The legislative session is reaching a point that's as reliable as the lunch horn in a factory: That moment when it appears that everything is definitely-for-sure-absolutely-certainly going to fall to pieces. Or not.

The House-Senate wrangle over the budget is underway, but only one of the bills that goes into that mix has actually passed both houses. The rest of the mess — either three bills in total, or five, depending on whether you include school finance and taxes — is still in the pipeline. The House passed the last two bills, and also a "supplemental" appropriations bill that includes a lot of non-supplemental spending. Those three await Senate action. A fourth — a House bill that includes something like $1.2 billion in budgetary hat tricks to help balance the spending — is still in the House.

Relations between the Speaker and the Lite Guv are tense, compounding the regular troubles that come with the end of every session. An example: Dewhurst said he talked to Craddick about un-sticking worker's compensation insurance legislation; Craddick responded by saying Dewhurst must have been talking to someone else. Another: Dewhurst, told of Craddick's comments that the House had problems with a key component of the Senate's tax package, told reporters the House will pass whatever Craddick wants it to pass, implying the problem wasn't with the other 149 members there. A semi-retired politician we know said the two are "talking through the newspapers." That's not a description of a good political relationship.

Aides to Gov. Rick Perry say he's been working behind the scenes, but his public comments on the direction of legislation have been mild. He's not using the bully pulpit to push any agenda, but his chief of staff, Deirdre Delisi, recently asked lobbyists happy with the House's version of school finance and taxes to put up the money for an ad campaign promoting it. That was reported in The Dallas Morning News, and it's not clear now that it will go forward. (It wasn't clear before the reporting, to be fair, because the business people with the money had questions about the content of the ads and the propriety and politics of getting involved.) Perry could probably accomplish the same marketing run with a series of press conferences. Whatever the promotional efforts, the governor has to decide how to get the two halves of the Legislature working together before he can ask voters to support the union. And that's a problem right now.

Tax de Deux (or Three)

The Senate's version of the tax bill is still percolating, to put it most politely, and it's unlikely the public will get a peek until next week.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst told a herd of reporters that the Senate's school finance/reform bill could be out of committee early next week with a possible floor vote late next week, but he didn't promise anything. The tax bill that raises state revenues enough to cover the costs of buying down local school property taxes will be right behind it, he said, without saying, "Scout's Honor." The Senate Finance Committee could see a bill on Monday, he said; if they're quick about it, a floor vote could follow quickly behind the school finance bill. That would leave about four weeks in the regular session for reconciliation of expected big differences between what the House passed earlier and what the Senate is willing to approve.

Dewhurst's line is familiar to anyone who has been following this: "We're looking at a flat low-rate tax where everybody is in the same boat... I don't think there's a will here in the Senate to increase sales taxes as much as the House did." He wouldn't go further into detail on the Senate plan or into what components of the House plan are unacceptable to the upper chamber. Senators and lobsters who've seen the plan, or pieces of it, say it's still got a business activity tax — the rate hasn't gelled — and a half-cent sales tax, and a 50-cent increase in the tax on a pack of cigarettes, and a tax, probably, on alcoholic beverages. They've got the comptroller's office running numbers in an effort to avoid the embarrassment the House suffered after it voted out an unbalanced tax bill. That's a form of insurance, but it slows things down. And business groups are lobbying for something closer to what the House already passed. They like the idea of choosing the lower of two business taxes, and many would come out better with the House plan than with almost any alternative being considered on the other end of the building.

The House is trickling revenue legislation out of committees to rest in the Calendars Committee, where agendas are set. The state property tax bill is sitting on the runway, and proponents of casino gambling are hoping to move their legislation into the takeoff queue.

That first bill is, as we've written, a provocation aimed at the Senate. It's a centerpiece of the Senate's plan, and the House, according to Speaker Tom Craddick, is probably against it. Voting it down in the House would undermine the Senate's current efforts and force the upper chamber to come up with something else; holding it ready merely threatens to undermine those efforts.

Craddick has local officials on his side; they don't like the idea of the state taking over most of the revenue end of school finance. But it has advantages: If schools are funded with a statewide tax instead of uneven local taxes in rich and poor districts, the inequities that keep landing the school system in court could be leveled out. And one key attack on the current system — that it's illegal for the state to tell local districts how much tax money they have to raise for schools — would evaporate.

Dewhurst, however, treats it like a House problem: "I believe Speaker Craddick can pass what he wants to pass, so we'll have to wait to see if he has the votes."

The second big item on the runway is a plain old gambling bill, and this is how they work: You advance the thing to a holding point, then check and recheck and recheck the votes on the floor of the House to see whether 100 mostly conservative politicos would prefer to violate their anti-gambling tendencies or their anti-tax tendencies.

