A handy July 4 tip: You shouldn't leave chocolate cream pies or potato salad or tax bills sitting out. They have notoriously short shelf lives and what's good at first sours quickly in open air.

The House started the newest tax bill down the Yellow Brick Road with a party-line vote in support of a bill that, with a few modifications, is essentially the plan offered by Gov. Rick Perry at the beginning of the special session. They approved it on a Wednesday afternoon, apparently hoping that it won't get nibbled to death over the July 4 holidays while it sits waiting for a vote from the full House a week later. What's up? Take your pick:

a) The management in the House and elsewhere thinks the bill will survive the wait.

b) The bill is dead, but it's only a decoy. House leaders will produce the real thing on the morning of the debate. That's worked before, when the Legislature raised taxes during the 1980s.

c) The bill is dead, and it'll be up to the governor and others to lead a revival when it gets to the floor of the House.

d) The leadership wants to float this trial balloon to see whether anything will survive. Better to die over the weekend before anyone's neck is on the block than to prove unpopular after the House has already voted.

e) The state's leadership is not as organized as you think.

Some details of the version that's on its way to the full House:

• It would buy down local school property tax rates (now capped at $1.50) to $1.23 the first year, and to $1.12 the second year. School districts would be able to add back up to 15 cents in local enrichment money (with voter approval) bringing those totals to $1.38 and $1.27, respectively. It would pay for that with an array of higher state taxes.

• It would add a penny to the state sales tax, bringing that to 7.25 percent; local add-ons would raise that to 9.25 percent, giving Texas the highest rate in the U.S. According to a survey done by the Tax Foundation at the end of 2004, several states had 7 percent sales tax rates, but none exceeded that. The current Texas rate is 6.25. The rate would be raised even more for motor vehicle and boat sales, to 7.35 percent from 6.25 percent — you read it right, 1.1 cents — again to the highest in the nation.

• Sales taxes would be expanded to include bottled water, certain kinds of computer programming and repairs of motor vehicles.

• The $1 increase in the cigarette tax that's been talked about for two years is included.

• Choice is out. During the regular session, the House wanted to give each busienss a choice between the current franchise tax and a payroll-based tax. That was included in a plan forwarded by Democrats on the committee, but it wasn't in Perry's plan and it's not in the plan put forward by the committee. They would try to close the two largest loopholes included in the law by earlier lawmakers (called "Geoffrey's" and "the Delaware sub" to save the tax accountants from trying to explain their tricks) but wouldn't expand the base of the tax to businesses that weren't meant to be included originally.

• The attorney general would be allowed to bring in outside collectors — paying up to 30 percent of the amount collected — to bring in uncollectible debts. That wouldn't extend to taxes the comptroller is trying to collect, but apparently would take in tax collections if the comptroller gives up and turns things over to the state's lawyer.

To get the new incarnation of HB 3 on the road, the House Ways & Means panel discarded a plan offered by its four Democrats that would probably have won five votes and spared several of the Republicans on the committee yet another vote in favor of new taxes. The aim of all these things is the same — to cut local property taxes and to try to get the state out of its losing position (so far) on the constitutionality of the current school finance system. 

The House comes back on Tuesday, intending to set a rule limiting amendments to the tax bill, and then on Wednesday to try to find a tax bill that can win approval from the full House. They did it during the regular session, but it and its companion education bill died when the House and Senate couldn't agree on the details.

Next Week at Summer Camp

Think of this: The Texas House plans to return from the Independence Day break to vote on a tax bill it can send to the Senate. Negotiators from the two chambers will get started on talks to reconcile differences on the education half of the school finance fix. And the Texas Supreme Court will, on Wednesday morning, hear arguments on the constitutionality of the current system. If you're a wonk, or bored, or if you're paid to know this stuff, you can bone up on the case or refresh your memory.

For the briefs filed by lawyers on their way to the Supremes, you can get everything at the court's own site by clicking here.

For a copy of State District Judge John Dietz's order, which is what's being appealed, look at these, from the Files section of our website:

• Dietz's initial ruling

• His final judgment

• And his findings of fact

Parley

The Texas Senate spent less than half a day getting the education bill from the House, sending to a committee, passing it there, and sending it back to the full Senate, which also passed it. But it's not what the House liked. It's the bill, with slight modifications, that was approved by the Senate in early May. Let the negotiations begin.

