The Texas Public Policy Foundation is buying a Congress Avenue building, starting a $5 million capital campaign and naming the project after the late Michael Stevens of Houston. The very local part (which was a surprise to the folks behind the counter this morning): It's the building where the Little City coffee shop — a popular hangout for political, lobby and media types — is located. That business is apparently looking for a new spot. Artist's Rendering of the TPPF renovation

Little City, today

Brandi Grissom, The Texas Tribune AUSTIN — Gov. Rick Perry gave Texas border sheriffs another $2 million for a virtual border wall of web cameras that in its first full year failed to meet nearly every law enforcement goal his office originally set.

Last week, Perry's Criminal Justice Division notified the Texas Border Sheriffs Coalition that it had been awarded a second $2 million grant for the Texas Border Watch program. The program allows anyone, anywhere with an Internet connection to view live footage from cameras trained on the Texas-Mexico border.

"The ultimate goal is to deter, prevent and disrupt crime along the border," said Perry spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger.

Perry hatched the idea for the virtual border watch during his 2006 re-election campaign. He promised then to spend $5 million and line the border with hundreds of surveillance cameras.

After several starts and stops and a test of the program that yielded paltry results, Perry last year awarded the border sheriffs $2 million to run the camera project for one year.

Traffic to the camera Web site, www.blueservo.com, was brisk, with some 40 million people logging onto the site and nearly 125,000 signing up as virtual border deputies.

All those Web hits, though, didn't result in much police work.

Internal grant reports showed that with the initial funding, the coalition was expected to install 200 cameras that would generate about 1,200 arrests and 4,500 illegal immigrant referrals to U.S. Border Patrol.

Year-end reports showed that from June 2008 through June 2009, the coalition — which contracted with BlueServo, a small social networking company —installed just 17 cameras that produced 11 arrests and about 300 immigration referrals.

Don Reay, executive director of the coalition, said despite missing its targets, the camera program was worthwhile.

Success or failure, he said, can't be judged based solely on the numbers.

"You have to look at the community impact, what people feel out there and the fact we're not getting as many complaints there to the sheriffs' offices," Reay said.

During the second year of the grant, Reay said, the coalition expects to install more cameras, to move the cameras more often to various locations along the border and to improve response times to reports from Internet viewers.

The border cameras, he said, are not meant to be the solution to crime and illegal immigration problems on the border. They are just one part of Perry's larger strategy.

Since 2005, the state has spent more than $110 million on border security efforts. Much of that was used to pay state troopers and local police and sheriffs overtime to patrol high-crime areas of the border.

"We've never said we are the panacea... with that camera project," Reay said. "It fits into the overall strategy."

But experts on both sides of the immigration issue agreed that results from the first year of the border camera program showed it was unsuccessful. Some lawmakers called the program a waste.

State Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, said money that has been used on the border cameras would be better spent on hiring more state troopers and boosting intelligence operations.

The border cameras, Shapleigh said, are more about Perry securing his electoral base ahead of a tough primary election fight than they are about providing security on the border.

"Border cameras are a proven waste of time and money," Shapleigh said, "but his immigrant-bashing base loves them, so that's why he funds them."

bgrissom@texastribune.org

Brandi Grissom, The Texas TribuneAUSTIN — Gov. Rick Perry is expanding Operation Border Star, a multi-agency border security effort he launched in 2007, sending teams of Texas Rangers and National Guard troops to curb border crime and prevent spillover violence from Mexico.

"This is the latest in a series of aggressive actions we've taken to fill the gap left by the federal government's ongoing failure to adequately secure our international border," Perry announced in Houston.

He also reissued his call for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to send more National Guard troops to the border and said he has sunk another $2 million into his border Web camera program (see our earlier story here).

Perry did not say how many Rangers or National Guard troops would be stationed on the 1,254-mile Texas-Mexico border.

Tom Vinger, Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman, said there are currently 130 Texas Rangers, and the agency plans to hire 14 more. He declined to say how many Rangers are assigned to the border.

Perry said so-called "Ranger Recon Teams" have been on the border since August, investigating burglaries of rural ranches, homes and hunting camps.

