not win the first time," he said, "or the second time or the third time . . . If you lose, so what? It's worth the investment if we can have somebody there who gives the message, who's articulate and thoughtful, and respectful of the voters, because they'll get a better impression of Democrats than they would otherwise if there was no opposition whatsoever. That's the great failure, one of the great failures, of the party. Because we were in power for so long, we didn't think we had to appeal to places like that. Well, we do. And we will."

On this, Howard Dean speaks for me. In fact, he's got it so dead right, I could just as well leave this alone and never think twice about adding another word. But why leave it at just that?

The selling points for a full slate of candidates is precisely as Dean spells out - you carry the message of your party, win or lose. You show up at the Chamber of Commerce meetings, the Kiwanis meetings, the Optimist Club meetings. You hit every church with a Civics Sunday service possible. You make the case of your own candidacy as well as for the Democratic Party. That alone expands the reach of the Democratic Party to more places than we're presently hitting. And if the Democratic Party is afraid to be heard and seen in any possible location, it's time to close shop. We're the party that best reflects the diversity of opinion - so use it or lose it. In 2004, 40% of Harris County voters did not even have a State Rep nominee from our side to even consider. One of the candidates we did have on the ballot could not be found by anyone. A few of the others thought simply putting their names on the ballot was enough. In one notable case, that of Charlotte Coffelt, the race was so uphill that we never had a shot. But Coffelt's 29% still represents an effort at stanching her party's bloodflow in one of the most Republican areas of the county. The 2% improvement over the top of the ticket that she saw can serve as the groundswell that leads to other candidates getting 2, 3, 4, or more percent better than top-of-the-ticket Dems. After all, if those voters will consider one Democrat this time around, there's a shot that they'll consider more the next time around.

Upon reading through a few obits of former Senator Gaylord Nelson, the originator of Earth Day, I stumbled across another take on the need to contest all elections ... this coming from the successful side of doing so:

He was governor of Wisconsin from 1959 to 1963 and a U.S. senator from 1963 to 1981. He was one of those happy warrior types who exulted in beating his enemies into submission and then getting roaring drunk with them afterward.

When he was elected governor, Wisconsin had been in Republican hands since 1932 - and that was back when governors served two-year terms so the Republicans had won lots of elections.

That didn't stop him; the fact that almost everyone thought he was going to lose didn't stop him.

Today, almost a half-century later, it is common to remember Nelson mostly in terms of his triumphs, namely, as the founder of Earth Day. He did build a sound reputation as an environmentalist.

But, that's not what built his party; what built Gaylord Nelson's party was, in large part, the zestful enthusiasm he and his colleagues displayed when taking on entrenched Republicans against overwhelming odds.

All of this, of course, is to simply say that the road to recovery does not involve seclusion, quietude, and fighting the fewest battles possible. The only way to turn things around - as Nelson and my own political hero William Proxmire did in Wisconsin - is to run. Proxmire's case is illustrative in connecting to Dean's assertion that you may not win - and that's ok. Proxmire ran for Governor three times before winning a Senate seat in 1957. His losses were such a point of debate that when asked about them during the 57 campaign, he made a virtue of it, suggesting that everyone who had never lost in life could vote for his opponent. An oral history with Philleo Nash, an assistant to President Truman, offers an even better illustration of the long-term nature of rebuilding:

NASH: Senator McCarthy drank himself to death and died in the spring, about this time of year, later April or early May of 1957. And I was vacationing in Puerto Rico at that time attending the first -- not the first -- attending the second Casals Festival with my daughter and I was on the terrace of La Fortaleza, the Governor's palace in Puerto Rico, at a party following one of the concerts, when I received an urgent phone call and it was the Democratic Party secretary in Madison, Wisconsin informing me that Joe McCarthy had died. So, I left my daughter in Puerto Rico and rushed back to Madison the next morning to get started on the campaign to re-elect a successor because, at that time under Wisconsin law, the Governor was not obliged to call a special election. He did not have the power to appoint, but he could leave the seat vacant. And we first used the party machinery to conduct a major propaganda drive to back him into a corner in which he would have to call a special election even though he was very likely to lose it, because we had been working up to that election for a good many years, about ten.

HESS: Were you successful in that?

NASH: Yes, we did induce the Governor to call a special election, and we then embarked upon a campaign to find the strongest candidate. The political beliefs of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin had been inherited from the La Follette progressives and they are contrary to party endorsement. And this was the point where Senator Proxmire and I came apart. In an effort to unite the party behind him as the strongest leader, I set about what we called "operation soundingboard" in which we held a series of rallies around the state in which each person was permitted to come forward and say who he thought would be the strongest candidate.

