Picture this day in the Texas House: A major education overhaul, a new business tax (and several other taxes) to pay for it, a vote on property appraisal caps, another on a statewide property tax, and a vote on expanding gaming in Texas to allow high-tech slot machines and dog and horse tracks.

Attribute that vision to Tom Craddick. The Speaker of the House wants to move the two elephants in the room to the other end of the building, sending education reform and school finance and taxes along to the Senate before mid-March. He's got his tax chefs trying to find a way to make taxes palatable to a conservative Legislature, and his education team now has its plans unveiled. The Senate's education package is working on the other end of the building, but tax bills have to start in the House and the two issues are linked.

The House strategy is a kind of "how much reform can you stand?" While the tax guys are asking members what they'll do and won't do (see below), the education folks are offering up a bill that includes everything from lower property taxes to a later start for the school year.

Rep. Kent Grusendorf, R-Arlington, says his legislation would raise the state's share of the cost of education from the current 38 percent to 60 percent — a shift that would cost around $6 billion. He wants to add $3.2 billion in new funding for education above and beyond what's already in the proposed state budget for enrollment and other growth items. He'd lower local property taxes to $1 per $100 in valuation, and allow districts some room to raise local funds. It wouldn't end Robin Hood — the fund transfers from rich school districts to poor ones — but it would cut the dollar amounts from $1.2 billion a year to about $145 million (a number that would grow each year). Grusendorf's bill would reinstate $1,000 payments to teachers for health insurance and other expenses.

The legislation, he said, would raise accountability standards and make it easier to close bad schools. High performing campuses would be freed from some state regulations. The state would pay for college entrance exams for high schoolers. School districts wouldn't start classes before Labor Day each year.

Districts would get money to pay bonuses to their best teachers, and they'd have to provide "transparent" reporting of their spending, so everybody could see how money is spent on a district and even a campus basis. School board elections would be moved to November — when state officials are on the ballot — and trustees would serve four-year terms.

The education wonks around the state are chewing on the latest stab at a school finance solution, and they'll dribble out their reactions over the next few days. They posted preliminary numbers that show what would happen in each of the state's school districts, at www.house.state.tx.us.And before you read those, we'll pass along a caveat offered by one of the chefs for those numbers: "You'll notice that this sheet has the word 'estimated' on it in at least seven places."

On a Plane? In a Train?

House tax wonks are following a strategy laid out by Dr. Seuss in his highly regarded policy tract, Green Eggs and Ham. They've laid out the meal for House members and begun the questions: Would you like it on a boat? Would you eat it with a goat?

House Speaker Tom Craddick wants to get something to the floor of the House in early March. Ways & Means Chairman Jim Keffer, R-Eastland, set nine hearings — each on a different set of taxes — over the next three weeks. At the end of that exercise, that committee will spit out a bill for House consumption.

In the meantime, House leaders are trying to figure out which taxes are viable and which are radioactive. They're not letting the public see the menu of options, but members generally say they're getting peeks at the price tags on various school finance and education fixes, and then looking at the kinds of taxes that would raise enough money to match those price tags.

Nothing is dead except for personal income taxes and even that's a limited possibility. Some of the business taxes in the mix would hit people in partnerships and sole-owner companies, and that'll look a lot like personal income taxes to the taxpayers.

Discussions on the House side have included almost any taxes and fees you can imagine, including some that have been "dead" in the Lege one or more times: Slot machines (or, if you prefer, video lottery terminals, or VLTs) at horse and dog tracks; business taxes that include taxes on payrolls; split rolls, where property values are capped on residential properties but not business properties; new taxes on alcoholic beverages and; transfer taxes on real estate and sales taxes on commercial real estate leases; increases in sales taxes and extensions of those taxes to items that are currently tax-free. Craddick and Co. have been talking to some legislators in small groups to see what's palatable and what's not, and to see what's more palatable if it's tied to attractive programs.

Keffer's panel starts its slog through the tax thicket next week. The schedule: 2/9, property taxes; 2/10, appraisal issues; 2/16, sales and use taxes; 2/17, sin taxes and motor fuels taxes; 2/22, gambling; 2/23, franchise taxes; 2/24, other business taxes already on the books in Texas; and 2/25, "alternative forms of business taxation."

Number Two, and in the Wings, Number Three

For all the noise about the gubernatorial contests next year, only Gov. Rick Perry has declared outright that he'll seek the GOP nomination. Add two more names.

Kinky Friedman is now in the hunt, having jumped from "thinking about it" to "running." He declared his candidacy — as an independent — at the Alamo, in a stunt broadcast live on the Don Imus show. By choosing not to run as a Republican or a Democrat, Friedman has to collect 45,540 signatures in the weeks following next year's primaries, and they have to come from voters who don't vote in either primary or in the primary runoffs. Raging against the machine isn't just a gag: It worked for two governors who weren't initially considered serious candidates: Jesse Ventura and Arnold Schwarzenegger. And it almost turned former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm into the answer to a trivia question, when an unknown, unfunded schoolteacher from Mesquite — Victor Morales — knocked off three serious Democrats in a primary and then came within goose-bump distance of the incumbent in November.

