Until this is over, it'll be impossible to say whether legislative leaders sent their tax and education bills to conference committees or to bomb squads.

The former would bring back legislation designed to pass both the House and the Senate on the way to the governor's desk. The latter would take these politically explosive devices out to the middle of the parking lot, put them in heavy black boxes, and destroy them so that the political shrapnel harms no legislators.

Either way, there's a tangled obstacle course ahead for the last week of the session. Finance, education and taxes are tied up in a combination of five bills, including the two mentioned above. Several of the sunset bills designed as reviews of state agencies are axle-deep in the muck, several of them overladen with semi-relevant and non-relevant ideas that died in other legislation. And lawmakers still have a week to tinker with a couple of hot-button issues that, for all the work on money and schools, could dominate the public's impression of the last 140 days.

End Games

The next week — the last of the legislative session — is a kind of legal funnel where fewer things are possible each day. Favorite projects that have survived this long will live or die in the next ten days. And many dead ideas will be resurrected, permanently or only for a moment, as amendments to live bills. The contest goes not to the swift or the strong, but to those who pay attention.

Saturday (May 21) is the last day House committees can vote out Senate legislation, and the last agenda listing Senate bills for House consideration has to be printed and handed out by Sunday night. House bills that didn't get to the full House for consideration died last week. The last local calendar (for narrow and non-controversial bills) comes out on Monday. The House has to be done with Senate bills by midnight next Wednesday.

Friday (May 27) is the last time a bill can be sent from the House to a conference committee. And the negotiations over House and Senate differences have to be worked out by the end of business on Saturday, May 28, or those bills are dead. The last day to vote on those conference committee reports is Sunday, May 29.

The last day of the legislative session, which used to be a grand collision of lawmaking and other debauchery, is on Monday, May 30. But the only excitement is that everyone goes home at the end: All lawmakers can do that day is fix small technical mistakes, and then go home to consider their 140 days of work.

You can download a copy, in .pdf format, at: www.texasweekly.com/documents/endofdays05.pdf

A Quintet, or Maybe a Trio

Three bills have to pass and they're linked to two that might be in trouble. The budget is the only thing the Legislature absolutely has to do during a session, and it's been moving at about the normal pace. The House and Senate are trying to wrap up negotiations in time to get the thing printed. That takes about five days, and with calendar deadlines looming, they need to be done this weekend.

The House stowed more than $1 billion of its next budget in the supplemental appropriations bill — HB 10 — along with the money needed to fill gaps between what was budgeted for the current period and what was actually needed. When the session is over and you're trying to figure out the final numbers for the current budget and for the next one, you'll need to look at the supplemental bill. The Senate is holding it for now, because it can be used to correct mistakes made in the main budget bill.

The House also passed a Fiscal Christmas Tree that began as a so-called "cleanup bill" for the comptroller's office and then became a repository for taxes and fees and delayed payments and other financial stunts to make the budget balance. Because of its contents, it can technically be called an "omnibus tax bill," which is an important designation if the school-attached tax bill gets into trouble and lawmakers need an escape route. It's referred to as HB 3540, and like HB 10, the Senate is holding that one back for last minute repairs to the big bills.

When you're talking about "the budget," lump those three bills together. If everything else falls down and those three bills pass, the question of a special session is left to Gov. Rick Perry's discretion. If they don't, lawmakers would have to reconvene to keep the state running.

Two bills in the same group don't have to pass, but together form the key legislation of the session. One, HB 2, is a split product that changes several high-profile education laws while replacing a chunk of local school property taxes with state money. The companion is a tax bill — at the moment, the biggest one in the history of the state — that would pay for the first one. It's called HB 3. Both have been sent to the conference committee/bomb squads; for either to pass, the House and/or the Senate will have to drop some proposals and accept some of what was done on the other end of the building. No particular insight there, but time is short, the distance is long, and the parents are crabby.

Keeping Score: Only a few people have good numbers now, but before the House and Senate vote on the big bills in the finance package — the budget, the school finance bill, the tax bill, the supplemental budget bill, and that "clean-up" kitchen sink bill — they'll see hard numbers from the Legislative Budget Board and the Comptroller. The comptroller will put numbers to the tax bills — HB 3 and HB 3540 — to tell lawmakers how much they're raising and from what. They'll also include "equity notes" that tell who's paying more and who's paying less under the plans approved by conferees. The LBB will put bottom-line numbers on the other three bills, telling lawmakers how much money they're spending and on what. Put the five sets of numbers in one pot, and it's all supposed to balance.