To recap: Both chambers have passed legislation that's remarkably similar to the bills that put them in gridlock a month ago. Their disagreement will likely land in front of a conference committee next week, which can try to hammer out a deal. Big sticking points remain: The House's cap on how much locally raised tax money rich school districts have to share with poor districts, and two versions of which teachers should get pay raises and how much they should get. The House also wants to move school board elections to November, when turnout is high, and to move the start date for school out of August to the other side of Labor Day.

But does this sound like there's a deal on the way?

From a press release issued by Sens. Todd Staples, R-Palestine, and Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio (they chair their respective party caucuses in the Senate) after the Senate substituted its own school reform and finance plan for the one passed earlier in the week by the House: "Today we stand united to support a bi-partisan plan that puts the interests of our students first.  We were not willing to consider legislation that provides a temporary fix to school finance at the expense of our school children in May, and we are not willing to do it now... While we appreciate the additional time to discuss the issue of Public School Finance resulting from Governor Perry's decision to call a special session this summer, the Senate as a whole continues to stand behind the plan we offered at the end of the 79th Regular Session."

They also said "talking big" about teacher pay raises and then coming up short would break faith with educators, and they genuflected in the direction of Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and Education Chair Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, for sticking with the original plan. 

The Senate plan would give teachers $2,000 more than they're making now. Gov. Rick Perry wants teachers to get an average pay hike of $1,500, and the House opted for an incentive pay package that provides more money for teachers who hit performance standards set by the Lege. The House includes an average raise of $1,000 in addition to restoring a $1,000 pass-through benefit taken away two years ago. That's how the education lobby counts this stuff. The various authors say they're offering teachers $3,500 more (the Senate), $2,000 more (the House), and $1,500 more (the Guv). All but Perry are including in that total the $1,000 pass-through. And both the House and Senate include incentive pay in their totals.

The House bill almost got bushwhacked on the way to the Senate. House Democrats offered up their version, with its emphasis on increasing homestead exemptions at the expense of cuts in property tax rates, and on giving teachers a full $4,000 pay raise. It was on its way to passage, but on a recount, with House Speaker Tom Craddick casting the deciding vote, it failed. Craddick has been accused by some of his own allies outside of the House of taking too hard a line on school finance. But his majority, on this issue, has been thin. School finance and the tax bill that goes with it got only five vote margins during the regular session. The final version of the education bill had a seven-vote margin after the scare, and the tax bill is pending. Barring some kind of breakthrough, he doesn't appear to have much room to negotiate without risking that majority.

The Senate passed its version with a bigger margin, but also got a scare, narrowly killing an amendment that would have "equalized" the local money that districts are allowed to keep for themselves. That's what they call it when they set the formulas to bring poorer districts up to snuff with richer districts. It's expensive, but leaving it out, supporters say, leaves the poor districts in the dust. The version that almost stumped the House failed in the Senate by a two-to-one margin.

Perry v. Strayhorn

You might see that headline a lot over the next few months: She's running for governor, and so is he. In this installment, Gov. Rick Perry offered his own school finance plan, a scaled-down version of what didn't pass the Legislature during the regular session. It took a little from each side, and even some from the Democrats, and Perry has been all over the state promoting it. He's also running ads and trying to enlist Republican financiers to pressure lawmakers to do something with school finance during the special session.

Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, asked by Rep. Jim Keffer, R-Eastland, to run the numbers on Perry's plan, said it doesn't balance. And she said it not with flowers but with invective: "The Governor needs to go back to the drawing board and give Texans a plan that works. Calling the Legislature abruptly back into session without a plan, without a direction and without a clue is no way to govern this state."

She said Perry's remedy would come in $200 million short in the first two-year budget and would leave the next Legislature with a choice between cutting back the plan or finding $2.6 billion in new money to keep it going after that.

Perry didn't shoot back directly, but dispatched an aide to say the comptroller wasn't including all of the money that's available, that his plan does balance, and to say Strayhorn put her "political agenda" ahead of a straight analysis.

In a separate blast of camaraderie, Perry's campaign dinged her after an aide told The Dallas Morning News that she would probably accept a pay raise the Legislature included in the budget for her and for other statewide elected officials. The governor was initially included, but got his raise excised before the budget was complete. "Strayhorn Clearly Opposes Performance Pay, Intends to Accept $33,000 Pay Raise Despite Her Record" was the headline on their press release. Attorney General Greg Abbott and Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson told the paper they also intend to take the raise offered by the Lege. 