At the moment, the House already voted for a big tax bill, and gambling isn't a priority. But behind the scenes, the gambling lobby, some of the Pink Building's revenue seekers and other interested parties are getting things in place in case the environment changes. If the Lege comes to a point where some kind of gambling appears to be the best solution to school finance, it'll have a chance. If not, gaming measures will die as they usually do, in a committee wanting for a vote. The boosters hope to have gambling legislation idling in Calendars by the end of next week.

Deflated

Round Two of the wars to limit spending by local governments fell short in the Texas House. Legislation by Rep. Carl Isett, R-Lubbock, would have shaved the trigger on budget growth, requiring locals to seek voter approval of spending increases of more than five percent. Current law allows a voter referendum if a city council or some other local unit raises effective tax rates more than eight percent and if 10 percent of the registered voters sign a rollback petition calling for an election (it's six percent for school districts). Isett's bill would have lowered the rollback rate and the number of signatures needed for a challenge. Petitioners would have to get signatures equaling ten percent of the last gubernatorial election; if tax rates went up even more, petitions would need only five percent of that gubernatorial number.

But the House added an amendment that would let local governments exempt any tax increases attributable to state mandates that aren't funded by the state or federal governments. It set up a system where the comptroller would list those mandates each year, and also would allow local governments to show the comptroller items that didn't make the list. Isett, after that and a couple of other amendments were added, decided to wait until next week to try to win final passage for the bill.

Last week, Dwayne Bohac, R-Houston, fell short of what he needed to impose state caps on local spending growth. His bill, and Isett's, were backed by Gov. Rick Perry, who worked the House floor before the bills came up to try to win support. Aides to Perry say he'll make a campaign issue of it.

Sidebar: The House and Senate are banging out the differences in their budgets, but they started pretty close together, at about $139 billion in proposed spending over the next two years. If lawmakers successfully pass the school finance plans they're talking about, they'll add $11 billion or so to that total, which would put the state budget around $150 billion. Two years ago, with an economy-induced budget crunch, lawmakers approved a two-year budget that totaled $117.4 billion. Without school finance, the current plan calls for an increase over that plan of about 18.4 percent. With it, the number leaps to 27.8 percent. If those numbers were attached to a city or county in Texas, under current law, the spending plan would be open to a rollback election.

In Case of Emergency, Break Glass

The political chess players are talking about special sessions this summer, and many of them say it would be a bad idea.

The premise here is that school finance and tax talks could break down. Not that they will, but that they might. What would happen?

The state's school finance system has been declared illegal by a state district judge and the appeal is pending before the Texas Supreme Court. The justices asked the lawyers to file briefs, and that process draws to a close at the same time the regular legislative session comes to its end. They could hear the case within a week of Sine Die, if they're in a hurry. When they'd rule is anyone's guess, but a court in a hurry could put opinion to paper by the end of summer or early fall.

In the meantime, the House and Senate currently appear to be singing different songs on taxes and schools. If they're still apart at the end of the session, what good would it do Gov. Rick Perry to bring them right back? A special session a year ago on this subject produced nothing, and it doesn't do anyone any good to compound a failure. On the other hand, you can't get a deal if you don't force talks. Gov. Bill Clements pulled lawmakers back twice in 1989 to get a workers' compensation insurance deal, and called them back four more times in that same interim to solve another issue: School finance. Eventually, lawmakers gave him both bills to sign.

At Their Own Pace

The Supremes can move quickly, but they don't have to.

Lookit: More than a year ago, the Texas Association of Business asked the Texas Supreme Court to block lawyers prying into TAB's direct mail campaign in the 2002 legislative elections. The association said its advertising fell short of electioneering and said its donors' identities were protected from disclosure since those weren't election ads. The lawyers and candidates suing them contend the ads were designed to influence the outcomes of elections, both in their timing and content.

The Supreme Court hasn't ruled for TAB, but apparent indecision by the judges has put the case on ice (they and their employees can't talk about pending writs, so there's no way to know exactly what's going on over there).

A state district judge in Austin ordered TAB to produce the evidence sought by lawyers on the other side of a civil suit. TAB appealed to the 3rd Court of Appeals in Austin, and lost again. And on the last day of January 2004, attorney Andy Taylor, TAB's lawyer, appealed to the Supremes. The high court asked for some briefs and the lawyers finished with that on June 1 of last year. Court observers we talked to say it takes five judges to get the panel moving on a writ like the one filed by TAB, and the Supremes have been working with as few as seven judges over the last months. Now they've got nine. One possibility — again, there's no knowing what's up — is that the judges have one justice writing a "per curium" on the writ. There's no deadline for that, or for the court to move on the TAB case. In the meantime, there's no discovery in the civil case.