Now, Senator Proxmire did two things. He first denounced that as an effort to have endorsement without having endorsement, and second, to accuse me of trying to find somebody else instead of him. Now the fact of the matter is that, while I had no great love for him, I didn't have any doubt that he was the strongest candidate, but the party leaders did not favor him because he had been defeated three times for Governor and they didn't want to run a three-time loser and "operation soundingboard" did in fact demonstrate his strength with the rank and file of the Democrats throughout the state. I raised money for him with good results. We couldn't afford a regular poll, and I just had come into my hands the other day a set of the amateur polls that were conducted by the Young Democrats, which I'm going to put into the files of the Library. And you will see that by this amateur poll at a total cost of $100 for the entire effort, we were able to forecast correctly Senator Proxmire's victory in the special election of 1947, August 27th, well over a month in advance.

Ten years of solid work in a formerly predominant Republican state and the damn broke loose so hard that it wasn't until the 80s that Wisconsin reverted back to a swing state. It may or may not take 10 years to see the same for Texas. It could take 16 months for all we know. But it won't start moving till we start challenging.

Luck, they say, is the intersection of hard work and opportunity. Without the hard work, opportunity goes unmet. Kuff has already introduced us to one candidate looking to do a little hard work between now and election day, 2006 - Janette Sexton. Anyone and everyone in the Pasadena-area, 144th District would be well-advised to get involved and start getting involved in that race. Those outside of the 144th should get involved as well. Check around your neighborhood's political lineup and run this test I once put to a friend: Who's your Congressman? Who's your State Senator? Who's your State Rep? Who's your Justice of the Peace? If you keep going down the line and continually get the names of Republican officeholders, it's time to start realizing that it may be you who is the leading voice for your party in your neighborhood. If that's the case, then make it official and run for something.

Gloom clouds special session

So how is that special session going for Governor Perry?

"I don't think people are overly enthusiastic about being here," said Sen. Mike Jackson, R-La Porte. "The mood I sense is everybody's pretty skeptical about being successful, and that creates the mood of, well, I hope we're not just here wasting our time."

Even leaders in the tax debate — Senate Finance Chairman Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, and House Ways and Means Chairman Jim Keffer, R-Eastland — are grumbling.

"Everyone's frustrated. No one wants to be here, but we're going to get it done because we have to," Ogden said.

"Any special session is very disruptive to families and businesses. Obviously, the governor felt like he needed to have this done for the state of Texas. So he called us back," Keffer said.

'Primary politics'
Adding salt to the wound is the belief by some legislators — Democrats and Republicans — that Perry's motives in calling the special session had more to do with politics than policy.

Shortly before Perry notified legislative leaders that he planned to call the session, many thought U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison would challenge him in the Republican primary, which she decided against doing. Perry called the session an hour before Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn announced her challenge to his re-election.

Then Perry's re-election campaign began running radio commercials telling voters to call their legislators if they wanted property tax cuts.

"A lot of members assume this is about Republican primary politics," said Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston. "You've got Strayhorn and Perry having verbal warfare, and there is a sense among members that we're being used for political purposes."

Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, said he's willing to work if this session is a serious effort to reform education funding but that he has yet to be persuaded that it is much more than a political gimmick by the governor.

"I'd be willing to be here for 10 special sessions if this was about serious policy making," he said. "It will be two weeks of half-hearted effort and two weeks of beating a dead horse."

Rep. Tommy Merritt, R-Longview, in 2003 offered a solution to cut property taxes by raising sales taxes, a plan opposed by Perry. Merritt finds it ironic that Perry is now promoting a sales tax increase to pay for his school finance plan.

"I'm not criticizing the governor, but one minute he's for gambling and he's for a tax on burlesque clubs and now he's for a tax on sales," Merritt said. "Dave Carney, the governor's main political consultant, ran ads attacking me in that Senate special election for wanting to raise the very same taxes the governor now supports."

Simply stated, there's not a position Rick Perry holds steadfast on, save for a property tax cut that pretty much everyone is for anyway. The problem, however, is twofold: for starters, you've got to make up that lost revenue somehow. Secondly, this was supposed to be about school finance first and foremost. Clearly, with Rick Perry, that's an afterthought.

Failure in this special session would represent Strike Four for Rick Perry in trying to replace the Robin Hood mechanism of school finance with ... well, with anything. Far worse for Perry is that since he's vetoed the school funding bill that did come out of the regular session, it may be time to start worrying about whether or not schools will even be open on time this year. The status quo for now means that they will not. But with a little luck, maybe Perry will finally lose the nickname of Governor Goodhair when Governor Bad Idea becomes more relevant.

