Remember potential energy? That was the bit in high school science class where you found out about the stored power of a bowling ball at the top of a staircase. The political equivalents of that teetering bowling ball are piling up. Lots of stuff could come bouncing down the stairs in the next few days and weeks.

• A federal grand jury's decisions about the CIA leak investigation — which has embroiled some politicos who did their teething in Texas — are expected to be public soon.

• U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, is pushing for a fast trial with a new judge in someplace other than the state capital. He's racing, in some sense, against the ambitions of congressional colleagues who are temporarily holding his seat open.

• More in the realm of marbles than bowling balls, but already in motion: Candidates are making final decisions about what they'll do next year, and the list of bids for reelection, challenges, resignations, retirements and whatever else will trickle through the end of the year.

• The combatants in the war over a proposed constitutional amendment on gay marriage are in full battle and might turn that into a closer election than some polls indicate. Light turnout elections are often decided by true believers on both sides. This one could be more dependent on organization — who turns out their voters — than by the views of voters who are drawn to the polls by other issues and happen to vote on the amendment while they're there.

• The Texas Supreme Court is overdue on its school finance decision. Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson told a group on September 9 that the ruling would be out in two week's time; that was seven weeks ago. The court's actions are usually announced on Fridays, but they don't have deadlines and could announce a school finance decision — once it's made — whenever they feel like it. A ruling could trigger anything from another special session on school finance to another round of hearings in trial court.

• And any minute now, Gov. Rick Perry is going to announce the members of a task force who, with former Comptroller John Sharp, will try to come up with a tax plan that raises more money, makes everybody happy, and offers a way out of the state's school finance jam.

Judging DeLay's Judge

Another judge — C.W. "Bud" Duncan Jr. of Killeen — will decide whether Judge Bob Perkins' support of Democratic candidates and causes should disqualify him from presiding over U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay's trial on conspiracy and money-laundering charges. DeLay's lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, wants a new judge and a new locale for that trial. Lawyers for DeLay's co-defendants haven't joined in, but would get a new judge and venue anyhow if DeGuerin is successful.

DeGuerin says he wants Perkins off the case because of the judge's contributions to Democrats, particularly to organizations like MoveOn.org, which he says is directly opposing DeLay, and to the Democratic National Committee, since transactions between Texans for a Republican Majority PAC and the Republican National Committee are at the heart of the money laundering charge against DeLay.

"This is not about Democrat or Republican judges," DeGuerin said after the hearing. "The judge has every right to be a Democrat or a Republican — that's not what it's about. It's about Judge Perkins having actively supported people who were in opposition to Congressman DeLay. Since this case has been in court, he's made six monetary contributions to either the Democratic Party in Texas or the Democratic National Committee. In addition, he made contributions to one of the candidates who TRMPAC supported. It just doesn't look right."

DeGuerin's own contributions put him mostly -- but not completely -- on the Democratic side of the ledger. And the list includes a contribution to a Democrat who hoped to unseat DeLay in the 2002 elections. DeGuerin gave $1,000 to Frank Briscoe Jr.. Briscoe didn't make it out of the Democratic primary, losing to Tim Riley, who managed only 35 percent of the vote against DeLay that year. There's a back-story; Briscoe's father, Frank Briscoe Sr., was the Harris County District Attorney who gave DeGuerin his first job out of law school. Another member of that family — a cousin — is former Gov. Dolph Briscoe, also a Democrat.

DeGuerin has given $11,200 to state candidates and PACs since 2000, according to the Texas Ethics Commission, including $2,000 to Republican judicial candidates. He gave $450 to the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, which is generally associated with Democrats. The balance went to Democratic statewide candidates like Kirk Watson, John Sharp, Charlie Baird, and to a handful of Houston legislators and judicial candidates.

He's spent more money on Republicans at the national level, starting with former client U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. Since 2000, according to the Federal Election Commission, DeGuerin contributed $3,400 to Hutchison's Senate campaign account. He contributed $1,000 to then-Judge Ted Poe's successful campaign for Congress last year. Poe knocked off Democratic U.S. Rep. Nick Lampson of Beaumont, who has since moved to run against DeLay in next year's election (DeGuerin was a Lampson contributor back in 1996). The defense lawyer also gave to Democrats: He contributed $1,000 to former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk's unsuccessful bid for U.S. Senate. He gave the $1,000 to Briscoe, a Democrat, in 2002. And he made a $1,000 contribution to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2002.

DeGuerin has also asked that the trial be moved out of Austin, where he contends a three-year barrage of stories about the 2002 election investigation has poisoned chances for a fair trial. Asked where he'd like to go, he pointed to one of the state's most reliably Republican terrains and the site of his victorious defense of Hutchison: "It would be nice to be in Fort Worth."

Second Thoughts

Kelly White, the campaign treasurer for Austin Democrat Donna Howard, might abandon her candidate to run for the House herself. She says she's "not ready to talk about that in the media," but other candidates in the race, and various party officials, say the prospect of a special election in HD-48 might transform White from aide to candidate.