He said the teams would also be key to preventing the Mexican drug war from seeping into the U.S.

Citing the more than 1,500 murders in Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Perry reiterated his call for the federal government to pay to send National Guard troops to the Texas-Mexico border. He first asked DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano in January to approve the troop surge.

* * * * *

Perry also briefly noted that he had awarded another $2 million grant to operate surveillance cameras on the border.

The Tribune reported yesterday that Perry had made the $2 million award to the Texas Border Sheriffs Coalition despite documents that showed the camera program failed to meet nearly all of its law enforcement goals during the first full year it was operational.

Perry's office argues that the camera program didn't miss its goals but that the targets were improperly set at the outset of the first $2 million grant. The targets were revised after the first year; after the changes, they closely match that year's actual results.

The governor's office issued a revised year-end report earlier this summer after fielding a reporter's questions about why an initial year-end report showed the cameras did not meet the original goals. The revised report listed goals that were dramatically downsized.

Instead of 200 cameras, the revised report showed the coalition was expected to install only 15, a target the sheriffs exceeded by installing 17 cameras.

The goal for arrests was shifted from 1,200 down to 25, more in line with the 11 arrests the coalition actually reported.

Perry spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger said the initial goals should have been adjusted sooner and attributed the lapse to technological glitches.

State Rep. Veronica Gonzales, D-McAllen, said she'd rather see state investment in more boots on the border than in the camera program that seems less effective.

Texas Rangers and National Guard troops could be helpful if they coordinate with local and federal law enforcement, she said.

"We welcome monies, and we welcome the Governor paying close attention to our security," Gonzales said. "But we also know these are tough economic times, so we want to make sure the money is spent as effectively as possible."

bgrissom@texastribune.org

The biggest contests on the 2010 ballot captivate Texas bloggers' imaginations this week. The Net's got room for smaller campaign fry, too, as well as a new liberal/progressive website. Closing it out is a lunch conversation with Karl Rove and other stories.

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Call a Re-Dew

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst sent out an official letter saying he's running for reelection. (Read our take here.) "Don't read too much into Dewhurst's non-move," cautions the Austin American-Statesman's First Reading, saying the Lite Guv has gotta do something to pass the time while he's waiting for U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison to commit, and that something might as well be Lt. Governing.

BurkaBlog gives the following possible reasons for Dewhurst's announcement: KBH may not be resigning; Republican senators are conspiring in backrooms; and, over by the starting blocks, Attorney General Greg Abbott is gearing up. "If it's true and [Hutchison's] not resigning, well, Dewhurst's announcement suddenly makes heaps of sense," says Blue Dot Blues, following with speculation on what other folks down the ballot might do. (One of those, Rep. Dan Gattis, R-Georgetown, is aiming to take the place of retiring Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, says Blue Dot Blues after seeing a video on Gattis' website Sunday.)

Burka passed on a brief report from Texas Monthly's Pam Colloff about Gov. Rick Perry's yen for the Texas A&M bonfire that got a lot of attention from the traditional daily media this week. Meanwhile, Texans for Rick Perry are making lemonade out of their boss's secession talk by posting a video about "Texas: Succeeding." And the Houston Chronicle's Texas Politics features various videos from the Hutchison and Perry campaigns, here, here and here.

Hank Gilbert, a Democrat for governor, releases a response to Pres. Barack Obama's health care address to Congress, via WhosPlayin. (In brief, Gilbert says Hutchison and Perry are bad, health care reformers are good and the Texas Department of Insurance needs an overhaul, stat.) Elsewhere on the Internet, Eye on Wiliamson relays Gilbert's statements on Perry's border security initiative (to which they say, Boo!) and increasing funding for aspiring Tier One universities (to which they say, Yay!).

Purple Texas scoffs at reports that the Texas GOP is becoming more diverse because of candidates like Hutchison and Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams. The blogger says, "I don't know about you, but if the slim odds of Hutchison unseating Perry and a little-known black Republican winning a U.S. Senate seat are being used to argue that Republicans are getting more diverse, I'm falling a little short of being convinced."