This is Even Slower

Priscilla Owen's nomination to the federal bench cleared the U.S. Senate Judiciary committee for the third time (on a 10-8 party-line vote), but there's still a question about whether she can win full Senate support. Owen, a Texas Supreme Court Justice, is one of several judicial appointees who have been unable to win votes from enough Democrats to win confirmation from the full U.S. Senate. This is the filibuster fight the Republicans in the Senate have been talking about for the last several months. President George W. Bush wants to put her on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans and first appointed her for that post four years ago.

The Clerk Will Ring the Bell

Rep. Mary Denny, R-Aubrey, really is getting married this time. In the House chamber, during a break in the House calendar but while everybody is still milling around, on May 6. Rep. Joe Crabb, R-Humble, will be the presiding minister. The bride and her groom, Norman Tolpo, will have a reception after the event in the Speaker's Dining Room behind the Chamber.

Denny and Tolpo will be the second couple to get married in the chamber in recent years, but the first in memory to be married while the House is in session. Rep. Dwayne Bohac, R-Houston, and his wife Dawn were married on the last Saturday of the special session of the Legislature almost a year ago. Before that, you have to go back to the days when Gib Lewis, D-Fort Worth, was Speaker of the House. One of his aides got married on the dais during a break in House business.

Denny had a widely talked-about but quite erroneous marriage and honeymoon in August 2003, which remains the only fully incorrect three-sources-on-the-record story we've ever reported. (Mom's voice: "If everyone told you to jump off a cliff, would you do that?") This time, Denny is the sole source for our story, and we have a copy of the invitation to cover our backs:

www.TexasWeekly.com/documents/denny.gif

Political People and Their Moves

Melinda Bozarth is the new general counsel at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. She's replacing Carl Reynolds, who left TDCJ for the Office of Court Administration earlier this year. Bozarth has worked for either the Texas prison system or the Texas attorney general's office (where she defended the prison system in court) since 1983. Most recently, she was deputy director of TDCJ's rehabilitation and reentry programs division.

Brig. Gen. Charles Rodriguez will be the new adjutant general of Texas. Gov. Rick Perry appointed him to that post, overseeing state and National Guard forces in Texas. he'll replace Lt. Gen. Wayne Marty, who is retiring. Rodriguez, a West Point grad, works at the UT Health Science Center in San Antonio, where he's deputy director of the Center for Public Health Preparedness and Biomedical Research.

The governor named three people to the board of regents at Texas Woman's University:  Virginia Chandler Dykes of Dallas, an occupational therapist; Sharon Venable, an executive at the Greater Dallas Chamber of Commerce; and Lou Halsell Rodenberger of Baird, an emeritus professor of English at  McMurry University. Dykes and Rodenberger are alums of TWU.

The Texas Public Finance Authority is getting three seats filled by the Guv: H.L. Mijares of El Paso, president of Mijares Mora Architects; Dallas investor Marcellus Taylor; and Linda McKenna of Harlingen, a nurse and exec at Valley Baptist Health System. Taylor and McKenna are new to the board; Mijares is a reappointment.

Gov. Perry named Valeri Malone, a Wichita Falls attorney, to the center chair on the board of the Manufactured Housing Division of the State's Department of Housing and Community Affairs and reappointed her to the board. He also named Michael Bray, an El Paso Realtor, and Kimberly Shambley of Dallas, an attorney and exec with Countrywide Home Loans, to that board.

Gov. Perry reappointed Richard "Link" Linkenauger of Greenville to the Sabine River Authority of Texas. He's the president of Link International, Inc.

Perry named Mike Click, CEO of Brownfield Regional Medical Center, and Houston attorney Hector Longoria to the Emergency Medical Advisory Council, a panel attempting to coordinate EMS efforts at all levels of government.

Carolyn Lewis Gallagher of Austin joins the ERCOT board as an independent member. That acronym is Electric Reliability Council of Texas, and they operate the state's electric grid. Gallagher, a businesswoman who's been on a mess of civic and government boards, was elected by ERCOT members after a national search.

Press corps moves: The Dallas Morning News moves reporter Pete Slover back to the state desk, which means he'll be covering legislative and political stories with an investigative bent. He's been working what newspapers call "projects" which means you disappear for long periods of time between stories. Slover is one of the reporters who popped the cork on misdeeds at ERCOT.