Political Notes

State Rep. Terry Keel, R-Austin, will run for a spot on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that's currently occupied by Republican Charles Holcomb. Holcomb's running, too, but would be required to retire halfway through the term, when he reaches age 75. And Dallas district Judge Robert Francis, also a Republican, will be in the hunt for that same spot on the court.

• Susan Combs checked off another couple of boxes on her Things to Do list, netting endorsements from two state senators — Robert Duncan of Lubbock and Kel Seliger of Amarillo — and from 41 of the 62 members of the State Republican Executive Committee. Her campaign says she's also got Bill Crocker, one of the state's national GOP committee members, and Bob Long, the Texas GOP's chaplain, on her side. Combs, the state's agriculture commissioner, is still the only declared candidate for comptroller from either party.

• In a memo to fellow Democrats, former U.S. Rep. Martin Frost, D-Dallas, encouraged them to support state Rep. Richard Raymond, D-Laredo, in a challenge against U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, according to the San Antonio Express-News. Raymond hasn't officially declared his candidacy. And former U.S. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, D-San Antonio, is looking for a rematch against Cuellar, who beat him last year.

• Strike Harris County Judge Robert Eckels from your rising ambitions list, for now. He told the Houston Chronicle that Kay Bailey Hutchison's decision to seek reelection ended the game of musical chairs — at least the chairs that interested him. He's leaning toward a reelection bid.

• Sen. Frank Madla, D-San Antonio, says he'll seek reelection next year. He became a state representative in 1973 and a state senator 20 years later. Potentially in the wings should he change his mind: Reps. Pete Gallego, D-Alpine, and two San Antonio Democrats, Robert Puente and Carlos Uresti.

• Ann Quirk signs on as a consultant to Bob Reeves' campaign for Texas Senate. Reeves, a Republican from Center, is one of four Republicans who've said they want to succeed Todd Staples of Palestine, who's running for agriculture commissioner. Quirk's a longtime political operative and knows that area: She worked for Drew Nixon, who held that spot in the Senate before Staples.

Another Republican businessman in that SD-3 race, Robert Nichols, took his next step, resigning from the Texas Transportation Commission before that panel's latest meeting. He was a George W. Bush appointee who got a second term there from Gov. Rick Perry.

One more from that same contest. Frank Denton of Conroe is on his way to Austin next week for a fundraiser starting the race. His hosts? Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, and former Sen. Bill Ratliff, R-Mt. Pleasant.

• DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS: Lyndon Olson spells his name as you see it in this sentence, and not as you saw it spelled here (in some editions) last week. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

Appointments, National Division

Rob Mosbacher Jr. is George W. Bush's pick to be the new president of the Overseas Private Investment Corp. Mosbacher, who ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor against Bob Bullock, and for mayor of Houston a few years later, almost ran against Bush in the 1994 gubernatorial primary. But some of his aides were convinced Ann Richards was too strong, and after a meeting with Bush in his office — with the press corps sitting outside — Mosbacher decided not to make that race. He's a former Senate staffer (to Howard Baker, R-Tennessee) and his father was Commerce Secretary under Bush's dad.

Kristen Silverberg is Bush's pick for assistant secretary of state over "international organization affairs." She's currently working in the White House after a stint advising Ambassador Paul Bremer in Iraq. She's a Texan, and a graduate of UT's law school.

Another Texan, Dina Powell, cleared the Senate and will become assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs. She previously worked in the White House, vetting hires for jobs in the administration.

Appointments, State Division

Gov. Rick Perry set up a new Criminal Justice Advisory Council to give him soup-to-nuts advice on improvements to the criminal justice system. It's chaired by Dale Pat Campbell Jr. of Lubbock, vice chancellor and general counsel for Texas Tech University System. Eight people will join him: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Barbara Hervey of San Antonio; Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston; Rep. Dan Gattis, R-Georgetown; state district Judges Cynthia Stevens Kent of Tyler and Wayne Salvant of Arlington; Wichita Falls District Attorney Barry Macha;  Robert  Lerma of Brownsville, a criminal defense lawyer, and Patsy Day of Dallas, an advocate for crime victims. They'll be joined by a long list of ex-officio members to pore over criminal justice in Texas.

