Texas can get $556 million in federal stimulus money without any permanent changes in its unemployment insurance program, according to an advisory letter from the U.S. Department of Labor.

Gov. Rick Perry says the state shouldn't take the money, because it requires changes that would cost the UI program an estimated $70 million to $80 million annually. Those strings, he says, are too high a price for the stimulus money. His chief political rival of the moment, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, agrees but says Perry should be looking for ways to take the money and cut the strings instead of rejecting it outright.

Policymakers from both sides have been trying to find a way to take the money without permanently accepting those new federal requirements. With the economy worsening, the fund is expected to have an $800 million deficit by October. That'll have to be made up with an increased tax on employers, and one argument for taking the federal money is that it would cut that tax bill by $556 million. And a letter from the Labor Department appears provide the answer they seek:

The memo, written in a question and answer format, includes this bit:

"Question. UIPL No. 14-09 provides that applications for incentive payments should only be made under provisions of state laws that are currently in effect as permanent law and not subject to discontinuation. Does this mean that my state may never repeal any of the provisions that qualified it for a UC Modernization payment?

"Answer: No. If a state eventually decides to repeal or modify any of these provisions, it may do so, and it will not be required to return any incentive payments. However, in providing the incentive payments, Congress clearly intended to support states that had already adopted certain eligibility provisions and to expand eligibility to additional beneficiaries by encouraging other states to adopt these provisions. By specifying that the provisions must be in effect as permanent law, Congress also made clear its intention that the benefit expansions not be transitory. While states are free to change or repeal the provisions on which modernization payments were based subsequent to receipt of incentive payments, Congress and the Department rely on states' good faith in adopting the eligibility criteria, and the application must attest to this good faith as required by the following Q&A..."

They're saying, in essence, that states have the right to come back and change their standards later, but that legislation written to comply with the higher standards cannot include "sunset" provisions on those standards. They can change back later, but can't include that intention in their law at the outset.

"It seems to answer that [objection]," said Rick Levy, legal director of the Texas AFL-CIO. "The Legislature will always be in control of what the laws are like."

He and others have talked about creating a commission to look at the state's UI program after the session to decide how it ought to work in the future.

But Bill Hammond, a former lawmaker and Texas Workforce commissioner who now heads the Texas Association of Business, still opposes taking the stimulus money. "It's short-term gain and long-term pain," he said.

He questions whether the Texas Legislature would change the law back once the new standards are in place, and he doesn't trust the guidance from the Labor Department: "Their guidance conflicts with the statute — it doesn't make any sense."

Mark Miner, a spokesman for Perry, echoes that: "The Legislature does not have a great track record of undoing programs. There's nothing here we haven't known."

Elephants in the Room

Texas is outperforming the rest of the country economically, but that's no credit to Gov. Rick Perry, his chief Republican rival told a roomful of newspaper executives in Austin. U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison said the state has formidable problems, including high property taxes, high dropout and high levels of uninsured children. That's why, she said, "it's so important that we have a competition" in the 2010 governor's race.

Hutchison said the state's strengths are location, weather, right to work laws that limit unions, and the lack of a state income tax. She gives credit for that last one to herself, claiming she was "the only state official" who was against the idea when it arose in the early 1990s.

Perry attributes the state's relative prosperity to "low taxes, controlled government spending, and a fair legal system," all of which he has promoted as governor. "Ultimately, I think those decisions that we have made over the last five, six, seven years in particular, will allow us to work quickly to resume our progress and our lead as we go forward," he said.

Hutchison told the Texas Daily Newspaper Association audience that Republicans haven't had much input into the federal answers to the recession and decried the stimulus package as too much, too early. She said only a third of the package will stimulate the economy and says the government should have stabilized the banking and housing industries before starting the stimulus spending.

Hutchison told the newspaper people she's in favor of a federal shield law protecting journalists, as long as they can show "real journalistic intent." That's a pet issue of many news execs.

With the lines between traditional and nontraditional journalists and bloggers growing more vague, she said, "it's very important we have the ability to discern when a journalist is a journalist."

And then she did a riff (the full thing's here) on the governor's race in 2010. Some excerpts:

"The governor is going to be here today, later. He's going to tell you that Texas is in good shape, that we're in better shape than most other states. I would agree with him. We are in better shape that most other states. But it's not because he's handing out $5 million checks to companies to move here... The reason Texas is in good shape today is because of the attributes that we have that neither the governor nor I produced. One is our location in the country. We have more Fortune 500 companies here because we're in the middle of the country and we have good weather and we have good air service... Number two, we are a right to work state... Number three, we don't have a state income tax. Now I'm going to take some credit for that because I was the only state official that stood up against the governor and the lieutenant governor in 1991 when they decided it was time for Texas to look at an income tax... But there are clouds on the horizon and this is why I think it's so important that we have a competition. Texas has the highest property taxes of any state in America... Number two. We have one of the highest high school dropout rates of any state in our nation... Number three. We have one of the highest rates of health care uninsured in America...

Asked after her speech, Hutchison said she doesn't agree with the governor's approach to the unemployment insurance stimulus money. But like Perry, she doesn't like the attached federal strings. And she doesn't like the idea of leaving $556 million from the feds on the table if it means Texas businesses will have to pay that amount in taxes to shore up UI. She told reporters she'd be looking for ways to get the federal money without saddling business with new and more expensive UI rules. Legislators are working on that now, and Perry left himself room to take the money if the state isn't stuck with higher costs after the federal money runs out.

"I hope that he is looking for innovative ways not to dock the taxpayers of Texas with $550 million turned down, without looking at all of the avenues to produce the right result but without all the mandates that the federal government should not have put on," she said. "And I think that there might be a way to do that, and I hope so."

Perry, talking to that same audience, and later, to reporters, repeated his objections to the UI stimulus and the changes it would require here. "I think most Texans look at Washington, D.C. today and see what's going on up there, and they're like, 'Listen, the last thing we want is Washington coming down here to Texas and telling us how to run our state,'" he said.

"We have a system in place that works," Perry said. "The people who lose their jobs by no fault of their own are going to be covered, and so, the fact of the matter is, it's working in Texas."

Quick math catch-up: The stimulus would require the state to change its eligibility rules in a way that would add an estimated $70 million to $80 million to the annual cost of the program.

Limits and Caps

Q: Name a bill that was filed before Thanksgiving, has bipartisan support with more than two-thirds of the senators signed on as sponsors or co-sponsors, and involving an issue of major interest to the public, and that has not been referred to a committee.

A: College tuition.

All the college tuition bills in the House have been sent to that chamber's higher education committee. But five bills aimed at tuition freezes and filed in the Senate — four in November, one in March — are still sitting in Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst's In Box.

One of those — SB 105 — would require student approval before a university's tuition could rise. Tuition could rise with inflation, but other than that, the bill by Sen. Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa, D-Brownsville, would freeze the rates for two years. Other bills would freeze it indefinitely.