Analyze This

House Speaker Tom Craddick named his conference committees in a press release that also included his grumble about the Senate's speed: "We passed HB 2 on March 9 and HB 3 on March 15. House members worked long hours to get these two bills to the Senate in a timely fashion, specifically so we would have plenty of time to work out any differences during Conference Committee. The short timeline is really going to put a lot of pressure on the Conferees as they begin working on this piece of legislation. We are dedicated to working around the clock to get the job done, but with only two weeks left in the session, we've got a difficult challenge ahead of us."

His picks included ten Anglo Republicans. Aside from the obvious conformities — only one of the ten, Rep. Dianne White Delisi, R-Temple, is a woman — the committees are built for a rumble with the Senate. Conference committees often include members who voted against a piece of legislation — the better to reach a compromise. But the winning margins for the two bills were tiny in the House, and Craddick obviously doesn't think the thin majority can be tampered with. He'd like to see the conferees send back essentially the same bill already passed by the House, and that's the way his team has played so far.

The tax panel includes Reps. Jim Keffer, R-Eastland, chair; Warren Chisum, R-Pampa; Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth; John Otto, R-Dayton; and David Swinford, R-Dumas. All but Geren are rural lawmakers, and Keffer alone is a member of the tax-writing Ways & Means Committee that heard public testimony on the legislation, HB 3. The House barely squeezed out the tax bill; the final vote was 73-68 (nine Republicans and no Democrats were absent when the vote was taken; Rep. Al Edwards of Houston was the only Democrat on the prevailing side).

The conferees on school finance, HB 2, include Reps. Kent Grusendorf, R-Arlington, chair; Dan Branch, R-Dallas; Delisi; Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands; and Bill Keffer, R-Dallas. They put together a side-by-side comparison of the bills as passed by the House and Senate to get an idea of the differences they must resolve. It's 315 pages long. The House vote on final passage was 75-69.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst named his conferees three days later, and his panels are a little more diverse, including 2 women, 2 minorities, and 3 Democrats. But like Craddick, he didn't send any dissenters to the negotiations.

On the tax bill: Sens. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, chair; Kim Brimer, R-Fort Worth; Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay; Todd Staples, R-Palestine, and Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo. That bill passed the Senate 21-10.

On the school finance bill: Sens. Florence Shapiro, R-Dallas, chair; Ken Armbrister, D-Victoria; Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock; Kyle Janek, R-Houston; and Royce West, D-Dallas. All voted for the bill, which passed the Senate 27-4.

Dewhurst didn't let Craddick's crack go unanswered: "You have to raise an eyebrow when you read the press release. If school reform and school finance reform don't happen, it's not going to be the Senate's fault."

The two also snapped towels over the comptroller's estimate of the taxes raised by the Senate plan. They raised more than they needed with the tax bill, but fixed it the next day by increasing the amount of the local property tax cuts. Craddick pointed to the first imbalance and ignored the second. Dewhurst said publicly the two bills balanced; several senators reminded reporters that the House's bill came up about $4 billion short of what they voted to spend, according to the comptroller.

Into the Sunset

Several sunset bills are still in the air, and most of them have stowaways.

Notables include the workers compensation insurance bill. The play-by-play is straight out of Dr. Seuss. The House passed its bill. The Senate passed its bill. Then the House stripped the Senate bill and substituted the House bill. And then the Senate stripped the House bill and substituted the Senate bill. Bills so nice, they voted them twice. That's gone to conference, with several big differences in the bills. An example: The House, led on this by Rep. Burt Solomons, R-Carrollton, wants to kill the Texas Workers Compensation Commission and fold it into the Texas Department of Insurance. The Senate, led by Todd Staples, R-Palestine, wants to keep two agencies.

Legislation continuing the Board of Medical Examiners turned into the vehicle for abortion legislation that would increase restrictions against third trimester abortions. That came out of a heated House floor debate that ended with a lopsided vote in favor of the final bill. The legislation also would convert the state's current parental notification law into a parental consent law. Parents would have to sign papers before a pregnant minor could have an abortion. A separate parental consent bill was passed by the Senate and is on its way to the full House, so that provision might come out of the BME sunset.

Legislation that would continue the Texas Education Agency got out of the Senate only after Sen. Mike Jackson, R-La Porte, repeatedly promised he would not accept any amendments that included vouchers as part of the deal. The House ignored that and put a pilot program in their version, allowing limited public money to be used for private schools.

Legislation continuing the life of the Public Utility Commission was temporarily undone by provisions designed to open the cable television business to phone companies. Very long story, very short: Cable companies want to sell you phones and phone companies want to sell you TV. Both have gone to the Legislature seeking advantages, bollixing up things like the PUC sunset bill. The PUC doesn't regulate television, and the provisions were, as a legal matter, out of place. Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford, took that back to his Regulated Industries Committee for a quick retooling, and it's moving again, apparently without the video.