Quick intro and hello: I'm Ellen, from Hello Helliemae, and am thrilled to be a guest at Off the Kuff. Now back to the regular programming...

"Issues do not explain Americans' politics."

Boy, that's an understatement. But what does? Last year's election left lots of folks on the left scratching their heads. If so many voters disagreed with President Bush on important issues, how did he win? A recent article in the American Political Science Review posits an interesting, and new-to-me, explanation.

In last month's "Are Political Orientations Genetically Transmitted?", three political science professors argue that genetics exert a surprisingly large influence on individual political attitudes. Using data from twin studies in the U.S. and Australia, they disaggregate the effects of three influences on political ideologies: heredity (genetics), shared environmental factors (common experiences growing up in the same family), and unshared environmental factors (individual life experiences).

Using correlations on survey items relating to political views, the authors find that on average, heredity explains roughly a third of the variation on political attitudes, about twice the amount attributable to shared environment; the rest is due to individual experiences. This genetic influence is much higher than many people would have guessed - certainly much more than I had assumed.

The authors suggest two "political genotypes": absolutist and contextualist. Many people might substitute the names conservative and liberal, but these political scientists believe what's more interesting is to classify people based on their openness. This approach is particularly useful given that the research did not find a strong genetic component to political party affiliation. (Shared environment was much more important for that outcome.) Thinking about the 2004 election results: the strong differences in these two genotypes may trump positions on issues. So, an absolutist could easily disagree with President Bush's actions and statements in the run-up to the Iraq invasion, but still vote for him due to his/her fundamental, genetically-influenced political profile.

These findings point to a number of implications, but I'll focus on a couple that are of most interest to me. One is the influence of "assortative mating". If parents choose each other based on genetically-determined characteristics, the heredity effect will necessarily be increased. The authors address this question, noting that this practice increases the role of genes in determining children's political attitudes. They go on to state that since people do tend to choose partners with similar ideologies, the divisions between absolutists and contextualists could increase over time. I'd take that a step further: working from the assumption that absolutists are likely to have more children per capita than contextualists, someone on my end of the political spectrum might well think that we're bound to lose in the long run. We'll just plain be outnumbered.

Another possible implication, far less serious but a lot more fun to contemplate, is for matchmaking services. If I were Dr. Neil Clark Warren, with his "traditional beliefs" and ties to Focus on the Family, I'd seriously consider incorporating political ideology into my matching algorithms. Let's see, pair off as many conservatives as possible, match liberals with more open/contextualist orientations to conservatives who are strongly absolutist (in the hopes the latter's genes will trump), and tell the remaining liberals that there's no one out there for them. Might not generate enough revenue to cover his $80 million in estimated advertising costs this year, but sure could advance the cause.

Update 07/07/05: A friend (and former professor of mine) sent me a thoughtful response to this piece, one that I'd like to share.

--
Ellen,

I read with interest your blog about the genetic component of political behavior. A few thoughts -- almost like I was a professor commenting on a student's paper.

The problem with your argument is that it ignores the very high correlation with political ideology and party id. This correlation has grown in strength over time with the realignment of southern white voters from the D column to the R column.

The very low (and statistically insignificant) connection between party and genetics is thus generalizable to ideology and genetics. That is to say, since party proxies for ideology, there also cannot be a strong correlation between ideology and genetics. Thus the logical jump to the conclusion that conservatives are more absolutist (less pragmatic, flexible, nuanced) than liberals isn’t sustainable. The more accurate conclusion is that there are people that are absolutist on the left, just as there are on the right – a few months in Boulder should provide ample evidence of this. Similarly, there are pragmatic, flexible, nuanced people at both ends of the ideological spectrum. Put differently, partisans of both stripes can be absolutists; likewise some partisans of either stripe (though not all) are able and willing to entertain shades of gray. In fact, you might be able to think of examples of both.

It is true that the fertility rate among educated, middle income liberals is lower than conservatives, more generally. But the long-term evolutionary implications are not about the breeding patterns of the right versus the left, but the breeding patterns among absolutists versus gray-scale types. Are absolutists more or less likely to mate and produce offspring? Is this more or less likely among gray-scaler? On this question, I don’t think there is enough evidence to hazard a guess. Maybe left-leaning absolutists are willing to make commitments and produce babies at a higher level than their left-leaning gray- scale counterparts. Or maybe left-leaning gray-scalers are more willing to look beyond their ideological blinders to find true love and breeding opportunities wherever those opportunities present themselves. Similarly on the right. I don’t think we can know based on the current research.