Dewhurst let one bill out, a proposal by Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, which would put a leash on the colleges without freezing tuition. Her version would cap the amounts of their increases at five percent and tie it to other funding from the state. Colleges were allowed to set their own rates because state budgeteers were starving them. Zaffirini's fix would allow them to slow the tuition increases if the Legislature is willing to put some food on the table.

Zaffirini's Higher Education Committee will hear that bill on April fool's Day, and she's got 19 co-authors on board. But none of the proposals to freeze tuition will be on the agenda; they haven't even been referred by the Lite Guv to that or any other committee.

It's not partisan: 13 of the 22 signers on Hinojosa's bill are Republicans. And if you include the authors of similar legislation — Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, and Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio — 25 of the Senate's 31 members are officially on board with Hinojosa.

But most of those are also signed onto Zaffirini's version.

Aides say Dewhurst isn't blocking the issue. They don't know when or whether he'll send the remaining bills to committee, but they say it could happen soon or it could take a while. Really, they said that.

The House is a couple of weeks away from this particular melee. Their Higher Education Committee, chaired by Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas, will look at specialty college tuition bills (cuts for veterans, good students, etc.) next week and general bills with freezes and limits a week later.

Boy's State

By accident, at the end of a meeting with the leaders of the Tigua Indians, Rep. Valinda Bolton learned that women cannot vote or hold elected positions in that tribe.

That's stirred up some dust in the House, where Bolton and other legislators want to talk to women from the Ysleta Del Sur Pueblo in El Paso and find out more.

Rep. Norma Chavez, D-El Paso, says it's a tribal issue and that she'll back the Tigua women. She says they have twice been offered the right to vote and twice have turned it down. "The white man has been telling the red man what to do for a long time now," Chavez said. "That is a decision that's up to the women of the Tigua tribe — it's not my decision."

This came up as Bolton, D-Austin, was exchanging pleasantries with Tigua Gov. Frank Paiz at the end of a meeting. She said she stands for election every two years; he replied that he stands for election every year by the men of the tribe, and that women can't run and can't vote. "I said 'Really?' and then, 'Okay, see you later.' I needed time to process that one."

Bolton and others say they're interested in empowerment. The Tiguas came to Austin to promote legislation that would allow them to reopen the Speaking Rock Casino closed by the state in 2002.

"I'm not a big proponent of the expansion of gambling," Bolton said. "I have mixed feelings — most of them not good... but I also felt this was a way to help the tribe back to where they had been — they did kind of get messed over."

Indian gaming legislation came up two years ago and the House voted 66-66 on it, marking its failure. Bolton voted with the Tiguas on a record vote that was verified, but added a note to the House Journal saying she was shown voting yes but intended to vote no.

Bolton talked to other legislators in the week-and-a-half since that meeting. She hasn't decided what, if anything, ought to happen. But she and her colleagues are flabbergasted. "It's been a fairly consistent response: 'Wow. Seriously?'" she said.

The Tigua government isn't controlled by state law — tribal regulation, such as it is, is a federal issue. But the Legislature does have something the tribe wants: Bills that would allow them to reopen Speaking Rock. Bolton and other lawmakers want to talk to the tribe's leaders and to women in the tribe. Chavez said they'll all be here next week, when hearings on the legislation they're interested in (she mentioned HJR 108 and HR 1308) is set for committee hearings. The Tiguas had 1,638 "enrolled members" as of January, 54 percent of them female, according to the tribe's website.

"Somehow, this issue needs to come forward," Bolton said. "The full enfranchisement of women is in the state's interest."

Chavez points out the tribe's sovereignty. It's in her legislative district, and she'll stick with her constituents on this one. "I find it very do-gooder of Rep. Bolton to be concerned, however, I will back the Tigua women in whatever they want."

Next?

Democrats are facing a tougher run at statewide offices in 2010 than they will in 2012, former Rep. Rick Noriega told a group of UT public affairs students Wednesday afternoon. An upbeat Noriega reflected on his own run for U.S. Senate, which ended just a few months ago, and didn't rule out taking another shot at a big-time political office.

Asked about Democrats' chances in a possible special election to replace U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (should she step down to run for Governor), Noriega said anything's possible, but Democrats should be in a better position in 2012 to win statewide. His reasons: 1) After the U.S. Census and redistricting, the addition of three to five U.S. Congressional seats to the state's total should incite additional political participation; 2) Pres. Barack Obama should top the ticket again — "He's carrying the ball for the whole team," Noriega said; and, 3) State demographics are trending in a Democratic direction.

He added as a caveat that Obama's performance, which will likely be graded according to the state of the economy, will probably dictate Democrats' fortunes while he's President, for better or for worse.

Looking back at his own campaign — he lost to U.S. Sen. John Cornyn — Noriega said it was "disappointing" to witness the visceral emotions Texans had about immigration. In focus groups for his campaign, it wasn't uncommon to hear inquiries about how to pronounce "Noriega" and people saying they wouldn't be voting for him if he called himself "Mexican-American" instead of plain ol' American. (Laughing, Noriega said he thought it was "cute" that supporters would invariably choose to hold campaign rallies for him at Mexican restaurants. "They'd find every little taqueria..." he said.)

There were plenty of good moments on the trail, too, he said, like when an East Texas couple gave up their bedroom to his wife Melissa Noriega, relegating themselves to the trailer out back. Or in West Texas, when a woman tracked him down to apologize for not donating sooner, saying she had to wait on her Social Security payment before cutting him a $25 check. "We won every part of the state that believes in evolution and global warming, and we lost every other part," is a favorite observation of Melissa's, he said.

Noriega talked about the rapid evolution of technology and its increasing effectiveness in organizing campaign supporters and raising money. He also said that Obama's success proved that a message of hopefulness and motivation can beat attempts to appeal to people's fears and cynicism.

"Community organizing is back in vogue again," said Noriega, who is working as vice president for community-based initiatives for Neighborhood Centers Inc., a nonprofit with seven community centers in Houston.

As for his political future, Noriega didn't drop any hints that he's considering any particular office, but he didn't say he wouldn't run again in the future, or even in 2010. (He did say that various people have told him that voters — when facing special elections attracting a myriad of candidates — will often pull the lever for the candidate they've previously supported.)

"Never say never," he said, "and never say always."

Ill Winds

Claims against homeowners' insurance policies in Texas rose to $6.6 billion in 2008, up from $1.8 billion the year before and enough to swamp what insurers charged in premiums last year.

But the industry did well enough in the years leading up to 2008 to come out ahead, according to figures from the Texas Department of Insurance. From 2003 to 2008, the companies collected $28.1 billion from policyholders, and paid out $16.3 billion in losses. When you add in their expenses, they were still head, paying out 93.5 cents on every premium dollar they collected.

The 2008 loss ratio — what they paid out in claims against what they collected in premiums — was the worst in the last 17 years, according to the Texas Department of Insurance. Last year's ratio was 127, meaning they paid out $1.27 in claims for every $1 collected in premiums. That's only the fourth time it's gone over 1.0 in the 17 years the agency reported.