Remember the scandal that erupted when lousy oversight from the state's child and adult protective services agency resulted in deaths and injuries to the people they were supposed to be protecting? That was the only piece of legislation declared an emergency by Gov. Rick Perry at the beginning of the session, a designation that allowed lawmakers to work on that during the first two months of the session, when legislation can be introduced but not voted on. It's still pending, and it's also a vehicle for semi-related and controversial legislation. Budgeteers are working to set the amount of money they're willing to spend — it's floating between $200 million and $250 million, depending on your source. Meanwhile, lawmakers are haggling over a provision added in the House that would prevent gay Texans from being foster parents, and would require all foster parents to register their sexual preferences with the state.

Hot Potatoes

A proposal that would put the state's ban on gay marriage into the constitution was stalled by Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, and then undercut by Sen. Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa, D-McAllen. Ellis "tagged" it, delaying consideration for a couple of days and allowing opponents to gather their arguments. Then Hinojosa said he had collected 11 senators who'll vote against the bill. If that group holds, it's enough to kill the amendment, which needs two-thirds to pass the Senate.

• Gambling is still banging around out there, but the sounds are fainter than before. The Senate got a chance to vote on slot machines and knocked them down flat before approving electronic bingo in places where bingo is offered now. Gambling opponents fear that will open the door to bigger and showier things. The House agreed, telling the school finance/tax conferees not to accept anything that contained e-Bingo. Lobbyists who wanted lawmakers to allow full-blown casinos — for fun, for economic development, and because it would solve some of the state's revenue problems without a tax bill — were shut down. They'll keep trying, and you could see another stab at video lottery terminals — VLTs, or slot machines, to us natives — when the Texas Lottery Commission's sunset bill goes by in the next week.

• We wrote a few weeks ago about judicial pay legislation, noting its link to legislative pensions and showing some of the math. That passed the House with no changes in the basic idea: Judges would get a 23 percent raise and lawmakers would get a corresponding jump in their pensions.

They get a district judge's salary multiplied by their years in state office multiplied by 2.3. Retired lawmakers who serve at least eight years can start drawing the pay at age 60. Retired lawmakers with at least 12 years can start drawing checks when they're 50.

The minimum legislative retirement now is $18,712.80 per year for a lawmaker with eight years in office. That would increase to $23,000 if the judicial pay plan goes through. And lawmakers with more years would add $2,875 for every year they serve to that base amount.

Oh, yeah: State district judges are now paid a minimum of $101,700. The pay hike legislation — promoted by Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson in his State of the Judiciary speech — would take that to $125,000.

• If you try to pin down a fast-moving legislative critter, it will bite you. So it is with the teacher retirement legislation spiked last week in the Texas House. We almost wrote it was dead, but pulled up for reasons now unclear. Lucky ducks: The Senate zipped it along, and it's on its way to the House. The legislation, by Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, is an effort to shore up troubles in the Teacher Retirement System. Teachers would contribute a little more, and would have to wait until age 60 to draw retirement. Supporters say it will keep the system solvent; teacher groups called it a cutback and noted that it passed the same day the House was increasing legislative retirements by jacking up judges' pay.

Department of Corrections: We tangled the "choose your poison" provision of the Senate proposed business tax last week. Here's what we should have said. Businesses will pay the lower of two taxes: A 2.5 percent tax on a company's earned surplus (taxable income plus pay to officers) added to its compensation for employees, with a deduction for the lesser of a 50 percent or $30,000 per employee deduction; or a 1.75 percent tax on payrolls, not to exceed $1,500 per employee. For that goof, as always, we are sorry, sorry, sorry.

Suds Sung Blue

The House left beer, spirits and wine off the list of items that would see new or higher taxes, but alcoholic beverages made it onto the Senate's list. The revenuers in the upper chamber want to raise the tax on those drinks by 25 percent, which would be the first increase since 1984.

That prospect prompted the folks at the Wholesale Beer Distributors of Texas to dig out one of their old gimmicks, a recording — a protest anthem in a country music vein — made during an earlier (successful) battle over alcohol taxes. We're including it for comic relief; the beer guys are passing around copies on CDs to members and others, hoping for actual relief. The singer/songwriter is Mack Abernathy, and the title is straightforward: Don't Tax My Beer. Click here for a listen.

The Bird in the Hand

He hasn't officially announced anything, but it's safe to scratch Rep. David Swinford, R-Dumas, off the list of possible candidates for Texas agriculture commissioner. He's been letting agriculture groups know he won't make the race next year.

