Enlarge Illustration by Todd Wiseman

In less than a week, you'll know something about the legislative session six months away. David Dewhurst is either leaving a Senate that will elect his replacement from its own ranks, or he'll become the first statewide official in Texas government, since, um, Rick Perry, to return to his current job after losing a race for federal office.

Lots of fun either way, right?

The late elections make for a long primary season and a relatively short general election, lengthening the first and shortening the second by about two months.

The Senate race has been the main act, but it's a relative thing. Only 11.7 percent of voting age Texans turned out for round one in May, and the norm is for a runoff to produce just a fraction of the turnout of the primary.

In the Democratic primary for Senate and in the other three statewide races on the ballot, the candidates are fighting for any advantage in name ID in a state where voters are barely engaged and the candidates' resources are too skimpy to attract much attention.

The national story here is a simplified version of the Senate race — a narrative line about whether the Tea Partiers and other insurgents in the GOP can overwhelm a traditional establishment Republican — albeit a very conservative one.,

Dewhurst picked up late endorsements from Comptroller Susan Combs, who'd like to run for his job if he wins the U.S. Senate race, and from state Sen. Dan Patrick, who has coyly assisted Dewhurst for weeks without actually endorsing him. Patrick told his Facebook friends that he's voting for the Lite Guv. Ted Cruz, Dewhurst's opponent, will start the last weekend before the election with a rally in The Woodlands, featuring Sarah Palin and U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint.

The Texas Democratic Party generally stays out of primary races, but they sent out an email that came as close to endorsing U.S. Senate candidate Paul Sadler as you can without taking sides. It's a two-column email comparing political and legislative experience (Grady Yarbrough has never held office), legislative accomplishments (Sadler was a prominent House member in the 1990s), awards for legislative work and newspaper and union endorsements. The party doesn't tell anyone how to vote, but it makes its intentions clear. The subject line? "The choice is yours." Yarbrough closed with a light advertising buy, not disclosing the size of it. Yarbrough has yet to file any of the required campaign finance reports in this contest.

Some fact-like objects on the way to Tuesday's election:

• 37 races on the primary runoff ballots

• 12 on the Democratic ballot

• 25 on the Republican ballot

• 5 are statewide races (two for U.S. Senate, one for Texas Supreme Court, two for Railroad Commission) (1 Democratic race, 4 Republican races)

• 11 are congressional runoffs (6D, 5R)

• 3 are for seats on the State Board of Education (1D, 2R)

• 1 (a loud one, at that) is for state Senate (1R)

• 17 are for the state House (4D, 13R)

• Incumbents — all Republicans — are in six of the runoffs: Railroad Commissioner Barry Smitherman, Texas Supreme Court Justice David Medina, state Sen. Jeff Wentworth, and state Reps. Chuck Hopson, Sid Miller, James Landtroop, and J.M. Lozano.

• 5 involve current state officeholders who are running for offices they don't hold now: David Dewhurst, Warren Chisum, Pete Gallego, Randy Weber, and Marc Veasey. Dewhurst is the only one who'll be an elected official in January no matter how this election goes.

Enlarge Bob Daemmrich

Texas Secretary of State Hope Andrade watches the delivery of the Capitol Christmas trees at the south steps on November 28, 2011.

In the ongoing disputes over voter ID, is the federal government a friend or a foe? The answer might depend on what comes next.

Certainly, Democrats and other opponents of the bill — which would require that most voters furnish a photo ID before casting their ballots — discovered an ally when the Department of Justice found that the law would infringe on the voting rights of minorities and others and refused to preclear it. That led to a subsequent showdown in federal court that has been argued but has yet to be resolved.

The relationship between opponents and the feds could change if the Department of Homeland Security gives state officials a database with millions of immigration records and citizenship information. Texas officials have requested access to the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, database, which will be “one of many important resources for confirming voter eligibility,” according to Texas Secretary of State Esperanza “Hope” Andrade's written request to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano. Hypothetically, the database could be used to strike noncitizens from the voter rolls without requiring photo IDs.

Opponents of voter ID aren’t taking the request lightly, despite their repeated assertions that voter fraud is a phantom problem. If only people who should vote are voting, as opponents of voter ID claim, why not hand over the SAVE information?

