A proposal to level education spending for more Texas school students split the Senate Finance Committee, prompting a walkout by a handful of Republicans who said it was unfair to districts with higher property values. Meanwhile, the House was rejecting -- on technical grounds and without a vote -- the Senate's changes to legislation that forces new tax revenues to be used for school property tax reductions. Those two bills and the momentarily endangered tobacco tax increase are all on their way to the full Senate.Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, led the walkout after trying to strip the Senate's changes and stop further changes. A surprised looking Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, wouldn't let her proceed, and she responded by leaving, followed by Sens. Kim Brimer of Fort Worth, Bob Deuell of Greenville, Kyle Janek of Houston, Jane Nelson of Lewisville, and Tommy Williams of The Woodlands. Ogden and Shapiro had stood next to Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst a day earlier when Dewhurst told a press gaggle that stripping the legislation back to the House version wasn't an option the Senate would consider. But Shapiro tried to do it anyway, removing everything the Senate had added the bill, including teacher pay raises, high school achievement money, uniform school start dates and a number of education measures. Ogden said he hit the brakes because he thought stripping the bill would kill it, and with it, the chance for a school finance fix in this special session. The walkouts included several of the Republicans who were angriest when 11 Democrats left for Albuquerque a couple of years ago to block congressional redistricting. The Republicans were careful to say they hadn't denied the committee a quorum and that work could continue in their absence. That differentiated them from the Democrats, for good and ill: They didn't stop the process, but they didn't stop the proposal they were against, either. Shapiro was trying to block an amendment by Sens. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, and Todd Staples, R-Palestine, that would increase the percentage of students in what's called "the equalized system" to 96 percent from 90 percent. It would also block richer districts from adding locally raised money to their own budgets until the poorer districts catch up with them. The poorer districts, in the meantime, would be allowed to use those local enrichment monies. That, according to Shapiro, was unfair. She told reporters she would rather kill the whole bill -- including property tax relief and pay raises for teachers -- than pass it with the Staples/Duncan proposal on board. Janek said the bill that started the day treated all the districts fairly and that's why he opposed the amendment from Duncan and Staples. Shapiro was blunter: "The purpose of this special session is to deliver property tax reduction and address the court's concerns; not create a personal piggy bank for certain members." She said the amendment created big state obligations in the "out years" -- the years after the current budget is over, when more and more students are brought into the system. And she said it wasn't fair to restrict local funds in some districts while allowing them in others. Ogden was asked by a TV reporter what he would say if Shapiro prolonged the walkout until the evening news: "Come home, Florence." But after lunch, Shapiro's Half Dozen were back in their seats. The amendment they didn't like was added to the bill, and the committee voted to send it to the full Senate for a vote. That last vote was 9 ayes, 2 nays, and 3 present-not-voting. Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, summed it up when they were done: "We're trying to get Iraq to go to this system." HB 2 -- the lockbox bill -- goes back to the Senate for fixes after the House decided Senate changes had departed from the original subject of the bill. That's a battle for next week. And the Senate Finance panel overcame an impasse on cigarette taxes, sending that legislation to the full Senate with a promise that the floor debate will include efforts to cut the tax hike from $1 to 65 cents, or to phase it in over three years. Also on deck are a couple of amendments over how to tax smokeless tobacco; you can refresh your memory on that one by clicking here.