White, an Austin Democrat who missed being a state lawmaker a year ago by less than 150 votes, signed up this year as the treasurer for another candidate, Donna Howard. White lost to Rep. Todd Baxter, R-Austin, and Howard is one of three Democrats campaigning for the chance to challenge him. But Baxter surprised the Democrats last week by saying he won't run for reelection, and in fact will quit the House on November 1.

Republican Ben Bentzin was in the race within a day and so far has been able to keep other Republicans from joining in the contest. Baxter's resignation will force a special election — the timing of which is up to Gov. Rick Perry.

That sets up some interesting campaign puzzles. If the governor calls a quick election, Bentzin has a chance to split the votes with the three Democrats now in the contest: Howard, Andy Brown, and Kathy Rider. One theory among the apparatchiks is that Bentzin would get the 50 percent of the vote that Baxter got, and that the Democrats would split the other 50 percent. If Bentzin gets more than half, he'd win straight up.

An election with that many folks in it could also result in a runoff. Democrats fear that could be timed to coincide with the March primary elections. Their worry is that the Republicans, with a gubernatorial primary between Perry and Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, the GOP will have the better draw in March. If more elephants than donkeys go to the polls, Bentzin might benefit from the increased traffic, swamping whatever Democrat makes it into the runoff. That's pretty interesting, and it prompted much of the scheming about White and Howard and Brown and Rider, but it's wrong. Officials with the Texas Secretary of State say you can't hold a special election — or a runoff election — on a primary election date.

If the election is earlier than later, the Democrat with the best combination of name identification, grassroots support and money would have the best chance. And since she ran before, some plotters would pick White to bear the standard, though she's endorsed Howard and told friends and supporters in emails that Howard would make a better representative than she would. The candidates caucused over the weekend with local party officials to talk about the situation. They didn't come to any resolution. And White, in spite of having her name in play, went ahead with a previously planned fundraiser for Howard at White's house.

Gov. Perry hasn't announced his decision on whether to call a quick special election (by designating it as an emergency) or to wait until the next uniform election date, in May. In either case, there will also be primary elections for that seat, followed by a general election in November 2006. The special election winner will serve until the end of next year, and then give up the spot to the winner of the general election.

Dazed and Confused

Read this sentence: "This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage."

That's the second sentence that would be added to the state constitution if voters approve the gay marriage ban next month, and opponents of the measure say it amounts to a ban on marriage itself. They're calling it a "drafting error" in the legislation and saying voters who believe in marriage should vote against the amendment. They're saying it loudly, too, using phone-calling equipment to deliver that message to voters all over the state.

Now read this: "Marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman. This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage."

That's the whole schmear, and proponents of the amendment say the two sentences taken together are clear. Gov. Rick Perry referred to the first spin on this as "disinformation," and Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, says the opposition has forfeited its integrity.

The anti-amendment calls feature the voice of a Presbyterian minister from San Antonio: "I'm Rev. Tom Heger. Rick Perry and the Legislature made a blunder in writing the gay marriage amendment. Don't risk it. Vote against it. They left off words that would have made sure it applied only to gays. A greedy insurance company, tricky divorce lawyer or a liberal Austin activist judge can easily use these words to overturn traditional marriage and cause people to lose health insurance, tax breaks and pensions. The status quo protects everyone's marriage. Don't risk it. Vote against it. God bless you. Read it for yourself at SaveTexasMarriage.com."

The proponents have websites, too, at TexansForMarriage.org and txmarriage.com. KellyShackelford, president of the Free Market Foundation, is among several writers on the first one who's calling the phone campaign misleading: "The calls from Save Texas Marriage are so deceptive that they are even ending the call saying God Bless You," he writes. " One of these starts out from a Reverend and says that Governor Perry messed up, and that there is a hidden liberal agenda. The group is even calling seniors who would typically support conservative legislation."

Political Notes

Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, looking for an idea that'll capture the fancy of voters, says lawmakers should come back for a quick special session to write $260 checks for every homeowner in the state. She says the money is in the till, and that it would provide tax relief to homeowners. The state has a surplus of about $1.2 billion — money that's been raised but that wasn't budgeted — and she wants to use that to fund her idea. None of the money would go to other property owners; people who rent homes and apartments wouldn't get any of the dough. Gov. Rick Perry, Strayhorn's opponent in next year's GOP gubernatorial primary, would have to call a special session to put wheels on her plan; his aides say that's not going to happen. They labeled it a short-term solution to a long-term problem, and said this is the third idea Strayhorn has offered for the surplus funds.

• Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson signed a lease that'll allow offshore testing by a couple of big wind towers in the Gulf of Mexico; the tests are designed to site an offshore wind farm. The first numbers run by the General Land Office says the project will bring in $26.5 million. The company on the other end of the contract — Louisiana-based Wind Energy Systems Technologies — wants to put 50 windmills on platforms about seven miles from the coastline. They'll be huge: 260 feet tall with blades about 55 feet long, all mounted on offshore platforms. The state will get a 3.5 percent royalty at first, escalating over the duration of the 30-year lease.