Swinford was one of several people mentioned as possible replacements for the current head of the agency, Susan Combs. She's readying a bid for comptroller of public accounts. Initially, she said she was getting ready to run on the assumption that Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn would be running for another office. But Strayhorn's battles with her fellow Republicans in the Texas Capitol have raised temperatures to the point where Combs would probably muster some support even if the incumbent tries to stay put.

Sen. Todd Staples, R-Palestine, wants to run for agriculture commissioner if it opens up; that's not official, but he's doing all the things you'd do to set up a run, talking to potential supporters, working on high profile legislation, and importantly, letting potential competitors know he'll be one of the obstacles they face.

Swinford told us he thinks he'd be the best guy for the job and that he would announce his plans one way or another to his constituents in the Panhandle. But in conversations with various agriculture groups and their representatives, he's saying he can do more for farmers and ranchers in his present position in the House, where he chairs the important State Affairs Committee, and where he's currently one of the House negotiators on the tax bill.

Combs is holding organizational meetings later this month (though she and other current officeholders are barred from collecting contributions or commitments while the Legislature is in session). Strayhorn has indicated, vaguely and through aides and friends, that she'll announce her intentions in early summer.

Political People and Their Moves

U.S. Attorney Michael Shelby is quitting that post to take a stab at work in the private sector. Shelby, a former Harris County prosecutor and assistant U.S. attorney who narrowly lost a legislative race to Kyle Janek in 1992, was appointed chief prosecutor for the state's southern region by President George W. Bush three years ago. That district includes Houston and the Gulf Coast, and runs all the way west to Laredo. He told the Houston Chronicle he'll recommend his top lawyer, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Don DeGabrielle, to hold the fort while Bush looks for a new appointee.

Into the Washington Cuisinart: Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen, reappointed by President George W. Bush for a spot on the 5th U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans after two earlier busts by Senate Democrats. She joined the Texas court in 1995, and it second in seniority behind Nathan Hecht, who became a justice in 1989. If she gets through Senate confirmation, Hecht would be the lone remaining justice who was on the court when the Robin Hood system of funding for schools was found constitutional. And if Owen were replaced by appointment before the end of 2005, seven of the nine justices will be on the ballot next year either just after or just before they rule on school finance.

Quotes of the Week

House Appropriations Chairman Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, in a Houston Chronicle story on Gov. Rick Perry's concern that the increase in state spending this year will set a record: "It's kind of late... the first time I heard that was last week."

Rep. Pete Gallego, D-Alpine, after House Speaker Tom Craddick named all-GOP conference committees on taxes and school finance: "In terms of politics, he made it very clear it's a Republican tax bill."

Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, shutting down a public hearing and telling members of the conference committee on public education that deliberations would continue backstage: "Let's adjourn, and get to work!"

Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford, in a Fort Worth Star-Telegram story on his committee holding their end-of-session dinner at the home of a lobbyist and paid for by companies the committee regulates: "It's just the custom around here."

Rep. Rick Hardcastle, R-Vernon, telling The Dallas Morning News that "the ag boys" were paying for the end-of-session steak dinner for members of his Agriculture and Livestock Committee: "We are the agriculture committee, and they are the agriculture lobby, so of course they want to take care of us... If I were paying for it, we'd be eating bologna sandwiches in my office."

Rep. Will Hartnett, quoted in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram after the House voted to raise judge's salaries and, because they're linked, legislator pensions: "We all work very hard, and we're underpaid. We're all losing money that we could earn in our own professions, and I think it's very appropriate. We work extremely hard for basically food-stamp pay."

Kathy Walt, spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry, on whether her boss, a former legislator, favors the bill: "Retirement is not a though in the governor's mind right now. This is not something the governor sought, asked for, or urged. If it had been a priority of the governor's, you would have heard him talking about it."

Hartnett again, this time during a floor debate on whether to restrict certain late-term abortions: "The bottom line is we're talking about murdering a perfectly viable functioning person. I don't think the risk of damage to a vital organ [of the mother] justifies reaching that level."

Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon, D-San Antonio, addressing the members around the front microphone during that debate: "Do you know how many gentlemen up there have given birth?"

Rep. Pat Haggerty, R-El Paso, quoted in the San Antonio Express-News on the ineffectiveness of the state's DWI treatment programs: "All we do is drag them in once a month, take their $60, make them pee in a cup and send them home. And some of them don't even show up and nobody goes out to find them."

Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, in a statement following threats he received after putting a temporary hold on a constitutional amendment that mirrors an existing state law that outlaws gay marriage: "While everyone who favors this is not a bigot, there clearly are those supporters who are."

Cathie Adams, head of the Texas Eagle Forum, giving the Austin American-Statesman her view on Ellis' block: "It's a last-gasp, desperate attempt to keep the voters of Texas from expressing their will on this issue. I don't think it's a controversial issue."

