A state sales tax refund to "a large direct pay taxpayer" will cost the City of Stafford over $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, and neither the comptroller's office nor the City of Stafford would name it. That's customary: the secrecy of tax records is protected by law.

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.

The Wheels of Justice

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.

When the "P" in "G.P.S." Stands for "Political"

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.

The Shrinking Media

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 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.

Mission Accomplished

Put us in the minority on this one, but it looks like Carole Keeton Strayhorn might have drummed up enough free coverage on TV and in the papers and on radio talk shows to connect her old "One Tough Grandma" slogan to her newish moniker.

Strayhorn dropped her lawsuit to get "Grandma" inserted on the ballot as her nickname. But the fight to that point got a ton of coverage, giving everybody the opportunity to connect the new name with the better-known slogan.

You can find lots of folks — particularly in the sealed political terrarium of Austin — who'll tell you she looked silly in pursuit of the nickname and that nobody bought it. That'll be apparent, one way or another, when the campaigns are over in 100 days or so.

Strayhorn and her political advisors have said all along that her numbers "go up ten points" when "Grandma" is included in the mix. Their best outcome would have been getting the name on the ballot. But they've been careful to roll out every twist and turn in the story for maximum coverage, and that's the second best outcome they settled for.

Strayhorn dropped the name hunt when a judge in Austin said jurisdiction belonged with another court. Rather than keep it up, Strayhorn — most recently elected with the last name Rylander — announced she'll move on down the road.

Frustrated Inquisitors

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.

The Dog Days of Summer

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.

Political People and Their Moves

Check off the box next to Vilma Luna's name — rumors, reported here and elsewhere, that she was signing with Hillco Partners turned out to be true. She and her family are moving to Austin and she'll be working with Buddy Jones, Bill Miller, et al before Labor Day. Luna's last day in the Texas House was July 31; the Corpus Christi Democrat — a key member of Republican House Speaker Tom Craddick's leadership team — first took office in 1993.

Did schools or teachers help students cheat on standardized tests? That's the question for a special panel appointed by Texas Education Commissioner Shirley Neeley. She wants five people to look at "alleged testing anomalies." They are: Dallas education consultant Carol Francois, a former associate commissioner at TEA; Texas Association of Business CEO Bill Hammond; Sylvia Hatton of Edinburg, executive director of the Education Service Center there; George McShan of Harlingen, a retired dean at Texas State Technical College and former president of the Texas Association of School Boards and The National School Boards Association; and A.J. Rodriguez, chairman of the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Olga Garza of Austin, a consultant and former school board member there, will by the coordinator for what's officially called the Commissioner's Task Force on Test Security.

Mark Borskey is leaving the governor's office, where he worked as a legislative liaison, for the lobby, where he'll do the same kind of work for private-sector clients. He'll do some work on his own, and some in cahoots with Ron Lewis and Patricia Shipton. He'll remain a government guy until the end of this month. That leaves the legislative shop empty; Victoria Ford, as we've mentioned before, is also going to the private sector lobby. Most rumors for the last several months have had Sen. Ken Armbrister, D-Victoria, moving over to run that office (he's not seeking reelection), but no hires have been announced.

Rena Pederson, the former editorial page editor at The Dallas Morning News, is going to work for Karen Hughes in the Bush Administration. Hughes works on "public diplomacy" in the State Department; according to that agency's website, she has been "tasked by President Bush with leading efforts to promote America's values and confront ideological support for terrorism around the world."

Blake Hawthorne is the new clerk for the Texas Supreme Court. He's been a staff attorney there and a former assistant attorney general. He'll replace Andrew Weber, who left after four years in the post to return to his private law practice.

Kerri Davidson is leaving the Pink Building, where she's worked for ten years for Rep. Edmund Kuempel, R-Seguin, for the Texas Youth Commission. She'll be the new chief of staff there.