• Two Republicans are planning challenges to Rep. Mary Denny, R-Aubrey. Anne Lakusta, a real estate agent who was once the president of the Lewisville ISD board, and Ricky Grunden, a Denton investment advisor, both told local reporters they'll challenge the incumbent in HD-63. Denny has been in the House since 1993.

• Rep. Ruben Hope Jr., R-Conroe, says he'll be on next year's ballot, but not for the same job: He wants to be a state district judge, succeeding Olin Underwood, who has signaled his retirement. This is a reprise of sorts; Hope was close to resigning from the House during the legislative session earlier this year when it appeared Underwood would hang up the robes and create a vacancy. That didn't work out, but Hope says now he'll be on the ballot. Former Rep. Bob Rabuck told the Conroe Courier he won't be in the contest. Brandon Creighton, an attorney, says he will be in the contest. A couple of others are asking around about the race, including former Rep. Keith Valigura, R-Conroe, who served three terms in the late 1980s.

• Perry added to his endorsees list: U.S. Reps. John Culberson, R-Houston, and Louie Gohmert, R-Tyler; the Texas RN/APN PAC, which is tied to three nursing associations; the Texas DPS Officers Association PAC; the Texas Building Owners and Managers Association; and the Independent Bankers Association.

• The Texas Association of Dairymen endorsed Agriculture Commissioner Susan Comb's bid for comptroller, and will back Sen. Todd Staples' bid for the Ag job. Neither of those two Republicans has a visible opponent, though the filing deadline is still two months away.

• Political donors from Texas have so far given $26.7 million to federal candidates and 527 committees, according to campaign finance reports compiled by Political Money Line. House candidates have banked $5.4 million from Texas contributors. Senate candidates have received $4.1 million. Texans have given another $5.8 million to political action committees, $9.2 million to political party committees, and $2.0 million to 527 groups. Dallasites led the list, giving $5.7 million, followed by Houston, $5.4 million, San Antonio, $1.8 million, Austin, $1.8 million, and Fort Worth, $1.0 million.

• Dallas lawyer Tom Pauken — and a group that includes several refugees from The Dallas Morning News — is starting up a website to cover news and politics and such in Dallas. It's called Dallas Blog, and they're actually hoping to make the thing a going financial concern. And they're letting readers write, opening up the site where bloggers in and about Dallas can post their scribblings.

• The Texas Credit Union League is doing a campaign school for candidates November 8-9 in Austin. There's a day for Democrats and a day for Republicans. It's free, but you have to sign up for it, at www.tcul.coop/campaign_school.html. You'll also find more details there.

Department of Corrections: Early voting for the November elections began on Monday, October 24, and will run through Thursday, November 3. The law used to allow counties to open the polls on the weekend before the official startup, and we wrote it that way last week. It's no longer the case. The Monday startup applied to everybody.

And a Legitimate Quibble Building to an Explanation: A friend in the tax business begs to differ with two details from a story on corporate taxes last week, and he's right. One, we wrote that putting business taxes on partnerships and proprietor ships would amount to making them pay personal income taxes; that's certainly their contention, but it's not an undisputed fact, as we presented it. Two, not all of the businesses that have some form of limited liability pay corporate franchise taxes, and the way they duck the state tax is by morphing into one of the forms that gives them liability protection without exposing them to the tax. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

It Depends on What You Mean by "Instruction"

Making sure two-thirds of education money goes to the classroom isn't a math problem -- it's almost a philosophical problem. It's all about how you define instructional spending.

State leaders want educators to get 65 percent of every dollar to the classroom. The state has a definition of that, and the results are posted on the Texas Education Agency's website for anyone who wants to dig around and find it. The National Center for Education Statistics has a definition, too, and it's the one backed — at least for now — by Gov. Rick Perry and some others in state government. But there are big differences between what Texas has labeled as instructional spending and what the feds have chosen. Deciding on what to include has fallen to the TEA, and to task forces of school people and civilians assembled for the arguments.

We plowed through the state's own statistics a couple of weeks ago to look at this based on the state numbers. Since then, the TEA has ranked the state's schools as if the NCES standard was the law of the land. The results are, well, different. We charted their numbers under each of the two definitions for every school district in the state. You can get the listings — in Adobe Acrobat or spreadsheet form — in the Files section of our website.

Using the state's Academic Excellence Indicator System, the average district spends 64.8 percent of its money on instruction. Using NCES, that's 64 percent. Inside those averages are big differences. Use the state's numbers and all but three of the biggest school districts in Texas are over 65 percent; use the national numbers and 14 of the 25 don't hit the mark. Only 250 of the 1,037 school districts spend 65 percent or more of their money on instruction using the state definitions, but those districts teach 59.6 percent of the state's students. The state definition is kinder to bigger districts. More Texas districts make the grade using the national definition — 424 — but they educate only 38.9 percent of the state's public school students.