According to another ratio that combines losses and company expenses and compares that to premiums collected, the companies paid $1.65 for every premium dollar they collected.

The Party Line, Upheld

It's okay for the Texas Democratic Party to require candidates to swear they'll support the winner of the party primary in the general election, according to a federal appeals court.

In a case filed by U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with lower courts on the loyalty oath and said it is constitutional.

"This court need not judge the wisdom or utility of the TDP oath requirement," the judges wrote. "We do affirm, for the foregoing reasons, that it does not violate the Constitution."

Kucinich was running for president when he filed to get on the Texas ballot in 2007. He crossed out the part of the filing form that said he agreed to support the party's candidate in the November general election. The Texas Democrats disqualified him. He sued (with Willie Nelson as his state-resident wingman), failed to get on the ballot, and then moved to get the oath declared unconstitutional. And now he's lost that effort, though he can appeal.

Flotsam & Jetsam

State unemployment rose to 6.5 percent in February, up from 4.5 percent in the same month last year, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. The state lost 46,100 non-agricultural jobs last month; over the last 12 months, Texas is down 62,600 jobs.

• Look next week for the public launch of Innovate Texas, an Austin-based nonprofit tasked with helping Texans commercialize new technologies. Ryan Confer, former investment manager of the Texas Emerging Technology Fund, says they'll be connecting researchers with entrepreneurs, connecting entrepreneurs with researchers and assisting fledgling high-tech companies who've been weaned off ETF money. Innovate Texas was created in mid-2008 using a federal Wagner-Pizer grant coming through the Texas Workforce Commission, Confer said. Other folks connected to the new think tank include Austin attorney and eco devo guru Pike Powers and serial entrepreneur David Nance. The closest thing around to Innovate Texas is the Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, Confer said, but his organization's initial focus will be exclusively on Texas.

• More than half the members of the Texas House have signed their support for full-day pre-kindergarten in the state, moving that a notch forward. The Pre-K bill got a hearing in Senate Education but hasn't come to a vote there. In the House, it's got 79 signatures (of 150 members), but hasn't yet had a hearing. The legislation would expand part-time Pre-K programs, on a local option basis, to full-time. And school districts would be allowed to pay private programs to handle the load. The main hangup? The cost: $300 million per year.

• The Senate-approved "take your gun to work" bill includes an out for public, private and charter schools. It lets people keep their legal guns in their cars, even in the company parking lot or garage, and indemnifies the companies, in most instances, against whatever happens as a result. But it doesn't apply to educators and their colleagues. They have to leave the guns at home.

• The first thing out of the House this year was Rep. Dawnna Dukes' legislation allowing the state to spend money trying to lure moviemakers to Texas. Funding is still up for grabs. Some conservatives took potshots at the bill, saying the state shouldn't be spending tax money on such things; only six House members voted against it... The Senate struck first on the Top 10 rule that required state universities to show preference for applicants from the top 10 percent of their high school classes. The fix, from Sen. Florence Shapiro, as amended: Only the first 60 percent of each incoming class would be subject to the top 10 rule. An add-on would provide $1,000 scholarships to some of those students, limited by the charity of the state's budgeteers... College tuition is up in the Senate's Higher Education Committee next week; Voter ID's set for its debut in House Elections week after next.

Political People and Their Moves

The dean of the Texas Capitol press corps — Clay Robison of the Houston Chronicle — is among the latest casualties of the shrinking news business in the state. Robison, who first covered the Capitol in 1971 as a reporter for the late San Antonio Light, became the Chronicle's Austin bureau chief in 1982 and has been in that chair since then. He's one of dozens of reporters laid off this week by the Chronicle. Janet Elliott, whose pink slip arrived prematurely a couple of weeks ago, is on that same list. She'll finish the legislative session with the paper; Robison will finish this week. The Chronicle's Austin bureau is combined with the San Antonio Express-News bureau; Lisa Sandberg, a reporter with that paper, was laid off a few weeks ago.

Sharon Keller, chief judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, filed papers with the State Commission on Judicial Conduct saying what she said last month: She did what she was supposed to do when in September 2007. The commission complains that she denied the final appeals of a condemned man because it was after her court's 5 p.m. closing time. She'll fight their complaint and her lawyer has asked the commission to pay his fees, since the judge isn't allowed to accept pro bono work and doesn't have the money to pay a high-priced lawyer.

Some appointments of note from your governor:

• Derrick Mitchell of Houston, an attorney with Bracewell and Giuliani, to another term on the State Securities Board.

• William White, vice president of Cash America International, as the chairman of the Finance Commission of Texas. And Perry added Darby Ray Byrd Sr. of Orange to that board. Byrd is retired president and CEO of Orange Savings Bank.

• David Cibrian, a partner at Strasburger and Price in San Antonio, Gary Janacek, CEO of Scott and White Employees Credit Union in Belton, and A. John Yoggerst, general partner at Texas Construction Alliance in San Antonio, to the state's Credit Union Commission. Janacek is the chairman and a reappointee.

• Cherie Townsend to another term as executive director of the Texas Youth Commission.

• Gen. Jose Mayorga to Adjutant General of Texas, the top spot in the state's military. He was previously commander of the 36th Infantry at Camp Mabry in Austin. He's joined by Brigadier Gen. Joyce Stevens of Tomball, who'll be Assistant Adjutant General for the Army; Col. John Nichols of Spring Branch, who'll have the same posting for Air; and Col. Jeffrey Lewis of Center Park, the new deputy to Stevens.

• C. Kent Conine of Dallas and Tom Gann of Lufkin to the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs. Conine is a reappointee and will continue as chair of that board. Gann is president of Gann Medford Real Estate in Lufkin.

• Burnet County Judge Donna Klaeger of Horseshoe Bay to chair the Texas Commission on Jail Standards. And he reappointed Irene Armendariz of El Paso, Midland County Sheriff Gary Painter, and Carson County Sheriff Tam Terry to that board.

• Richard Rhodes of El Paso, Dora Ann Verde of San Antonio, and Welcome Wilson of Houston to the Texas Guaranteed Student Loan Corp. Rhodes is president of El Paso Community College; Verde is a CPA and director of internal audit with the San Antonio Water System; Wilson is president of GSL Welcome Group.

Quotes of the Week

Gov. Rick Perry, to an audience of newspaper executives: "In a lot of ways, the Internet has turned the media business into the Wild West. I think that's good when you consider the enormous potential of that. But it's not so good if the spirit of lawlessness is what we get out of the Wild West. I find that some of the greatest dangers in life take shape in the absence of accountability. When a blogger can write under a pseudonym or a person can comment on an article under the name 'anonymous,' maybe be hurtful, maybe be inaccurate, be as irresponsible as they like..."

Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster, quoted in the McAllen Monitor on fears that Mexican drug wars are spilling into Texas: "There are some entities out there that think that the louder they scream, the more funding they're going to get."

Brownsville Mayor Pat Ahumada, indicted for depositing a $26,129 check meant for a city vendor into his personal account, quoted by the Associated Press: "I don't have an explanation and neither do they."

Mallory Carrick of Plano, talking to The Dallas Morning News about rising taxes on smokes: "First we have to deal with the economy, and now the government. I guess it's better that it's on cigarettes 'cause they're killing us, but still, what about our freedom?"

Rep. Joe Heflin, D-Crosbyton, quoted in the Austin American-Statesman on the subject of Voter ID: "Have you ever been so sick you felt like you could throw up your toe nails? This is not something for anybody to die over."

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Texas Weekly: Volume 26, Issue 12, 30 March 2009. Ross Ramsey, Editor. Copyright 2009 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.

The 2009 Texas Legislature is just now coming to a boil. But bloggers' attentions this week are on the looming voter photo identification scrap in the Senate. They've also got an eye on possible statewide candidates in 2010, and legislation that's not quite so white-hot right now. We're also corralling posts written by politicians and blogs belonging to a category of their own.

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Poll-aroid Picture

With college tuition skyrocketing, U.S. soldiers returning from two wars and large regions of Texas trying to recover from massive hurricane damage, what issue could be so important that it preempts committee hearings on higher education, veterans affairs and flooding/evacuations? Why, voter photo ID of course, says Texas Politics, the Houston Chronicle's blog. (Read up on the background here.)

On the eve of the Texas Senate showdown, Burnt Orange is trying to rustle up a phone campaign against the idea. Here's who they think might be the weak links in the GOP supermajority: Sens. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, Joan Huffman, R-Houston, Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, Glenn Hegar, R-Katy, and Steve Ogden, R-Bryan. Meanwhile, without naming any specific names, Sen. Mario Gallegos Jr., D-Houston, is asking Dos Centavos readers to speak out against voter photo ID legislation. Burnt Orange also has a post from Democratic consultant Glenn Smith that you'll probably hear quoted in the Senate debate.

Unfortunately for readers, the El Paso Times's Vaqueros & Wonkeros is going to miss out on the fireworks at the Capitol this week, as her bosses are making her take a furlough.

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Maybe Next Year

Put former U.S. ambassador and Texas Rep. Tom Schieffer down as a strong maybe for the 2010 gubernatorial campaign. Schieffer, a Democrat, is already drawing flak for being buddies with former Pres. George W. Bush and for being named as one of the Ten Worst state legislators by Texas Monthly back before Reps. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs, and Joe Moody, D-El Paso, were born.

"The Ten Worst article was 34 years ago. There are [a] lot of obstacles in the path of a Schieffer candidacy, but that article shouldn't be one of them," says BurkaBlog (clarifying that by "obstacles" he means Bush).

KVUE's Political Junkie has video of Schieffer not bashing Bush. And the Dallas Morning News's Trail Blazers has more damning evidence, relaying information from a reliable source (Schieffer himself) that he reads Trail Blazers .

From Burnt Orange Report, more video from Schieffer's press conference in Austin, plus a couple of links to what their bloggers think about him. And Tex Parte Blog throws in this piece of trivia: Schieffer, a Texas bar member since 1979, never graduated from law school.

"The Rock" Obama defenestrated a U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison look-alike on Saturday Night Live, and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's PoliTex has the clip. We personally think the actress's impersonation was uninspired (and possibly completely unstudied), but Trail Blazers says it's better than rival Gov. Rick Perry ever got. According to Burka, word on the streets — at least the electronic streets of the Internet — is Big D's big-time Rs are for KBH over Perry.

In related news, the Austin American-Statesman's Postcards from the Lege has the latest on possible gubernatorial wannabe Kinky Friedman, while ABC13's Political Blog catches Friedman on camera with one of KBH's people.

Another possible aspirant to the Governor's Mansion (or comparable Austin-area estate of their choosing), Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, is Mrs. Popular on the blogs, as Off the Kuff and Burnt Orange make her the subject of feature interviews.

Capitol Annex expresses doubts that Houston Mayor Bill White is ready to be a U.S. Senate candidate, calling his fellow Democrat "Bad News Bill." And Postcards previews a possible matchup in U.S. Congressional District 10 between Democratic challenger John T. McDonald (a wealthy lawyer/businessman) and incumbent U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, (an attorney who happens to be very wealthy). It's also been speculated that McCaul could jump into the race for Texas Attorney General.

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On the Back Burners

Rep. Charles Anderson, R-Waco, showed a YouTube video about the dangers of driving after smoking salvia divinorum (a not-so-popular hallucinogenic plant that's legal for the moment, despite Anderson's best efforts). House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee members "appeared somewhat distraught," reports Texas Politics. Commenter sabrebutt responds, "Considering that "Driving your Car on Salvia" is a satire, and part of a hilarious series of satire, these idiots should find something more important to do with their time." Later, Anderson's people tries, with limited success, to convince Annex that they didn't know the video was a fake.

Tex Parte wonders if HB 2500 by Rep. Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, is really necessary. The bill would establish the 1839 Pilot Flag as the official flag for the governor's office. Meanwhile, Bay Area Houston calls attention to bills by Reps. Dan Gattis, R-Georgetown, Todd Smith, R-Euless, and David Leibowitz, D-San Antonio, that would abolish the Texas Residential Construction Commission. And Texas Cloverleaf highlights seven pro-LGBT-rights bills filed by Texas House Democrats.

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Official Scribes

Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, has re-launched her blog The Little Dog Report. Meanwhile, Rep. Aaron Peña, D-Edinburg, poses for a photo with a McAllen astronaut and puts it on his A Capitol Blog.

On his El Wiri Wiri Blog, Rep. Ryan Guillen, D-Rio Grande City, touts his House Bill 2538 "which will require public schools to offer career and technology education courses that result in licensure, certification, or college credit."

Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, promises to show his softer side in this Poli-Tex post. Also on Poli-Tex: After the local daily called him a "roadblock" to local transportation funding options, Martinez Fischer posts a letter he had written to the other members of the San Antonio House delegation that spells out his position on the issue. Plus, the Mexican American Legislative Caucus is looking for a few good wonks. (Got MALC?)

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Potpourri

Tex Parte catches up with John Dejean, the only person they could think of who's been on trial for the same thing Corpus Christi's Maurico Celis did (pretend to be a lawyer). Dejean is serving 25 years in Texas prison. Celis got probation and a six-figure fine.

Texas Watchdog is sending out invites for a Houston-area blogger get-together in April. Meanwhile, Blue Dot Blues has the skinny on the Young Conservatives of Texas convention in Austin: "April 3-5, at the Doubletree Hotel North, $75 a person. Bay Buchanan, former TX Solicitor General Ted Cruz, former TX Sec. of State Roger Williams, State Senator Tommy Williams, State Rep. Wayne Christian, and more!"

