Robyn's on vacation and I just got back and it turns out that things have been so slow that some of the blogs are blogging about how slow it is. We can't bring ourselves to link to that, so here's a go at what's Out There at the moment...

* * * * *

Road Trips

Toll roads and Trans-Texas corridors are getting attention on the blogs, if not in the big papers and on TV. Eye on Williamson is one of the leaders on this, with a string of posts tied to extensive public hearings conducted by the state's highway promoters. That blogger is an aginner on this stuff, so read with that in mind. Still, this is an issue you'll hear about in the Guv's race and some others. Start here, and click on "Road Issues" in the post for more entries.

* * * * *

No Parking

State parks have bubbled up in politics, government, and in the blogs. The idea that some of the Big Bend might be sold off by the General Land Office got some juices stirring over at B&B, where they called out Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson as a bender of the truth. He says he's not talking about selling any of the area known as the Black Gap, and says the only group that was interested wanted to keep it as a natural area anyhow.

That hooks back to last week's press conference by Democratic consultant Glenn Smith, and it also shows up on the web at Drive Democracy's site; Smith is one of the guiding lights there, so there's some self-made echo in all this. And Capitol Annex's take on the whole thing — with a similar slant — links back to newspaper accounts of the Big Bend land.

* * * * *

New School

Scott Bennett of DallasBlog posted a bit about former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk encouraging state Rep. Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas, to run for mayor. And while they're banging that around, they point readers to Anchia's page on MySpace, which makes us wonder if there are any other politicos using the social networking sites to keep their names in public.

* * * * *

Quit? And Give Up Show Biz?

On Blogcritics, Dave Nalle says Democrat Chris Bell should drop out of the Guv's race in deference to Kinky and Carole. And if he stays in, according to Nalle, he'll finish fourth in that five-person contest. He starts with a SurveyUSA poll that has Perry at 35 percent and the next three in a sack-race at 19, 20, and 21 percent; which is which is interchangeable since that two-point spread is smaller than the +/- 4.2 percent margin of error. Nalle's theory — and at this point, it's an assertion without any buttressing evidence — is that one or more of the three has to leave for Perry to lose reelection, and he's got his eye on Bell. Strayhorn wouldn't beat Perry, either, he says, but Friedman might.

* * * * *

The 65% Solution

On his eponymous blog, Mike Fallick says he's no fan of proposals to cap non-classroom spending in schools at 35 percent, but he says the final version of the rule issued by the Texas Education Agency is better than expected. He goes on at length about it, but concludes there's enough wiggle room left for districts that have problems squeezing through the cookie-cutter.

* * * * *

Details, Details

Richard Garcia — who's running for Harris County Treasurer on the promise that he'll kill the office if he wins — got a bump from a low-budget strategy: He sent his web ad to bloggers. They blogged it — you can see it here on Off the Kuff — driving business to his AbolishTheOffice.com website. But, as Homer Simpson would say, "D'oh!" The website is a placeholder. It's not up and running yet. He'll face Republican Orlando Sanchez in November.

---

Ross Ramsey wrote this edition so Robyn can enjoy a vacation away from the Internet (we think). She'll return soon. And now, our standard signoff:

Robyn Hadley cherry-picks the state's political blogs each week, looking for news, info, gossip, and new jokes. Robyn, a veteran of both journalism and the state Capitol, is the owner of Capitol Crowd, a networking site for people who work in and around state government. The opinions she quotes belong to the bloggers, and we're including their links so you can hunt them down if you wish. Please send comments, suggestions, gripes or retorts to Robyn at robyn@capitolcrowd.com, or to Texas Weekly editor Ross Ramsey, at ramsey@texasweekly.com.

A merger that's been talked about for years — between the Austin bureaus of the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News — is finally a done deal. Those are the two biggest Texas papers in the Hearst Corp. chain (which also includes the Beaumont Enterprise, the Laredo Morning Times, the Midland Reporter-Telegram, and the Plainview Herald). They've already merged in terms of content; the San Antonio crew will move into an expanded office when the contractors are done in a month or so.

It's not, at this point, an attempt to save money, though the general trend in the news business is to shrink payrolls whenever possible. That's not a prediction of what might happen here, just an observation of what's going on in the rest of the industry, especially in subject areas that are relatively weak attractions for readers, like politics and government.