So the moral of the story, if there is one, is to trust that genetics aren’t destiny, even if they play a role. Or maybe the lesson is that genetics also programs people, whatever their ideological predispositions, to go to enormous lengths to seek mating opportunities, despite the possibility that they may occasionally cancel out the votes of their lovers.

Dissertation over.

Cheers, Ken

Brad DeLong points us to a new paper which attempts to explain how New York got so big, and stays so big:

For 200 years, New York City has been the largest city in the nation, and it continues to outperform most cities that were once its competitors. In the 1990s, the city’s population grew by 9 percent and finally passed the eight million mark. New York is the only one of the 16 largest cities in the northeastern or mid-western United States with a higher population today than it had 50 years ago. New York’s economy remains robust. Payroll per employee is more than $80,000 per year in Manhattan’s largest industry and almost $200,000 per year in Manhattan’s second largest industry.

All cities, even New York, go through periods of crisis and seeming rebirth, and New York certainly went through a real crisis in the 1970s. But while the dark periods for Boston, Chicago or Washington D.C. lasted for thirty or fifty years, New York’s worst period lasted for less than a decade. While Boston’s history is one of ongoing crises and reinvention (Glaeser, 2005), New York’s history is one of almost unbroken triumph. The remarkable thing about New York is its ability to thrive despite the massive technological changes that challenged every other dense city that was built around public transportation.

Much to my embarassment, I've never been to New York City (on the other hand, much like the protagonist in Savage Steve Holland's Better Off Dead, this fact has, more than any other, kept me willing to go on with life, no matter how badly the Astros are doing). Nonetheless, a similar question could be asked of Houston. Lord knows that we've had "periods of crisis and seeming rebirth." Indeed, at a meeting on Friday a lecturer asked us if we knew what the "new hot thing" for young lawyers in Houston was twenty years ago. After an uncomfortably long silence in which no-one spoke up to answer, I guessed it might have been real estate.The correct answer was oil and gas. Wrong boom-bust cycle!

Indeed, the most relevant article I can find on Houston's economic history was written at the peak of the go-go 80s (namely, Joe R. Feagin, "The Global Context of Metropolitan Growth: Houston and the Oil Industry", Am. J. of Sociology vol. 90 no. 6 (May 1985), 1204-30). Which leads me to believe it's time for some grad students to get busy on the theses.

I've never really been down there before tonight; a friend of mine decided he wanted a picnic for his birthday. I highly recommend doing that. In the winter, when it's not so derned hot. Good times. Especially the "playing chicken with the Hermann Park kiddie train" times.

One unexplored reality of the possibility that John Sharp may be soon entering the race for governor is that it changes the ballot-access calculus drastically for the Kinkynauts.

I fully intend to support the Democratic candidate next November. Until recently, however, it was beginning to look like Chris Bell was not going to draw a serious opponent in the Democratic primary. One should, of course, hedge their bets on these things. After all, the memory of 2002, when Dan Morales decided to run for governor at almost literally the last minute, is still pretty fresh in our minds.

A dreadfully boring primary - and it could still happen - would mean that I would be able to not have to go vote in the primary, which would make me eligible to sign the Kinky Friedman ballot access petition.

Generally, I believe that serious independent candidates ought to be able to get on to the ballot (although I wouldn't have signed Ralph Nader's ballot access petition last year for all the money in the world, because I am a nasty, petty person; incidentally, so is Ralph Nader). And frankly, Kinky Friedman being on the ballot probably increases the likelihood of the Democratic candidate winning next November.

So here we are: there's a good likelihood that I'm going to have to use my vote in the primary instead of maintaining my virginity for the Kinkstah. To be sure, I'm not angry at John Sharp for wanting to run for governor. He would surely do a much better job than Rick Perry.

I am, however, rather upset at the entire election system that forces such choices upon people. If, as a matter of principle, I would like to have a "third choice", why shouldn't I be able to have it?

It's not clear whether a contested Democratic primary will "suck the oxygen" out of the Kinky petition. They need, after all, about 46,000 signatures. There will certainly be more than 46,000 registered voters who will not vote in the primaries. However, it certainly will knock hundreds of thousands, and potentially millions, of voters out of eligibility. And that certainly will make things more difficult for the Kinkynauts.

Since I'm backing the reform candidate in this race, I think I'd like to use this post as an opportunity to suggest ballot-access reform as an item for y'all to chew on. So do chew.

And let me make one final note: how about, as a party, we attempt to prove the Kinkynauts wrong by not challenging their petition signatures (unless we start hearing really, really compelling allegations of fraud)?