KUT's Notes from the Lege takes note of NASA day at the state Capitol, while John Carter Watch rebuts an op-ed by U.S. Rep. John Carter, R-Georgetown, against the federal stimulus that appeared in the Round Rock Leader, the local paper.

Finally, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn held a conference call with conservative bloggers, including Texican Tattler . But RightWingSparkle trumps that with a face-to-face interview with the junior U.S. Senator from Texas. An excerpt: "I'll say this about my impression of Sen. Cornyn. Anderson Cooper has nothing on Cornyn's blue eyes," she says.

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This edition of Out There was compiled and written by Patrick Brendel, who hails from Victoria but is semi-settled in Austin. We cherry-pick the state's political blogs each week, looking for news, info, gossip, and new jokes. The opinions here belong (mostly) to the bloggers, and we're including their links so you can hunt them down if you wish. Our blogroll — the list of Texas blogs we watch — is on our links page, and if you know of a Texas political blog that ought to be on it, just shoot us a note. Please send comments, suggestions, gripes or retorts to Texas Weekly editor Ross Ramsey.

Massive layoffs at the Houston Chronicle fuel discussions in the blogosphere about the future of media. Bloggers are also talking about the two ex-cheerleaders who want to be Governor, the Democrat exploring his own bid for the Mansion and the state school board's debate over science standards. Wrapping it up are posts on other scintillating subjects.

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News Releases

Colleagues and friends (including our boss, who worked in Robison's bureau) say goodbye to Clay Robison, dean of the state capitol press corps and a casualty of Chronicle cuts. Burnt Orange Report adds their farewells, too.

The Brazosport News has some gory details (unconfirmed): No serious consideration of wage cuts or furloughs; the editorial board is now all-white and all-male; the lead NASA, religion and transportation writers are gone; four newsroom couples were "split up"; no members of upper management were laid off; and, editor Jeff Cohen didn't address staff during the day when layoffs occurred.

Cohen did, however, issue a memo, which the Houston Press's Hairballs blog has posted here. BlogHOUSTON says the community isn't better off after the layoffs. "We wish them all the best and hope they find employment soon, with the exception of the guy who fails to deliver my paper about 1 in 7 times," Lone Star Times says.

A disappointed blog maverick notes that only one reporter showed up to cover a presser before a recent Mavs-Warriors NBA game. (In other news, the same blogger wonders whether Twitter posts are copyrighted material. One commenter says yes.) And Texas "Off the Record" attended a panel (including our boss — the one with the misspelled name) on the shrinking newspaper industry.

"I'd rather see ever single last mainstream media newspaper go under and dissapear <sic> before I want to see a single one of them propped up and run by our government," UrbanGrounds says. Meanwhile, the recession is forcing Texas Cloverleaf to shut down for awhile, because the blogger can't write during work hours anymore. But one area where business is good is bankruptcy law, Tex Parte Blog says.

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Give Us a G... an O... a P!

The Houston Chronicle's Texas Politics blog has a video of dueling press conferences on state unemployment funds by U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and incumbent Gov. Rick Perry. TxSkirt doesn't like the idea of Hutchison and Perry tearing each other apart in the GOP primary for governor. And Lone Star Times says Hutchison's strategery is to secure moderate Republicans' votes and get some Democrats to cross over for her, while Texans for Rick Perry posts a photo of the Guv wearing safety goggles and looking out the window of an aircraft.

Regarding the heat Perry's taking over a $50-million grant, Texas A&M University Chancellor Mike McKinney, a former House member, told the House Appropriations Committee, with Postcards from the Lege, the Austin American-Statesman's blog, listening in: "I used to sit and be jerk also. Sometimes, that's what you have to do." (Postcards also has video of House Appropriations Chair Jim Pitts and House Speaker Joe Straus.)

Blue Dot Blues invites readers to join a teleconference call about stimulus funds with Gov. Perry and Americans for Prosperity director Peggy Venable. Those two are among a group of folks slated to speak at a Texas Tea Party event (against government spending) at Austin City Hall April 15, says Blue Dot Blues. Find more about the event from The Travis Monitor here and a video at Lone Star Diary here. And several of the tea party speakers have signed up to talk at the Young Conservatives of Texas convention in Austin April 3-4, according to memoirs from a young conservative.

Check this out from Texas Watchdog: "Gov. Rick Perry and Lt. Gov David Dewhurst got more money in campaign contributions from energy-related firms than any other candidates for state office or state legislature in the nation between 2003 and 2007, according to a new report by a nonpartisan think tank."

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The Tom Tom Club

Burnt Orange snagged a sit-down interview with Democratic goober chaser Tom Schieffer, saying afterward that "If you can get behind his friendship with [former Pres. George W.] Bush you find depth of knowledge, intelligence, and an understanding of the problems facing Texas."

That's all well and good, but mean rachel wants to know "What have you done for me lately?" And WhosPlayin? went to Hurst in the DFW area to see a tag-team event starring Schieffer and John Sharp, who's running for U.S. Senator. Dos Centavos was there, too.

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Monkeying Around

Texas Freedom Network's TFN Insider blog followed the State Board of Education proceedings in a series of posts that can be found by clicking here. Meanwhile, musings posts her testimony in favor of evolution before the state school board.

Texas Observer Blog says social conservatives may have lost the big battle over "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution, but they did get several amendments passed that, in the blog's opinion, "diluted the state's science standards and the teaching of evolutionary theory." Observer also has an online exclusive containing their final analysis of the "often mind-numbing debate."

A post on the topic by Half Empty has our sarcasm detector going haywire. A taste: "[W]e will now watch the drama transplant itself in the Texas Legislature, that august body of experts in the area of population genetics and speciation."

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Hodgepot

Tex Parte gives an update on a legal case involving condo owners, Southern Methodist University and former Pres. Bush and then wonders if Houston attorney Dick DeGuerin will represent troubled financier R. Allen Stanford.

BurkaBlog talks more about the UT poll he disagrees with. Bay Area Houston has a list of things wrong with electricity deregulation and posts about a couple of bills against deregulation. Bay Area Houston also has a list of people for the Texas Residential Construction Commission and a longer list of people against it.

Sprittibee posts photos of her new baby. The StandDown Texas Project goes over a new report from the Justice Project. And KUT's Notes from the Lege has an audio segment on House plans for stimulus money.

NewspaperTree.com Blog wonders if Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, is "the Tigua's new go-to man." The Austin Chronicle's newsdesk blog was on hand for the Senate "debate" over the Top 10 Percent university admissions rule. And Grits for Breakfast has parts one and two of an intern-written series on the Senate Criminal Justice Committee's interim report on the Texas Youth Commission.

The Houston Chronicle's Texas on the Potomac blog has a podcast of Hearst folks discussing Pres. Barack Obama's first two months in office, two videos featuring Helen Thomas (here and here) and a guest column by U.S. Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston, on a bill he doesn't like. Meanwhile, Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, writes on his Poli-Tex blog that "State Affairs appears to be opening Pandora's box on hearing immigration bills..."