Quotes of the Week

Deirdre Delisi, chief of staff to Gov. Rick Perry, quoted in The Dallas Morning News on Perry's effort to get Texas companies to pony up $1.2 million to promote changes to school finance and the state's tax code: "We plan to take our message directly to the people of Texas."

Rep. Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, quoted in the Austin American-Statesman: "Since last session, I haven't seen the Senate prevail over the House very much. It seems like the Senate caved on everything. And while me and some of my colleagues wish that wasn't the case, because we felt the Senate's position was better, we wish the Senate would have the backbone to stand up to the House this time."

Darrell Azar, spokesman for the state's Department of Family and Protective Services, quoted in The Dallas Morning News on foster care in Texas: "We're not pretending we're doing an adequate job. We need more resources to do it better."

Rep. Robert Talton, R-Pasadena, arguing for a ban on gay or lesbian foster parents: "It's a learned behavior, and I think a child... ought to have the opportunity to be presented to a traditional family as such. And if they choose to be homosexual or lesbian, then that's their choice when they turn 18."

Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, talking about taxes with the San Antonio Express-News: "The word 'tax' gets people freaked out. Any modifier before it just changes the group."

Utah state Rep. Steven Mascaro, quoted in The New York Times after officials in Washington said a new state education law could endanger federal funding: "I don't like to be threatened. I wish they'd take the stinking money and go back to Washington."

U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, on Fox News Radio: "We've got Justice Kennedy writing decisions based upon international law, not the Constitution of the United States? That's just outrageous. And not only that, but he said in session that he does his own research on the Internet? That is just incredibly outrageous."

Spofford Mayor pro-tem Tootsie Herndon, quoted in the San Antonio Express-News on legislation that would dissolve her area's water district and merge it into San Antonio's: "Now, some of Kinney County's farmers and ranchers — water hustlers who think they're going to get rich by selling water — have gone to Austin and got a bill. This bill is all about politics, money, and greed."

Jack Cole, a former police officer who now campaigns for legalizing drugs, quoted in the San Antonio Express-News: "Right now, the drug lords, murderers, and terrorists out there are the ones who regulate drugs in this country. Government regulation is the only way to go, and that will only occur with legalization."

Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, telling the Austin American-Statesman she's never been offered an "inappropriate" legislative junket: "I've been here for 14 years. And I keep waiting for someone to ask just so I can be indignant. Either I'm not important enough or they think I'm goody-two-shoes. Nobody has ever asked me. And I don't play golf."

Travis Noteboom, a vendor at the National Rifle Association convention in Houston, telling the San Antonio Express-News he's against Internet hunting with a possible exception for handicapped hunters: "I just don't feel it's ethical for able-bodied people to click and boom."

Monty Embrey of the NRA, quoted in the Houston Chronicle on a convention booth where more than a dozen whitetail deer were mounted and displayed: "People don't get to see a collection of heads very often. It's a pretty big deal."

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Texas Weekly: Volume 21, Issue 43, 25 April 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 info@texasweekly.com. For news, email ramsey@texasweekly.com, or call (512) 288-6598.

The property tax cut -- and presumably, the tax bill to pay for it -- are shrinking in the upper chamber.The newest version of the Senate's education reform bill, unveiled publicly by Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, today, calls for a 20-cent cut in local school property taxes in 2005-06, followed by another 20-cent cut in 2006-07. That's in place of the 50-cent cut they were shooting for earlier in the legislative session. The Senate plan still calls for a state property tax for schools, set (ultimately) at 85 cents per $100 in property valuation. School districts would be allowed to add on as much as 25 cents, using up to 15-cents of that for local enrichment. Teachers would get a $1,000 pay hike and the $1,000 health insurance stipend -- granted and then halved by previous Legislatures -- would be restored. If the statewide property tax passes (a constitutional amendment, it would require voter approval), teachers would get another $1,500 per year raise in 2006-07. Think they'd campaign for that amendment? And the bill also includes incentive pay of up to $500 for teachers. The House bill got rid of the "weights" used to increase per-student funding for kids with special problems ranging from language issues to physical handicaps; the Senate kept them. The Senate wants charter schools rebooted, bringing them under the same accountability measures used for regular public schools so they can be compared, and giving them up to $1,000 per student if they reach "exemplary" status and hold that level for several years. The "runs" showing the effect of the bill on each of the state's 1,000+ school districts for each of the first two years can be found at these links: • www.texasweekly.com/documents/FY06 LBB District Runs under CSHB 2_April 25.pdf ? www.texasweekly.com/documents/FY07 LBB District Runs under CSHB 2_April 25.pdf That legislation could reach the full Senate for a vote within a week.