Texas makes it tough to run as an independent for governor. A candidate has to get bona fide signatures from enough voters to have made up 1 percent of the electorate in the last governor's race, and have only two months to pull it off. The 2006 primaries are on March 7, and the deadline for signatures from independents is nine weeks later, on May 11. More rules: Signers have to be registered voters, and cannot have voted in either the Democratic or Republican primary, or in either party's runoff. That means anybody who signs a Friedman petition in March of next year would be disqualified if they then voted in either Party's runoff election in April. In the 2002 gubernatorial election, 4,553,987 Texans voted; that's where you derive the number of signatures needed: 45,540. Friedman will need to have that many certified signatures, and will have to gather somewhat more names to be on the safe side.

And former U.S. Rep. Chris Bell, D-Houston, filed papers with the state that make him a certified gubernatorial explorer. His exploratory committee allows him to raise money without saying absolutely and positively that he's a candidate. He's acting like one, though: Bell hired Bob Doyle of Washington, D.C., as his general consultant, Jason Stanford of Austin to do research and communications, and Heidi Kirkpatrick Hedrick of Houston to handle fundraising. Other Democrats have poked around about running, but Bell's the only one who's signed his work.

Fantasy Politics

Add U.S. Rep. Henry Bonilla, R-San Antonio, to the list of people who'll change courses, if others change courses first.

Bonilla is now openly saying he will run for the U.S. Senate if Kay Bailey Hutchison decides not to seek reelection next year. She's considering a run for governor in 2006, and since she's up for reelection at the same time, she'd have to give up the federal perch to try for the state job.

Bonilla has been talking to Republicans about a possible run for some time, but came out in radio interviews in San Antonio and Lubbock, saying he'd like Hutchison's job if she gives it up. That would be an up-or-out race for him as well.

Hutchison and Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn have been circling Gov. Rick Perry for months (two years, in the comptroller's case) and while they haven't committed to anything, nobody in Austin would be surprised to see a three-way GOP primary a year from now.

The seats emptied by the two most prominent females in state politics would set off two more races. Agriculture Commissioner Susan Combs is already raising money for a comptroller run; others have talked about it but haven't been as active in positioning themselves for a contest in the March 2006 primary, or in the November general election. Two names most often mentioned for Comb's spot — she has said she won't be running for reelection in any case — are state Sen. Todd Staples, R-Palestine, and state Rep. David Swinford, R-Dumas. Other possible candidates include Rep. Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth, former Rep. Tom Ramsay, D-Mount Vernon, and Democrat David Cleavinger of Wildorado. The job's political attractiveness was considerably enhanced when Perry turned it into a launching pad for his successful run for lieutenant governor in 1998.

A U.S. Senate seat, on the other hand, has always been a plum, and Texans who win those spots tend to hang on to them for two or three or four six-year terms. John Cornyn, who won Phil Gramm's spot in 2002, isn't going anywhere soon. Hutchison, who's been in place since 1993, when she replaced Lloyd Bentsen in the Senate, is ending her second term, as we've said, next year. Gramm held his spot for three terms, and Bentsen was in the Senate for almost four terms (he resigned to become U.S. Treasury secretary). Put it another way: Hutchison is only the third person elected to her spot in the Senate since 1957 (we're leaving out Bob Krueger, who served half a year between his appointment to the job and his loss to Hutchison in a special election); Cornyn is the third holder of the other seat since 1961.

It's the kind of rare opportunity that brings out the ambitions of political people in both parties.

Barbara Radnofsky, a Houston lawyer who's been testing the waters for almost a year, is expected to run for the seat. Ron Kirk, the former Dallas mayor defeated by Cornyn two years ago, is often mentioned as a contender. Former U.S. Rep. Jim Turner, D-Crockett, has said he would like to run for statewide office if the right opportunity opens up, and he has more than $1 million in seed money sitting idle in his federal campaign account.

On the Republican side, the 800-pound gorilla is probably Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst: He's wealthy enough, apparently, to self-fund a race if he had to; he's won two statewide elections against strong opponents; and he hasn't stepped in any of the sorts of potholes that spoil political fairy tales. Putting Dewhurst in the race would likely scare off other Republicans. But without him, there are tire-kickers galore, including two Bonilla colleagues, U.S. Reps. Kay Granger, R-Fort Worth, and Pete Sessions, R-Dallas.

Sidebar: The Dallas office of Vinson & Elkins snagged Kirk from Gardere & Wynne, and he says he'll be working there some, in Austin some, and in Washington some. Kirk says he's not thinking about running at the moment, but he leaves the door ajar: "We [politicians] always have the virus, but I like to think mine is in remission right now."

Two of his new colleagues have some interest in the answer to that question: Ray Hutchison, of V&E's Dallas office, is married to U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, and Radnofsky, a partner at V&E's Houston office, is running for Hutchison's seat as a Democrat next year.

An Overrated Launching Pad

Washington political experience is valuable in some states, but Texas voters have not been kind to members of their congressional delegation who seek statewide office.

Without regard to party or to popularity in Washington, D.C., or in their home districts, the voters usually treat past and present Persons of Congress as also-rans.