The new bureau has serious reporting chops and decades of institutional memory. The Chronicle's Clay Robison will be bureau chief; San Antonio's Peggy Fikac will be deputy chief. Everybody else from both bureaus stays on: Janet Elliott, Polly Ross Hughes and R.G. Ratcliffe from the Chronk, and Gary Scharrer and Lisa Sandberg from the E-N. Lisa Falkenberg works in the Chronicle's Austin bureau, but doesn't regularly cover government or politics.

The merger creates a powerhouse bureau — only The Dallas Morning News , with six reporters in Austin, is comparable in size — but also reduces competition for news in state politics. While Hearst might have been wondering why they were paying two reporters to cover the same events, the subjects of that coverage were getting one more nosy inquisitor than they'll get in the future.

In that sense, it continues a long trend in this and other statehouse reporting corps. Where there were once four or five television news bureaus in Austin from Dallas and Houston, there are now none. Just a few years ago, the Capitol was covered by two wire services, eight big city papers, three or four radio outlets, and a handful of bureaus representing smaller newspaper chains. Now, in order, the corresponding numbers are one, three, two, and zero.

Blogs are new to the mix, but most are partisan by design. And there are four newsletter/Internet outlets in the mix, including this one. At one time in the mid- to late-1980s, there were twice that many.

A state sales tax refund to "a large direct pay taxpayer" will cost the City of Stafford more than $2.5 million — a stunning bit of news for a municipality with an annual budget of about $20 million.

State Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn's office sent the city a letter saying a big taxpayer in that town overpaid its sales taxes from January 1995 through the end of 2003. The city got $2,557,340.98 more than it was due in those years, according to the letter and, as a result, has to pay it back to the state, which will pay it back to the taxpayer along with the sales tax money that went into the state's purse.

The taxpayer wasn't named in the letter. That's customary since the secrecy of tax records is protected by law. And neither the comptroller's office nor the City of Stafford would identify the taxpayer.

Taxpayers, of course, have the right to disclose almost anything they want about their business, and based on public documents, the taxpayer in this case appears to be Texas Instruments. That Dallas-based company makes chips in Stafford. And it reported a $57 million refund on state taxes from semiconductor sales in its second quarter financial reports, enough to add $.03 to the company's earnings per share for the quarter ended June 30. "Our tax refund was from the state of Texas," said Sharon Hampton, a spokeswoman for the company.

Stafford's local sales tax is two cents; the state's share is 6.25 cents; based on the assessment to the city, that means the total refund for that one plant totaled $10.5 million. TI has facilities in several other Texas cities like Richardson and Sherman that might, depending on the locations of the company's sales, could also be on the comptroller's dunning list. Our inquiries about those cities were pending at our deadline.

Leonard Scarcella, who's been Stafford's mayor since 1969 (that's no typo), is flabbergasted by the state's assessment. "We have done everything in our power, played by all the rules... now we find ourselves penalized by things beyond our control."

Scarcella, a tax attorney by trade, says it's unusual for the comptroller's office to go back more than four years in a case like this unless it's been going on for some time. If it's an old case, he says, the state never let the city know it was spending revenue that was being contested by the taxpayer. He takes care not to point to any particular taxpayer, but says he didn't get a heads up from the company involved and would have appreciated one.

Others familiar with state tax law and procedures say it's common to "leave the statutes open" for large taxpayers, both for overpayments than benefit them and for underpayments that benefit the state. On average, that's beneficial to both sides.

And the state's terms for local governments caught off-guard by refunds amount to interest-free loans. State tax collectors generally give local governments years to pay these things back, and Scarcella says someone on the city staff pointed out the bright side — that the city got the use of $2.5 million it wasn't really entitled to. But, he says, $2.5 million is a lot to swallow. "Let's say it was $50,000. I'd still be irritated that they kept the statute open for 11 years, but it would be something we could absorb."

Stafford has the distinction of being the biggest city in Texas without a local property tax. They have one for schools, but not for the city government. Scarcella says sales taxes bring in about $12.5 million annually, and the rest of the budget is funded with money from other sources.

He's concerned about the city's bond rating. If the state can pull back money that's already come in, the bond folks might wonder whether the income reported by a city is real and stable, he says. He's miffed that the city had no say in the negotiations that apparently took place between the comptroller and the taxpayer.

The city's lawyers and finance people are poring over the situation, but if they have to pay, Scarcella says they'll probably take ten years to do so. The state doesn't charge interest on these things, so that would amount to about $23,000 a month.