“What if it’s flawed? How many legitimate voters are going to get purged?” said Rebecca Acuña, the communications director for the Texas Democratic Party. “There is a possibility that legitimate voters can get purged. If we know, based on their own studies, in-person voter fraud does not exist, then one [legitimate voter] getting purged is too many.”

State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, the chairman of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, said he has yet to form an opinion on the issue, but would like to know exactly what the state wants the information for.

“[The secretary of state’s office] has a limited statutory authority and if they are doing something that’s exceeding their authority we’d like to know,” he said. “If what they’re doing is so harmless and doesn’t have the effect of disenfranchising voters, we can clear that up in a very quick and cordial conversation.”

Just in case, however, Martinez Fischer already has a solid defense in mind: the state’s own legal position on databases.

“In closing arguments on July 13, 2012 [during the voter ID trial], the State of Texas said a database matching project is hopelessly flawed and not a valid methodological approach to determining the answer to anything,” he said.

The secretary of state is aware of the concerns, and in a letter to Martinez Fischer, Andrade appeared open to discussing the SAVE data.

“The SAVE verification process as we understand it is not a stand alone database which can be ‘matched’ to the state’s voter registration database,” she wrote. “It is a tool used by federal state and local agencies to verify a person’s eligibility for whatever they are seeking from the government. This is not a database per se that we will ‘match’ with the voter registration database. As we understand it, it is an additional tool to use to verify someone’s citizenship status once they self-identify as a non-citizen in response to a jury summons.”

Enlarge Caleb Bryant Miller

As he addressed a recent luncheon at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, state Rep. Phil King delivered a verdict on Texas public schools.

“This 40-year experiment in the state — running public education — has really been a failure,” he told a crowd of policymakers, legislative staffers and lobbyists. It has created a “dramatic bureaucracy” that keeps absorbing more money, he said, but no one is truly held accountable for the end result.

King’s statement has a more radical undercurrent than the small-government, anti-spending rhetoric that has dominated political discourse in the state for the past two years. Taken a step further, it could become a call for an end to the public school system. And amid the current political climate, that could represent the beginning of a drumbeat for private school voucher legislation during the next legislative session.

Despite a half-hearted attempt at the end of the 2011 Legislative session, the last real grasp lawmakers made at passing private school vouchers was in 2007. It failed in part because of opposition in the Senate.

But that could soon change. Amid the chaos brought to the state’s public education system by 2011’s budget cuts, the rollout of the new accountability system, a national trend toward such reforms and a rightward shift in the upper chamber, the 83rd Legislature might prove a fertile ground for school choice legislation.

Though ahead of the curve with other popular conservative policy on abortion and voter ID laws, Texas lags behind more than 30 states including Louisiana, Ohio and Indiana, which in recent years have each passed versions of laws allowing the use of public money to fund private education.

Two parties in the school finance lawsuits against the state (one brought by an organization chaired by former Rep. Kent Grusendorf, R-Arlington, who supported voucher legislation in the Legislature) are pushing school choice. They are linking it to efficiency, arguing that a school system that does not allow the maximum amount of choice for students cannot be wisely spending state dollars. Their lawsuits do not need to be successful legally to generate a body of evidence — and more importantly, political momentum — to support a shake-up of the status quo.

At a recent luncheon at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, House lawmakers and other conservative leaders expressed support for reforms typically associated with school choice — including legislation that allowed “dollars to follow students” and further deregulation of public schools.

And voucher proponents already have a powerful ally in Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, who is a potential candidate to lead the Senate Education Committee, but there has also been a dramatic reshuffling in the upper chamber, one that could expand after next week's runoff and the November general election.

So far, four Republican senators — Steve Ogden, Chris Harris, Mike Jackson and Florence Shapiro — have been replaced by very conservative House members — Charles Schwertner, Ken Paxton, Kelly Hancock and Larry Taylor. And two more incumbents are still in peril. Sen. Jeff Wentworth faces a stiff runoff challenge from Tea Party supported Donna Campbell. Democrat Wendy Davis has a general election contest against Rep. Mark Shelton, R-Fort Worth, in a district that leans Republican.