Rightwingsparkle met former Solicitor General Ted Cruz, a candidate for Attorney General. She's a fan, we think. Her description of him includes words such as "young," "handsome," "serious," "inspiring," "good communicator" and "refreshing." And if you've been conjecturing that U.S. Trade Rep. Ron Kirk would make a good candidate for U.S. Senate, stop it right now, says the Dallas Morning News' Trail Blazers, because the former Dallas mayor doesn't want the job, saying, "I'm done."

Houston appellate judge Jeff Brown wants to follow fellow Republican Harriet O'Neill as the Place 3 holder on the Supreme Court, according to Tex Parte Blog. According to the same site, former Texas Supreme Scott Brister will have home court advantage Wednesday when he makes his first arguments since stepping down from the high court.

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District Competition

Texas Watchdog shows off their multimedia cartography skills, creating an interactive map of information about state lawmakers, including campaign funding, pet bills and media reports. (Scroll down the page some to get info about statewide officeholders.)

Blue Dot Blues checks out the Republicans looking to dethrone freshman Rep. Diana Maldonado, D-Round Rock. The blogger counts four wannabes so far (not including 2008 GOP nominee Bryan Daniel or second-place primary finisher Dee Hobbs).

Rep. Norma Chavez, D-El Paso, is running again, "in case you had any doubt," NewspaperTree.com Blog reports, also posting the announcement of her campaign kickoff in El Paso (featuring Rep. Jessica Farrar, D-Houston, and Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio).

Republican restaurateur Cindy Burkett (a former staffer for Sen. Bob Deuell, R-Greenville) is taking a shot at Rep. Robert Miklos, D-Mesquite. Capitol Annex relays part of her press release. Meanwhile, Rep. Aaron Peña, D-Edinburg, opened up a new district office in Edcouch, and has two posts all about it, here and here.

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Dog Day

Texas politico Glenn Smith launched a new blog called Dog Canyon, featuring contributors Tom Block, Cyndi Hughes, Gregory Jackson, Mary Lowry, Turk Pipkin and Genevieve Van Cleve (Maldonado's 2008 campaign manager). First impressions-wise, the blog looks like it could be a sort of Texas-centric Huffington Post, or the type of site the parents of Burnt Orange Report would write. Either way or neither, Dog Canyon's got support from both predecessors.

Posts from the blog's first week include the first couple of installments of a "Texas Political Guidebook." Chapter One concerns the "Imbibius Age" of state politics. ("[T]he link between sobriety and good government can only be considered ironically," the blogger says.) Chapter Two is about "the orthodox spiritual practice of intolerance" the blogger says is prevalent in the state.

* * * * *

Gallimaufry

A Dos Centavos correspondent attended the Democratic National Committee meeting in Austin and brought back photos of people she thought were important, here and here.

Watchdog slams the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission for lack of transparency, then backs off a bit after receiving a response from a TABC spokeswoman, who wasn't contacted before Watchdog's criticism hit the blogosphere. And Grits rounds up coverage of the case involving Cameron Todd Willingham, who was falsely accused of arson and executed.

Burka had lunch with Rove. They talked about Rove's upcoming book, the Texas Tribune, the governor race, punditry, Obama, Chet Edwards and quail.

And Travis Monitor puts the finishing touches on their analyses of the constitutional amendments on the November ballot, writing about Propositions Eight, Nine, 10 and 11.

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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.

Abby Rapoport, The Texas Tribune It may not be Mad Men, but the State Board on Education will begin broadcasting its meetings online on Wednesday.

Audio files of SBOE meetings are already available, but Debbie Ratcliffe, TEA's communications director, said video will make it "easier to tell who's actually talking."

The audio broadcasts already have hundreds of listeners, and TEA currently has capacity for a thousand viewers. "I'm not sure that the numbers will be too different [for video]," Ratcliffe said.

The videos will stream from TexasAdmin.com, which also streams meetings for other agencies. TEA will link to live streams, and the files will remain online for another six months, and archived offline for another five years after that.