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, quoted by the Associated Press on her efforts to change a Washington, D.C., law that prevents residents from keeping fully assembled handguns in their homes: "I have always had a handgun in the drawer next to my bed, and I would certainly again have one if it were legal in D.C."

Rep. Brian McCall, R-Plano, talking to The Dallas Morning News about legislation dying because of deadlines: "This process was meant to be difficult, and I have no problem with that. Except on my bills."

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Texas Weekly: Volume 21, Issue 47, 23 May 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.

And so, gentle reader, we come once again to that point in the legislative session where lawmakers scrounging for money go to the comptroller, who controls the numbers, seeking favor.But the tradition of sweet-talking comptrollers for more smack stopped pretty soon after Carole Keeton Strayhorn became comptroller; instead of flowers and chocolates, lawmakers came steaming in with proposed legislation to take the tax courts away from the tax collector. "We had the feeling we were getting slow-played... so we moved the hearings over to SOAH," said Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa. "As soon as she woke up over there, she started sending these little missles over here... saying she'd lower her estimate [of state revenue] if hearings were pulled out." In a meeting attended by at least 10 people from the House and the comptroller's office, the House contingent -- led by Reps. Chisum, Jim Keffer of Eastland, and Brian McCall of Plano -- said they had hoped to raise another $1 billion from their tax bill than the comptroller says it would raise. At this point, accounts vary (excuse the double meaning, but it works for us). The comptroller said taking away the tax courts -- an administrative law system that sometimes ends in settlements and sometimes at the regular courthouse -- would force her to lower her overall revenue estimate, whether or not the tax bill passes. The comptroller's number-crunchers said the House folks would have to make a few changes that have already proven unpopular, bringing more businesses into the franchise tax than they proposed and charging a rate higher than they proposed. Change those things, they were told, and they'd get another billion out of the tax bill, and consequently, greater cuts in local school property taxes. The Housies said they would leave hearings in the agency if she would raise her estimate of the revenue produced by the tax bill. "We'd rather have our money," Chisum says. "We'd sell out for the money." Chisum says Strayhorn's staff gave a bigger number to Sen. Kim Brimer, R-Fort Worth, last year, but that she now says the proposals were different. The comptroller's office is putting together a side-by-side comparing the old Brimer proposal to the current House proposal so they can see whether and where they've got a hole in their pocket. Chisum asked Strayhorn to get that done by Tuesday afternoon, since the clock is winding down on the session. If you're following that on your home calculator, they left the meeting at least $1 billion apart, and potentially more. This is strikingly similar to the battle during the last regular session and the special session last spring, when spats over state finances led the comptroller to temporarily threaten not to certify that the state budget was balanced. In the special session a year ago, the Legislature responded to that (and other battles) by stripping Strayhorn's office of school and state agency performance reviews. The comptroller's estimates of what the tax bill would raise would leave the House with enough money, we're told, to lower local property taxes to $1.35 from $1.50 in the first year, and to $1.10 in the second year. The House wants to cut the local property tax by 50 cents; the Senate by 40 cents. Chisum says that Strayhorn's estimate would put the cut in the 25- to 30-cent range. Even if they get numbers they like from Strayhorn, the tax bill has trouble of its own -- the House and Senate haven't yet signed off on it, and its fate is linked to the public school finance and education bill, which is also on hold in a House-Senate conference committee. The people watching the session clock say lawmakers need a deal within about 72 hours to make it work. In truth, if they get a deal before the session ends, they'll figure out a way to make the rules work.

A special election, a new firm, and a most interesting opinion on open meetingsGov. Perry sent the special election to replace the late Joe Moreno, D-Houston, in the Texas House, for November 8. You can read that to mean he has no intention of calling a special session before then that would require representation for people in that part of Houston. Meanwhile, some of the powers that be have gathered around Ana Hernandez, an attorney with Conoco Phillips who is active in Democratic politics, a former intern for state Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, and a former chief of staff to Rep. Jessica Farrar, D-Houston. Moreno, before becoming a state rep, was Farrar's chief of staff. • ViaNovo is the name of a new public strategery firm in Austin that includes three semi-recent honchos at Public Strategies Inc. Blaine Bull, Matthew Dowd, James Taylor and Tucker Eskew are the principals in the new firm. All four have solid political chops; Dowd and Eskew were most recently working for George W. Bush's reelection campaign, Dowd as a strategist and pollster and Eskew as a spokesman. Bull and Taylor have been officed together since they left PSI a little more than a year ago; they and Dowd will be based in Austin, and Eskew will remain in Washington, D.C. • The following doesn't apply to the Texas Senate, and that's a real shame for anyone who'd like to know what's going back there in the private conference rooms all the time. But Attorney General Greg Abbott recently issued an open meetings opinion aimed at non-legislative officials in city, school and county government that includes this summary: "Members of a governmental body who knowingly conspire to gather in numbers that do not physically constitute a quorum at any one time but who through successive gatherings secretly discuss a public matter with a quorum of that body violate section 551.143 of the Open Meetings Act. This section is not on its face void for vagueness.