Among the new faces, Patrick and others might be able to find enough support for the legislation that failed in 2007.

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The runoff election is finally here. Who is ahead in the polls, and who will show up to vote?

You can view the video at: https://trib.it/OFP6Gq

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In the wake of the movie theater killings in Aurora, Colorado, we asked the insiders what the legislative response — if any — ought to be.

The answers were mixed. While most don't think federal and state lawmakers should revisit existing gun laws, a slight majority said current gun laws are not restrictive enough. Asked whether lawmakers should consider changes in other policies and laws, more said No than Yes — but neither answer was appealing to more than half of the insiders.

The nuances, as usual, were in the comments offered by the respondents. Those are attached in full and, as always, we've included a sampling of those responses below.

Enlarge Todd Wiseman

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Should lawmakers revisit federal and state gun laws?

• "Not given the current make up of the legislature. I'm afraid "revisiting gun laws" at the state level would mean CHLs for 9 year olds and mental patients."

• "Only those lawmakers wishing to no longer be legislators in Texas should revisit anything dealing with restricting gun regulation."

• "Little interest from either side of the aisle. The politics are baked in and only big city Mayors have running room on the issue."

• "Nuts can't kill as many people if they can't get military weapons designed to kill a lot of people."

• "Law abiding citizens should have LESS restrictions on gun ownership. The result would be an armed citizenry with the ability to protect themselves against those who wish to do harm."

• "It's time to get serious about assault rifles and high capacity magazines. No serious hunter would ever consider a 100 round mag and I'm one of those guys who hunts."

• "Since it seems like this whole episode is a case study in how to circumvent state and federal gun laws, it seems like there might be other avenues also needing to be explored at this point?"

Enlarge Todd Wiseman

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Are current gun laws too restrictive or not restrictive enough?

• "On certain assault rifles and availability of armor piercing bullets."

• "Guns kill people like spoons make people fat."

• "Broad issues related to this question. Access to guns and ammo? About right, I think. Ability to protect one's self? Too restrictive. The theater was a gun-free zone. CHL holders were prevented from protecting themselves by an overly restrictive law."

• "They are just fine where they are. You didn't have that option."

• "Buying 6,000 rounds of ammo and multiple assault rifles in a 60 day span should trigger some type of reasonable intervention."

• "Just fine, I'd say"

• "Closing the gun show and Internet loophole is not too much to ask, is it? I love to hunt, but I don't need an AK-47 to bring a deer down. There is no sport in that."

• "Texas went through this back in 1999 after Columbine, and I don't think much changed afterwards in regards to being able to purchase guns."

• "It's not the guns' fault."

Enlarge Todd Wiseman

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Is there something lawmakers could or should do — not involving gun laws — to help prevent assaults like this?

• "Increase funding of mental health services."

• "You can't legislate someone from being crazy."

• "Fund mental health programs. Might not have prevented this one, but there's no denying that most of these shooters are ill."

• "Better mental health services."

• "There is nothing anyone can do to stop a mad man or stupidity. The day after the crazy in Colorado killed 12 people, a stupid person with 28 people in a truck hit a tree and killed 14 people. No one is calling for vehicle regulation or stupidity regulation. The Government cannot protect us from the exceptions to the rules."

• "Purchasing guns through the Internet has become a hot topic recently. If anything changes, it may start with regulations over the ability to freely purchase weapons online without any background checks."

• "Build a culture of nonviolence, how about? For starters, legislators and partisan hacks could realize that their vicious, hateful interactions, on display in the media 24/7, create a poisonous environment perfect for incubating destructive impulses. See: "Children Learn What They Live." And then they grow up and kill people."

• "A more functional mental health system would be a good place to start"

What would be the best policy or legal response to incidents like this one?

• "Not to get global about local, individualized incidents"

• "The best policy would be to stop making policy based on anecdotes and isolated incidents."

• "Ban assault weapons"

• "No need for knee-jerk, feel-good action. This was a tragedy. No need to politicize it. Not every event should result in additional laws."