The tax bill, supposed to be available by now, isn't. It won't be, probably, until the end of the week. And the reason is pretty good: The Senate is trying to avoid a hurdle that tripped the House, asking the comptroller's number-crunchers to vet the numbers and the language in the bill before the Senate actually votes on it.The House, you'll remember, voted out a $12 billion spending bill and then a tax bill they thought was cut to match. But Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn rolled in a grenade, saying flaws in the drafting of the tax bill left it some $4 billion short. There was a bottomless flap -- no telling who's lying and not -- over whether the comptroller's folks had pre-approved the numbers. In the end, the tax collector said the tax bill would fall short, and that's that. The Senate isn't taking chances. They've got the comptroller's folks looking at actual language and cranking numbers based on the actual words that'll be up for a vote. That spadework is taking some time. The Senate's Finance Committee wants to unveil the tax bill on Friday and take testimony on it that day, Saturday, and maybe Monday. The dates could slip again, but that's the plan. Meanwhile, the Senate Education Committee plans to vote out the school finance bill on Thursday. Both bills could come to the full Senate next week. In practical terms, that would leave three weeks to try to square up the differences between the House's tax bill and the Senate's. The Senate tax bill's details aren't out, but the big pieces include a business activity tax, or BAT (dubbed the Big Ass Tax by business lobsters, since it would raise a huge amount of money). Senators prefer to call it a reformed franchise tax, but they don't write finance and economics textbooks. Partnerships of various flavors -- not taxed under current law -- would be taxed under the Senate's scheme. The sales tax would be raised a half-cent; whether new goods and services are included for the first time depends on which version of the tax bill you see, but no expansions of the sales tax were in the last version described to us. Taxes would increase on cigarettes -- though not as much as the $1 per pack added by the House -- and also on alcoholic beverages, which weren't addressed in the tax bill.

Nate Crain, the chairman of Dallas County's Republican Party, emailed fellow Republicans urging them to tell the potential Dallas candidate, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, to stay out of next year's gubernatorial primary."In recent weeks, the tone of the Hutchison campaign has changed dramatically," Crain wrote. "Republican County Chairman and Republican Elected officials have been treated in a shameful and disappointing manner." His email doesn't mention Gov. Rick Perry. Crain says he supports Perry's reelection, but he's taking pains not to choose between the Guv and the senior U.S. senator from Texas. He wants both to seek reelection and avoid an intra-party war, he says. Both Crain and his wife are financial supporters of both Hutchison and Perry. Christina Melton Crain is the chairwoman of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Perry named her to the board four years ago and put her in the middle chair almost two years later. According to the Texas Ethics Commission, the Crains have given $169,715.87 to Texans for Rick Perry over the last five years. They've contributed $8,000 Hutchison, maxing out their contributions in the last two cycles (federals have limits). And they donated $20,000 to Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn since 2000, though they haven't given to her since 2002. She's another possible candidate against Perry. His email suggests estrangement between him and Hutchison's gang. He told The Fort Worth Star-Telegram that his open support for Perry's reelection got him disinvited from Hutchison events. He won't say who disinvited him, and the Hutchison campaign told the paper he's welcome to come to their fundraiser. In his email, he wrote that their denial of the conversation is part of a pattern. Hutchison denied having a personal conversation with Midland County GOP Chairwoman Sue Brannon a few weeks ago; Brannon told the Midland Reporter-News that Hutchison said she wanted to come back to Texas so she could raise her kids here. And an aide to Hutchison last month disputed state Sen. Bob Deuell's account, in the Austin American-Statesman, of a conversation between Deuell and the aide in Washington, D.C., during the presidential inauguration. That aide, David Beckwith, didn't deny the conversation, but his version and Deuell's were quite different (Deuell said Beckwith made a "veiled threat" about his political future after Deuell said he supported Perry for reelection; Beckwith said he didn't). The Hutchison folks have said Perry supporters are concocting the tales. And she has stopped short of saying she'll run for governor; for about a year, she's been telling people she'll announce her future plans sometime after the end of the legislative session. She didn't say she'd announce anything in June, but that's how the political fortune-tellers generally interpret her timing. Crain said he sent the email to about 180 GOP county chairs in Texas -- everybody with a known email address. He says the Perry camp didn't prompt him to write. But he says the state GOP shouldn't have to pick between the two: "It would be very difficult for the Party if she were to run. It would create animosity at the grass roots and at the finance level that we've never seen before."