Why the swings in results? Both AEIS and NCES (which is part of the U.S. Department of Education) include salaries for teachers, aides, substitutes, special education teachers, physical education, and costs of instructional materials and equipment used in classrooms, textbooks, band instruments, computer labs and supplies, testing materials, and insurance for drivers' education vehicles. That's all in a category designed to include everything that deals with direct interaction between teachers and students. If you read the broad categories that are and aren't included, it's harder to see what the fight is about. The devil is in the details, some of which are listed here. TEA includes several things the feds leave out, in three broad categories.

•  Library and resource centers: Librarians, aides and assistants, people who run instructional media areas and equipment, those who write and produce those programs, and books and films and tapes maintained in a school library.

• Curriculum and instructional staff development: In-house and outsourced staff development personnel, travel for staff instruction, substitutes who fill in while regular teachers get training, certain tuition and fees and other costs of outside training for teachers, paid sabbaticals for instructors, and administrators who solely oversee curriculum.

• Student guidance and counseling: student testing, mental health screening, psychiatrists, psychologists and diagnosticians, guidance records and record-keepers, placement services, and parent/teacher counseling.

NCES doesn't include those things, but does include costs from three categories the state doesn't include.

• Extracurricular activities: Coach salaries (above what's already included for P.E.), assistants and trainers, insurance to cover student sports injuries, athletic supplies and equipment, referee and umpire pay, travel and lodging for traveling athletes, coaches and staffs, for band directors and debate coaches and the like, and band uniforms.

• Shared service expenses and salaries.

• Costs of juvenile justice alternative education programs.

Education Commissioner Shirley Neeley has a group of educators worrying over the definitions, and another group made up of people who aren't in that business. Gov. Perry wants TEA to come up with a 65 percent rule — with exceptions for districts with unusual problems like high transportation or special needs costs — that it can impose on public schools all over Texas.

Political People and Their Moves

Dave Beckwith is moving back to Austin as state director for U.S. Sen. John Cornyn. Beckwith, who has worked on and off for U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison over the years, is moving to Texas to lead Cornyn's in-state staff. He worked on Cornyn's Senate campaign and did a stint with Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst before returning to Washington, D.C., for his most recent run with Hutchison. Beckwith and the senior senator used to be in the Houston press corps together — she as a TV reporter and he as a scribe with the Houston Chronicle. He'll be on Cornyn's payroll by the New Year.

Indicted: State district Judge Amado Abascal, for two counts of tampering with a government record. He's accused — in indictments reported in Travis County — of listing 15 contributors on his campaign finance forms who didn't give to his campaign. The $15,000 he attributed to them, according to news reports, was from people associated with an Eagle Pass casino.

Indicted: Texas oilman Oscar Wyatt Jr., who stands accused (by federal prosecutors) of paying kickbacks to Iraqi leaders who let him sell their oil through a United Nations assistance program.

Quotes of the Week

Harriet Miers, withdrawing her name from consideration for the U.S. Supreme Court, in a letter to George W. Bush: "I am concerned that the confirmation process presents a burden for the White House and our staff that is not in the best interests of the country."

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, talking about the federal investigation of the Valerie Plame leak, on Meet the Press: "I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn't indict on the crime and so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation was not a waste of time and taxpayer dollars."

Hutchison in 1999, at a press conference on investigations of the Clinton Administration: "I very much worry that with the evidence that we have seen that grand juries across America are going to start asking questions about what is obstruction of justice, what is perjury. And I don't want there to be any lessening of the standard. Because our system of criminal justice depends on people telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. That is the lynch pin of our criminal justice system and I don't want it to be faded in any way."

Gov. Rick Perry, quoted by the Associated Press on recent campaign finance indictments: "I'm for Tom DeLay. I don't get confused about what's going on here. The fact of the matter is, I happen to think that this is an overzealous prosecutor who is working very hard to take a Texan off of the national stage who's been doing some great and good things for the state of Texas."

House Speaker Tom Craddick, talking tort reform in the Burleson-Crowley Connection: "We're seeing fewer lawsuits, and the trial lawyers are on the run in this state, which I think is great."

Gubernatorial candidate Chris Bell, in the McAllen Monitor on tests in schools: "TAKS testing is corrupting the curriculum and leading to the highest dropout rate in the country. When's someone's told they'll be left back in 10th grade, there's a high probability they won't return."

Judge Bob Perkins, quoted by the Associated Press about the Tom DeLay case: "Judges tend to be hesitant about taking real high publicity cases. It definitely complicates your life."

Gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman, quoted in the San Antonio Express-News: "If I lose this race, I already know what I'm going to do. I'm going to retire in a petulant snit."