Meanwhile, a federal three-judge panel waited for arguments over the briefs and the maps filed by lawyers working on Texas congressional districts.The U.S. Supreme Court says the biggest geographic district in the state — Republican Henry Bonilla's CD-23 — is illegal and needs to be reworked. The judges are looking over maps from the state, from the American G.I. Forum, from Travis County, the League of United Latin American Citizens or LULAC, Texas Democrats, members of Congress and others involved in the suit.

The judges could adopt one of the maps drawn for their consideration or do their own artwork. The top-level anxieties for the political class center on how many districts they'll alter and on whether any sitting members will be paired with each other or drawn into territory where dangerous opposition waits. Bonilla and Democrat Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, for instance hope to avoid a pairing. The state's suggested plan would pair U.S. Reps. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, and Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, in a district that favors Smith (Doggett could run elsewhere but would have to move, eventually).

Any district that gets altered — even a little bit — will likely be subject to a new set of elections. Primaries run in March would be tossed aside in favor of special elections under new lines, if precedents on this sort of thing are followed. The proposed maps tinker with as few as four districts and as many as seven of the state's 32 congressional territories.

As with the DeLay case, state election officials hope the federal panel will make quick work of it, but federal judges don't have to follow any deadlines but their own.

Six federal judges have their mitts on two pieces of the state's congressional puzzle.One is whether Tom DeLay ought to be on the ballot in November. The other is over the maps used to elect members of Congress from the state.

And both arguments landed in the same week. Three judges from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans will decide whether the Republican Party of Texas has the legal right to replace DeLay on the ballot in November.

If you're new, or you've been on vacation, here's the short version: DeLay won a four-way GOP primary in March. He later announced he was resigning his congressional seat and moving his official residence to Virginia, which disqualifies him from serving in Congress as a representative of Texas' CD-22. The GOP moved to replace him on the ballot, but the Texas Democratic Party sued, saying DeLay can come off the ballot, but the GOP can't replace him.

A federal judge (appointed by a Republican president) agreed with that, saying the residency of a congressional candidate, under the U.S. Constitution, doesn't come into play until Election Day. That's not here yet, and DeLay is neither dead nor disabled, so the question of whether DeLay will be eligible on Election Day isn't ripe. DeLay himself testified in lower court that he didn't know where he'd be that day.

The Republicans appealed to the 5th Circuit. A three-judge panel heard the arguments — including the argument that state election officials really, really hope for a quick answer — and set out to make a decision. It's their timetable now.

One of several Travis County grand juries that looked into corruption in campaigns and government in Texas ended its business earlier this year with a two-page "report" to a state district judge complaining of vague state laws and a state Ethics Commission appointed by the people it's supposed to police.

The grand jurors were particularly irked by state regulations for financial disclosure by public officials. The law and the commission's interpretation of it allowed one lawmaker — they didn't attach the name — to list his occupation as a self-employed consultant without saying who was paying him for his consulting services. They wrote that "there was obvious misconduct on the part of the public official" but said they were unable to do anything about it because of that law and regulators' interpretation of it.

They were critical, too, of the makeup of the commission itself, especially the ties between the strictly bipartisan panel and the people who appoint them to regulate the people who appoint them. "It is incredible that the district attorney's office is thwarted in their efforts to prosecute public officials because they are allowed to hide behind the lax and vague codes of the Texas Ethics Commission," they wrote.

They ended by suggesting the state save some money by eliminating the agency and "redirect those dollars to more needy priorities."

That grand jury disbanded in February. You can find a copy of their report in our Files section.

All sorts of stuff happened while we were out. But the political season won't be fully engaged until September, people are on vacation, and a lot of the news can be rolled out radio-style — short and sweet. To wit:

• The Texas Debates — gubernatorial face-offs sponsored by KERA-TV in Dallas — are set for October 5. Attendance isn't yet set and the kvetching over that will likely take up a couple of week's time in September.

• Attorney General Greg Abbott's decision to join the GOP's side of the Tom DeLay's ballot-swapping case bugged everyone on the left except for the lawyers who argued the case. "He's got every right to do that," said Cris Feldman. "But he didn't make the right arguments." Abbott's aides say he was defending the state law that would allow DeLay to be replaced.