Wanna play the Texas lottery on the Internet? Fuggetaboutit.House budgeteers working on HB 3540 included provisions that would allow Texans to play existing lottery games via the Internet. But when we asked about it, House Speaker Tom Craddick issued a statement saying the provision is unworkable and that Appropriations Committee Chairman Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, will take it out of the bill. "Upon further researching this recommendation, Chairman Pitts learned that technology is not currently available to support the purchase of lottery tickets over the Internet. As a result, this recommendation will be reconsidered and lottery sales over the Internet will be taken out of CSHB 3540." It was supposed to raise $100 million or more, and it's not clear what will be used to patch that hole. That legislation is a mixed bag of budget tricks, transfers, and such designed to help balance the budget that's being hammered out by House and Senate negotiators. Whether the Internet lotto money is needed isn't clear: The final numbers won't fall into place until budgeteers know the fates of the budget bill, the school finance bill, the tax bill, the "supplemental" budget bill, and, of course, HB 3540.

The House wants cities and counties to be more responsive to voters when increasing government spending, but left school districts out of the deal and never even talked about extending the "truth-in-taxation" idea to state government spending.Rep. Carl Isett, R-Lubbock, first put the bill in front of the House last week, but put it on hold after long arguments and the success of several hostile amendments. He returned with House Speaker Tom Craddick weighing in on every important vote, and that was all the difference. The House undid some of the earlier damage and voted out a bill that lowers the number of signatures needed for a spending rollback election and that lowers the amount of growth governments are allowed before such rollbacks are allowed. Current law lets voters petition for rollbacks if tax revenues rise eight percent or more. Isett's legislation would lower that to either five percent or the federal Consumer Price Index, at the local government's option. Taxpayers could demand a rollback election by getting signatures from registered voters equal to 10 percent of the voters who cast ballots in the most recent gubernatorial election. The legislation applies to all local governments, with the large exception of public school districts -- generally the biggest number on local property tax bills. And it doesn't apply to state government; at the moment, House and Senate negotiators are working on a budget plan that calls for spending increases of 18.4 percent. If the school finance package passes, with its replacement of local taxes with state taxes, state spending would increase about 27.8 percent this year over what was approved two years ago. That's off to the Senate, where similar legislation has remained in committee so far this session.

An example of the ads that ran against Rep. Tommy Merritt, R-Tyler, in last year's special election for Texas Senate. Kevin Eltife, R-Tyler, won the Senate spot.

Minton says he didn't say what they said he said.Travis County prosecutors are poking through the remains of the 2002 elections to see whether groups trying to help Republicans take over state government did so by illegally using corporate money or by mixing third-party and campaign money illegally. The efforts succeeded and the GOP majority made Tom Craddick the first GOP speaker since the civil war. A rumor around the Capitol had Roy Minton, the attorney Craddick hired to deal with those inquiries, saying HB 1348 would be bad for the Republicans being investigated. It ain't so, he says. Minton says it's a bad idea to list the proper uses of corporate money in the law because "you'll always find something in there that shouldn't be on the list, and something that's not on the list that should be." He says the definitions in the law should be broad enough to let the courts decide what's in and out of bounds, and says that's all he's told anyone about any proposed laws. "I've never tied it to a client or to this investigation in any way," Minton says.