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Texas Weekly: Volume 22, Issue 20, 31 October 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 state's top lawyer has taken to the phones to promote a constitutional amendment against gay marriage. "This is Attorney General Greg Abbott. A shadowy group is making deceptive phone calls to trick you on how to vote on Proposition Two. Let me be clear. A vote for Proposition Two is a vote for traditional marriage. Early voting ends this Friday. Please protect marriage by voting early for Proposition Two so we can keep marriage between a man and a woman." The shadowy group he's referring to is No Nonsense in November, which was set up weeks ago to oppose the constitutional amendment. They didn't identify themselves in their ads. Neither did Abbott's sponsor, but his aides say he did the recording for the Republican Party of Texas, which paid for the phone calls. A spokeswoman for the GOP wouldn't say how many calls were made, or to whom. Other Republicans have taped messages, apparently, and some voters will be hearing those comments on their answering machines between now and Election Day next week. Abbott's message started hitting answering machines -- at least those in reporters' offices, where we got ours -- a day after the No Nonsense group did a round with people reading judicial comments from Abbott himself and from Justice Nathan Hecht, Abbott's former colleague on the Texas Supreme Court. the two Republicans initially scheduled a press conference to protest the use of their words, but decided against it. Abbott did the ad, while Hecht issued a statement saying his words were taken out of context. The anti-2 folks say the wording of it is sloppy and would accidentally outlaw marriage of any sort, if read literally. Abbott contests that, as do the authors of the amendment, who say opponents are trying to confuse voters. But the opponents pulled out an Abbott opinion -- he used to be on the high court -- where he said judges should rely on the words before them over the intent of the Legislature. Hecht's quote was taken from an interview in which he was defending Harriet Miers. He told the Austin American-Statesman that the personal views of judges are outweighed by the laws they interpret: "When you're construing the Constitution or statute, you're stuck with what's there." Abbott, as you can see, is taking a position on the amendment. Hecht, who might eventually hear a case stemming from the thing, has no public position on it. 

Now that Tom DeLay has successfully removed a Democratic judge who was set to preside over DeLay's trial, Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle wants to recuse the Republican judge who is supposed to name a replacement. The motion is in our Files section. Or you can click on this address to download it directly: www.texasweekly.com/documents/MotionToRecuseSchraub.pdf.
The Austin American-Statesman was first up with the story:
  Earle doesn't want regional judge to pick court/District attorney files motion to keep Schraub from selecting judge for DeLay case  By Laylan Copelin, Austin AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF  In an unprecedented move, Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle filed a motion Thursday asking a Republican presiding judge to remove himself from the decision about who will be the trial judge in the conspiracy case against U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land. 

The judge who was going to pick a new judge to hear Tom DeLay's trial recused himself after prosecutors pointed out his Republican bonafides, kicking the impartiality mess up to Wallace Jefferson, the chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court. But Jefferson's political conflicts are as thorny as anyone's in this particular food chain. Judge B.B. Schraub, the administrative judge for the district that includes Austin, was set to appoint a judge to replace Bob Perkins, who was recused after a hearing on his contributions to Democratic political organizations and groups considered hostile by DeLay's team. Before Schraub picked a judge, Travis County prosecutors said he should step aside for the same reason Perkins was ousted -- he's made political contributions that could potentially raise questions about his impartiality. Schraub recused himself within a matter of hours, sending the case to Jefferson. Jefferson hasn't acted as this is written, but he's got several things on his record that raise similar questions. His campaign treasurer in 2002 was Bill Ceverha, who was also the treasurer for Texans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee at the time. That's the DeLay-founded group that helped elect a GOP majority in the Texas House and also triggered the campaign finance investigation that produced the charges that have been leveled against DeLay. Jefferson's fundraiser in that campaign was Susan Lilly, who also raised money for TRMPAC. DeLay is accused of conspiring to run corporate money through the national GOP, which then contributed non-corporate money to Texas candidates. The arm of the GOP that did that -- the Republican National State Elections Committee -- gave Jefferson $25,000 on March 6, 2002. All of those transactions occurred in the same election cycle. The template for TRMPAC came from Americans for a Republican Majority PAC, another DeLay creation that operates mainly in federal elections. ARMPAC contributed $2,000 to Jefferson's judicial campaign on October 10, 2002. Jefferson wasn't a contributor to political causes and candidates like Perkins and Schraub were; his only two political donations on record with the Texas Ethics Commission were made to the Harris County Republican Party. One was for $1,500 in July 2001; the other was for $300, paid in March 2002. 

Pat Priest, a senior judge in San Antonio, is Wallace Jefferson's choice to hear the DeLay case.  Jefferson, the chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court, sent a letter to Priest at the end of a day of judges trying to keep their personal politics separate from their judging. At about the same time Jefferson was tapping Priest, Travis County prosecutors filed papers asking Jefferson to remove himself from the case because of his own ties to groups and people involved in the campaign finance case that produced indictments against U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay and several associates. Priest, born in 1940, is a former district judge who now roves the courts as a visiting judge. He's a former adjunct prof at St. Mary's in San Antonio (that's also where he got his law degree) and was a criminal defense lawyer before he first put on the robes in 1980. Priest wrote a book -- Texas Courtroom Criminal Evidence -- compiling the rules of operation in those courts.
  Priest has made three political contributions since 2000, according to the Texas Ethics Commission, each for $150 and each to San Antonio Democrats in the Texas House: Ruth Jones McClendon, Trey Martinez Fischer and Carlos Uresti. He shut his own political campaign accounts down in 1994, after losing a Democratic primary for a spot on the 4th Court of Appeals in San Antonio. 