Among the state's 11 non-judicial statewide officeholders, none has served in Congress. Only two, Kay Bailey Hutchison and Carole Keeton Strayhorn, ever even ran for the U.S. House. Both failed, and both got over it and eventually ran successful statewide campaigns.

Former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm made the jump from the House, but had a national reputation as a result of his efforts to help then-President Ronald Reagan from the Democratic side of the congressional aisle. He also got a huge boost for his well-publicized party switch, when he resigned the seat he won as a Democrat and then won the resulting special election as a Republican. A contemporary with a similar reputation — Kent Hance — won a spot on the Texas Railroad Commission after losing the Senate race and then hit the wall when he ran for governor in 1990.

And there's a good-sized list of pols who discovered the historical difficulty of converting popularity in one Texas congressional district into statewide success. Six have tried in the last decade or so: Mike Andrews, D-Houston; Joe Barton, R-Ennis; Ken Bentsen, D-Houston; John Bryant, D-Dallas; Jim Chapman, D-Sulphur Springs; and Jack Fields, R-Humble. Each ran for Senate and only Barton, who lost in a special election and thus didn't risk his House seat, remained in Congress after losing statewide.

Wheel of Fortune

David Kleimann, a Willis businessman who grew up in Montgomery County, says he'll be in the race to replace Sen. Todd Staples, R-Palestine, if there is one. Staples hasn't said he's leaving, but has quietly shown some interest in the Texas Department of Agriculture, where Commissioner Susan Combs is serving her last term. Combs wants to run for comptroller, if that's open, but gave the political world the signal that she won't be back to her current post.

Staples is concentrating on Senate stuff for now and keeping his head down, but the pack to replace him is forming. Bob Reeves of Center wants to run if it's open, and Frank Denton, a Conroe businessman, has shown some interest. Denton ran for mayor of Conroe last year and lost; a Senate race would be Kleimann's first contest.

A Chancellor, a Commissioner, an Election

Texas Railroad Commissioner Charles Matthews, named a few weeks ago as the sole finalist for chancellor of the TSU System, now officially has the job. That done, he resigned from the RRC, freeing Gov. Rick Perry to name former Rep. Elizabeth Ames Jones, R-San Antonio, to the commission.

Matthews is replacing Lamar Urbanovsky as chancellor of the system that includes Texas State University in San Marcos, Angelo State University in San Angelo, Sul Ross University in Alpine, Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Lamar University in Beaumont, and all of the other campuses of those schools. Matthews, a former Garland mayor who's been at the RRC since 1994, got his undergraduate degree at the University of Texas at Dallas, a master's degree from Texas State University, and is finishing his doctorate at UT Austin.

He's taking one employee with him; Melissa Columbus will leave the RRC to work at Matthews' executive assistant at TSUS.

Glen Starnes, one of two Republicans in the running to replace Jones in the state Legislature, can't get off the ballot. But he told the San Antonio Express-News he'll campaign for the other Republican in the race: Joe Straus III. Starnes is apparently afraid the Republicans will split the conservative vote and open an opportunity for Rose Spector, a former justice on the Texas Supreme Court and the only Democrat in the special election to replace Jones. There's an independent in the running, too: former state Rep. Paul Silber. Straus also picked up an endorsement over the quick campaign's last weekend from Gov. Perry. The two share support from several Republican financiers who live in HD-121.

Jones dropped fundraising efforts because of questions about whether she is or is not an officeholder. She was reelected to the House in November. Gov. Perry, anticipating Matthews' resignation, said he intended to appoint Jones to that post. Jones then declined to take the oath of office for another term in the House, since doing so would have barred her from the appointment.

Since she wasn't in office, she was told she wasn't subject to the fundraising ban that prevents state officeholders from raising money during a legislative session. Jones, who has some $238,000 cash in her political accounts, started pulling together a fundraiser. But then the lawyers squirmed. Some state officials — appointees, mainly — remain in office even after their terms expire until their replacements are named. Since Jones' replacement hadn't been elected and sworn in, that created a question about whether she's still technically an officeholder. If so, no fundraiser. They called it off and she'll wait, with everyone else in office, until the session is over.

Flotsam & Jetsam

U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's legal defense fund is close to the $1 million mark, according to Public Citizen. That group says DeLay, R-Sugar Land, raised $439,550 of that amount during 2004. You can see details — and the group's opinion — at their website on the subject: www.DethroneDeLay.org. He's raised $352,500 from other members of Congress. Two Texans are among the top givers in that category: U.S. Rep. Henry Bonilla, R-San Antonio, contributed $15,000, and Lamar Smith, also R-San Antonio, donated $10,000 to the fund. Seven other House members from Texas gave, as did U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who donated $5,000.

Three DeLay associates are under indictment as part of a Travis County inquiry into Republican fundraising and campaign efforts in the 2002 elections. DeLay has not been accused of any wrongdoing in that investigation, which is still going on. Travis County prosecutors dropped charges against another of eight companies indicted in that investigation. Cracker Barrel Old Country Store was charged with making illegal campaign contributions. The company admitted no wrongdoing, but agreed to go forth and sin no more, to post its political contributions over the next two years on its website, and to give $50,000 to the University of Texas for programs in ethics. Sears Roebuck and a third company, Diversified Collections Services, Inc., made similar deals late last year. Five companies remain under indictment.