Ron Urbanovsky, who ran the crime lab for the Texas Department of Public Safety, retired after 37 years at that agency and plans to raise cows. Pat Johnson, who was field laboratories manager, will replace him at the crime lab.

Joel McKinney, currently a DPS captain in Garland, is getting a promotion to major and will be the new head cop at the Texas Capitol. Major Morris Arnold, who had that job until now, will be the commander in Region 4, which in English means he's going home to West Texas.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst appointed Barkley Stuart, an exec with Glazer's Distributors in Dallas, to the board of the Texas Building and Procurement Commission. Glazer's is a liquor and wine distributor; Stuart's the executive veep and COO there.

Indicted: Priscilla Slade, former president of Texas Southern University, and three other formal officials, on charges related to using university money for Slade's private benefit. Quintin Wiggins, the former CFO, Bruce Wilson, the former Senior VP for Administration, and Frederick Holts, a senior safety system engineer, were also named.

Recovering: Mina Brees, a Democrat running for the 3rd Court of Appeals in Austin, after a heart attack at home and surgery that followed that. She's challenging Judge David Puryear.

Quotes of the Week

Publicist Ken Hoagland, talking about Houston homebuilder Bob Perry and Hoagland's client, San Antonio Dr. James Leininger, in The Dallas Morning News about why the two political financiers have gone public: "What they have in common is both men want to improve the world that has given them such success. They're not off skiing and using their money for entertainment. They're trying to make the world better, and have come to realize that their public policy opponents can frustrate those passions if they don't explain themselves."

Federal appeals Judge Pete Benavides, during the hearing on whether Tom DeLay can be replaced on the GOP's congressional ballot because of his change in residency, quoted in the Houston Chronicle: "I lost a campaign for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals when my opponent was in Europe, but he was still a resident of Texas."

Republican consultant Royal Masset, in the San Antonio Express-News on a redistricting map proposed by the state: "There's no way in God's creation that the judges are going to approve a Republican map that doesn't have any Democratic congressmen in Travis County."

Dallas political consultant Clayton Henry, talking to The Dallas Morning News on Carole Keeton Strayhorn's working for support in the Dallas suburbs: "She's got strength, she's got money and she's one pissed-off grandma. This is a voter-rich area for her."

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Chris Bell, asked by the Houston Chronicle about Arizona's idea of a $1 million lottery to encourage voter turnout: "It seems a little gimmicky and I would like to see people see it more as their civic duty, but that doesn't seem to have worked terribly well over the course of the last 25 years."

Gov. Rick Perry, in The Dallas Morning News on being knocked for talking to religious groups: "Critics would criticize me if I were speaking to the Busy Bee Quilting Club."

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Texas Weekly: Volume 23, Issue 7, 7 August 2006. Ross Ramsey, Editor. Copyright 2006 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 (512) 302-5703 or email biz@texasweekly.com. For news, email ramsey@texasweekly.com, or call (512) 288-6598.

Republican legislative candidates had more money on hand at mid-year than their Democratic counterparts, according to a compilation of campaign finance reports done by Republican consultant John Doner.

By his tally, 239 legislative candidates in Texas — that's just statehouse wannabes and not statewide or congressional or judicial aspirants — had $23,713,525 in the bank at mid-year. Within that group is a smaller group with opponents: 159 candidates who will face someone in November had $11,312,774 on hand at mid-year. That last number is another way of saying that candidates without November opponents are sitting on $12.4 million; unopposed candidates have more money in the bank than their colleagues who actually have contests.

It's entirely possible that the big bank accounts are what scares off the opposition. But a few candidate/officeholders have big accounts that skews the numbers a bit. Only three, for instance, were over the million-dollar mark, by Doner's count: House Speaker Tom Craddick, with $3 million in the bank, and Democratic Houston Sens. John Whitmire, at $2.5 million, and Rodney Ellis, at $1.5 million. Only seven have more than a half-million in the bank, including those three, Republican Sens. Jane Nelson of Lewisville, at $722,875, and Steve Ogden of Bryan, at $694,306, and Reps. Burt Solomons, R-Carrollton, at $630,450, and Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs, at $528,328. (Doner didn't rank them by balances, but we pulled those from his charts.)