The Texas House wants to put this on the ballot for voters next November 8: "The constitutional amendment providing that marriage in this state consists only of the union of one man and one woman and prohibiting this state or a political subdivision of this state from creating or recognizing any legal status identical or similar to marriage."With 101 yups, 29 nopes, eight members in the room but declining to vote, and 12 members absent, the House sent the constitutional amendment on to the Senate, where it has no sponsor. Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, said he'll increase his efforts to get the measure moving in the upper chamber, but didn't name anyone in particular as a potential sponsor. He and other supporters of the constitutional change say it would bind Texas courts hearing cases involving an earlier law -- called the "Defense of Marriage Act" -- that says essentially the same thing. That's a national movement as courts in a couple of states have struck down similar statutes as violations of state constitutionals. The amendment, if passed by senators and approved by voters, would take that argument away from anyone challenging the laws in Texas courts. Chisum took only one amendment -- his own -- and in the end, House Speaker Tom Craddick cast a relatively rare vote to make sure the constitutional change had the 100 votes it needed to prevail. The bill started with 78 co-author and co-sponsor signatures on it, and they added 23 more when the votes were taken. No Republicans voted against the measure; one was there and didn't vote and three were absent. And 18 Democrats voted for it, with 29 voting no, seven present but not voting, and nine absent when the votes were taken. The votes, according to the House's own website: Yeas -- Mr. Speaker(C); Allen, R.; Anderson; Baxter; Berman; Blake; Bohac; Bonnen; Branch; Brown, B.; Brown, F.; Callegari; Campbell; Casteel; Chisum; Cook, B.; Cook, R.; Corte; Crabb; Crownover; Davis, J.; Dawson; Delisi; Denny; Driver; Edwards; Eissler; Elkins; Escobar; Farabee; Flynn; Frost; Gattis; Geren; Gonzalez Toureilles; Goodman; Goolsby; Griggs; Grusendorf; Guillen; Haggerty; Hamilton; Hamric; Hardcastle; Harper-Brown; Hartnett; Hegar; Hilderbran; Hill; Homer; Hope; Hopson; Howard; Hughes; Hunter; Hupp; Isett; Jackson; Jones, D.; Keel; Keffer, B.; Keffer, J.; King, P.; King, T.; Kolkhorst; Krusee; Kuempel; Laney; Laubenberg; Madden; McCall; McReynolds; Merritt; Miller; Morrison; Mowery; Olivo; Orr; Otto; Paxton; Phillips; Pickett; Quintanilla; Raymond; Reyna; Riddle; Ritter; Rose; Seaman; Smith, T.; Smith, W.; Solomons; Straus; Swinford; Talton; Taylor; Truitt; Van Arsdale; West; Woolley; Zedler. Nays -- Allen, A.; Alonzo; Anchia; Bailey; Burnam; Coleman; Davis, Y.; Deshotel; Dukes; Dunnam; Dutton; Farrar; Gallego; Herrero; Hochberg; Hodge; Martinez Fischer; McClendon; Moreno, J.; Moreno, P.; Naishtat; Noriega, M.; Puente; Rodriguez; Strama; Thompson; Veasey; Villarreal; Vo. Present, not voting -- Castro; Chavez; Giddings; Gonzales; Jones, J.; Leibowitz; Turner; Wong. Absent, Excused -- Eiland; Luna; Menendez; Nixon; Oliveira; Pitts; Smithee. Absent -- Flores; Martinez; Peña; Solis; Uresti.

Act surprised if you hear much more from the House this session about limiting corporate and union money in elections.An attempt to dynamite that legislation out of a hostile committee backfired badly enough that 50 of the bill's 93 sponsors ducked, either voting against the effort absenting themselves from the House floor during the vote. On the strength of a 95-36 vote, it remains in committee. The legislation by Reps. Craig Eiland, D-Galveston, and Todd Smith, R-Euless, would define what corporate and union money can be used for in campaigns, and would ban third-party "issue ads" in the last 30 days before primary election and the last 60 days before general elections. The idea is to reduce corporate and union influence over Texas elections. The legislation has been bottled up in the House Elections Committee for weeks. It finally emerged from a subcommittee, but the main panel, led by Rep. Mary Denny, R-Aubrey, hasn't done anything with it. Denny has said she is against the bill and that she doesn't know whether it would come to a vote or not. So the Democrats decided to force the issue, calling up a dusty rule that allows the full House to yank a bill out of a reluctant committee. Instead of ambushing their opponents, they telegraphed their effort by asking House Speaker Tom Craddick a day in advance how he'd handle that rule if they called for a vote. He said he'd honor the rule, and sure enough, when the bill sponsors asked for a vote, he gave them one. Rep. Tommy Merritt, R-Longview, asked for the vote and appealed to members to end the sort of ads that helped him lose a special election for state Senate last year. Rep. Terry Keel, an Austin Republican who was listed among the bill's co-sponsors, took the other side. Merritt told the House that ads from "Americans for Job Security" attacking his support for a school finance-related tax bill were paid for by donors who still have not been identified and warned that the same could happen to them. Keel attacked the Democrats for turning the bill into what he called a public relations stunt designed to embarrass Craddick. He said the House shouldn't mess with its committee system, reminded them of an old axiom about the process being designed not to pass bills but to kill them, and he flipped the question, telling the House that voting to "thwart the committee process" would kill the ethics bill more surely than to let the system work. The legislation had 93 authors and co-sponsors at the beginning of the week, including each of the House's 63 Democrats. After Keel and Merritt talked, the House voted to leave the bill in committee. Of the 93 co-sponsors, 38 voted against the legislation and 12 were recorded as absent when the tally was taken. Those 50 non-supporters included 27 Democrats. * Department of Irritating Visualizations: Petards are bombs commonly used in the old days to blow up gates on castles. But they were unreliable, and sometimes went off while they were still being carried by the enemies of the castle. The explosion meant for the castle would instead "hoist" the bombers.

