The Week in the Rearview Mirror

On the second leg of his two-day swing through Texas, Mitt Romney set a local fundraising record in San Antonio, bringing in at least $3 million from South Texas donorsGene Powell, the University of Texas System Board of Regents chairman, who organized one of the fundraisers, said the day's events for Romney had doubled the previous local record, set in 2008 at a John McCain-Sarah Palin event attended by Palin. Romney on Wednesday also attended a fundraiser in Houston, where he was introduced by former Secretary of State James Baker. The day before he hit San Antonio, Romney campaigned in Fort Worth.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst praised a court ruling upholding a $26 million verdict for Jordan Fishman, a Florida businessman who has claimed that two foreign companies stole his tire designs. Dewhurst has spanked U.S. Senate rival Ted Cruz for his work as an appellate lawyer for one of the companies, a Chinese tire-maker. "Justice was served," Dewhurst said. A Cruz spokesman hit back: "Dewhurst has spent over $10 million of his personal fortune falsely attacking Ted Cruz, all in an effort to distract voters from Dewhurst’s tax-and-spend record — and the voters saw through the Dewhurst deceptions."

Ted Cruz and David Dewhurst have agreed to debate before the July runoff, but an unexpected sticking point developed this week: the English language. Though neither of the two U.S. Senate candidates in the July 31 Republican primary runoff is actively working to organize a Spanish-language debate, the idea gained attention from a Univision report this week, and national media coverage sparked erroneous reports that such an event is actually in the works, a claim both campaigns now deny.

A Bexar County judge ruled this week that state Sen. Jeff Wentworth’s defamation lawsuit against his former primary challenger Elizabeth Ames Jones may proceed. Wentworth had filed a libel and slander suit against Jones for her campaign ads claiming that he had double-billed his campaign and the state for expenses related to air and car travel. In a surprise, Jones ended up finishing third on May 29, behind Donna Campbell, who will face Wentworth in a runoff.

The Legislative Budget Board, headed by House Speaker Joe Straus and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, has asked state agencies to propose 10 percent budget cuts for their next two-year budgets. No programs or services will be cut, but the agencies are expected to show lawmakers what the 10 percent cuts would do.