Dr. Roberta Kalafut or Abilene is the new president of the Texas State Board of Medical Examiners by order of the Guv. She's on the board now and will, according to Perry's office, be the first woman to chair it.

Perry named five people to the Nursing Facility Administrators Advisory Committee, one of several advisory panels set up when the state's health and human service agencies were merged. Reappointments: Dr. Walter Sjoberg Jr. of Cypress Mill; Ramona Kennedy of Flower Mound, a former nursing home volunteer; and Esther Steinberg of Sugar Land, a social worker. New to the panel: Linda Strong, a former registered nurse from Corpus Christi, and Susan Farris of Springtown, executive director and CEO of the James L. West Alzheimer’s Center. 

Political People and Their Moves

Larry Faulkner is retiring as president of the University of Texas at Austin, with his departure timed for next March. He's been at it since 1998, and that's a longer run than all but one of his predecessors at the school. The search is on for a replacement.

Kent Caperton, a former state senator who's been lobbying and advising at Public Strategies Inc. for the last several years, is leaving that Austin-based company for a new venture. He, former Texas House speaker and lite Guv Ben Barnes, and Washington lawyer Jim Sharp are starting a new company. Caperton says they'll do some lobbying, some advising, and hope to work on some business deals on the side.

We're late to mention this, but the Texas Federation of Teachers elected Linda Bridges to be its first new president in 24 years. John Cole, who's held the job for more than two decades, is retiring. Bridges, a former special education teacher, has most recently been president of TFT's Corpus Christi affiliate. She's officially on the job as of July 1. 

Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, will become president-elect of the National Conference of State Legislators, a trade group for lawmakers from all over the country, at that group's August convention in Seattle.

Alexis DeLee is House Speaker Tom Craddick's new press secretary, replacing Heather Tindall, her old boss. Tindall, who joined Craddick's staff before the regular session, said in an email that she hasn't decided what she'll do next.

Sittin' in a tree, K.I.S.S.I.N.G.: Amy Brownlee, who works for Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, is getting married to David Phillips of Belton. No date set.

DEATHS: Felton West, a longtime government and politics reporter for the Houston Post who in his retirement ran for city council, after a bout with cancer. He was 79. He was at the paper for more than 50 years, working as bureau chief in both Austin and Washington, as city editor, and as a columnist.

Quotes of the Week

Sander Shapiro, a tax consultant advising Gov. Rick Perry on property tax cuts, talking to the House Ways & Means panel about the loopholes in the state's current franchise tax: "Someone calls and says, 'How much tax do I owe?' I say, 'How good a citizen do you want to be?'"

Rep. Kent Grusendorf, R-Arlington, promoting his education bill during the debate in the House: "This will do more to improve education in the state of Texas than literally anything we've done in the last half century."

University of Texas baseball coach Augie Garrido, after saying a few words as his national championship team was introduced in the Texas House: "You can't spend enough money on education."

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, quoted by the Austin American-Statesman after bowing out of the governor's race: "Do I think I could have won the race? Yes, I do. The people of Texas know me, and I think they know I'll always try to do what's right."

And telling the Associated Press that the prospect of a fight isn't what kept her out of the contest: "If we're going to be the party of power, we can't say a person is anointed for as long as they want to stay."

U.S. Chief Justice William Rehnquist, writing for the majority in a decision that allows Texas to keep a stone monument featuring the Decalogue on the grounds of the Capitol: "Of course, the Ten Commandments are religious — they were so viewed at their inception and so remain. The monument therefore has religious significance. Simply having religious content or promoting a message consistent with a religious doctrine does not run afoul of the Establishment clause."

Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, telling The Dallas Morning News that he will accept a pay raise that was included in the state budget though some of his fellow statewide officeholders are running from it: "I think I've earned my keep."

Lee Deviney, the chief financial officer for the Texas Lottery, talking to the Austin American-Statesman about being fired after pointing out that lottery sales wouldn't cover the advertised jackpot amounts: "It's entirely possible people at the lottery wanted to get rid of me for other reasons. But the timing is awfully suspicious."

Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, in the House Ways & Means Committee: "Mr. Chairman, I don't think we ought to consider press releases from competing governor candidates." Rep. Allan Ritter, D-Beaumont: "Aw, why not?"