This is one of those moments when the handler might be better known than the handled.Democratic gubernatorial candidate Chris Bell of Houston has a new website design (at www.chrisbell.com) done under the aegis of Joe Trippi, best known as the consultant who got the Howard Dean Internet phenom up and running in 2003. The firm that did the actual work on the site -- EchoDitto -- was started by Nicco Mele, who ran the Dean for America blog during the presidential campaign. In a particular community, those are big names. The new site has a blog, a podcast (a sound file sent to interested parties featuring campaign and candidate news) and "Don't Mess with Ethics," a knockoff of the "Don't Mess with Texas" campaign. Bell, a one-term congressman and former Houston city councilman, hasn't declared for governor; legally speaking, he's "exploring" a race. Offbeat campaign pitch: Mandy Dealey, a candidate for city council in Austin, sent supporters an email with this message: "Make Betty Dunkerley share a bathroom." Clicking on that takes the reader to her website, where they add, "One woman on the Austin city council is not enough. It's not about being politically correct. It's about solving problems and having strength through diversity." Dealey's plea doesn't narrow the field much, though: Her opponents for an open seat on that panel include one male and two females.

U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay won't have Richard Morrison to kick around anymore. The Democrat who challenged the Sugar Land Republican last year won't make the race next time. Houston City Councilman Gordon Quan is openly looking at it, and former U.S. Rep. Nick Lampson, D-Beaumont, has filed federal papers allowing him to campaign for the post.Lampson's old congressional district is barely contiguous with DeLay's district, but the Beaumont Democrat is running. He (and other Democrats) are betting DeLay will be around in November 2006 and that his name will be sullied enough that a Democrat can win in what appears to be a safely Republican congressional district. There's a small invisible line where the Morgan's Point end of Ted Poe's congressional district touches the LaPorte end of DeLay's congressional district (Poe, a Houston Republican, beat Lampson last year). But most of the district -- including Lampson's Jefferson County home base, is far east of DeLay's district. When the Texas Legislature was redrawing the congressional maps, they put about 17.5 percent of the people who'd been in Lampson's congressional district into DeLay's CD-22. Worse, according to the Texas Legislative Service -- which does the data work for the the state's political maps -- that chunk of Lampson's old district only gave 41.5 percent of its statewide votes in 2002 to the Democrats. Put it simply: The part of Lampson's old district that now belongs to DeLay is three-fifths Republican. DeLay's full district gave 65.9 percent of its statewide vote to Republicans in 2002; in 2004, the worst performance by a Republican on the federal and state ballot in that district was by DeLay himself. He got 55.1 percent to Democrat Richard Morrison's 41.1 percent (a Libertarian and an Independent split the rest). Democrats were encouraged at that lower-than-expected performance by DeLay, but a 14-point margin is formidable. An untarnished Republican running in that district against an untarnished Democrat should win and win easily. But Democrats are hoping DeLay is still on the ballot in November of next year, and that he's bleeding badly enough to make a Democrat look good to conservative voters. If that's the play, a Democrat might be able to attract national money to the contest, and that could change the odds.

Craddick puts Talton on the CPS conference; new gigs for Woelk and Koenning, an extension for FloodThe House contingent settling differences on the foster care bill includes Rep. Robert Talton, R-Pasadena, the author of a House amendment that would require foster parents to register their sexual orientation with the state and would bar gay and lesbian foster parents from the program. The House added that provision on an 81-58 vote; it wasn't in the Senate version. The House group is chaired by Rep. Suzanna Gratia Hupp, R-Lampasas, and includes Reps. John Davis, R-Houston, Toby Goodman, R-Arlington, and Carlos Uresti, D-San Antonio. The Senate group, named earlier: Sens. Jane Nelson, R-Lewisville, chair, Kyle Janek and Jon Lindsay, both R-Houston, Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, and Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo. Sarah Woelk left the Texas Ethics Commission, where she was general counsel, for the Texas Lottery Commission, where she's now the assistant general counsel. Ethics hasn't hired her replacement. Court Koenning, the executive director of the Harris County Republican Party, is leaving for the bidness world (consulting). His replacement hasn't been named. Koenning previously worked for then-Attorney General John Cornyn and for former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm. Gov. Rick Perry reappointed Brian Flood of Austin as inspector general at the Health and Human Services Commission for a term running through January of next year. He left the Dallas County district attorney's office to help sort out the troubles in the state's child protective services program.

... from the federal campaign reportsSix Texans -- not counting the president -- had more than $1 million in their federal campaign accounts at the end of March: Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, $7.3 million; Rep. Henry Bonilla, R-San Antonio, $1.8 million; Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, $1.7 million; Sen. John Cornyn, $1.7 million; former Rep. Jim Turner, D-Crockett, $1.05 million; and Rep. Joe Barton, R-Ennis, $1.0 million. The top fundraisers in the bunch during the first three months of the year: Cornyn, $854,004; Bonilla, $791,319; Hutchison, $758,785; and U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, $458,235.