• The Talmadge Heflin-Hubert Vo election contest comes to a head next week, starting with a report from Rep. Will Hartnett, R-Dallas, who listened to two days of inch-by-inch testimony from the lawyers trying to whittle away at — or, on the other side, enhance — the 33-vote margin in that race. Heflin, the chairman of the appropriations committee in the House, lost to Vo in November but contends his opponent rode illegally counted votes to victory. In fact, both sides turned up some hinky votes and the question is whether Hartnett and then the House will see a clear advantage for one candidate or the other. He reports to a committee, which then passes its work to the House. He told the Houston Chronicle that his report will "implicitly state a winner." It's expected on Monday; the committee meets Tuesday.

• Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, asked for a title for a talk at the University of Texas at Austin, offered up "The State of the State." An aide says there's nothing to it, that that's the title she always uses for speeches about how Texas is doing. Maybe, but this speech is different: It comes just a week after her nemesis, Gov. Rick Perry, gave his official State of the State speech to legislators.

• Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst is getting roasted by Gov. Rick Perry and a panel of senators and reporters to raise money for a journalism scholarship fund named for late political reporter Sam Attlesey. They're expecting several statewide elected officials to show up to watch. Presidential adviser Karen Hughes lent her name to the event, and Sens. Florence Shapiro, John Whitmire and Judith Zaffirini, and Austin bureau chiefs Christy Hoppe of The Dallas Morning News and Clay Robison of the Houston Chronicle will help with the roasting. Until his death two years ago, Attlesey was the Dallas paper's chief political writer and one of the best and best-liked reporters in Texas politics. His family and friends set up the scholarship fund in 2003, and the goal of the fundraiser is to boost the size, number, and prestige of the scholarships. They're coordinating contributions and tickets and such through the College of Communications at UT, or you can get a copy of the invitation by clicking here. The roast is on March 16 at the Austin Club in Austin.

• Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn told state budgeteers she could bring in another $435 million in tax money if she's allowed to keep her current budget and, with it, her current staff of tax auditors and enforcement people. The comptroller's office, like most other state agencies, was ordered to show lawmakers what would happen if budgets this time were five percent lower than last time. In Strayhorn's case, the cuts would cost about $420 million more than they would save.

Political People and Their Moves

Al Gonzales' nomination as U.S. Attorney General won Senate approval on a 60-36 vote. He's a former Texas Secretary of State and justice on the Texas Supreme Court and the second member of George W. Bush's cabinet to have once been on the Texas state payroll (Education Secretary Margaret Spellings is the other).

Rep. Jim Dunnam of Waco will do another term as chairman of the Texas House Democratic Caucus, and Rep. Dawnna Dukes of Austin will stay on as vice chairman. Rep.Terri Hodge of Dallas was reelected as treasurer, and the one newbie in the group is freshman Rep. Veronica Gonzales of McAllen, who will replace Rep. Jessica Farrar of Houston as the group's secretary. None of those elections were contested.

After finishing third in an important preliminary vote, former U.S. Rep. Martin Frost, D-Dallas, dropped out of the running for chairman of the Democratic National Committee. The other Texas candidate in that contest — former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk — dropped out in the very early rounds and never mounted a serious campaign.

Austin lawyer Lynn Sherman, a water specialist who worked at the Lower Colorado River Authority before getting into the water development business, is signing on with the government relations shop at Winstead Sechrest & Minick.

State Auditor John Keel got an award named for his former boss, getting the "Bob Bullock Award for Outstanding Public Stewardship" at the Government Technology Conference in Austin. Keel only recently got the auditor job; he was staff director of the Legislative Budget Board for 10 years and worked for Bullock, among others, during his career in state government.

Bob Loftin, formerly with the Texas Legislative Reference Library, left state employment for the private sector, joining the Austin-based consulting firm Strategic Partnerships Inc.

Ray Hymel left the Employee Retirement System, where he worked in intergovernmental relations, to join the Texas Public Employees Association, for which he'll lobby the legislature on some of the same issues.

Deaths: Henry "Moak" Rollins, an engineer and businessman who served on the Texas Public Utility Commission during Gov. Bill Clements' first term, back when the PUC set utility rates and was in the public eye all the time. He was 83... Stewart Davis, a former Austin reporter for the Houston Chronicle and The Dallas Morning News, and then a spokesman for the state's old Department of Human Services. He was 67...

Quotes of the Week

Independent gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman, telling the Fort Worth Star-Telegram he's got no skeletons in his closet, and then proving it by recounting war stories from his band days: "When Eric Clapton offers you a toot of cocaine, what are you going to do? Say, 'No thanks, I had an apple on the train?'"

Friedman again, in that same article: "More than $100 million was spent in the last gubernatorial race by the two candidates for a job that pays $115,000. That smells fishy to most of us. Something is wrong with that picture. I've always said a fool and his money are soon elected. But not this time around. The guy with the most money shouldn't always win."