Finding evidence of politics in the Texas judiciary is like finding chicken in Bo Pilgrim's refrigerator. They're chosen in partisan elections or appointed by partisan officeholders (the judges, not the chickens) and their fates rise and fall with those of the political parties.  When somebody in Texas wants to be a judge, they either cozy up to an officeholder with the ability to appoint them, or they get involved in local judicial politics and start raising money and giving money and getting and giving favors, just like constables and sheriffs and governors. A tired line from redistricting -- "you can't take the politics out of politics" -- applies to judges, too, when they're elected or appointed by politicians. None of this is a defense of state district Judge Bob Perkins of Austin, removed from a campaign finance trial after lawyers for U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay pointed out Perkins' contributions to various Democratic causes. But it makes for interesting cocktail conversation: Perkins ran as a Democrat, gave to Democrats, and was ousted because some of the groups he supports have spent at least some of their time vilifying DeLay, a national figure in the GOP. A final once-and-for-all replacement judge might have been chosen by the time you read this, but remember: Every state judge in Texas was either elected as a Democrat or a Republican or was put in office by someone elected as a Democrat or a Republican. It's difficult to find what lawyers refer to as a "bright line test" in all of this. What's the thing a judge has to do to upset the balance? Perkins got bounced after a four-hour hearing that featured Republican consultants, a state representative, a couple of Democratic Party officials from Austin, a former chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court and a law firm researcher. The short version: He contributed to Democratic candidates, the party, and to MoveOn.org. DeLay's lawyers say that's completely legal and even respectable, but they said the pattern of giving would raise questions about Perkins' impartiality outside of the courtroom. State Rep. Terry Keel, R-Austin, said he's known Perkins for years and thinks the judge would give DeLay a fair trial. But he said "the majority of my constituents will think this was unfair in light of his contributions." Perkins recused himself from Kay Bailey Hutchison's trial more than ten years ago because he had given $300 to Democrat Bob Krueger, who ran against her. He hasn't given money to any DeLay opponents, but DeLay's lawyers said some of the groups that Perkins has supported have worked against DeLay and that, they contend, amounts to the same thing. John Hill Jr., the former chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court, was one of the witnesses for DeLay's team; Duncan shut him down when he began winding his way through what sounded like a ruling on the case from the witness box. Before that, Hill went over some of the earlier testimony -- he and other witnesses sat through the hearing -- and then talked about the law, and then said Perkins' conduct clearly called for a recusal under the law. "He gave money to an organization that was involved in the subject matter of this case," he said. Duncan shut him down and said he'd judge the thing himself; the lawyers stopped their questions for Hill pretty quickly after that. Some of the lawyering that led up to the dispatching of Perkins was more about appearances than about whether he had a bias that might affect the outcome. Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle argued against any change in judges: "There is no basis, no precedent, for a recusal based on a judge's political contributions." He said recusing on such grounds would spiral into "sectarian fighting" that would "turn us into Shiites and Kurds and Sunnis." Richard Keeton, one of DeLay's lawyers, asked Duncan to pull Perkins to preserve respect for the courts. "You can save him from himself here... For the good of Texas, that's not the Luling Press and the Hutto Hippo out there, that's the national press, that's the international press."?
Within a couple of minutes, Duncan said simply that "the motion to recuse is granted." That was that. 