I knew I'd have to go easy on making jokes at Arianna Huffington's expense once she signed up some quality like Harry Shearer. But not being content to merely lure one of my own faves, Andrei Cherny, out of a relative recluse of writing, she can now add Harris County's own Congressman Ted Poe to her list of guest bloggers. So, is it time to take the Huffington Post seriously?

I guess so. At least, if you see fit to draw favorable parallels between Gitmo and a Carribean resort the way Congressman Poe does. Yessiree Bob ... er, Ted. It's a terrorists paradise down there. Nothing but the politest of interrogations he witnessed. Funny, I could have sworn they'd want to give a former judge with the reputation of Ted Poe a little bit of insight into their own creative justice at Gitmo. Guess not. So based on Poe's word, I guess we should just ignore the actual documented evidence of mistreatment? And why not one word out of Poe about prisoners being held in the pokey without a single charge filed against them? I guess that was off the beaten path for his little sightseeing adventure.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not about to dive into the deep end that suggest we shut up shop, close our eyes, and wish these predominantly evil people away. But I think there's something to be said for maintaining a high standard of American justice. After all, that is something that we pretend to be fighting for, right? Not a word out of Poe on any of that nonsense, though. He's too busy taking in a little beach volleyball, no doubt.

Is anyone surprised at this result from the Columbia Accident Investigation Board study?

Though he believes NASA has taken adequate steps to resume space shuttle launches, the chief Columbia accident investigator said Friday he believes the aging spacecraft is so risky that it should be replaced as soon as possible.

"I don't think the American people and the Congress of the United States realize how dangerous this is," said Harold Gehman, the retired Navy admiral who led the 13-member board that determined the causes of the 2003 Columbia breakup.

"We didn't realize how dangerous it was when we started the investigation," Gehman said in a telephone news conference.

"It remains dangerous. We, the country, have got to replace this vehicle as soon as possible with a vehicle that is optimized to get humans into and out of low Earth orbit."

We know that the fleet is old. We've known that for quite some time now. Although many components are regularly replaced during preventative maintenance, the main technology on which the shuttles are based is fairly out of date. Of course, there is always trade off between "proven" technology and "cutting edge" technology.

One of the main ideas of the original shuttle program was to have a craft that was not a "one shot" deal. That program was successful; however, the needs of the program have expanded.

At 24 years old, NASA's space shuttle fleet has lost two of its five spacecraft. Challenger exploded at liftoff in 1986, claiming the lives of seven astronauts. The same number died in the Columbia tragedy.

Although, I believe it's important to note that neither of these accidents were a result of the age of the spacecraft in question.

Earlier this week, NASA's Return to Flight Task Group, a panel of 26 experts, ruled the space agency had failed to fully meet three of the 15 recommendations issued by the investigation board as conditions to resume shuttle launches.

Gehman offered his endorsement. "In my judgment, taken in total, (NASA) has faithfully and enthusiastically attempted to do every one (of the recommendations). The net of all they have done satisfied all of our requirements," he said.

The investigation board's greatest concern, he said, is that NASA could become complacent after a few successful missions and compromise safety to cut costs or meet promises made to the White House or Congress.

And there's the real fear. Will NASA be able to retain their resolve to maintain a safe fleet of spacecraft under continuing pressure from the White House to cut costs? Let's hope that Michael Griffin, known for cost cutting, will also be known for standing his ground when it comes to the safety of his fleet and their flight crews.

Well, since Chucky has fled the Lone Star State to prevent a quorum of revellers for the I-day celebration, it looks like he's made the grand mistake of entrusting me as part of his cadre of pinch-hitters. So, by way of introduction, I'm Greg of GregsOpinion.com. A fellow Texas progressive, I tend to blog on a wider range of issues than our Charles. I'll try to keep my comments here somewhat limited to the Texas and Houston-centric stuff, but since I've got a few days to do some damage, I'm sure I'll work in a William Proxmire reference here and there (outside of this post), as well as end up in a spiffy little catfight over something relatively meaningless. It's all good. Stay tuned. Fun will follow.

I'm going to be taking a few days off to spend with my family. We'll be taking off later today to fly to Portland to spend the week with my parents and various other members of the Kuffner clan. Since the last time we did this I got in some trouble for spending a bit too much of that time on my parents' computer, I'm going to do something I've never done before in 3.5 years of running this blog - I'm going to hand things over to guest posters for the duration.

I've assembled a diverse and interesting crew to guest star for me for the week. They are:

Hope Morrison

Greg Wythe

HellieMae

Michael Croft

Ginger Stampley

Julia

Jim Dallas

Plus friends and semi-regular commenters Matt Cohen and Elizabeth Benedetto.