Gov. Rick Perry, telling reporters he hopes Texans in Washington, D.C., will overcome their ambitions for higher offices such as his: "I hope our delegation becomes a very, very powerful and tenured delegation."

Texas Insurance Commissioner José Montemayor, in a report to the Legislature: "Credit scoring is not unfairly discriminatory as defined in current law because credit scoring is not based on race, nor is it a precise indicator of one's race."

Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, reacting to news that state regulators won't block insurance companies from basing premiums on customers' credit ratings, in The Dallas Morning News: "It doesn't matter if credit scoring is actuarially justifiable, it is morally unacceptable."

Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, in an Austin American-Statesman story about teachers who converged on the Capitol to argue for more money for education and pay raises: "Who's paying for all the substitutes?"

Sen. Bob Deuell, R-Greenville, before the Senate nominations committee approved the appointment of Weatherford car dealer Roger Williams as Texas Secretary of State: "We need to go talk to our sales manager before we vote."

Rep. Fred Hill, R-Richardson, talking to The Dallas Morning News about his committee's interim report on appraisals, which the paper said was stuck in House Speaker Tom Craddick's office: "I can't tell you what they're doing with it, other than they're probably not real happy with its recommendations with regards to caps."

Dan Mindus, a spokesman for a food industry group fighting junk-food taxes, in the Houston Chronicle: "If you're going to tax people because of behavior that might incur a future health care cost, are we going to tax people who don't floss? Are we going to tax people for their sexual behavior?"

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Texas Weekly: Volume 21, Issue 32, 7 February 2005. Ross Ramsey, Editor. George Phenix, Publisher. Copyright 2005 by Printing Production Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher is prohibited. One-year online subscription: $250. For information about your subscription, call (800) 611-4980 or email biz@ texasweekly.com. For news, email ramsey@ texasweekly.com, or call (512) 288-6598.

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Campaign Finance reduxWatch for legislation from Reps. Todd Smith, R-Euless, and Craig Eiland, D-Galveston, that chews into the same material those prosecutors have been working on, with the aim of making some of what happened in 2002 illegal in future elections. They've looked at several provisions, including a time limit on issue advertising, tighter definitions of what constitutes illegal coordination of campaigns and third parties, tighter rules on how money donated by corporations and unions can be spent, and limits on what kinds of political action committees can accept corporate and union donations. One notion would prohibit so-called issue and advocacy advertising during the last month or two leading up to an election. The walls between those ads and plain old "my opponent's a schmo and I'm a pro" ads have become paper-thin. It's not unusual to see advocacy spots that remain legally but not practically distinguishable from normal campaign ads. It's legal in those spots to say one candidate is an idiot and the other is a genius and to end with "be careful when you make your decision." With a 30- to 60-day period before each election cleared of those spots, the advocates would be able to get their views out without electioneering. Federal law has a similar limit in place now, but it applies only to broadcast commercials. Some activists here want to extend such a ban to direct mail and to phone bank operations. In a strange twist, that can be spun as a defense mechanism for incumbents. Issue ads usually revolve around the stands taken by a particular officeholder -- as attacks on incumbents. Legislators -- incumbents themselves -- might see limits on those ads as prudent defenses against what they might face in future elections. The corporate and union limits pushed by groups like Campaigns for People would restrict contributions to affiliated political action committees and would limit expenditures of those monies to a tight list of non-political items, like light bills and rent and desks. Current law has been read in some campaigns as allowing those funds to be spent on choosing which voters should be approached, on polling to decide which candidates to support and the like. Corporations and unions wouldn't be allowed to give to PACs without direct ties to the donor. With their proposed restrictions, the Intergallactic Garbanzos Corp. could give money to CHICKPEA-PAC, but that corporation couldn't give to an independent committee like Texans for Uniform Lawn Care. The change is directed at complaints that companies and labor unions shuffle money around in a variety of PACs to disguise their influence and the amounts they're spending to try to help particular campaigns.

Got a computer? Get in the news biz for nothing down, nothing a month.If you have something to say but can't scratch up the bucks to buy your own newspaper or radio or TV station, you can blog (it's short for web log, a continually updated website on whatever is of interest to its author). And some of the bloggers sprouting in Texas are looking at state politics and government, generating new sources of information, gossip, political maneuvering; i.e., everything you used to hear in the traditional media and at the bar or coffee shop after work. Several Texas bloggers have been working the political beat for two or three years, and a batch started, more or less, with the beginning of the current legislative session. Several of the national political blogs are working as businesses, supporting their writers (handsomely, in a couple of cases) and opening a new channel in political media. The Texas blogs don't have the same traffic levels, but they're attracting wider audiences. We did a quick and incomplete survey. Drop us a note if we left out a good one.