The committee that will poke and prod the state's tax system, searching for something more lucrative and less painless, has swollen to nearly two dozen Texans, and we've been able to snag most of the names (it's hard to keep a secret when that many people get involved). Gov. Rick Perry is hoping to finish the list and make it public within the next few days, and the panel could get in a couple of meetings before the holidays shut government down.  Former Comptroller John Sharp, a Democrat who ran against Perry in 1998 and against Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst in 2002, will chair the panel. He'll be joined by an assortment of business and policy people from around the state. No elected officials will be on the committee, but both Dewhurst and House Speaker Tom Craddick were able to name at least one ally to the list. That list wasn't complete when we went to print, but we've checked these names with some reliable folks: • Truman Arnold of Texarkana, a Democrat who's in oil and gas and used to own a chain of convenience stores; • Bill Blaylock, tax director at Texas Instruments in Dallas; • A. J. Brune III, the CFO of Wagner and Brown in Midland and Craddick's pick for the panel; • Randy Cain, a tax consultant with Ernst & Young in San Antonio; • Alonzo Cantu of McAllen, who's in construction, banking and other businesses; • James Dannebaum of Dannebaum Engineering Corp. of Houston; • Wendy Lee Gramm, an economist with the Mercatus Center in Washington, the wife of former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm, and the only person on this list with a Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org); • Hunter Hunt, an executive with Hunt Oil in Dallas; • Woody Hunt, chairman and CEO of Hunt Building Corp. of El Paso; • Kenneth Jastrow of Austin, Chairman and CEO of Temple-Inland Corp.; • Jodie Jiles, chairman of the Houston Partnership and an executive with First Albany Capital; • Judy Lindquist, vice president and general counsel for San Antonio-based H.E.B.; • William McMinn of Houston, a businessman and Republican donor; • Ernie Morales, co-owner of Morales Feedlots in Devine; • Jan Newton, president of SBC-Texas; • Dennis Patillo, who runs a Houston real estate company and is the incoming chairman of the Texas Association of Realtors; • John Roach, chairman emeritus of Fort Worth-based Tandy Corp.; • Robert Rowling of Dallas, owner of Omni Hotels, Gold's Gym International and other enterprises, and the 43rd person on Forbes Magazine's list of richest humans; • Ron Steinhart of Dallas, a former exec with Bank One and several other banks; • Dr. David Teuscher, a Beaumont doctor and a member of the State Republican Executive Committee; and • Howard Wolfe, a Houston attorney and close friend of Dewhurst's. A footnote: Dewhurst wasn't happy when Perry named Sharp to head the panel and still hasn't met with his former adversary, though it looks like a thaw is underway. But you can get a measure of his ire if you know who he initially suggested for a spot on Perry's tax panel: Jim Francis of Dallas, an outspoken Republican critic of the governor who was urging U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison to run against Perry. Francis won't be on the panel, and Dewhurst and Sharp are apparently trying to put together their first meeting since the rancorous 2002 contest for Lite Guv. 

Early voting has been heavier than some people were expecting. One constitutional amendment -- a proposed ban on gay marriage -- is a draw for voters, but there's not much else around the state to get the blood flowing. Houston's city elections correspond with the amendment elections, but there's not much fight in that. With a couple of days of early voting uncounted, turnout in the 15 biggest counties in Texas totaled 3.3 percent of the registered voters. Harris County accounted for almost a fourth of the overall total, but the big turnouts on a percentage basis have been in Travis County (7.1 percent with two days uncounted) and neighboring Williamson County (6.3 percent had voted early). Secretary of State Roger Williams is predicting a 16 percent turnout when it's all over. That stinks, but it's a high number for this kind of election. Only 12.2 percent of the voters showed up for constitutional amendments in 2003. • Gov. Rick Perry would beat all comers according to a Zogby Interactive poll from mid-September. The surprise in the bucket of numbers is that Kinky Friedman out-polls Tony Sanchez, the Laredo Democrat who spent almost $70 million losing to Perry in 2002. By Zogby's lights, Perry would pull 40 to 41 percent of the vote in any three-way general election race with potential opponents Friedman, Sanchez, Chris Bell, John Sharp, or Jim Turner. Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn would get 32 to 35 percent of the vote in any of those general election scenarios, but would come out in first place. They didn't test the Republican primary featuring Perry and Strayhorn. They got responses from 1,227 people between September 16 and 21 and say their margin of error is +/- 2.9 percent. • U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, had a good week. He got a Democratic judge -- Bob Perkins -- knocked out of his trial, and he reported raising $318,020 during the third quarter for his defense fund. He spent $278,466 from that fund during the same period. Contributions are capped at $5,000. • Kinky Friedman's campaign says they raised $170,000 at a fundraiser featuring singer Willie Nelson and former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura. Separately, that campaign is trying to get people to watch a reality TV show on Country Music Television about the campaign to better their chances of keeping it on the air. That prompted Jason Stanford with Democrat Chris Bell's campaign: "We hear that on the last episode Kinky gets voted off the island." • Endorsements: Gov. Rick Perry picks up the San Antonio Police Officers Association, the Texas Society of Professional Engineers, and U.S. Rep. Michael Conaway, R-Midland. Susan Combs, running for comptroller, got a nod from the Texas Civil Justice League. • Robert Sanchez, a Republican who had started a campaign against U.S. Rep. Charlie Gonzalez, D-San Antonio, announced he won't run after all. He began the effort last March and said in a note to supporters that "many of the necessary elements of the campaign did not develop as needed." • Oliver Bell, an Austin Republican, tells the local paper he's decided not to run for the Texas Senate after all. Democratic attorney Kirk Watson -- former mayor and current president of the chamber of commerce -- is the only candidate at this point who's announced he'll run for the spot left by Gonzalo Barrientos' decision not to seek another term. Republican Ben Bentzin, who challenged Barrientos in 2002, had already decided against a contest with Watson when a House seat opened up. Bentzin will run for that against three or four Democrats; Watson might get a cakewalk. • Donna Howard, one of the Democrats who wants to represent Austin's HD-48, says she'll run in the special election to replace Rep. Todd Baxter, R-Austin, who resigned. The Democrats made some efforts to keep their numbers down in that special election -- the better to fend off Republican Ben Bentzin. We won't know if that worked until they start signing up. Howard, Andy Brown, Kathy Rider and Kelly White have all expressed interest in running. Gov. Rick Perry hasn't called a special election yet. • Analyzing legislative and congressional districts? You'll need numbers from the 2004 elections cranked by the Texas Legislative Service. They sent us files listing election results by congressional, Senate and House districts and you can download them in the Files section of our website. 