Within those numbers, as you can see in Doner's introductory memo, Republicans have more money than Democrats, both in aggregate and on average. The biggest difference is found in the accounts of candidates with no opposition, as you'll see in his numbers.

Doner's stuff is in an Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) file you can get in the Files section of our website. Screen files follow (and you'll get the .pdf version by clicking on the images below).

Former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay R-Sugar Land, is telling the Associated Press he won't seek office in November. That leaves Democrat Nick Lampson on the ballot, and frees the way for any Republican candidate to gin up a write-in campaign without worrying over splitting the conservative vote with DeLay. Write-ins aren't the easiest campaigns in the world, but a combination of lots of money and a fair amount of free media — meaning news coverage — could make this an interesting race going forward. Sugar Land Mayor David Wallace is probably in, and we're still waiting to hear from others who had been interested in the contest. Republicans hope to knock Lampson out of the way and hang onto the seat held so far by the GOP. Short of that, they'd like to deplete the Democrat's campaign accounts — he reported more than $2 million on hand at mid-year — so that if Lampson prevails this time he'll have less in his financial armory to defend the seat in two years. DeLay resigned from office in June and changed his official residence to Virginia to try to make himself ineligible for the congressional ballot. That turned out to be unconstitutional. A candidate can get off the ballot after winning a party primary, but can't be replaced by his (or her) party. The courts read the constitution to say you have to be eligible on Election Day and that, barring death or disability, there's no way to tell whether you'll be ineligible until that day arrives.

An open records request sent to the comptroller's office turned up four letters, among other things, that went to the local government entities mentioned in our tax story: Dallas Area Rapid Transit, and the cities of Dallas, Sherman, and Stafford. Each included a line about "a large direct pay taxpayer," the amount in question, and a couple of boilerplate paragraphs about setting up payment schedules for the refunds (the state generally gives local governments a number of years — at no interest — to pay these things back).

Dallas' letter put the locally owed refund at $13.8 million. DART's was $13.2 million. Stafford, as we reported last week, is on the hook for $2.6 million, and the state wants the City of Sherman to repay $1.8 million. Those obligations total $31.3 million.

Their tax rates vary. Dallas and DART each levy a 1-cent tax. Stafford's local sales tax rate is 2 cents. Sherman's is 1.75 cents. In all cases, the state's rate is 6.25 cents. If you back out the numbers, using the local tax refund due and the local and state tax rates, you can figure out what the state got back, based on what it's demanding from the locals.

For instance, if Stafford, with a 2-cent sales tax, owes $2,557,340, then the state, with a 6.25-cent rate, over-collected $7,991,690. Texas Instruments' refund from that piece of this tax case, including the state and local sales taxes, was $10,549,031. The total for Sherman, figured up the same way, is $6,297,627. Dallas and DART present a particular problem: They overlap. Figured separately, the Dallas number would be $99.8 million and the DART number would be $95.6 million. Not all of DART is in Dallas, and vice-versa, and the comptroller's office didn't have those numbers handy when we called (they're working on it).

In the interest of caution, we kept the local sales tax number for the City of Dallas in our totals, but tossed the state sales tax number for the moment. Just assume, for now, that the DART collections for the state involved the same dollars collected for the city, and only count them once.

Without that Dallas number, the state owed Texas Instruments $96.7 million, in addition to the $31.3 million owed the company by the cities and DART. That means the state refunded TI at least $128.0 million, then went to the four local governments to get their share of the refund.