The change comes as a result of Donna Howard's HB 772, which requires live and archived videos of the meetings be available to the public.

rarapoport@texastribune.org

Brandi Grissom, The Texas Tribune AUSTIN — Border officials say their communities aren't being overrun with "lawless hordes" of Mexican drug runners and people smugglers, and they said Gov. Rick Perry is painting an inaccurate scary picture of their home.

Last week, Perry announced he was sending teams of Texas Rangers and Texas National Guard troops to protect border landowners from extortion and threats from violent criminal organizations and to prevent spillover violence from Mexico.

The Texas Border Coalition, a group of elected officials and business leaders, wrote Perry a letter taking issue with the impression they say he created — that the border is overrun with criminals and violence.

"While each of our communities has their own unique issues, being overwhelmed by criminal elements from Mexico is not one of them," wrote Chad Foster, coalition chairman and Eagle Pass mayor.

Crime is down in the region, Foster wrote, and apprehensions of illegal immigrants are declining, too.

Foster urged the governor to ensure that the Rangers and National Guard troops coordinate with law enforcement already in the region.

Some law enforcement officials have also expressed skepticism about the need for Rangers and National Guard troops. Juarez, the most violent spot in the ongoing Mexican drug war, is across the Rio Grande from El Paso. But local police on the U.S. side told the El Paso Times that there has been no escalation in crime.

"Unfortunately, we have always had crimes related to that, but they are very rare," El Paso police spokesman Javier Sambrano told the Times.

Perry spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger said state-led border security efforts that use local, state and federal officers, like Operation Border Star, are the reason for crime reductions on the border.

The so-called Ranger recon teams, she said, would continue that model.

"The mission of the Ranger Recon Teams is a specific response to a specific threat in remote areas along the border where criminals are exploiting cracks in the seams," Cesinger said via e-mail, "and we will continue to work with local law enforcement through Operation Border Star to ensure the safety of these communities."

bgrissom@texastribune.org

Matt Stiles, The Texas Tribune The sniping between Gov. Rick Perry and U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in the GOP gubernatorial primary contest hasn't yet produced a clear frontrunner, according to the newest Rasmussen poll of GOP primary voters.

The telephone survey, conducted Wednesday by Rasmussen Reports, showed challenger Hutchison slightly ahead of incumbent Perry, 40 percent to 38 percent. The poll's margin of error is +/- 3.5 percent.

The poll also found one in five of those likely Republican primary voters hadn't yet settled on a candidate to support in the March election.

"With the two running so closely and both being so well-known in the state, the key to the contest ultimately may prove to be how their supporters turnout for the primary vote," according to the polling firm, which surveyed 790 people it classified as "likely" Republican primary voters.

Three percent of those surveyed said they supported Debra Medina, a recent entrant into the GOP primary race.

The poll is positive news for Hutchison's campaign, especially given that Perry held a 10-point advantage in the same survey in mid-July, though her staff didn't trumpet the results.

"We're just letting the poll speak for itself," said spokesman Joe Pounder.

The results also contradicted scuttlebutt among some political observers who speculated that Perry enjoyed broader support than he had earlier this summer, when a University of Texas poll showed him ahead by 12 percentage points. Rasmussen had Perry in the lead by 10 percentage points in July and up by four points in a May poll.

Perry's campaign spokesman, Mark Miner, downplayed the results while noting that Perry fared better among conservative respondents. Hutchison leads among moderates and liberals, according to the poll.

"We're very pleased with where we are in the campaign," Miner said. "The only poll that matters is the one on Election Day."