Eileen Smith, a former journalist turned legislative budgeteer turned blogger, has started a regular riff on state government at www.inthepinktexas.com with the subtitle "Politics on the Lege of Reason." It's nonpartisan, focused on the Legislature and personalities. Smith worked for House Appropriations and then the American Heart Association after writing for a couple of publications, and hopes the blog becomes a full-time, full-pay job. She kicked it off, officially, this week. Not everyone in the citizen/journalism racket is signing their work. That's got an advantage and a disadvantage: On the one hand, you don't become a target because of what you're writing. A lobbyist who wanted to tell true stories about the state Legislature, for instance, could do so on a blog without ruining his or her day job. On the other hand, blogs depend in part on running commentary from readers, and sources don't talk to people they don't trust and if you don't know who you're talking to, what's to trust? If you're saying something sharp, and it's a risky thing to say, it's best to know who's listening. Two new blogs are doing politics the anonymous way. One, called www.pinkdome.com, leans to the left and has some attitude. It's entertaining, so far. And there's yet another blog about Texas government and politics, this one by another anonymous writer who has chosen the name imasuit. That narrows it down to lobbyists, officeholders and people who've been to Men's Wearhouse. The site, called "Inside the Texas Capitol," is more policy-oriented in tone than Pink Dome; the address is texascapitol.blogspot.com. Several of the political blogs in Texas (we're ignoring the folks from Texas who write mainly about national stuff, the better to focus on state politics) have been around for a while and have developed regular audiences. Charles Kuffner of Houston writes at www.offthekuff.com, and another Houstonian, Greg Wythe, has been at it for a while on his site, www.gregsopinion.com. The blogger at Grits for Breakfast identifies himself as Scott Henson, and says he does "research and writing jobs for a wide variety of clients, from politicians to attorneys to non-profits to government agencies." He's at gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com. The Burnt Orange Report (www.burntorangereport.com), based in Austin, was started by a group of students at the University of Texas. They're Democrats, and three of the four honchos are still in school. Some are paid, and some haven't gone pro. Kuffner, for instance, takes no money and runs no ads. When he started, he thought he'd write more about sports, but his interests led him to concentrate on politics. Grits has no ads, nor does Texas Capitol. Burnt Orange runs ads, and there are a couple on Wythe's site. Kuffner and Wythe and the guys at Burnt Orange joined up during the last elections to do a "Texas Tuesdays" blog that interviewed House candidates in more detail than any other local media. And several blogs around the state are designed, apparently, to work in cyberspace in the same way activists work in real space; to pester enemies and build support for some cause or another. Most of the ones we're aware of reside on the left side of the ledger: www.takebacktexas.com is owned by a Democratic consultancy; www.savetexasreps.com was started by Democrats trying to raise money during the congressional redistricting fight and has remained active; www.drivedemocracy.org, another Democratic blog, started with funding from MoveOn.org, the national bunch that itself got going during the presidential campaigns.

Rep. Mary Denny says now that she had no idea she was messing with gunpowder when she filed legislation to bring the state into local political investigations.As it's written, the Aubrey Republican's bill would force local prosecutors to wait until after the Texas Ethics Commission had investigated a criminal complaint, and a negative answer from the TEC would keep the district and county attorneys out of a case. That's not what Denny says she wants to do. She wants someone with a complaint about a local election -- anything from campaign finance violations to fraud -- to be allowed to report to the local prosecutors and/or the state agency so they don't get sandbagged by district attorneys who'd rather leave politics alone. As she explains it, she patterned the legislation on environmental laws that require certain complaints to clear the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality before local prosecutors can proceed. What she wanted was an alternative place for locals to complain. Denny says local prosecutors often put election cases on hold until after the elections are over, and said the Ethics Commission would have only 45 days to turn a case around after a complaint is filed. Prosecutors could proceed without the state, but state reports would be allowed into evidence; a blessing from the state could be used as a defense if local prosecutors or grand juries decided to pursue charges. Ethics reformers and Democrats with eyes on the Travis County Courthouse say Denny's bill would be an obstacle for future investigations like the one going on now in Austin. That inquiry started more than two years ago, after aggressive Republican efforts to take control of the Texas House in the 2002 elections. Prosecutors and a string of grand juries are looking to see whether campaigns and third party groups illegally coordinated their activities and whether corporate money was illegally used on behalf of some candidate's campaigns. Three individuals and eight corporate donors were indicted in the case last year; three of those corporations signed agreements to cooperate with the investigation and to go forth and sin no more, and indictments against them were dropped. The Texas Ethics Commission is comprised of four Republicans and four Democrats and appears to be designed to get vapor lock on tough partisan questions. As Denny's bill is worded now, a stalemate there or a negative report on what might otherwise be worth investigation could stymie future investigations like the one going on now. Some lawmakers, critical of District Attorney Ronnie Earle's record, think that would be a good thing. But Earle's office -- unlike every other prosecutor in Texas -- has jurisdiction over state elections and officials, and watchdog groups fear lawmakers are trying to declaw him. Denny says flat out that if her bill does that now, it will be fixed to do what she says she wanted in the first place.