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Texas Weekly: Volume 22, Issue 5, 4 July 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 Texas Supreme Court gets its sixth school finance case in 20 years Lawyers for the state told the eight justices on the Texas Supreme Court that the Legislature -- not the court -- is the final arbiter of whether the state's schools are providing adequate educations to the children of Texas. The issue simply doesn't belong to the courts, and that's that. If the courts don't take the same position, the argument goes, they've left law behind and ventured into policy matters that are, according to the state's reading of the Texas Constitution, the sole discretion of the Legislature. Lawyers who are suing the state say the Legislature has trapped schools between rising standards and tight budgets, denying them the ability to raise the resources they need to meet the goals that have been set for the schools. They said the state's accreditation system holds students accountable for test scores without holding school districts and the state fully accountable for the performance of the schools, creating the appearance of improvement without measuring whether the system is providing the "general diffusion of knowledge" required by the constitution. The judges kicked that around, asking how bad the schools could get without judicial intervention, why they can't set a standard for adequacy just like they do in other areas, why the state says the school districts are asking the court to order lawmakers to spend more money, and whether the schools have to fail before legal remedies are available. They asked whether knowledge is being generally diffused when dropout rates are high and the state ranks near the bottom in the percentage of students who go on to college after high school. They asked whether the districts really have legal standing to sue, and why their side doesn't include any parents of school children or the children themselves. They wanted to know whether the school districts can ask for relief when the students -- and not the districts -- are possibly getting a raw deal. The court asked the lawyers on both sides whether the state's cap on local property tax rates had become a de facto state property tax, which isn't allowed by the constitution. They asked whether removing the cap on property taxes would solve that constitutional problem even though it might be unpopular. They asked policy questions, pushing the school district lawyers to guess at whether their positions represent the views or desires of parents with kids in schools. They asked those lawyers whether evidence of steady progress on test scores is evidence that the schools have adequate resources to do their work. They wanted to know whether districts that are both small and poor would do better if they were merged into larger and richer districts. The question with posting government records on the Internet is like the line in W.P. Kinsella's book Shoeless Joe (the movie was titled Field of Dreams): If you build it, will they come? A test: The Texas Supreme Court's eight remaining justices heard arguments in the school finance case, and you can listen to the whole show by clicking on a link at the court's own website. Go to: www.supreme.courts.state.tx.us/oralarguments/audio_2005h.asp. The case you want is titled "NEELEY, ET AL, v. WEST ORANGE COVE, ET AL" and the audio link is reached by clicking on the case number you'll see on the left on that site. Want something to read while you're listening? Case files are also online: www.supreme.courts.state.tx.us/ebriefs/files/20050145.htm. 

What do you call the student who finishes last in medical school? A doctor. And what do you call legislation that passes by just one vote? A law, or one step closer to it. The House passed the tax bill to support its school finance package by one vote, after a recount, with House Speaker Tom Craddick voting, and with his floor folks throwing what weight they have left in a legislative body weary of voting on tax bills that don't seem to go anywhere. Final approval came a day later, and was, in comparison, a landslide. The bill passed by five votes. That tax legislation isn't a law yet, but it moved the ball over to the Texas Senate, which will have it on a high-speed train by the time you read this. The legislation survived for a week after being passed by the House Ways & Means Committee, overcoming fears that it would be whittled to death by lobbyists and trade groups and taxpayers over the holiday weekend. What came out of the House is pretty much what the committee approved. It includes: • A one-cent increase in the sales tax, to 7.25 percent. • An increase in sales taxes on motor vehicles and boats to 7.35 percent from the current 6.25 percent. • Expanding the sales tax to include car repairs, bottled water, and certain types of computer programming. • A $1 increase in the tax on cigarettes. • A fresh attempt to close two loopholes that allow companies to avoid corporate franchise taxes by hiding most of their operations in partnerships and out-of-state affiliates. • And a requirement that car sellers use Blue Book values when figuring taxes instead of whatever they claim the price to be. All of that would buy a cut in local property tax rates. The money raised by the tax bill, supporters say, would allow them to cut local school property taxes to $1.23 per $100 valuation the first year and to $1.12 the second year. The current cap on those taxes is $1.50. If voters approve, it would also cover the costs of raising the state-mandated homestead exemption on those taxes to $22,500 from $15,000. That's on its way to the Senate, which has different ideas. But there is more than a week left in the special session, and advocates of this "School Finance Lite" package say there's still time to get a smaller version of the reforms that eluded lawmakers during the regular session. 