Now I know what you're thinking: "Geez, Kuff, nine guest bloggers?" All I can say is that if I can wail and gnash my teeth about picking ten favorite blogs to read, I can't be expected to name one or two guest hosts and quit there. They'll be posting on their schedule and as their interests compel them, and overall I figure there'll be about the usual amount of stuff here.

I'll leave it to each of them to say a word about themselves as they see fit. I may pop up from time to time during the week, but in any event I'll be back on Friday the 8th. Have a safe and happy Fourth of July, and be nice to the people who'll be caring for this place in my absence.

I scanned this story yesterday but didn't have much time to think about it.

In an unusual move, a federal judge Thursday let lawyers for former Enron executives Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling ask the attorneys for the 15 people who've pleaded guilty in Enron cases to provide the judge with certain communications from prosecutors.

U.S. District Judge Sim Lake ordered lawyers for Lay, Skilling and co-defendant Rick Causey to draw up a subpoena for 19 defense attorneys who represent the 15 people.

They will ask for all written material, including e-mails, on the topic of trying to keep cooperating defendants from talking to the trio awaiting trial.

Defense attorneys in this case and other Enron-related cases have complained before that not just the cooperating defendants but the more than 100 unindicted co-conspirators have become afraid to speak to defendants.

Lake said he reviewed some sealed material from Lay, Skilling and Causey, and it was enough for him to address the concern "about possible efforts" of the Enron Task Force to inhibit the 15 guilty pleaders from responding to Lay, Skilling and Causey.

Since various cigarette tax proposals have been floated around during the school finance reform debate, I thought this story on Michigan's experience with a tax hike on tobacco would make for some useful reading.

Cigarette sales in Michigan are on track for the largest decline in more than 30 years, following a $2-a-pack state tobacco tax that went into effect a year ago this week.

Sales plunged about 19 percent between August and January, according to Orzechowski &Walker, a Virginia research firm backed by the tobacco industry.

If the numbers hold, the drop will exceed the state's previous largest decline since the 1970s: 11 percent in 2003. That followed a tax hike that went from 75 cents per pack to $1.25.

The latest increase has been a boost to the state budget, averaging an extra $24 million a month, according to treasury figures. But it has been a financial strain for smokers and cigarette sellers.

[...]

Treasury records show overall tobacco tax revenue was up nearly 30 percent between July of 2004 and April of this year compared to the same period in 2003-2004.

Before the tax was passed, state officials estimated the tax would generate $313 million in additional revenue for fiscal 2005.

In the first 10 months of collecting the tax, the state has taken in an additional $239.6 million -- on track to meet or exceed estimates.

[...]

For Lenora Gilbert, the higher tax has proven a mixed blessing.

At 17, she smokes about a pack of $4.75- $5 Marlboro Menthol 100s every two days. She smoked a pack and a half every day before the state raised its tobacco tax from $1.25 a pack.

The bad habit she enjoys has become too expensive.

"I'm quitting," she said, shortly after snuffing out a butt.

Like Gilbert, some have cut back or quit smoking since the tax went up. But some have simply have moved to cheaper, roll-your-own brands. Sales of the lower-taxed, loose cigarette tobacco have skyrocketed, according to retailers.

Many others, however, are breaking the law, buying cigarettes online or bringing them back from neighboring states with lower taxes -- Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin, according to state and tobacco industry officials.

After much hemming and hawing over how it was awarded, Accenture has officially won the bid to take over the state's health and human services screening.

State officials claim the new system, which will begin processing CHIP applicants in November, will save $646 million in the next five years and offer an easier benefits application system.

Under the plan, about 100 field offices will be shut down.

Part of the savings will be gained by terminating 2,900 of 5,800 full-time employees who determine eligibility, [Texas Health and Human Services Commissioner Jennifer] Harris said.

She said the commission will employ 298 state workers at the call centers, and Accenture plans to employ a staff of 2,500 private sector employees.

Meanwhile, Accenture has pledged to give preference in hiring to laid-off state workers. The commission expects to shift many of them to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, which is undergoing an overhaul that will include hiring 2,500 caseworkers.

The other dirty secret of this sort of thing is that the service is never as good. Why should it be? You get what you pay for, and we're paying for less here. It may still be good enough, but we won't know that for awhile. And I guarantee the transition will be very bumpy, because again, they always are.

Finally, just to put things in perspective, $646 million over five years is about $260 million for a biennium. Given that we spend about $60 billion of state money over the same time frame, this savings is a relative pittance. It's the services that THHSC provides that's the real money, not how they provide them.

UPDATE: More from Father John.