Both candidates are viewed favorable by slightly more than 70 percent of the voters surveyed, the poll found. Roughly the same number approve of the job Perry is doing as governor.

mstiles@texastribune.org

Abby Rapoport, The Texas Tribune The State Auditor says the Texas Education Agency’s process for monitoring average daily attendance in public schools needs a few adjustments.Most disturbing was the report’s discovery of 62 improper user accounts, 46 of which should have been deactivated. TEA is investigating the accounts, which could potentially access students' social security numbers and test scores. In its response, the agency asserted it would work with its private contractor — IBM — to close the security gaps. Given the importance of the daily average attendance — the key component for determining school funding — discrepancies in measurement could have spelled a major mis-allotment in funds. None was found; the report was largely positive in terms of how the agency made adjustments and simply suggested better tracking and prompter reporting. In its own audit attempts, TEA exams its database for those districts with the most errors, and it then exams every error within the district. Because of this, larger school districts are much more likely to get audited, and of the 227 school districts audited over the last four years, 111 had been audited twice or more, leaving approximately 1,090 completely unexamined. State auditors want TEA to look at more school districts to emphasize statewide coverage, and to encourage districts to resolve some of the errors on their own. Rita Chase, director of financial audits, said TEA has already begun sampling a wider array of districts, and many of the recommendations in the report were in the process of being implemented already. arapoport@texastribune.org

Kay Bailey Hutchison rebounded in the most recent poll from Rasmussen Reports, but one of Gov. Rick Perry's hottest arguments rests on the rhetoric of "I'm from Austin; she's from Washington." And while the latest polling has the two gubernatorial candidates locked in a tight race, it's a contest that initially — almost a year ago — was polling strongly in Hutchison's favor.

Something happened. Pollsters say part of it was the Washington thing. Part of it is a partisanship thing. And if you listen to Democratic pollsters, the political market will change as soon as the economy turns and (they say with hope) Congress has approved legislation remaking the health care system. They could be whistling past graveyards, too: While the race for Guv is getting most of the attention, other races — for Congress, for potential statewide races like U.S. Senate, and even statehouse — could be pulled into the whirlpool, too.

"People out of Washington are not having a lot of success right now," says Mike Baselice, a pollster who counts Perry among his clients. Democratic incumbents in tough districts, like U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards of Waco, could have particular things to worry about. President Barack Obama's numbers have slipped. And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has toxic popularity numbers in Texas. By Baselice's reckoning, 21 percent of Texans like her and 50 percent don't. She does for Republican fundraising what Tom DeLay used to do for the Democrats.

Democratic pollster Ben Tulchin says "there's a pretty big disconnect between Washington and Texas right now," but thinks it could pass if the economy turns and the health care fight ends. "Any Republican is going to try to nationalize the election," he says. "Democrats are going to try to talk about local issues."

Republican pollster Bryan Eppstein sees more bogies in partisanship and leadership than in Washington v. Texas squabbles. (Eppstein did some work early in the cycle for Hutchison but isn't attached to a gubernatorial candidate at this point.) He's got an eye on voters who chose Kinky Friedman and Carole Keeton Strayhorn in the last gubernatorial election, both of whom ran as independents. Those two candidates got just more than 30 percent of the votes. And he's looking at the huge number of registered voters who didn't vote last year — roughly 5.5 million people. Those two groups are big, and could be pulled into the anger against partisanship and bailouts and health care and so on. They're not with the parties, and they'll be shopping for candidates.

The first group — the Friedman/Strayhorn bunch — won't be a factor in the March primaries, he says. They're not Party animals. "The benefit of this outrage is to the Republican running in November, unless there is an independent running," he says. "Then it would go to the independent."

For Eppstein, that's not an anti-Washington effect (though he notes the remarkable distaste for Congress at the moment), but an anti-partisan effect. His takeaway is that the most partisan candidates are in the most trouble at the moment. And he's talking about 1992, when a group of voters angry with the political parties united behind Ross Perot: "When two-thirds of the registered voters are not voting (in governor's races), what does that mean?"

The Texas unemployment rate rose again in August — to 8 percent — according to the Texas Workforce Commission.That's up from 7.9 percent in July and is higher than the 5.3 percent recorded in August 2008. The national unemployment rate is even higher, at 9.7 percent. It was at 6.1 percent a year ago. Unemployment in some parts of the state exceeds the national average, according to state officials. In McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, the rate last month was 11.4 percent. It reached 10.8 percent in Beaumont-Port Arthur, and 10.5 percent in Brownsville-Harlingen. The lowest unemployment rate in Texas last month was 5.6 percent in Amarillo.