The state's Health and Human Services Commission will close 99 offices and fire 2,900 people over the next 16 months in an attempt to save $646 million it now spends delivering services to people on Medicaid, CHIP, TANF and other state and federal programs. Much of that estimated savings -- a five-year number, by the way -- is supposed to come from privatization. A private company, Accenture, will run four call centers that will handle client traffic over the Internet, by phone, by fax, by regular mail, and in person. Add Midland -- hometown of House Speaker Tom Craddick -- to the list of three locations for those centers. Two will be in central Texas -- in Austin and in San Antonio -- and another will be located in East Texas. The location of that East Texas center is still up in the air, though, according to officials with HHSC. Accenture and the agency are looking at three places: Longview, Athens, and Kilgore. In addition to the four statewide call centers, HHSC will have 167 fulltime offices around the state and another 44 "satellite" offices open only during certain days of the week. But 99 offices are closing and their employees will likely have to relocate to keep jobs with the state or as private sector workers for the new state contractor. The employee math works like this. HHSC has 5,800 people working in eligibility jobs for programs like Medicaid, Children's Health Insurance Program, and long-term care. About half of them -- 2,900 -- will lose their state jobs. Accenture is hiring 2,500 people, most of whom will work in the new call centers, and the company, according to HHSC, is giving hiring preference to the displaced state workers. The state, meanwhile, is looking for about 2,500 new people for adult and child protective services. Those hires weren't in the original plan, but after the state understaffing and lax enforcement led to abuse and deaths of elders and children, lawmakers poured in money and ordered the agency to beef up its army of caseworkers. Whether either of those hiring options is viable for current employees is an open question. But it's not an immediate question. The "transition" starts in January, and will last about 10 months. It's entirely possible that someone working for the commission now will still be there in a year even if they're not in line for a job in the newly reorganized agency. The median tenure of those workers is 12 years, and HHSC plans to keep people partly on the basis of seniority and partly on the basis of whether they're willing to do whatever job is offered to them. The agency has a website that shows what's happening in every region of the state, so you can see what's changing in a given area. The address: www.hhs.state.tx.us/maps/listing.shtml. 

Imagine adding a city bigger than San Antonio or Dallas in just four years. Texas did. Only California has added more people than Texas since the 2000 census. The U.S. Census Bureau says there were 22,490,022 here on July 1, 2004, or 1,638,232 more people than four years earlier. For a little perspective, try this: If those people had created a new city for themselves instead of sneaking in here and there, it would be the second-largest city in Texas. It's enough to populate more than two congressional districts (at their current sizes), or 11 statehouse districts (with the same asterisk). California added 2.0 million. Florida grew by 1.4 million. No other states added more than a million (or were even close) and two places -- the District of Columbia and North Dakota -- lost population during the first four years of the decade. But those new Texans didn't form their own city. Three Texas cities were among the 20 fastest-growing cities in the country. San Antonio added 84,978, and ranked fourth nationally. Fort Worth added 61,988 residents -- ranking it fifth on the fast growth list. And Houston added 55,743, enough to get it to sixth place on the national list. The top three were Los Angeles, New York City, and Phoenix. Dallas and Austin each added about 21,000 people -- about the same as Brownsville and behind places like El Paso (+28,442), Arlington (+26,505), Laredo (+25,812), and Plano (+23,397). Last on the numbers beat, the ten biggest cities in the state: Houston (2,012,626), San Antonio (1,236,249), Dallas (1,210,393), Austin (681,804), Fort Worth (603,337), El Paso (592,099), Arlington (359,467), Corpus Christi (281,196), Plano (245,411), and Garland (217,176). 

A group of Texas Democrats moves their candidate selection, complete with arguments pro and con, online. A new website, www.stepuptexas.com, is trying to attract Democrats who'll nominate, endorse, and promise to work for candidates for Texas offices from the county level to the U.S. Congress. The name on the effort is Trei Brundrett, who's identified as an Austin software developer. They let visitors nominate and endorse candidates after providing contact information, and encourage those endorsers to pledge time and money to the people they support. In early returns, Chris Bell had a three-to-one lead over John Sharp in the small sampling of "votes" in the governor's race (others with mentions: Lance Armstrong, Kinky Friedman, Paul Hobby, Ann Richards, and Roy Spence). The handful of Democrats who've shown up so far have put four names in the column for U.S. Senate, four more for Lite Guv, three for attorney general, two for comptroller (including Republican Carole Keeton Strayhorn, the incumbent). 