• Scuttlebutt from Gov. Rick Perry's reelection camp is that the goal is to win with more than 50 percent of the vote. They're confident enough about the race, what with three other candidates splitting most of the not-Perry vote. But it's difficult to find political pros in either camp who think anyone can break out and get more than half the vote. And for the umpteenth time, if you're asked, there are no runoffs in general elections. Whoever gets the most votes wins. Theoretically, with five candidates in the race, the next governor of Texas could get in with 21 percent of the vote. Theoretically.

• State Rep. Carl Isett, R-Lubbock, phoned in his latest fundraiser, calling from his post in the Middle East to yack for 20 minutes with people gathered in Austin to contribute to his reelection campaign. His wife, Cheri Isett, took his spot in the Legislature during the special session on school finance, and stood in at the funder, too. He's in the Navy Reserve, posted in Kuwait until next month.

• As the hottest part of the U.S. election season begins — and with border and immigration issues leading voter interest in many polls, the governors of the ten states that touch the U.S.-Mexico border will meet in Austin. The Border Governors Conference includes the four states from this side — Texas, Arizona, California, and New Mexico — and the six from the Mexican side —Baja, Coahuila, Chihuahua, Nuevo Leon, Sonora, and Tamaulipas.

• On the same day it announced the academic rankings of Texas schools, the Texas Education Agency named the members of a board that will investigate testing "anomalies" at school campuses and districts around the state. You'll find the members of the panel in Political People further down. As for the campuses and districts, the numbers rose on both ends. There are more exemplary districts than last year — that's the top rating — and more academically unacceptable ones, too. That's the bottom ranking. The good grew faster than the bad, though, with 555 campuses, up from 304 a year ago. The number of stinkers grew to 321 from 264. Most public school students in the state are in places rated acceptable, recognized or exemplary. Almost one in 20 (4.7 percent) are in schools or districts with unacceptable ratings. You'll find charts and tables galore at www.tea.state.tx.us/perfreport/account/.

• Public Strategies Inc., the Austin-based public affairs firm founded by Jack Martin and a small group of fellow political operatives, is being purchased by a global outfit called WPP. All involved say the Austin firm will operate independently. WPP also owns other firms with presences in the state capital: Burson-Marsteller, and GCI.

• Watching the freebie Internet polls over the last few weeks has been like the fifth-grade project where you watch the worms squirm around in the bottom of a Styrofoam cup. After a while, it's more interesting to the worms. But the trend is solid, more or less, with Gov. Rick Perry sitting in front and the three main challengers — Democrat Chris Bell and independents Kinky Friedman and Carole Keeton Strayhorn — in a lockup somewhere around 20 percent. Libertarian James Werner, when he's included in the polls, registers far behind in the position customary to his party (so far) in Texas politics.

Rasmussen talked to 500 Texas voters, finding 40 percent for Perry, Strayhorn at 20, Friedman at 19 and Bell at 13. Side interest: That poll has Perry's job rating at 56 percent; George W. Bush got 53 from those same Texans.

The Wall Street Journal/Zogby poll has Perry at 38.3, Bell at 20.8, Friedman at 20.7, and Strayhorn at 11. In the U.S. Senate race, they've got Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison at 52.2 and Democrat Barbara Ann Radnofsky at 36.7 percent. They're a little sloppy over there; the write-up on the governor's race was never updated after the special session on school finance and they're still dinging Perry for the failed sessions that preceded it.

• Van Taylor, the Republican challenging U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, got a media and fundraising visit from U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Illinois. That's a target seat for the GOP, which wants to knock off the Democrat who represents George W. Bush (and everybody else in Crawford) in Congress.

• The Texas Supreme Court named a task force to study improvements in jury selection. Judge David Peebles of San Antonio will oversee it. They'll look at everything from voter and driver rolls used to call jurors to the excuses people use to get out of juries to you name it. Recommendations are due in December, in time for the court to ask lawmakers for any changes that might follow.

• Gov. Perry picked up reelection endorsements from a group of South Texas mayors: Rene Castillo of La Villa, Richard Cortez of McAllen, John David Franz of Hidalgo, Kevin Hines of Rio Grande City, Ric Morales of Donna, Polo Palacios of Pharr, Ramiro Rodriguez of Palmhurst, Rick Rodriquez of Harlingen, Norberto "Beto" Salinas of Mission, Ramiro Silva of Edcouch, and Omar Vela of Progresso.