Paul Stekler, the documentarian housed at the University of Texas at Austin's film school, is starting a new series on Texas public affairs and it'll begin airing Thursday.Special Session is hooked up with stations all over Texas, and you can get a schedule at www.klru.org/specialsession/. In Austin, the first show is on KLRU-TV on Thursday, Feb. 10, at 7:30. Disclosure: While we aren't making any money on this deal, one of the talking heads is ours. • Feb 10 -- Rick v. Kay v. Carole
Will this year's legislative session end up as the first round in a seemingly inevitable Republican gubernatorial primary battle in 2006, where either Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison or Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn would take on Governor Rick Perry? What can we expect out of this year's session -- and who benefits when specific bills pass or die? Panelists: Harvey Kronberg, Quorum Report and News 8 Austin; Ross Ramsey, Texas Weekly; Wayne Slater, Dallas Morning News. • Feb 17 -- Is the Media Still Relevant?
What kind of a job do Texas journalists do in covering what the legislature does and what the issue choices are? Who's listening and who's reading? A film on the 50th anniversary of the Texas Observer kicks off a discussion on the potential -- and the reality -- of the media's role. Panelists: Cecilia Balli, Texas Monthly; Bill Bishop, Austin American-Statesman; and Lorraine Branham, University of Texas Journalism Dept. Chair. • Feb 24 -- The Lobby and Lege
What is the role and influence of the Lobby in this year's session. Is it fair to look up at the lobbyists in the chamber balconies and call that area the "owner's box"? We'll revisit a classic Texas sequence from the from the 1994 film Vote for Me: Politics in America, and then what's changed in the last ten years. Panelists: April Castro, Associated Press; Christy Hoppe, Dallas Morning News; Michael King, Austin Chronicle. • Mar. 3 -- Karl Rove Speaks
Karl Rove, the architect of President Bush's two presidential campaign victories, talks about the rise of the Texas Republican Party in an exclusive interview with host Paul Stekler -- with commentary by Rove biographer Wayne Slater (Bush's Brain) of The Dallas Morning News.

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison hasn't yet said what she's running for next year, but there might be a hint in the hiring.She's bringing Terry Sullivan, who most recently managed the successful campaign of U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, to Texas as her campaign manager. And she signed Scott Howell's Dallas firm, which does media work for campaigns, to do her commercials. In the past, David Weeks of Austin has been the adman, but he has always done commercial work for Gov. Rick Perry. If Hutchison runs for reelection next year, that wouldn't really be a conflict, but if she runs for governor against Perry, she'd need someone new. Howell has a hot hand right now. His winning Senate candidates last year included John Thune, who knocked off Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, Jim Talent of Missouri, DeMint and Norm Coleman of Minnesota. The firm did ads last year for the Bush-Cheney reelection, too. The firm brags on its website that it wins 80 percent of its races. The firm has worked all over the country, and in some Texas races, but has only light experience in statewide races here. In 2002, they did a commercial in the Texas Attorney General's race that promoted Republican Greg Abbott as a law enforcement friend and kicked Democrat Kirk Watson as a trial lawyer while stopping short of asking people to support one or the other. The client was the Law Enforcement Alliance of America, which has claimed it was doing issue ads and thus doesn't have to report where it got its money. Watson has sued over that -- the case is meandering through the federal courts somewhere -- and claims the LEAA spent upwards of $1 million in the last 10 days of the campaign to help defeat him in that race. The group still hasn't reported its contribution amounts or donors, or how much it spent or on what. Howell and his firm produce the ads but aren't among those being sued. The folks in Hutchison's camp say the two new faces don't mean they've made any decisions. Her Senate term is up next year, and they'd be gearing up for a campaign whether she was sizing up the governor's race or not. For the record, she's not saying what she'll do; Hutchison has consistently said she'll make a decision when the legislative session is over and she can see what the playing field looks like.

Fraser repatriates, swearing, newspapering, appointing, and pleadingMary Fraser, after assisting Tony Garza through his last three jobs -- Texas Secretary of State, Texas Railroad Commissioner, and most recently U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, where she was his chief of staff, is returning to Austin from Mexico. She did politics before working for Garza, at the Republican Party of Texas and as an employee of one Karl Rove. No word yet on what she'll do now that she's situated back in Texas. Central Processing: Roger Williams cleared Senate approval and was sworn in as the 105th Texas Secretary of State. He replaced Geoffrey Conner... Elizabeth Ames Jones cleared the Senate Nominations Committee and the full Senate in less than a week, and she's the newest Texas Railroad Commissioner. She's the replacement for Charles Matthews. Press Corp Moves: Gardner Selby will move to the Austin American-Statesman as chief political writer at the end of the month from the Austin bureau of the San Antonio Express-News. He's a veteran Capitol reporter, with the Houston Post and the Dallas Times Herald also on his resume. Appointments: Gov. Rick Perry named Jarvis Hollingsworth of Missouri City the presiding officer at the Teacher Retirement System. Hollingsworth, a partner at Bracewell & Patterson, has been on the TRS board since 2002. Perry named former judge Louis Sturns of Fort Worth to the Texas Racing Commission, which oversees gambling at dog and horse tracks in the state. He's an attorney at Mallory & Sturns now and a member of the Trinity River Authority. He was a state district judge, an appointee to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and a member sof the Texas Ethics Commission. The Guv named Ronny Congleton of Austin to the Texas Workforce Commission. He's a union appointment, a former chairman of the Teamsters Southern Grievance Committee and former president of Teamsters Local 745 in Dallas. And Perry reappointed Michael Cooper Waters of Abilene to the Office of Rural Community Affairs. He's a consultant to the board of Hendrick Health System and a director of the First National Bank there. Rick Roach, the Panhandle district attorney facing drug and weapons charges, agreed to a deal that drops the drug charges in exchange for his resignation and a guilty plea to the gun violations (he had two guns in his briefcase in a courtroom when he was arrested for drug possession). Roach's troubles stem from his addiction to methamphetamines. He faces up to 10 years in federal prison and up to $250,000 in fines. Deaths: Wendell Odom, a judge whose time on the bench included 14 years at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and three years on the state's Board of Pardons and Paroles. He was 84.