A key player in the GOP's 2002 successful effort to take control of the Texas House failed to report $613,433 in campaign contributions and $684,507 in spending and must pay damages to the losing Democrats, according to a state district judge in Austin. Judge Joseph Hart didn't say whether the contributions and expenditures themselves were illegal, but said the Texans for a Republican Majority political action committee, known as TRMPAC, failed to report the money it raised and spent as it should have done. He said former Rep. Bill Ceverha of Dallas, the treasurer of TRMPAC, is personally liable for damages totaling $196,660.An attorney for Ceverha said wants to appeal the ruling. "We feel strongly this decision is wrong. We will vigorously appeal this ruling immediately if Judge Hart allows us to do so," said Terry Scarborough, Ceverha's lawyer. "We feel confident that Judge Hart will sever this decision so that it can be appealed. Our client was exercising his constitutional rights of freedom of speech and freedom of association. These are the most fundamental constitutional rights that we, as citizens, enjoy and cherish." TRMPAC was the brainchild of U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and a key aide, Jim Ellis, who wanted to help Republicans win a majority in the Texas House. That majority, once elected, redrew congressional districts in Texas and the gains to Republicans in Congress in last year's election were completely attributable to the Texas map. Each of the seats added to the GOP's congressional majority is occupied by a Texan. But questions were raised soon after the 2002 elections about the use of corporate money on the Republican side and whether it was used for administrative expenses of TRMPAC and other groups -- that's legal -- or for electioneering, which isn't. Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle and a string of grand juries have investigated. Three people, including Ellis, John Colyandro, and Warren RoBold, have been indicted, and eight corporations were named along with them. Several of those companies have signed cooperation agreements with prosecutors in return for having the indictments against them dropped. Colyandro and Ellis are fighting their indictments in criminal court; Earle wouldn't comment on Hart's ruling, but in a statement said his office is making arguments similar to those in Hart's ruling in its arguments in the criminal cases. "Judge Hart's ruling reaffirms the importance of full disclosure to our democratic society," he said in the statement. Ceverha's is the first civil trial stemming from the elections. Hart found TRMPAC didn't report $532,333 in corporate contributions that were used for campaigning, and another $81,100 in non-corporate contributions that should also have been reported. The PAC didn't report $684,507 in expenditures that should have been reported. Five Democrats who sued will each get double the amount that was raised and spent against them but not reported. Hart took that to mean the amounts that were specifically spent on each candidate, a conservative reading he reached partly because of a section of state law that gives the state the right to go after TRMPAC for a much bigger penalty. In his ruling, Hart said the state is entitled to three times the total amount of contributions and expenditures that weren't reported, or $3,893,820. Attorney General Greg Abbott would have to seek that amount from TRMPAC and Ceverha; a spokeswoman said the agency is looking at the ruling and hasn't decided what it will do. A separate civil case alleges another group -- the Law Enforcement Alliance of America -- didn't report its donors, contributions and expenditures for television ads that attacked Democrat Kirk Watson, Abbott's opponent, while boosting Abbott's campaign. Andy Taylor, the lawyer for the Texas Association of Business, which was involved in the efforts to elect a GOP majority, and which has said it wasn't engaged in direct campaigning for or against any candidates, said Hart's decision doesn't upset TAB's case. "During the 2002 state election cycle, TAB used corporate funds to create and disseminate 86 public information mailers about candidates to the general public, he said in a written statement. "None of these ads used words of express advocacy." Hart said in his ruling that "'Express advocacy' is a constitutionally imposed protection for individuals and groups other than political committees... such protection is not necessary for organizations like TRMPAC, 'the major purpose of which is the nomination or election of a candidate.'" TAB, in Taylor's argument, doesn't fit that definition. You can download a copy of Hart's decision at this link: www.texasweekly.com/documents/HartRuling.pdf.