Sometimes you luck out. It happened to us in late June, when we pointed out a handful of congressional districts likely to change as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on Texas congressional maps. Our luck was borrowed — we conferred with smart people before writing "Five to Watch." In that article, we said the districts occupied by U.S. Reps. Henry Bonilla, R-San Antonio, Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, Ruben Hinojosa, D-Mercedes, and Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, were most likely to be redrawn in the courts. That turned out to be on the mark. The judges' order says candidates can file by August 25 to run in special elections in those five districts that'll be held on November 7, along with the general elections already set for that date. Those are open elections, with the possibility that more than one candidate from each party will show up, along with independents and third-party folk. Runoffs, if needed, would follow a month or so later. • Of the five, Bonilla, in CD-23, is most threatened by the map that came from a three-judge federal panel, but it would go too far to say he's cooked. It'll depend on the opponent, money, etc. His new district has a higher percentage of voting age Latinos, which answers the specific issue raised by the U.S. Supreme Court when they said the old map was illegal. It's also less Republican. In the 2002 gubernatorial year, Republicans got an average of 56.8 percent of the vote in his old district. Those same candidates in that same year got 49.3 percent of the votes in his new district. He added voters in his home of Bexar County, but lost Bandera, Kendall, Kerr, Real, and Webb counties. • Cuellar's CD-28 now includes all of Webb County, less of Bexar County, loses Comal and Hays, and adds Jim Hogg, Starr and part of Hidalgo counties. His territory is slightly more Democratic in gubernatorial years; his old district voted 58.9 percent Democratic in 2002 statewide races and the new one voted 63.4 percent. • Doggett, who would have been paired with Smith in the state's map, has his own district and it no longer connects Austin with the U.S.-Mexico border. It's significantly less Hispanic, and less Democratic than his current district. Democrats in statewide contests got 52.9 percent of the votes in 2002 in his new district, as against 69.8 percent in the old one. We've already heard speculation about whether a more conservative Democrat could mount a credible challenge in 2008. He lost the southern end of his district and got more of Travis County and some counties west of it. Drop Duval, Hidalgo, Jim Hogg, Karnes, Live Oak, and Starr. Add some or all of Bastrop, Colorado, Fayette, Hays, and Lavaca. • Hinojosa, in CD-15, won't visit four counties in his old district: Bastrop, Colorado, Fayette, and Lavaca. And he'll be adding three: Duval, Karnes, and Live Oak. The percentage of Latino voters in his district rises to 73 percent, and the new map is more Democratic than the old one; in the last gubernatorial election year, 2002, statewide Democrats got an average of 55.7 percent in his old district. In the new map, the Democratic percentage that year was 61.3. • Smith's district no longer will include Hays County, and has less of Travis. But he adds turf in Bexar and Comal, and picks up Bandera, Kendall, Kerr, and Real counties. Prefer a graphic look? See below or look in our Files section.

We have hold of a pollster's memo from Democrat Chris Bell's campaign and we'll start this by sharing two rules we like to follow when we get our mitts on such a thing, for whatever reason and from whatever source.1. Take it with a grain of salt. 2. Hurry up and read it. Bell's pollsters have Gov. Rick Perry at 38 percent, Bell at 18, Carole Keeton Strayhorn at 16, Kinky Friedman at 11 percent, and libertarian James Werner at one percent. What's more, they say everybody but Bell (and Werner) are dropping. Strayhorn dropped in every demographic, they say, "including her vaunted 'Grandma' demographic." She's running fourth in Austin, according to the Democrat's pollsters. Voters who've seen Bell's ads have him in a tie with Perry. Almost three in five give Perry a negative rating. Two in five, they say, give Friedman a negative rating. And they have some grains of salt of their own, pointing out that liberals and some Democrats are "tossing wasted votes to Strayhorn and Friedman." Perry himself, the pollsters say, "wins 17 percent of Anglo liberals." They close with a variation on what Bell's been telling Democrats since their state convention — that if they stick together and vote, they'll have the numbers to beat Perry. There's a money pitch in there, too, which addresses Bell's biggest hurdle at the moment. That campaign is running well behind Perry and Strayhorn in the finance department. The memo notes the "discouraged Democrats" in the donor community and suggests they're ignoring a change to knock off the incumbent.