• "Acknowledge that neither government nor law enforcement can protect citizens from deranged individuals intent on inflicting injury. Encourage citizens to own a weapon, learn to use it and keep it with them."

• "Get rid of automatic weapons for starters. Track multiple gun purchase, and make sure law enforcement knows about them."

• "No changes in law are needed. In terms of industry, Movie theaters should put alarms on exit doors so ushers know if they have been propped open. Legally, everything is already in place to handle this. The system will either convict this guy of mass murder and put him away or declare him criminally insane and put him away."

• "I believe we should develop a set of characteristics associated with those who commit these type of crimes and allow educators to profile and report such candidates for counseling."

• "Society cannot prevent sociopathic behavior. It can try to recognize it and protect itself by attempts at prevention and removal of those individuals from our society."

Our thanks to this week's participants: Gene Acuna, Cathie Adams, Brandon Aghamalian, Jenny Aghamalian, Victor Alcorta, Clyde Alexander, Jay Arnold, Louis Bacarisse, Charles Bailey, Tom Banning, Dave Beckwith, Rebecca Bernhardt, Andrew Biar, Allen Blakemore, Tom Blanton, Steve Bresnen, Chris Britton, Andy Brown, Thure Cannon, Snapper Carr, Corbin Casteel, William Chapman, Elna Christopher, James Clark, Lawrence Collins, John Colyandro, Randy Cubriel, Denise Davis, Hector De Leon, June Deadrick, Nora Del Bosque, David Dunn, Jeff Eller, Gay Erwin, Jon Fisher, Tom Forbes, Norman Garza, Dominic Giarratani, Bruce Gibson, Scott Gilmore, Clint Hackney, Anthony Haley, Wayne Hamilton, Bill Hammond, John Heasley, Jim Henson, Ken Hodges, Steve Holzheauser, Shanna Igo, Deborah Ingersoll, Cal Jillson, Jason Johnson, Karen Johnson, Mark Jones, Robert Jones, Robert Kepple, Tom Kleinworth, Pete Laney, Dick Lavine, Donald Lee, Luke Legate, Ruben Longoria, Homero Lucero, Vilma Luna, Matt Mackowiak, Luke Marchant, Bryan Mayes, Dan McClung, Scott McCown, Debra Medina, Robert Miller, Bee Moorhead, Steve Murdock, Craig Murphy, Keats Norfleet, Pat Nugent, Nef Partida, Gardner Pate, Tom Phillips, Richard Pineda, Royce Poinsett, Jay Pritchard, Jay Propes, Jeff Rotkoff, Andy Sansom, Jim Sartwelle, Stan Schlueter, Bruce Scott, Steve Scurlock, Dan Shelley, Bradford Shields, Christopher Shields, Martha Smiley, Larry Soward, Dennis Speight, Tom Spilman, Jason Stanford, Keith Strama, Bob Strauser, Colin Strother, Charles Stuart, Michael Quinn Sullivan, sherry sylvester, Jay Thompson, Russ Tidwell, Trent Townsend, Trey Trainor, John Weaver, Ware Wendell, Ken Whalen, Darren Whitehurst, Michael Wilt, Seth Winick, Lee Woods, Peck Young, Angelo Zottarelli.

Enlarge Todd Wiseman

Friday, July 27:

• Sarah Palin and U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., to attend rally for Ted Cruz; The Woodlands (6 p.m.)
• Early voting ends

Saturday, July 28:

• Glenn Beck "Restoring Lotexve" rally at Cowboys Stadium; Dallas (8 p.m.)
• Hispanic Leadership Network's Small Business Conference with Gov. Rick Perry and U.S. Rep. Francisco "Quico" Canseco; San Antonio (10 a.m.)

Monday, July 30:

• Joint School Finance Committee meeting (9 a.m.)

Tuesday, July 31:

• Election Day for the primary runoffs
• Senate Health and Human Services Committee meeting (9 a.m.)

Wednesday, Aug. 1:

• Senate Health and Human Services Committee meeting (9 a.m.)
• Senate State Affairs Committee meeting (9 a.m.)

At least 14 people died and nine were injured when an overloaded pickup truck crashed in South Texas. Authorities are investigating whether human smuggling played a part in the sheer number of people packed into the truck. The dead were citizens of Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras. The practice of overloading vehicles with illegal immigrants as they head north into the state is common.