The state needs a budget by August 1, according to the comptroller, or it'll face a potentially expensive financial hiccup. The state borrows money every year on Wall Street to cover its cash needs while it's waiting for tax money to roll in. The state also pays the money back quickly; it's strictly a cash flow loan. The instruments are called TRANs -- Texas Revenue Anticipation Notes. Bond firms lend the money for a short period, the state makes its payments to schools and employees and all that on time, and when the tax money gets here, the state pays off the notes. It's not a big drama, but it is a lot of money -- $6 billion to $7 billion. The borrowing usually takes place on September 1, and Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn sent a letter to other state leaders telling them the bond folks will want to know the outcome of the school finance budget by August 1. In the letter, addressed to the governor, the lieutenant governor and the speaker of the House, she says the bond rating agencies have told her office they won't provide ratings for the TRANs until they've seen a final state budget, including education. Without the ratings, the notes can't be sold. Gov. Rick Perry's veto of the public education budget, she says, makes it appear that the state has more than $30 billion in its purse, an amount that makes it difficult to justify borrowing a bunch of cash. Strayhorn says the borrowing can be delayed, but that a delay might raise the costs of the TRANs issue for this year. State leaders hope to finish the special session, and the budget and school finance with it, within the next two weeks. 

Gov. Rick Perry added limits on eminent domain to the agenda for the special legislative session, giving some oxygen to an issue that seems to have more Texans talking than the Number One issues: public education and property tax relief. This is a touchy subject. The current outcry stems from a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that says, in essence, that a government can use its powers of eminent domain on behalf of developers building a private project (a mall) that has a greater public value than whatever it's replacing (homes, for instance). The Legislature already has bills in the mill that would add this to the November ballot: "The constitutional amendment to prohibit the state or a political subdivision from taking private property for the primary purpose of economic development or to benefit a particular class of identifiable individuals." The federal court was agreeing with the Connecticut Supreme Court when it said the city had the right to condemn the properties for a redevelopment project over the objections of holdout property owners. Eminent domain has been around for a long, long time, but this case hit a nerve. On one end of this are people from across the political spectrum who think it's outrageous to let developers wreck neighborhoods to build shops, even if the shops will bring in skads of sales taxes and the developers have to pay the homeowners fair market value for their property. On the other, think of all those projects that get built by public/private partnerships in the name of economic development, like stadiums and arenas and airports and roads. Either way, it'll keep lawyers busy. If you're so inclined, you can look at the Supreme Court's opinion by clicking on its title ? Kelo v. City of New London. 

Two of the men indicted by a Travis County grand jury last year on money-laundering charges have been re-indicted, but only because prosecutors wanted to change the wording of the charges against them.  John Colyandro and Jim Ellis are accused of illegally converting corporate money, which can't be used in elections, into money that could be used in elections. The indictments say the two, working for Texans for a Republican Majority PAC, or TRMPAC, sent $190,000 to the Republican National State Elections Committee, when then sent checks totaling that same amount to Texas candidates supported by TRMPAC. The word "check" in the original indictment is now replaced with references to "funds." Another campaign operative and eight corporations were also indicted last year, and four of the companies have gotten their charges dropped in return for telling what they know and also by contributing to an ethics program at the University of Texas that has become a pet project of Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle. Representatives of one of the indicted companies, Westar Energy of Kansas, were quoted in The Dallas Morning News saying the company gave the money to TRMPAC to gain access to its founder, U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land. According to the paper, Martha Dickie, an attorney for the company, said in an Austin hearing that Westar hoped to win DeLay's help with energy legislation in Washington. That grand jury, by the way, is a holdover. It was commissioned at the beginning of April to work on this and other cases for three months. Prosecutors say the term was extended for 90 more days, or through the end of September. That might turn out to be the last grand jury in a long procession that began with the 2002 elections. Prosecutors and grand juries have been working for more than two years on their suspicions that business and trade groups illegally coordinated their efforts with almost two dozen campaigns, and that some of those organizations, and their consultants, used corporate contributions in ways that are prohibited by state election laws. Most of the laws they're relying on carry three-year statutes of limitations, prosecutors have said, and so the deadlines fall between now and November.  