Kay Bailey Hutchison told a couple of reporters in Austin that she'll debate Barbara Ann Radnofsky, but only once. That's a mirror of Gov. Rick Perry's acceptance of a debate in Dallas set for several weeks from now. He'll do it, but that's it. Perry's got the easier gig: More candidates on the dais means the time will fly. In an hour, each of the four candidates will get 15 minutes or less, and that'll be that. Three Senate candidates given an hour would split the clock into 20 minute segments.

No date has been set for the Senate candidates. The gubernatorial candidates will meet on October 6 in Dallas — that's the Friday night before the Texas-OU game, if you haven't got your calendar handy. Libertarian James Werner won't get in; the debate supervisors apparently think his visible support is too small to merit including him. The challengers in both races want more than one debate; the incumbents want to limit their exposure.

• The Financial Accounting Standards Board says the state's new business tax is, as far as accounting is concerned, an income tax. That's maddening to state officeholders who got it passed earlier in the year, which is fun, and it continues a war of definitions that began in the early 1990s when the current state franchise tax was enacted. It has an income component, too. This is safe: Neither is a tax on bottom-line income, and both can be owed by companies that have net losses in a given year. But the FASB pronouncement opens the door for political shots at the new tax.

• Kinky Friedman wants Travis County prosecutors to investigate whether Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn has used state employees or equipment to generate materials for her campaign. The official answer to these things is generally, "After the elections." Friedman's letter to District Attorney Ronnie Earle followed news reports about state-generated work finding its way into Strayhorn's political talks.

Gov. Rick Perry's campaign, meanwhile, generated a video that attacks Strayhorn for some of the same things, adding an allegation that she took a ride in a state vehicle to a campaign event. You can view it at www.rickperry.org/cks/OfficialBusiness.wmv. The comptroller's campaign, in response, said she hasn't abused state resources. They're not sure she took a state vehicle to the event in question, but say that if she did, "it's because she was doing state business on the way." That's known as spin, friends.

The two-and-a-half minute video itself is a curiosity; in showing that Strayhorn was making a political speech, the Perry camp left in a lot of her words. Blasting the Perry campaign.

• Here's a rule of thumb from the world of political spin: If it's good news, it comes from the officeholder/candidate. If not, not. Attorney General Greg Abbott's office argued for bigger redistricting changes that the federal panel was willing to draw. They didn't lose, exactly, but didn't win, either. And when it was over, the final statement came from... Jerry Strickland, who works in Abbott's press office.

• The newest Rasmussen poll has Gov. Rick Perry at 35 percent — that's apparently a low point in that particular survey — followed by Chris Bell, Carole Keeton Strayhorn, and Kinky Friedman all at 18 percent. That's a five-point gain for Bell, a small slip for the others, and a continuation of the trend in most of these polls; the three challengers are still splitting the anti-Perry vote into more or less equal shares.

• Karl Rove is the draw for a funder for the Associated Republicans of Texas, a group that knew him when. And the names on the invitations include all but a couple of the state's non-judicial statewide officeholders. The cheap seats are $200; tables go all the way up to $25,000 for ten. That's a Saturday night deal.

• From a Republican whose name you know comes an idea to get Tom DeLay off the ballot in a way that Republicans could replace him: Get Gov. Rick Perry to nominate him to a state office that disqualifies him as a congressional candidate. A Democrat whose name you know has a different way to the same end: DeLay would be disqualified and could be replaced by another Republican on the ballot if he would plead guilty to a pending felony indictment in Travis County.