An open Republican seat in the Texas House stays in Republican hands.Joe Straus III is on his way to Austin to represent HD-121, one of the state's most Republican House districts. Rep. Elizabeth Ames Jones, R-San Antonio, won in November but didn't take the oath of office when lawmakers convened; she's Gov. Rick Perry's pick for an open spot on the Texas Railroad Commission. Four candidates -- two Republicans, a Democrat and an Independent -- ran in the replacement race. Straus got 9,255 votes (63.6%) to win without a runoff. Former Texas Supreme Court Justice Rose Spector, a Democrat, got 4,707 votes (32.3%). Paul Silber, who served a term in the Lege 30 years ago as a Democrat, ran as an independent and got 401 votes (2.8%). And Glen Starnes, who withdrew from the race and threw his support to Straus but not in time to get off the ballot, got 192 votes. Straus was the management favorite, winning endorsements from Jones and from Perry, among others. He's an investor from a family well known in the horse racing business; his father, Joe Straus Jr., helped start up the Retama track in Selma, just north of San Antonio, and is the chairman of Retama Park. With that, the Texas House has 87 Republicans and 63 Democrats in its membership. One race is still in flux; Democrat Hubert Vo of Houston beat Republican Talmadge Heflin in the HD-149 race in November by less than three dozen votes. Heflin challenged the result, and the House will decide the outcome this month.

The House GOP Caucus elected Rep. Ruben Hope Jr., R-Conroe, to another term as its chairman.The vote totals weren't disclosed, but he beat Rep. Joe Nixon, R-Houston, who wanted to take over the top job. Rep. Sid Miller, R-Stephenville, was elected vice chairman over Rep. Linda Harper-Brown, R-Irving, but she ran for treasurer without opposition and will hold that post. Rep. Ken Paxton, R-McKinney, was elected secretary without opposition. Those last two positions are new ones in the group.

Vo can stop looking over his shoulderHours after seeing a report siding against his election challenge, former Rep. Talmadge Heflin, R-Houston, finally conceded the November election, but hinted strongly that he's not through with political office The report issued Monday morning by Rep. Will Hartnett, R-Dallas, said Democrat Hubert Vo beat Heflin by at least 10 votes but less than 20. That report would have passed along to a committee and then to the full House, but Heflin's hopes hinged on a finding that either he won outright or that the outcome couldn't be determined. Hartnett's report made it clear that he thought the outcome, while razor thin, was clear. That came out first thing Monday morning, and Heflin quit late in the afternoon.

The House's special master sides with the Democrat in a challenge to November's results.Hubert Vo beat Talmadge Heflin in November by at least 10 votes, according to Rep. Will Hartnett, R-Dallas, in his quasi-judicial report on the election. Hartnett, appointed by House Speaker Tom Craddick to sort out the results of the election, filed a report which will go to a committee for hearings and then, finally, to the full House for a vote. Heflin, defeated by the Democratic challenger in November, appealed the results to the House. Hartnett concludes his 48-page report, in part, with this: "This was a very close election decided by only a handful of votes out of more than 41,357 cast. After months of discovery, the detailed review of the voter files of 259 persons, and hours of examination and analysis of voter files by the parties and the master, it is the opinion of the master that Contestant has failed to meet his burden of proof. The master concludes that Representative Vo retains his seat by not less than 10 votes and not more than 20 votes, depending on the impact of the five votes that may still be counted. "Although there was no evidence of voter fraud generated by or for any candidate in this race, serious questions remain regarding the fraudulent 'deportation' of a significant number of Nigerian American voter registrations from District 149 and several other districts into District 137. "Representative Heflin, a 22-year veteran of the Texas House, and Representative Vo, a freshman member, have conducted themselves during this contest in compliance with the highest standards of this House. The master applauds both of them and their counsel for their cooperation and diligence during the difficult course of this contest." Hartnett's report goes to a special House committee that'll hear testimony on Tuesday and vote out a recommendation to the House; the House is scheduled to vote on Thursday. In case you haven't heard the options before: The House can call either candidate the winner or can order a new election if they can't figure out a winner after this autopsy of the November elections. Documents from the contest are available from the Texas Legislative Council, at www.tlc.state.tx.us/legal/elec_contests.htm. A full copy of Hartnett's report, in Adobe Acrobat format, is available on our website: www.texasweekly.com/Documents/HeflinVsVo_HarnettReport.pdf.