Henson takes another shot at the 3rd Court of Appeals Austin attorney Diane Henson, a Democrat, got 48.4 percent of the vote running for the Austin-based 3rd Court of Appeals last year. Republican Bob Pemberton, the incumbent, won that contest. Henson is taking another shot, this time for the seat that'll be left open when Bea Ann Smith opts against a reelection bid. Henson and Smith used to work together in an Austin law firm.  

The lowest reelection percentage turned in by a state senator last year was 57.1 percent -- hardly anything to worry over. And those senators aren't up for election again until 2008. But several House members won close races and could be called "Most Likely to Have Fine Reasons to Look Over Their Shoulders" while the Legislature is messing around with taxes and school finance. We pulled together a list of members who got elected after either a tight primary election and/or a runoff, a tight general election, or both. Rep. Charles "Doc" Anderson, R-Waco, had tight contests in March and November, for instance. So did Rep. David Leibowitz, D-San Antonio, who won a primary runoff and then, like Anderson, went on to beat an incumbent in November. A couple of caveats before you hit the list. The first is our version of the stockbroker's national anthem: Past performance is not necessarily related to future results. The second: Some of the races on the chart appear to be blowouts; in every such case, you'll find that the owner of the big number squeaked into a runoff and did well, but not without breaking a sweat. And one more: Some of the 2004 elections noted here were downright weird and probably won't be repeated. Several of the Democrats on the list were in tight races because they were running against incumbents. In the future, presumably, most of them won't start the next election cycle as underdogs. On the other hand, the elections were only seven months ago, and school finance is one of those touchy issues that's both important to voters and politically treacherous to solve.

 

Texas Democrats need to shake off the "Austin insiders," stop trying to "out-Republican the Republicans" and make education the centerpiece of their campaigns, Chris Bell writes in a speech prepared for a party meeting this weekend.  Bell, a former congressman and city councilman from Houston, says the State Democratic Executive Committee needs to try something new: "First, we can't afford another two years in which the people in this room are treated like props while Austin insiders pick our nominees like they're casting another sequel to Cannonball Run." He takes a couple of swipes at Gov. Rick Perry, and says the Democrats should take in moderate Republicans who Perry "is trying to kick out of the [Republican] Party" and "independents who are getting scared about what's going on." Bell, who's exploring a gubernatorial race but hasn't decided whether he'll run next year, takes a whack at "test-driven" education and suggests putting "principals and teachers back in control of schools and classrooms, give them textbooks that aren't censored by partisan ideologues, the materials they need to teach, [and] the technology needed for kids to learn." And he saves some harsh words for his own party: "We've tried to out-Republican the Republicans, and all we've gotten for it is a demoralized base, demoralized donors, demoralized activists, and demoralized leaders... our struggle is to build a majority party that articulates a positive vision of the future that unites the majority of Texans, and we do this by talking about Democratic values, not abandoning them at the first report of gunfire." He apparently plans to make a decision about whether to run within a month.  

The Texas Lottery's fourth director, like each of his predecessors, leaves amidst controversy. UP DATE: His number two will fill in while a replacement search is underway. Reagan Greer hung in for a week at the Texas Lottery Commission, but the agency's executive director resigned late on a Friday afternoon. Cause of death: The agency exaggerated the size of its jackpots at least four times in an attempt to boost sales. Winners on those occasions -- had there been winners on those occasions -- would have been entitled to lower-than-advertised winnings. Greer, a Republican who lost his bid for reelection as Bexar County's district clerk before joining the lottery, wasn't accused of making the decisions on the jackpots, but he's the head guy and took the blame for it. The lying about jackpots was compounded by the agency's firing of its chief financial officer. Lee Deviney was let go for unspecified reasons, but the public facts lead to questions: He recently got a good job review, and he's also the guy who blew the whistle inside the agency on the jackpot inflation. Gary Grief, the number two guy at the Texas Lottery, will be acting executive director while the search is on for that agency's fifth top boss. The agency's chairman, Tom Clowe, plans to put together a special board that will sort through resumes for a new director. And the commissioners have decided that one of them will have to sign off on prize estimates, expanding the board's role in setting policy to include some of the actual day-to-day operations of the lottery.