The state's big newspapers had very different takes on school test scores.Here are headlines from the websites of several Texas daily newspapers — the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the Dallas Morning News, the San Antonio Express-News, the Austin American Statesman, and the Houston Chronicle — reporting on the recently released results from the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, or TAKS. 1. "Texas schools make gains in TAKS" 2. "State rankings give 28 percent of public schools two highest marks" 3. "... area schools soar in ratings" 4. "More Texas schools rated unacceptable" 5. "More... schools get top rankings" Obviously, four of those papers like to look at a glass as half full while the other definitely sees it as half empty. From the following information, can you match the headline with the newspaper? There was a dramatic increase in the number of Texas public schools earning the two highest rankings of "recognized" or "exemplary." The increase from 2005 was more than 50 percent, from 2,213 schools last year to 3,380 this year. There was also a slight increase in the number of schools rated "academically unacceptable," from 264 in 2005 to 321 this year. It should also be noted that the requirements for achieving "acceptable" status increased significantly for 2006. According to the Texas Education Agency, less than 5% of Texas' 4.4 million public school students attended a school rated academically unacceptable. Obviously that number must be reduced to 0%. In Dallas County, the Dallas Independent School District maintained its academically acceptable rating while the Richardson district received a recognized rating and the Highland Park district was rated exemplary. The DISD had 80 schools rated recognized or exemplary, an increase of 31 from the previous year. In a recent Newsweek survey, DISD had two high schools ranked among the top ten in the country. DISD's Talented and Gifted Magnet was ranked number one, and its Science and Engineering Magnet came in at number eight. In Bexar County, which includes San Antonio, twenty-one campuses were rated exemplary compared to just one in 2005. North East and Northside ISD's each earned recognized ratings. North East, which had four campuses rated unacceptable in 2005, had none in that category this year and had 31 schools rated recognized. Houston ISD, the state's largest district, more than doubled its recognized and exemplary schools. The district had 14 exemplary campuses compared to only 6 the year before and 61 recognized campuses compared to the previous year's 29. HISD's number of unacceptable campuses increased slightly from 31 to 33. Austin area districts also contributed to the list of high-performing schools. AISD had 6 exemplary campuses, 2 more than last year, and 23 recognized schools compared to 17 in 2005. Round Rock ISD had 70% of its campuses rated recognized or exemplary. The Fort Worth Independent School District more than doubled its number of recognized and exemplary schools from the previous year, going from fourteen in 2005 to thirty-two this year. How do the headlines match up with their respective papers? 1. "Texas schools make gains in TAKS" — Fort Worth Star-Telegram 2. "State rankings give 28 percent of public schools two highest marks" — Austin American Statesman 3. "S.A.-area schools soar in ratings" — San Antonio Express News 4. "More Texas schools rated unacceptable" — Dallas Morning News 5. "More HISD schools get top rankings" — Houston Chronicle It doesn't take a Pollyanna to see at least a little improvement in academic performance by Texas school children. Why does the Dallas Morning News choose to see the glass as half empty? Hopefully, any business executive thinking of relocating to Texas missed the Dallas Morning News' enticement.

Ken Zornes is a former Dallas ISD board member who now lives in Austin. You can reach him at kzornes13@hotmail.com.

Texas Weekly's Soapbox is a venue for opinions, spins, alternate takes, and other interesting stuff sent in by readers and others. We moderate submissions to keep crazy people out, and anonymous commentary is ineligible. Readers can respond (through the moderator) to things posted here. Got something to submit? We're interested in everything from full-blown opinion pieces to short bits to observations or tidbits that have escaped us and the mass media. One rule: Your name goes on your words. Call or send an email: Ross Ramsey, Editor, Texas Weekly, 512/288-6598, ramsey@texasweekly.com.

The poll of the minute has U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison leading Democratic challenger Barbara Ann Radnofsky by 30 points. Rasmussen Reports has the Republican at 61 percent and Radnofsky at 31 percent. That's a survey of 500 voters done August 3. Hutchison's better known than her opponent, and has higher favorable ratings with voters (43 percent vs. 8 percent). A July poll by Rasmussen had Hutchison ahead by 27 percentage points.