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This edition of Out There was compiled and written by Patrick Brendel, who hails from Victoria but is semi-settled in Austin. We cherry-pick the state's political blogs each week, looking for news, info, gossip, and new jokes. The opinions here belong (mostly) to the bloggers, and we're including their links so you can hunt them down if you wish. Our blogroll — the list of Texas blogs we watch — is on our links page, and if you know of a Texas political blog that ought to be on it, just shoot us a note. Please send comments, suggestions, gripes or retorts to Texas Weekly editor Ross Ramsey.

It has been almost five months since Barack Obama was elected president and we understood that the federal government was likely to pass a large fiscal stimulus with funds to assist the states.

It has been six weeks since that legislation (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or ARRA) was signed into law. Yet to date, Texas — unlike most other states — has articulated no vision whatsoever for implementing the ARRA or budgeting our allocation. Almost every Texas legislator I've talked to either is uninformed about the ARRA and its potential or else is privately resigned to the likelihood that most of Texas' allocation will be squandered, wasting this one-time opportunity to make meaningful investments in the future of our state.

The budget is coming to the floor in both chambers over the next two weeks. Most legislators will have no real opportunity to say anything about spending priorities for Texas' ARRA funds. The budget committees are playing shell games with general revenue and ARRA funds instead of proposing rational strategies for maximizing the use of ARRA to advance our state's policy priorities.

This isn't a question of liberals wanting to expand state services versus conservatives fighting against bloated government. You can look across state after state, conservative and liberal, and see the same basic ARRA implementation processes happening everywhere:

1. The state — either the governor or another elected leader — sets up one or more public-private advisory bodies to guide ARRA implementation for the next three years and ensure transparency and accountability (the House Select Committee on Federal Fiscal Stabilization does not fill this bill, although it plays an important role and we should keep it).

2. The advisory bodies and/or lawmakers articulate a set of overarching state priorities and propose strategies for using various ARRA funding streams to achieve these priorities, including the introduction of ARRA-specific legislation.

3. There's a multi-purpose website where the public can get information about all things ARRA and, in most cases, submit proposals and ideas about how the state can best use its allocation to create jobs and address priority issues.

What other states are NOT doing is using their ARRA funds to merely maintain business as usual.

The reason so many other states are taking rational, long-term approaches to ARRA implementation is pretty obvious: they want to make sure they get the maximum return on investment of every dollar. They know this is a one-time opportunity and they don't want to waste it. They are making a big effort to include private sector experts in their advisory bodies so they can be sure they create the greatest range of new opportunities for their residents.

For a lot of states, like Ohio and Michigan, this is a life-or-death deal: if they can't generate enough new jobs fast enough to jumpstart some economic activity, it's hard to see how they can stay in business. For other states, like Oregon and North Carolina, this is a chance to get out in front on emerging industries.

You can imagine how Texas, with a little planning, could get special bangs out of our ARRA bucks. For example, we're getting hundreds of millions of dollars in weatherization and energy efficiency money. Spending the money on weatherization and efficiency is a given, we can't use it for anything else. But we could combine some of it with ARRA workforce development and education money to fund a green jobs training program, and throw in some ARRA childcare funds so the job-training participants have secure childcare while they are in the program. A similar approach could work in addressing Texas' health professional shortage.

But we can't do innovative job-creation and economic development projects if we just toss our ARRA funds into the appropriations bill and hope for the best. State agencies can't freelance with their appropriations; they have to respond to legislative priorities and stay accountable within defined performance measures.

Performance measures are nonexistent in Texas' ARRA budgeting. Federal agencies will require fiscal accountability, but not accountability to the policy priorities of Texans. Should we dedicate our ARRA funds to rebuilding hurricane areas and economic development in the Valley? So far, state agencies don't have these priorities in their budgets. Should we make sure some of our ARRA funds are targeted for historically underutilized businesses? Again, not so far. So far, the only specific ARRA-related priority we know of is a rider in the Senate's budget bill directing the State Energy Conservation Office to give as much of its allocation as possible to the Texas Engineering Experiment Station at Texas A&M University.

Whatever we do with the ARRA funds, one thing is for sure: Texans, like all Americans, will spend decades' worth of federal income taxes paying off the trillion-dollar deficit the stimulus package is creating. It's enough of a stretch to imagine paying off this debt if the investment results in material improvement in our infrastructure, education systems or state services. It's heartbreaking to contemplate making those payments in future years knowing that we got nothing but shell games and the status quo for our trouble.

Lawmakers struggle every session to meet human needs, grow our economy and protect our environment. Our ARRA funds can't do everything everyone wants, but they can do a lot. It's enough money to buy our school kids textbooks... restore ailing state parks... capitalize the Housing Trust Fund... bring solid infrastructure to colonias... and on and on. And, of course, it's enough to help the Gulf Coast recover from multiple natural disasters.

We can't afford this failure of leadership. It's inexcusable for Texas to be botching ARRA implementation when so many other states have figured it out. The gun has been fired, the Rust Belt is off and running, and Texas is standing at the starting line with its shoelaces tied together.

Bee Moorhead is executive director of Texas Impact, an interfaith group that lobbies on issues of religious social concern.

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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.

Texas is worse off economically than it was a couple of months ago, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas said in a new report.

"The Texas economy continues to slow. Almost every region and economic sector in the state is weaker than six weeks ago," the Fed reported. "In large measure, this slowdown is the result of soft consumer demand and frayed financial markets, although ongoing economic weakness in Mexico and low energy prices have also adversely impacted the region."

The news is full of red numbers. Texas' unemployment rate (reported earlier) rose to 6.4 percent in January, a five-year high, according to the new report. Construction employment is off by 13.6 percent over the last three months, according to the Fed, and the value of contracts is at 2005 levels. Home sales have been falling for more than a year and are still dropping. Exports fell 12 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008 — Texas exports to Mexico were down 13.7 percent.

And the consumer confidence index for the region that includes Texas is higher than the national number, but is also at a five-year low.

The Texas Senate approved a $182.2 billion budget that includes over $10 billion in federal stimulus money, avoids across-the-board cuts in state agencies, and leaves the state's $9.1 billion Rainy Day Fund untouched.

The vote was 26-5. The bill now heads for the House, which has been working on its own version; once that's approved, the conference committee will hash out the differences, adding and subtracting as new economic numbers and political deals surface.

The budget (the full copy is here, the more readable summary is here, courtesy of the Legislative Budget Board) is designed to protect that savings for two years from now, when budget-writers expect an epic miscalculation to come into full bloom. Lawmakers revised state business taxes in 2006 and agreed to use the money to increase state spending on public education, thus lowering pressure on schools to raise local property taxes. But the taxes they passed raise far fewer dollars than what the Lege agreed to spend. That "structural deficit" started to blossom this year, but the federal stimulus money allows budgeteers to put off the problem.