The private contractor who handles work programs for the Texas Workforce Commission in the Dallas area has been caught falsifying records, and encouraging their staff to "lie, cheat, or steal" to meet the numbers necessary for them to get the money from the State of Texas that the company wants them to get. An unhappy employee, used a hidden camera, and now, what those of us who have watched these private contractors over the years have known to be a common fact of life, has been caught on tape, and is exposed for all to see.

Wrapping things up for the week before the holiday weekend...

The Senate has passed its form of school finance reform.

The Senate measure would raise teacher pay by at least $500 in 2006 and an additional $1,500 in 2007, restore a health care stipend for teachers, increase state education funding by $2.9 billion during the next two years and cut local school taxes by 40 cents per $100 valuation by 2007.

However, the extra school funding and local tax reductions depend on passage of higher state taxes, which the Legislature also must approve and which also eluded lawmakers during the regular session.

The House, which must act first on tax bills, plans to debate tax legislation next week.

Both the House and the Senate bills would increase state spending on public education by about $3 billion during the next two years, but there are differences in how the money would be allocated and how to maintain equity among property-poor and wealthier school districts.

The House bill, for example, would require wealthy districts to share no more than 35 percent of their local tax revenue with poor schools. The Senate bill doesn't include a similar limit.

House and Senate leaders, as they did in the spring, also have major differences about how to trade higher state taxes for local school tax cuts.

More from Nate, Nate again, and BOR newcomer Marcus.

I've scanned through the introduction to the Phase I report of the HPD Crime Lab investigaton and will try to read it all the way through soon (we're about to leave town, so don't hold me to the "soon" part) as Kevin has done, and I have a question. For all the bashing that Lee Brown and C.O. "BAMF" Bradford have taken for their role in this debacle, given that the problems cited by investigator Michael Bromwich go back as far as 1987, how much of the blame really belongs to the likes of Kathy Whitmire, Bob Lanier, Betsy Watson, and Sam Nuchia?

For example:

Moreover, and quite problematically, there has been no line supervisor over the Toxicology Section since 1992, and the line supervisor position in the DNA/Serology Section was vacant between August 1996 and December 2002, when DNA analysis at the Crime Lab was suspended.

Shockingly, the City and HPD failed to repair the roof leaks that allowed water to pour into the Crime Lab for over six years. The City and HPD were aware of problems with the roof at the 1200 Travis Street HPD headquarters building before the Crime Lab moved into the facility in 1997.

I'm not doing this to deflect blame. It's pretty clear from reading the intro that the worst problems occurred after 1997, and that puts them squarely on Brown and Bradford's shoulders. What I am saying is that those guys didn't inherit a topnotch unit to begin with, and that if there's anything to be gained by pointing a finger at people who are no longer in a position of responsibility, then we ought not to be shy about pointing it at everyone who deserves it.

Governing Magazine has a cover story on political blogs in Texas, in particular blogs that focused on the State Legislature. Eileen Smith is the cover girl and main focus of the piece, but they did talk to a few other bloggers, myself included.

There's a lot of good stuff in this article. Thankfully, we seem to have come to a point where coverage of blogs isn't necessarily cutesy or breathless. I thought this was a pretty fair assessment of what the medium is and what it does.

Blogs are forcing the dailies, which are fighting to gain younger readers anyway, to adapt. The American-Statesman, for example, launched its own statehouse blog this year, called “Postcards From The Lege.” Five reporters contribute quick-hit items, typically drawn from their own reporting. The pieces are shorter than typical newspaper stories, and timed to please the obsessive reader who clicks “refresh” on his browser all day long. “A lot of these items didn’t have a home [in the newspaper] before we started,” says editor Gary Susswein. “They were things that only a few thousand people in the capitol care about, but most of our readers don’t. They would’ve died in our notebooks.”

Postcards is more serious, and less freewheeling, than In The Pink and the other independent blogs. “The entertainment value is low,” says Gardner Selby, the American-Statesman’s chief political reporter, “but the information value is high.” Stylistically, the paper has loosened its necktie a bit with the blog, but not much. A pair of editors vets every item. “We’re still a newspaper, and we can’t expose biases and opinions openly,” Susswein says. When asked about In The Pink, he replies, “She can definitely go in directions we might not go in. She can tell it as she sees it. We don’t want to get in the business of telling it exactly as the reporter sees it. That would undermine our credibility.”

Blogs may pose a more direct challenge to political newsletters. Texas has three of them, the Quorum Report, Capitol Inside, and Texas Weekly. Each charges $250 for an annual subscription, and is aimed more or less at the same niche of insiders that the blogs reach for free. Currently, the blogs come nowhere close to the newsletters in terms of providing useful information for staffers or lobbyists. But that could change. It all depends on who decides to take up blogging — and what sort of information they’re willing to share. “Blogs now have more gossip and entertainment value than the kind of stuff that would dominate the decision-making political conversation,” says Harvey Kronberg, editor of the Quorum Report. Kronberg admits that he reads In The Pink, but he doesn’t see Eileen Smith or her contemporaries as a threat. “Blogs don’t have the range, the reach or the institutional memory. That’s not to say someone won’t come along who does.”