The Texas GOP can't replace Tom DeLay on the November ballot, according to the 5th U.S. Court of Appeals.Three judges from that court agreed with federal judge Sam Sparks of Austin: DeLay can't be replaced with another candidate unless he's ineligible on Election Day. They ruled after this week's newsletter went to bed. The opinion, in full, is in the Files section of the website (click on Files in the bar at the top of the screen). Texas Democrats crowed over the ruling. In a written statement, Republican Party of Texas Chair Tina Benkiser said the GOP will appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. UPDATE: The U.S. Supreme Court won't hear the appeal. Justice Antonin Scalia turned it down, leaving in place the ruling of the 5th Circuit. DeLay can take his name off of the ballot, but the GOP doesn't have the constitutional grounds to replace him with another candidate. Another candidate can mount a write-in campaign and try to win that way. Or DeLay can mount a real campaign, hoping to prevail over Democrat Nick Lampson. If DeLay could win that contest, he could always refuse to serve, setting up a special election that might be more agreeable to a fresh Republican face. But Lampson's the best-known candidate still in the race without any flies on him. DeLay wanted off the ballot for fear that his own political troubles could hurt him and other Republican candidates.

Tom DeLay's former mayor is running for the former House majority leader's seat in Congress. Update: He won't be alone.

Sugar Land Mayor David Wallace will run a write-in campaign, hoping to best Democrat Nick Lampson in November.

He'll be joined in that contest by Houston City Council member Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, who announced she'll also pursue a write-in effort.

That's daunting, at the least. They must to file with the Texas Secretary of State by August 29, either paying a $3,125 filing fee or submitting the signatures of 500 bona fide registered voters in the district on petitions by that same date. The names of eligible write-in candidates are posted at polling places and in the booths where people vote. As for misspellings and such, the election judges count anything if the voter's intention in clear. "M. Mouse" would likely count as a vote for Mickey Mouse, if he'd paid his fee, and so on.  

The write-in door is open to almost anyone. It's not open, however, to candidates who ran in the primaries and lost. That rules out three Republicans who ran against DeLay in March.

Steve Stockman, a former congressman who tried to get enough signatures to get on the ballot as an independent earlier this year — when DeLay was still in the hunt — apparently remains eligible as a write-in candidate. If he can get the signatures or the money together by August 29, he can get on the ballot.

Two House members — Reps. Charlie Howard, R-Sugar Land, and Robert Talton, R-Pasadena — were interested in taking DeLay's spot on the ballot. A spokesman for Texas Secretary of State Roger Williams said initially that candidates on the ballot for other offices would have to drop out of those races to file as write-in candidates in CD-22.

But lawyers for the SOS are taking another look at that issue.

If the SOS rules to their advantage, they'd be able to run as write-ins while also seeking reelection to the jobs they have now. Otherwise, they'd have to give up their reelection races to get into the congressional contest.

David Weber, until now the special counsel for policy development at the Texas Department of Insurance and before than an aide to House Speaker Tom Craddick, signed on with Gardere Wynne Sewell in that firm's legislative and regulatory affairs shop.

Brian Todd Hoyle of Longview will join the 12th Court of Appeals for the rest of the year (until the elections). He was in private practice until Gov. Rick Perry tapped him for that spot. Diane DeVasto left the court to go into private practice, and Hoyle's got her spot.

The Texas Apartment Association named Wendy Wilson their new general counsel; she's been general counsel for state Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas. And David Mintz, the outfit's chief lobbyist, will remain there but is also taking on new clients, starting with the Texas Institute of Building Design.

John O'Brien, the acting head of the Legislative Budget Board, is the new president of the National Association of Legislative Fiscal Officers, or will be next week when that group convenes.

Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, is the new vice chairman of the Southern Legislative Conference, a group of lawmakers from 16 southern states.