They're certain it's coming back in 2011, when the Legislature writes its next budget. It might even be worse, if the economy doesn't recover according to predictions. That's one reason they're trying to protect the Rainy Day balance — so they can use it to cork the school finance math problem two years from now.

"Things could get worse before they get better," Senate Finance Chairman Steve Ogden said while laying out the budget bill. "I think you're going to see sales tax numbers come out, shortly, that are going to show a significant deterioration of sales tax collections in the state of Texas for March and February, showing that the state of Texas is slowing down faster than what we thought. I think that's getting ready to happen. I think if there is no federal stimulus money and we tried to pass a budget similar to this next time, we're out of balance by at least $10 billion. And the only way to balance it then is with the Rainy Day Fund.

"So I think the most prudent thing that we should do right now is to hold onto that Rainy Day Fund until we're sure that things aren't going to get worse... until we're sure that we can cover that so-called Structural Deficit..." Ogden said. "We would really go in the tank if we spend that Rainy Day money now."

Here's the setup. Flash back to the beginning of the year, when, according to Comptroller Susan Combs, the state started with a $9 billion difference between the cost of running the government and the amount she said it would have in its treasury. However, she said, lawmakers had a $9.1 billion plug for that hole if they were are willing to spend the money in the so-called Rainy Day Fund.

That was the picture in January.

A few weeks later, the feds came up with the stimulus package, which has about $16.1 billion in goodies for the state government to spend. States aren't allowed to sock that money away. But Texas government is full of creative budget folk, and they've used the stimulus money to fill the hole identified at the first of the year and to write the budget in a way that doesn't dramatically expand services and that leaves the Rainy Day Fund untouched.

Some senators wanted the state to use some of the fund to pay for programs that didn't make it into the budget. Article 11 of the budget — an unfunded wish list of programs that could get money if money becomes available — totals over $4.6 billion.

"We played no games with this federal stimulus money," Ogden said, defending the strategy. "There was no effort whatsoever to divert money from something the federal government wanted us to fund to something they didn't."

And he fended off inquiries about using federal stimulus money, in effect, to keep state coffers full. "I don't believe that the federal stimulus legislation requires us to spend any or all or a portion of the Rainy Day Fund in order to qualify for federal stimulus money," he said.

New programs did get into the budget. Originally, budget writers went looking for $1.9 billion to put into public school programs. They found that. In other places, the federal money offset cuts that were under consideration a few weeks ago. Ogden told the Senate that 2.5 percent across-the-board reductions that were prepared by state agencies last year fell by the wayside when the federal money appeared — the state didn't have to make those cuts after all, he said.

"I can assure you, sir, that had we not had $10.4 billion of federal stimulus money to write a budget with, this budget would have been a whole lot less than $182 billion," Ogden said in answer to questions from Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston. "It would have been a whole lot closer to $169 [billion], because that's all the money we had."

• The budget passed with a controversial rider — added by Ogden — still intact. It says: "Sec. 17.13. No Destruction of Human Embryos for Research Purposes. No funds appropriated under this Act shall be used in conjunction with or to support research which involves the destruction of a human embryo." He agreed to change it, but not to remove it. That cost him at least one vote — that of Kirk Watson, D-Austin. • The Nays came from Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth; Ellis, D-Houston; Mario Gallegos, D-Houston; Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso; and Watson. All 15 members of the Senate Finance Committee, including the five Democrats, voted in favor of the bill. • The Senate's version of the budget totals $182,224,994,036, or about $251,691,980 per day. • The Biggies: 41 percent of the budget goes to public and higher education, and 33.1 percent goes to health and human services agencies. That's just under three-quarters of the budget. When you only count state money — no federal funds — education gets 57.8 percent and HHS gets 29.4 percent, leaving less than 13 percent for everything else.

In which an attempt to use a constitutional cap on the state's savings account as a way to force some spending falls short... Here's a line from the Texas Constitution: "During each fiscal biennium, the amount in the economic stabilization fund may not exceed an amount equal to 10 percent of the total amount, excluding investment income, interest income, and amounts borrowed from special funds, deposited in general revenue during the preceding biennium." If you're a sharpie, the word that jumped out at you was "deposited." We're not sharpies, so we had help. We read the line to say: Look at general revenue in the last budget and divide by 10. That's the most you can have in the Rainy Day Fund. General revenue in the last budget totaled $79.9 billion, and if that was the magic number, the fund would be capped at just under $8 billion. Some lawmakers wanted to use that as the basis for taking money out of the fund to pay for cleanup and rebuilding in Galveston, which was devastated by Hurricane Ike. But that's not the magic number. A lot of stuff goes through the general revenue fund that's not general revenue. And if you look at deposits to that fund, which includes a lot of federal money, the number to play with is $118.3 billion. And 10 percent of that is $11.8 billion, which is more than $9.1 billion. Bottom line: If lawmakers want to leave $9.1 billion in that fund, untouched, there's no law to stop them. Or at least that particular bit of law won't stop them.

You can spend $16.1 billion in one sentence. Watch:

Fold $10.9 billion into the 2010-2011 budget, toss $3.8 billion into the current budget for spending before September, drop $858 million into state programs without even putting the dough through the budget, and leave $556 million on the table while the governor and the Legislature wrangle over Unemployment Insurance.

The off-budget spending is included in the budget, but only as an informational item. That $858 million will go to urban and rural transit, funds for safe and clean water, Medicaid money for hospitals that provide charity care, homelessness prevention, and justice assistance grants.

The immediate spending — which gets added to the current budget — is topped by health and human services money (FMAP, for those who follow the acronyms), highway and bridge construction, public education, and child support.

And the biggest glop goes into the two-year budget that starts in September. The state is adding $10.9 billion in federal money and subtracting $5.4 billion in general revenue, leaving a net increase of $5.5 billion. It allows the budget writers to sock $9.1 billion away for expected budget trouble two years from now, while also increasing the size of the budget to $182.2 billion from $167.8 billion in the last budget. (The asterisk: The size of the current budget grows if lawmakers supplement it with more appropriations and we're using the $167.8 billion just to keep the apples and oranges organized.) The biggest recipients, in order, of the federal stimulus money in the new budget are the Texas Education Agency, the Health and Human Services Commission, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Housing and Community Affairs, and the Comptroller of Public Accounts. Those five agencies soak up $9.8 billion of the $10.9 billion total.

All of the agencies getting federal stimulus money will have to file quarterly reports with the governor, the comptroller, the State Auditor, and the Legislative Budget Board.

The "supplemental" appropriations bill — the one that includes spending for the current budget period and not the next one — will be on the burner next week and it dwarfs its predecessors.

Usually, the additional appropriations cover unplanned growth in existing programs and other unexpected expenses. But this year, it'll include money for damage from Hurricane Ike and it'll include a lot of federal stimulus money that's meant to be spent before the next fiscal year begins in September.