It's dangerous in the last days of a legislative session to say anything is surely dead. But some things are starting to smell very funny.• Several agencies that went through sunset this year might be up again in two years. The Public Utility Commission, the Lottery Commission, the Board of Medical Examiners and the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission were among the agencies still in the air in the last days. • Lawmakers averted a standoff on workers compensation insurance reform, folding the stand-alone agency that regulates that industry into the insurance commission, setting up a managed care system some businesses wanted, and trying to push injured workers back to work sooner. Unlike most states, Texas still doesn't require companies to carry insurance for injured workers, and as they did with the last reforms in 1989, state leaders said their reforms and market forces would keep the workers and the economy healthy. • Video Lottery Terminals, or VLTs, or slot machines, had one last chance at a Senate vote -- their popularity depends on whose vote you're counting and whether you trust that senator -- but got sunk when a legislative deadline passed. The House is unlikely to go along anyway. • Publicly funded vouchers for private schools got fried on the other end of the building. The House ran over proponents including Speaker Tom Craddick to nix these, which are opposed by a weird coalition of liberals, teachers and others who don't want the money leaving public schools, and conservatives who think regulation of church schools would follow state money through the doors. The senator in charge of the education bill in question had promised not to bring vouchers back for a Senate debate. • A big fix to the state's water planning, and the money to pay for it, also ran out of time. Sen. Ken Armbrister, D-Victoria, took a run at water regulation, including a water tax that would pay for it. The tax came under immediate attach, and omnibus legislation addressing water rights and regulations stalled in the lower chamber.

The formula here is just as it was at the beginning of the session: Failure to get results on school finance and property cuts would be horrible news for Rick Perry, less troubling for David Dewhurst and Tom Craddick, and of very little political consequence to the average member of the Texas Legislature.Those average members only narrowly approved school finance and its companion tax bill in the House and their squeamishness is one reason why the tax bill remained in grave condition as the last weekend of the session approached. Broadly speaking, if the House would go along with the Senate's package of business taxes, or the Senate would go along with a one-cent increase in sales taxes that's more popular in the House, this might end with a deal. It's a staring contest that neither side wants to lose and that neither side particularly wants to win. Meanwhile, the governor, snubbed by lawmakers on his requests to build up the economic development "closing fund" and for a new $300 million state fund he could direct to "emerging technologies," continued to complain about the size of the budget, telling lawmakers they were spending too much and that they needed to make last minute cuts. Perry's staff started making noises about state spending a couple of weeks ago -- well after the House and Senate had done the lion's share of work on the budget. It's a potential political problem. Lawmakers wrote a $117 billion budget two years ago and are putting the final touches on two-year budget that totals around $139 billion, an increase of $22 billion that does not include any repairs to school finance or any buy-downs of local property taxes. That apples-to-apples comparison gets close to a 20 percent jump (if it becomes a political issue, you'll see the apples compared with lemons and oranges; more on that when the Legislature leaves town). If the session's signature issue passes, it'll add $11 billion or so to state spending while cutting that same amount from local school budgets. Someone looking only at the state budget would see a spending jump of nearly 30 percent. That squabbling stalled printing of the budget pushed some of the Legislature's heavy lifting toward the close of the session on Monday. It'll be a long four days.

Publicly funded vouchers to pay for private schooling locked up the House for five hours before that issue -- and the bill to which it was attached -- was killed on a technicality.The House twice voted to a 72-72 tie on a limited voucher program in urban school districts, both times on provisions that would have stripped them from sunset legislation for the Texas Education Agency. After the bill was up for a final vote, but before the votes were taken, House Speaker Tom Craddick issued a ruling on seven "points of order" that had been called earlier in the day by Rep. Jim Dunnam, D-Waco. Five were overruled, but the last two stuck, and the bill was dead. Rep. Kent Grusendorf, R-Arlington, who authored the bill and captained the floor fight that started late in the afternoon and went into the evening, thanked the House for the debate (and was applauded for grace in defeat) and that was that. A bipartisan band of Democrats and renegade Republicans, led on the floor by Carter Casteel, R-New Braunfels, Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth, and Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, turned an evenly split House slightly but decisively against vouchers. For House Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, it marked a rare defeat. He voted with voucher supporters all night, and allowed Dunnam's point of order to kill the bill only after voucher provisions had been stripped from it. That ending followed a long, heated debate -- for connoisseurs, it was a terrific evening of legislative theater -- and then a few minutes of tension and surprise. Geren convinced a narrow majority to remove Dallas schools from the pilot voucher program and replace them with the Arlington schools in Grusendorf's district, which hadn't been included in Grusendorf's version of the bill. That same group of members, more or less, then helped Geren add a change allowing a student to transfer out of an unacceptable school, but only to another public school -- not by taking a publicly funded voucher to pay for a private school. That gutted the voucher provisions. Grusendorf asked for a vote on the bill. Rep. Trey Martinez-Fischer, D-San Antonio, asked for "strict enforcement" of the vote. In laymen's terms, that kills leniency in the voting, preventing members from voting for absent friends, for instance. It didn't appear that Grusendorf had enough voucher supporters on the floor to carry the day, and after a minute or so he went to the microphone to ask for a delay in the vote -- the better to collect some Ayes. But the vote had already been called, and Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, angrily yanked the microphone away from him and said she wanted to call a point of order. They were at the front mike; she then went to the back mike and called a point of order that, if sustained, would have killed the entire rest of the calendar, including the school bill. Craddick ruled against her, but chose that moment to rule on the foul called earlier by Dunnam. That killed the bill, and the House lumbered on into Monday night. The Senate, which already approved that sunset bill, had extracted promises from the sponsor, Sen. Mike Jackson, R-La Porte, that he would not bring the bill back to them with vouchers in it, so the issue was in grave trouble anyhow. Nothing's ever dead while lawmakers are still assembled in Austin, but the House vote against vouchers and the Senate's lack of enthusiasm make a resurrection unlikely.