Just when you thought the House and Senate could get along and the special session would end quickly with a tax swap, the usually-staid Texas Senate busted out in all kinds of drama: Vote-switching, quorum-busting, and calls for member round-ups. Someday, at a Senate Ladies' Club dinner in the not-too-distant future, they'll all be able to look back on this week and laugh. If they finish this thing.Rumor de Jour State Rep. Aaron Peña, D-Edinburg, suggests this session might unravel so quickly it'll have to be put out of its misery. Writing at A Capitol Blog, Rep. Peña said, "Weeks ago you may have thought you had a handle on what we were doing, well don't stop watching, it may take a detour or two or three in these last days of the Legislature. This may be the last week legislators will gather. A number of members think the session could end as early as Wednesday." Right of Texas reports that the Governor's e-mail box is full and not receiving any further communications. This blogger also has an alleged copy of an e-mail from former Senator, former Perry aide, and now lobbyist Dan Shelley to Dr. Steven Hotze of Houston, who's leading the Texans for No New Taxes group. Shelley told Hotze, "I will pass on to the members of the legislature they have little to worry about when in comes to your threats." [Editor's Note: The Guv's office now tells us Hotze & Co. gave some incorrect email addresses to their mob -- including whatever they listed for Gov. Rick Perry -- and that those are bouncing back because that's what mis-addressed emails do. A spokeswoman for Perry says their mailboxes aren't full (she's gonna wish she hadn't said that) and that people can email the governor from the form on his website at www.governor.state.tx.us.] * * * * * M.I.A. When Senate Finance Committee Chairman Steve Odgen, R-Bryan, refused to allow Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, to kill her own bill (S.B. 1) and she walked out of the hearing, Pink Dome quickly created a poster to help in the search efforts. The walkout was the subject of much derision: John Coby of Bay Area Houston: "Too bad Tom DeLay quit. He would have called on Homeland Security to find the Republican Senators who broke quorum and left a school finance committee meeting." Eileen Smith of In the Pink Texas: "... When Ogden refused to bring up a vote on the House bill in committee, Shapiro ran. That's how I used to face my problems too -- IN PRESCHOOL." Vince Leibowitz of Capitol Annex: "For those of you who don't follow the Lege on a regular basis, imagine that your TV suddenly became possessed and that the TV shows Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County, Lost, Survivor, and The West Wing all kind of morphed into one strange drama (mixed with a little Mr. Smith Goes to Washington), except, instead of people getting voted off the island, they were walking out of committee, sulking like Desperate Housewives." * * * * * Senate Swing Vote Only days before the Senate committee walkout, tongues were wagging about Sen. Mike Jackson, R-La Porte, changing his "aye" to a "nay" to an "aye" on H.B. 3. Again, Pink Dome doctored a photo for laughs and Smith of In the Pink Texas cracked up the blogosphere with a humorous description of what she thinks must have happened after Sen. Jackson's no vote: "The alarm bells immediately went off in the Governor's mansion, forcing Perry to stop feathering his hair and slide down the firehouse pole into the situation room." Capitol Annex smelled a trade-off because of Sen. Jackson's interest in CD-22. "I predict Perry will endorse Jackson to be the Replacement Nominee or will make some calls (or have his people make calls) to precinct chairs in the four counties plugging Jackson, and encouraging those in Fort Bend County to vote for Jackson in the poll they're doing down there," Vince Leibowitz said. Okay, no more quoting of Vince, Eileen, or Pink Dome for the rest of the column… we don't want to be accused of favoritism. * * * * * CD-22 Questionnaire The Bay Area Houston Blog got its hands on an 8-page questionnaire wannabe nominees for CD-22 had to fill out before being interviewed by that district's precinct chairs. Even though Congressman Tom DeLay hasn't officially vacated the position, CD-22 precinct chairs are charged with selecting a replacement. E-mails about the private May 6th candidate forum in Pasadena were posted at a decidedly un-Republican website called Juanita's. Bay Area Houston believes Sugar Land Mayor David Wallace is the "Chosen One." * * * * * Gas Tax Relief Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, has started a website and blog in support of his idea to create a "Gas Tax Holiday" which would require the state to stop collecting its 20-cents per gallon of gasoline for 90 days this summer. Rep. Martinez Fischer has acquired 43 co-authors and says, "... Chairman (Jim) Keffer gave me his assurance he would grant the bill a hearing." But first, this legislation (HB 120) would have to be added to the governor's call. A conference call he held with bloggers led to lots of support from Brains and Eggs and Burnt Orange Report, among others. Nate Nance at Common Sense Texas had an alternate idea, "A statewide holiday where no one drives. I know it is crazy at first glance, but if they put me in charge of messaging, I'll make it crystal clear: Driving and using lots of gas is the reason there is a high price, so don't do it." * * * * * Net Neutrality The biggest issue on the Internet is not tax reform or gasoline prices or even immigration reform (although that's close). It's "net neutrality" -- the effort to keep large telecommunications companies from setting up different delivery systems for information flow on the Internet. It's one issue that conservative blogs, such as Boots and Sabers, and liberal blogs, such as The Agonist, can agree on. Sean-Paul Kelley at The Agonist was so upset by U.S. Rep. Charles Gonzalez's vote against a key amendment that he created a commercial criticizing the San Antonio Democrat. Another Texan, U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Ennis, chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee that's considering the net neutrality issue. He's becoming a favorite target of bloggers because of this issue, and rising gas prices. Rick Moran (brother of ABC News anchor Terry Moran) gathers some interesting opinions on net neutrality on his blog Right Wing Nut House. He's not a Texan, but we read his blog anyway because of its excellent summaries of the Fox television show "24." That Jack Bauer is having a hell of day, and if you spend your time watching Texas politics, it's nice to know that someone is. * * * * * Broken Promise We swore we wouldn't quote her again, but that wacky Eileen Smith at In The Pink Texas had the best line of the week regarding U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy's, D-RI, early morning crash into a Capitol Hill barricade: "Following the accident, Kennedy was not given a sobriety test and officers were told to drive him home, marking the first time in history that a Kennedy has received preferential treatment." As a "Kennedy," Smith is able to poke fun at her own family and get away with it (okay, she's not a Kennedy, but she has a fantasy about it, as you can see on her blog).