So what's usually a $1 billion to $2 billion proposition is, this time, over $3 billion and approaching the $4 billion range.

The stimulus part of it is included as an informational item in the Senate's version of the budget and in the draft of the House version. It includes $3.3 billion in stimulus money for health and human services ($1.6 billion), for education stabilization funds ($979 million), for highway and bridge construction ($662 million) and for child support enforcement ($27 million).

Money for Hurricane Ike-related expenses — you can hear estimates up to $1.1 billion — will be added to that.

Next week promises to be short and noisy.

Both the Republicans and the Democrats are revving up for House hearings on Voter ID legislation next week. The chairman of the Elections Committee, Republican Todd Smith of Euless, has been getting it from both sides, with some conservative groups saying, already, that he's too willing to compromise. Democratic groups are trying to turn him into a boogeyman, too, calling him an "extreme partisan" bent on suppressing votes. No pressure, right? The Senate heard experts testify first and then heard what citizens were left after a marathon all-night session. Smith's panel won't repeat the pajama party; they'll hear experts on April 6 and normal humans on April 7.

• The Guv's still against it, but committees in both the House and Senate are moving ahead with plans to snag $556 million in federal stimulus funds for the Unemployment Insurance program. Perry doesn't like the program additions the feds are requiring as part of the deal — even though the Department of Labor says states can revert to their current programs later. In the Senate version, (Kevin Eltife, R-Tyler, is the parent) the UI changes would also include formation of a committee that'll overhaul the whole program. Some lawmakers see that as a vehicle to change the program back to what it is now; others see it is a vehicle for serving a greater percentage of the state's unemployed workers. The House has UI bills situated in two different committees. Rep. Joe Deshotel, D-Beaumont, got his own bill out of his own committee and on its way to Calendars, but irked some of the people who wanted to testify by moving the meeting back two hours and voting the bill out before the original start time. It was legally done, but some opponents of his bill thought it was high-handed.

• We don't pretend to know the answer to this question, but it's an interesting one: Given the chance, would Texas voters give the Legislature the power to call itself back to Austin to override gubernatorial vetoes? Rep. Gary Elkins, R-Houston, got that proposal through the House with 131 ayes — or 31 more than it needed. It's now on the way to the Senate. If it passes and if voters approve, governors would no longer have the last word on vetoes of bills that pass too late in the session for lawmakers to fight back. And no, it wouldn't happen fast enough under any circumstances to affect the current legislative session. Rick Perry will speak last this time.

• The effort to get some textbook money for the technologies that might replace textbooks is underway, in earnest. The sponsors want schools to be able to use electronic books and course materials as well as textbooks and want the money to come out of the same pot. That'll get a hearing in House Public Education next week.

The Texas Supreme Court, revisiting Entergy v. Summers, a controversial decision on a worker injured on the utility's property, landed in the same place they landed the first time. The court rule Summers, who worked for an Entergy contractor, doesn't have a case against the utility.The new opinion is here, with concurrence, another concurrence, and a dissent. The original opinion, from August 2007, is here.

Clay Robison will join Tom Schieffer's gubernatorial campaign as communications director and sage. Robison was the Austin bureau chief of the Houston Chronicle for 27 years before being laid off last week (part of a 30 percent newsroom cut at that paper). He's got more experience than his candidate, or any of the opponents, having covered state politics and government since 1971, initially for the San Antonio Light. Schieffer, a former U.S. Ambassador (to Australia and then Japan) and state representative, announced his exploratory campaign last month. He's the only Democrat in the hunt, although state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, and humorist Kinky Friedman are also talking about getting in. On the Republican side of this, Gov. Rick Perry says he wants another term; U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is exploring a GOP primary challenge to the incumbent.

William Gimson is the new executive director of the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, which will oversee the $3 billion bond program approved by voters for cancer research in 2007. Gimson recently retired from his post as COO at the Centers for Disease Control, where he worked for 35 years.

Liz Young, most recently with Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford, joins the Texas Public Policy Foundation as a higher education policy wonk.

Gov. Rick Perry's latest appointments include:

• Eric McDonald, owner and chief investment officer of McDonald Capital Management in Lubbock, to the Teacher Retirement System Board of Trustees.

• Mary Ann Williamson of Weatherford to chair of the Texas Lottery Commission. Perry also appointed J. Winston Krause, an Austin lawyer, to that panel. Williamson is a CPA, owner of MKS Natural Gas Co. and the widow of former legislator and state transportation commissioner Ric Williamson.

• Mary Alexander of Valley View, Gene Brooks of Austin, and Joseph Muñiz of Harlingen to the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. Brooks is being reappointed. Alexander is regional outreach manager for Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic. Muñiz is assistant library director for the City of Harlingen.

• Oliver Bell of Horseshoe Bay, Janice Lord of Arlington, and Carmen Villanueva-Hiles of Palmhurst to the Texas Board of Criminal Justice. Bell, owner and CEO of an eponymous company, and Lord, a social work consultant, are being reappointed; Villanueva-Hiles, owner and COO of A+ Therapy, is new to the board.

• Linda Lowes Hatchel of Woodway, a retired professor, to the Board of Tax Professional Examiners.

• Sue Evenwel presiding officer of the Texas Funeral Service Commission. She owns Designin' Women Custom Embroidery in Mt. Pleasant.

• Gary Wood, president of Collins Financial Services in Lakeway, to chair the Texas Public Finance Authority. Wood is also being reappointed to that panel. Rodney Moore, owner of Dude Development and Gibraltar Construction in Lufkin, is new to the panel.

• James Stanton of Dallas to the 134th Judicial District Court, replacing Judge Anne Ashby, who's retiring. Stanton is an attorney at the Cozen O'Connor law firm.

• John Chism of Irving and Patrick Patterson of Boerne to the Texas Private Security Board that regulates everything from private investigators to locksmiths. Chisum will continue as chairman; Patterson, a retired FBI agent and now an exec at Harland Clark Corp., is new to the board.

• Steward Geise of Austin, Jody Anne Armstrong of Abilene, and Nary Spears of Houston to the Texas State Board of Social Work Examiners. Armstrong and Spears are being reappointed; Geise works for CB Richard Ellis in Austin.

Busted: State District Judge Manuel Barraza of El Paso, on charges of trading and trying to trade judicial decisions for cash and sexual favors. One of those women was an undercover FBI agent; her agency arrested the judge on a four-count indictment just three months after he took office... Longtime Hidalgo County Commissioner Sylvia Handy and three others, including her husband, were indicted on six counts of harboring undocumented aliens and putting them on the county payroll, in part to pay for the commissioner's housekeeper and day care provider. She's also accused of using county money to pay off a personal loan.

Deaths: Thomas Goggan III, name partner of one of the state's biggest and most politically connected law firms, of complications from cancer. He was 65. The law firm — now called Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson — grew into a major tax collector for local governments in Texas and elsewhere.