The state's top civil jurist refused to recuse himself from picking a judge for Tom DeLay's trial today, saying there's nobody else to do the job and saying the proper target of a recusal motion is a trial judge and not the guy who picks him. In a letter to the lawyers in that case, Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson said his selection of San Antonio senior Judge Pat Priest will stand. Jefferson said he can't find anything in the law that requires him to step aside, and wrote that "I have a duty to ensure that the judicial process is not paralyzed any time a recusal motion challenges a judicial officer who is performing a purely administrative function." If they lawyers don't like Priest, they can challenge him, Jefferson wrote: "The recourse is to challenge not the power to assign, but the assignment itself." 

Robert Howden, a former aide to Gov. Rick Perry who has done freelance lobbying, worked for the Texas Association of Automobile Dealers and the Texas office of the National Federation of Independent Business, will be the staff director for what's been officially dubbed the "Texas Tax Reform Commission." The policy chops will be provided by Karey Barton and James LeBas, two former comptroller employees brought in for subject matter expertise. LeBas, now the CFO for the Texas Water Development Board, was chief revenue estimator for Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn. Barton, most recently a tax consultant, was director of state tax policy for Strayhorn and for her predecessor, John Sharp. Sharp will head the 24-member commission. The names of most people on the panel made the current Texas Weekly, but not all of them. Add: • Prentice Gary, managing partner of Carleton Residential Properties in Dallas; and • Victor Leal of Canyon, owner of a chain of four family restaurants in the Panhandle. See yesterday's item -- Just Look at the Size of this Thing -- for the rest of the members. And make one amendment: Howard Wolf is no longer an attorney from Houston, though that was once true. He retired from Fulbright and Jaworski and now has a solo practice in Austin. He also serves on a couple of boards: Stewart & Stevenson Services, and Simmons & Co. International. 

Joe Wisnoski is joining the Moak, Casey, and Associates consulting firm after 28 years in state government. He was most recently deputy associate commissioner of the Texas Education Agency and is generally recognized as a wizard on school finance and education statistics. Former state legislator Steve Carriker is the new executive director of the Texas Association of Community Development Corporations. He's a veteran of both chambers; most recently, he'd been COO of the Corporation for the Development of Community Health Centers. Kurt Meacham is leaving the Pink Building to try his hand at Democratic political consulting. Meacham, most recently with Rep. Pete Gallego, D-Alpine, will do research for the Texas Progress Council and other groups. Luis Gonzalez, after four years as an analyst with the House Appropriations Committee, is joining Santos Alliances, a lobby firm just cross the street from the Capitol. Joel Romo joined the American Heart Association and will be their new state director of public advocacy in Austin. He had been chief of staff to Rep. Vilma Luna, D-Corpus Christi. Lizzette Gonzalez Reynolds signed up with the U.S. Department of Education as regional representative for Texas and the four U.S. states adjacent to it. She worked on legislative issues for then-Gov. George W. Bush and has most recently been at the University of Texas Institute for Public School Initiatives. Appointments: Gov. Rick Perry named Ida Clement Steen to the Texas A&M University System board of regents. She's a former teacher and a current bank director and lives in San Antonio. Perry picked Greg Wilkinson of Dallas to the board of regents for the Texas State University System. He's the CEO of Hill & Wilkinson, Ltd.
  The Texas superintendent of the year is Susan Simpson of White Settlement ISD. She got the prize form the Texas Association of School Boards/Texas Association of School Administrators. 

Ed Strayhorn, husband of Texas Comptroller and gubernatorial candidate Carole Keeton Strayhorn, had some kind of "incident" or seizure while on a hunting trip with friends in South Texas this morning and is under observation at Valley Baptist Hospital in Harlingen. A spokesman for the family says he's in good spirits, laughing, and "wants to get out of here."    

Charles Soechting says he won't seek another term as chairman of the Texas Democratic Party. In a note to members of the State Democratic Executive Committee and an interview, he said he wants to spend more time practicing law and raising kids. He also said "you could make book" on him seeking elective office in the future. Soechting, a Hays County lawyer, was chairman of the county party before he followed Molly Beth Malcolm into the state chairmanship. He said he'll have served three years when his term ends and that he doesn't want to do two more years when that time comes. The election is in June, and two names are floating around at the moment as possible candidates: Boyd Richie, an attorney in Graham, in North Texas, and Dennis Teal, a chiropractor from Livingston, in East Texas. Soechting says he doesn't intend to back a particular candidate, but doesn't completely rule it out. The party got a reboot this fall when a small group that includes Dallas lawyer Fred Baron and consultant Matt Angle unveiled a reorganization plan for the Democrats tied to a badly needed infusion of cash. Soechting says his departure wasn't a condition of that, but says it gave him a higher comfort level about leaving next year.