Democrat Chris Bell won labor's endorsement at the annual COPE convention of the Texas AFL-CIO.He had to fight to win it. Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn courted the group for weeks and already has won support from some teacher and public employee groups. That wasn't enough. To get the endorsement, a candidate has to win support from two-thirds of the delegates. Kinky Friedman also spoke to the labor reps; Gov. Rick Perry declined their request to speak at the convention. Bell's speech included some boilerplate, but it's core was his first real attack on Strayhorn, who was, after all, his only real rival for labor's endorsement. He attacked her for a long list of recommendations she's made to privatize government services and said she backed several of Perry's proposals "as long as it suited her political plans." The money shot in his speech made the daily papers: "She has no business being here today because Carole Strayhorn speaking to a labor convention is like Godzilla running for Mayor of Tokyo." You can see the whole speech on his website, at this address: www.chrisbell.com/insights/AFLspeech.

Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn took petitions with 223,000 signatures to state election officials, saying she has far more than the 45,540 needed to get on the ballot as an independent.Our unofficial Spin of the Week award goes to Robert Black, a spokesman for Gov. Rick Perry's reelection campaign. His press release reacting to Strayhorn's numbers said she only managed to attract 1.9 percent of the voters eligible to sign her petitions, and he closed with this line: "It will be interesting to see how many invalid signatures Carole Strayhorn has turned in just to keep up with Kinky Friedman." The reason so many voters were eligible to sign petitions is because so few showed up at the primaries thrown by the two major parties. But so you'll have the numbers on hand to settle bar bets, Perry got 552,545 votes in his primary, and Democrat Chris Bell got 324,869 in his primary. Friedman's signatures are due by the close of business on Thursday, and Secretary of State Roger Williams then has the job of verifying that one or both of those candidates got enough legitimate names to win a place on the ballot. Williams is a Perry appointee, which raises the levels of paranoia in the independent camps. And he has said he wants to go through the signatures one at a time to make sure they come from registered voters who didn't vote in the primaries or the runoffs or sign another candidate's petition for governor. Strayhorn made a federal case of it, and a decision from U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel is pending. Strayhorn says Williams should sample the petitions, as his office has done in other high-profile cases (like when Ross Perot ran for president). That's quicker, and would get her either out of the race or back into the fundraising game without any uncertainty about whether people are contributing to a candidate or a short-timer.

The most important program in Texas state government is now local school property tax relief. The political promise to voters -- a one-third cut in those taxes -- is simple to understand and it has a due date. If property owners don't get the right report on the taxes due in January 2008, then the primaries in March 2008 could be bloody. You can make an argument that Job One next session will be to make sure there's enough money going to that relief; other state programs will be in line.The legislation originally proposed by the governor's tax reform panel was -- in the opinion of the comptroller -- out of balance because it raised less money in new taxes than it proposed to spend lowering local school property taxes. What has already passed and what is well on its way to passing raises the same amount of money, more or less, as the tax reform proposal. But it spends more, on things like teacher pay raises, money to prop up high school performance, and equity between rich and poor schools. That almost certainly means a bigger gap between spending and revenues. The state surplus will cover the difference for now, so the politics of the comptroller and the Legislature and the governor's race and all that can be ignored. But watch the numbers going forward. The first real examples of what the new business tax will raise should become available early next year, after the comptroller collects data from the biggest companies in the state (ranked by number of employees, property value, gross receipts, and how much they pay under the current franchise tax).