One likely addition to the blogging mix in Texas is new voices from the political right. Most of the current blogs come at politics from the left. That’s probably to be expected — not because bloggers tend to be Democrats but because those first drawn to blogging tend to be dissenters. Nationally, conservatives first took up blogging because they believed a liberal media ignored their views. In Texas politics, the reverse has happened.

David Benzion, one of the few conservative bloggers in Texas, agrees with this theory. Benzion is managing editor of the “Lone Star Times,” a blog that he and Houston talk-radio host Dan Patrick started in January. “If you’re a ’progressive’ in Texas, you feel like you’re under siege,” Benzion says. “You’re living in George W. Bush’s conservative Texas. Some people on the liberal side picked up blogging in state politics as a way to vent. There are probably some on the conservative side who would be blogging about state politics, but don’t feel the need to because they’re basically content.”

No surprise here - Houston's suburbs have rapid growth rates.

Between the 2000 head count and July 1, 2004, Houston's population increased by 3 percent, according to the new estimates. During the same period, populations in Missouri City and League City grew by more than 25 percent, and Pearland grew more than 39 percent.

To put it in absolute terms, the sidebar graphic shows that Pearland has an estimated 52,402 people in it as of 2004, and that it grew at a 39.2% clip since the 2000 census. Doing the math (which is to say, dividing 52402 by 1.392), we get a 2000 population of 37,645 for Pearland, meaning it has grown by 14,757 people. Take Houston's 2004 estimated population of 2,012,626 and 3% growth rate since 2000 and you get 58,620 new people, or more than the entire current total in Pearland. It's all relative.

In fact, Houston's total population growth since 2000 is more than those of Pearland, Missouri City (13,657), League City (12,552), and Sugar Land (10,387), the four fastest growers, combined. They added a total of 51,353 people, over 7000 less than H-Town did. I guess that's just not as interesting a story. Always do the math, that's my motto.

And for what it's worth, Houston's growth may have been more than that, anyway.

"Houston didn't have negative growth, like New York, Philadelphia, Detroit and Chicago, which all are continuing to lose populations. Those are patterns that have been going on for some time," said State Demographer Steve Murdock, director of the Institute for Demographic and Socioeconomic Research in San Antonio.

"But certainly this is less growth than what we've seen in Houston. There's been a fairly substantial slowdown."

Numerically, Houston gained only 2,957 people between 2003 and 2004. At the beginning of the decade, the city gained 20,337 people between the 2000 head count and the 2001 estimate.

The city grew by almost 9 percent during the 1990s, adding an average of more 31,500 new residents annually.

Rice University sociologist Stephen Klineberg, who has surveyed the Houston populace for about 20 years, said Thursday that the estimates may be misleading. New immigrants, minorities and urbanites are notoriously hard to count, said Klineberg, let alone estimate.

"I would be surprised if city growth has really slowed down. Anglos have tended to move out of the city, but Houston remains one of the great magnets for the immigrant population," said Klineberg.

"Our surveys continue to show significant interest in living closer to downtown. There is ongoing gentrification in inner-city neighborhoods. New lofts and apartments are being built everyday.

"The city has remained vibrant."

Demographer Patricia Guseman of the College Station-based Population and Survey Analysts said suburban city growth is generated by three main factors:

The first is that cities such as Sugar Land and Missouri City are not mature, said Guseman, which means they still have land available for large subdivisions or master planned communities.

Accessibility is the second factor, she said. Suburban cities must be close enough to major economic centers such as downtown Houston or the Texas Medical Center.

"Anything that is under 25 to 30 minutes we know is going to be in big demand," Guseman said.

"A third characteristic is perception of the quality of life. And that can be measured in a lot of complex ways," she said.

Karl-T has it on good authority that John Sharp is finally ready to officially announce his intention to run for Governor. With all due respect, we've been seeing these straws in the wind for awhile now, so until I hear if from the man himself, I'm not going to get too excited one way or the other. Having a contested Democratic primary will have good and bad aspects to it, but if the candidates who would be involved focus on the issues (in particular, the utter failure of the current Governor), then I think it'll be a net positive.

And speaking of other not-yet-officially-announced candidates, if you want to be the first kid on your block to know when Chris Bell steps up and throws his hat in, just let him know that you want to know.