Answer: Scott Brister, Paul Green, Harriet O'Neill and Dale Wainwright. Question: Which Texas Supreme Court justices, along among that nine-member robed gang, won't be on the election ballot in 2006?A majority of the justices will face voters next year. Justice Priscilla Owen's confirmation to the 5th U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans opens the ninth spot on the Texas court, but not another spot on the ballot -- her term was up next year anyhow. And it's a lifetime appointment: She might be appointed to a higher court someday, but she won't have to run for election to keep her robes. After her confirmation vote by the U.S. Senate, Owen issued a statement saying she'll remain on the Texas court until current business is out of the way; she's got to finish writing any opinions she is writing, and the court might or might not have other cases to finish in which she's part of a narrow majority. Gov. Rick Perry will get to appoint her successor, who in turn will have to run in next year's elections to hold their spot on the state's highest civil court. Whoever that is will be the sixth member of the court to start there as a Perry appointee. That gives Perry an opportunity to put another judge on the panel before the appeal of the school finance lawsuit is decided (and maybe, if everything happens quickly, before it's argued in the first week of July). The court doesn't have to rule before the March primaries, or for that matter, the November general election next year, but could rule on the constitutionality of the state's public school finance system as early as this fall. And a new judge doesn't have to be on the court when the arguments are held to be involved in the decision; a judge named after the hearing still gets to vote on that decision. The trial court ordered the state to fix the system by October; the Supremes can move that date whether they rule before then or not.

Secretary of State Roger Williams will chair the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Response Strike Force, set up to respond to the U.S. Defense Department's plan to close or "realign" ten military facilities in Texas. Gov. Rick Perry created the task force and also appointed Williams to run it. Former Texas Insurance Commissioner Jose Montemayor will be managing partner of an Austin-based merchant bank that specializes in investments in the insurance industry. He'll start next month at Black Diamond Group LLC. The governor hasn't named Montemayor's replacement at TDI; if he does that after the Legislature adjourns, the appointee won't have to get Senate confirmation until the next time lawmakers convene. The Guv put these six people on the Texas Historical Commission: Sarita Armstrong Hixon of Houston, chairman of the San Jacinto Museum of History Association; Diane Bumpas of Dallas, a reappointee; Earl Broussard Jr. of Austin, president of TB6 Planners; Donna Carter, president of a design business in Austin; Tom Phillips of Bastrop, former chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court; and Marcus Watson of Dallas, the "heritage preservation officer" for the City of Plano. Perry reappointed Chris LaPlante of Austin and Maria Pfeiffer of San Antonio to the Texas Historical Records Advisory Board. LaPlante is the state archivist (at the Texas State Library and Archivists Commission; Pfeiffer is a preservation consultant and historian. Kate Linkous, assistant press secretary to Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, will leave for Washington, D.C., when the session is over -- she'll be the new speechwriter for U.S. Senate Majority Bill Frist, R-Tennessee. Sarah McLallen, described by co-workers as some sort of whiz-bang political-op-in-the-making, is leaving the Texas Republican Party to go to college. She worked in the GOP's communications office under the last three spokespeople there. Danielle Allen, who worked for former U.S. Rep. Max Sandlin, D-Marshall, is joining the Austin office of Edelman public relations. She'll be working mainly for Lone Star Infrastructure, the developer of State Highway 130. Dick Davis, regional director of the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation and for years a conservation journalist (broadcast and print), is the new executive director of the Texas Parks & Wildlife Foundation. That's a private foundation, but it's a satellite of the state's Parks & Wildlife Department and raises private money to support the state agency's work. Recovering: Andy Sansom, former executive director of the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department, after an automobile accident that left him with a badly broken leg and other painful but not -life-threatening injuries.