A week of Senate infighting closed with a unanimous vote on tax cuts, school finance and education that put Gov. Rick Perry's tax reform package close to completion. But there was something more -- Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst got his ears pinned back by a group of (mostly) Republican senators who weren't willing to follow his lead on the key tax cut and education bill. They've been grumbling for some time. They finally asserted themselves.A week ago, a proposal to level education spending for more Texas school students split the Senate Finance Committee, prompting a walkout by a handful of Republicans who said it was unfair to districts with higher property values. Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, led the walkout after trying to stop further changes. A surprised looking Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, wouldn't let her proceed, and she responded by leaving, followed by Sens. Kim Brimer of Fort Worth, Bob Deuell of Greenville, Kyle Janek of Houston, Jane Nelson of Lewisville, and Tommy Williams of The Woodlands. Ogden and Shapiro had stood next to Dewhurst a day earlier when the lieutenant governor told a press gaggle that stripping the legislation back to the House version wasn't an option the Senate would consider. But Shapiro tried to do it anyway, removing everything the Senate had added the bill, including teacher pay raises, high school achievement money, uniform school start dates and a number of education measures. Ogden said he hit the brakes because he thought stripping the bill would kill it, and with it, the chance for a school finance fix in this special session. (The walkouts included several of the Republicans who were angriest when 11 Democrats left for Albuquerque a couple of years ago to block congressional redistricting. The Republicans were careful to say they hadn't denied the committee a quorum and that work could continue in their absence. That differentiated them from the Democrats, for good and ill: They didn't stop the process, but they didn't stop the proposal they were against, either.) Shapiro was trying to block an amendment by Sens. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, and Todd Staples, R-Palestine, which would have increased the percentage of students in what's called "the equalized system" to 96 percent from 90 percent. It would also have blocked richer districts from adding locally raised money to their own budgets until the poorer districts catch up with them. The poorer districts, in the meantime, would be allowed to use those local enrichment monies. That, according to Shapiro, was unfair. She told reporters she would rather kill the whole bill -- including property tax relief and pay raises for teachers -- than pass it with the Staples/Duncan proposal on board. And she said she had the votes, too. It turned out she did. Janek said the bill that started the day treated all the districts fairly and that's why he opposed the changes from Duncan and Staples. Shapiro was blunter: "The purpose of this special session is to deliver property tax reduction and address the court's concerns; not create a personal piggy bank for certain members." She said the amendment created big state obligations in the "out years" -- the years after the current budget is over, when more and more students are brought into the system. And she said it wasn't fair to restrict local funds in some districts while allowing them in others. But after lunch, Shapiro's Half Dozen were back in their seats. The amendment they didn't like was added to the bill, and the committee voted to send it to the full Senate for a vote. In the days that followed, the arguments -- always behind closed doors, as is this Senate's habit -- got increasingly personal. Dewhurst at one point wanted the Senate to give up its effort to lower property taxes to $1, saying it was too expensive and couldn't be done with a teacher pay raise; $1.15 was suggested as a doable number. He appeared to be on board with Duncan and Staples, and part of a group that was pushing Ogden to take HB 1 away from Shapiro and sponsor it himself. But Shapiro had added seven senators to the six who walked out with her, and that Baker's Dozen held together while she negotiated the bill back to something she liked. (The new names included one Democrat, Ken Armbrister of Victoria, and six Republicans: John Carona of Dallas, Kevin Eltife of Tyler, Troy Fraser of Horseshoe Bay, Chris Harris of Arlington, Mike Jackson of La Porte, and Jeff Wentworth of San Antonio. They wanted the $1 target rate left alone. They wanted to get rid of the bits in the Duncan/Staples package they thought were hard on richer districts. They wanted to shave the 96 percent equity number for fear of its future costs. And they wanted to reinstate the "high school allotment" meant to boost performance in secondary schools. And they got most of that. As it passed, the bill still had the structural look of the Duncan/Staples package. But rich districts won't have to share any of the four cents they were raising for local "enrichment." Poor districts would get equalizing money from the state (instead of recapture) to make their local enrichment taxes more lucrative. Another two cents could be added to that local money source a year later, also without recapture from the rich districts. The 96 percent number got shaved, but not by much. And a little more than half of the high school money was put back in. A shuttle diplomacy team led by Dallas oilman and Republican political funder Louis Beecherl and his advisor Bill Ceverha came in to keep the House and the Senate and the governor's office all on the same sheet, serving the same function Tom DeLay served on congressional redistricting a few years ago. And when they were voting and the Senate's unanimity was again in bloom, we ran into one of Dewhurst's policy folks. He said he had the sheet music for "Kumbaya."