A proposed fence along the U.S.-Mexico border in South Texas is drawing fire from a Mexican agency protesting its placement in the flood plain. American officials insist that the fence segments will not obstruct the waters of the Rio Grande, but a treaty signed by the two countries in 1970 prohibits the building of any structure that causes a deflection of the river or its floodwaters. Half of the proposed 14-mile stretch falls in the floodplain, and engineers on each side dispute the other’s findings.

The School Land Board has rejected a $300 million injection of funds expected to be deposited into the Available School Fund. The money, earnings from investments in real estate managed by the board, was part of an agreement in the Legislature last year to restore a portion of the $5.4 billion cut to public education. The resulting constitutional amendment approved by legislators was also approved by voters in November. The intention of the provision was to allow money to be deposited directly into the Available School Fund, but the three-member board is not allowing the money to be disbursed, instead reserving those earnings for future investments opportunities.

A provision of the Affordable Care Act is netting Texans some cash. Insurance companies are now subject to a rule that requires them to refund premiums if their operations don’t meet a certain ratio. The so-called medical loss ratio requires companies to spend 80 percent of premiums they collect on health care service or efforts to improve them and keep their administrative costs below the 20 percent threshold. Anything over that level triggers a rebate to consumers, which encompasses individuals, small and large employers. The refunds are required to go out by Aug. 1. Consumers Union estimates that Texas is on tap to receive $166.9 million for 2011.

In response to funding cuts resulting from legislation excluding Planned Parenthood from the state’s Medicaid Women’s Health Program, the women’s health organization has deployed workers to downtown streets in Central Texas to solicit donations. The new strategy of seeking support directly from the public has netted donations of more than $165,000 in four Central Texas communities from more than 4,000 people.

San Antonio’s CPS Energy came to an agreement with a South Korean company to buy a fixed amount of solar photovoltaic power for the next 25 years, leading the company to plan building projects that will cost a consortium group of manufacturers about $1 billion and lead to the creation of 800 jobs for the area. When the solar plants are completed, they’ll be able to supply 400 megawatts per year to the utility, powering about 70,000 homes.

General Motors announced that it would be partnering with an Austin-area company to study the effect of the use of electric and plug-in vehicles on the smart grid in an urban area development. The project will be underwritten with funds from the Department of Energy and other project partners, and will involve participation of researchers from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the Environmental Defense Fund and the University of Texas. Overseen by Pecan Street Incorporated, the project will try to determine the impact of cars using the grid on the overall energy usage pattern of the neighborhood.

A study released earlier in the year by the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin is being reconsidered in light of allegations that the leader of the study may have a conflict of interest. The study on fracking was led by Professor Charles “Chip” Groat and concluded that there was no connection between the practice and groundwater contamination. But Groat didn't disclose at the time that he was a member of the board of Plains Exploration and Production, an energy company that practices fracking. He has received over $1.5 million in cash and stock from the company since 2007. A watchdog group, Public Accountability Initiative, has also pointed out flaws in the study, including lack of verified peer review.

The governor set a November 6 special election for the unexpired term of state Rep. Veronica Gonzales, who resigned to take a job with the University of Texas-Pan American. Whoever wins the HD-41 seat will hold the position until the winner of the regular election held that same day takes the oath of office in January.

Michael Kelley joins the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation as a government relations officer. He's most recently been teaching at Central Texas College, and worked at several state agencies and the Texas Senate before that.

Jeff Hillery joins Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, as communications director after six years with the Fox News talk radio operation in New York City (and 15 years in Dallas radio).

Gov. Rick Perry appointed Matthew Kreisle III to chair the Texas Historical Commission. Kreisle is an executive with Page Southerland Page in Austin. He also appointed Michael Donegan of Rockwall and August Harris III of Austin to that board. Donnegan works at El Dorado Chemical; Harris is president of Covenant Financial Solutions.

The governor named Erik Salwen of Houston to the Texas Southern University Board of Regents. Salwen is president of Oak Research and also works for the Dallas Theological Seminary.