Sen. John Carona tells us he believes he’s resolved constitutional questions about his local option highway funding bill and will win final Senate passage on Tuesday — though he acknowledges he expects Gov. Rick Perry to “do everything he can to derail the bill” as it moves through the House.
A constitutional amendment on the House calendar today gives the Legislature a second bite at the apple of overriding gubernatorial vetoes. The proposal by Gary Elkins provides for the Legislature to meet following the deadline for vetoing bills. Here is the new language that would be added to the Constitution:
The governor's position is that taking the $555 million in stimulus money and making the required changes would increase the number of people receiving unemployment benefits and raise the cost of the program. He is right. The cost of the changes is around $76 million per year. On October 1,
The following e-mail went out to Republican activists, consultants, and Washington media types over the name of Perry campaign guru Dave Carney. Among the recipients were consultant Arthur Finkelstein, representatives of the Club for Growth, Washington Post columnist Chris Cizzilla, and prominent Patton Boggs attorney Benjamin Ginsberg, who represented the
The latest UT poll is good news for Perry, bad news for Hutchison. So much for her 25-point lead in earlier polls. A very large 34% is undecided. In the interviews that I did for the February Texas Monthly cover story about the governor’s race, Perry’s strategists
I have been corresponding with David Guenther of the Texas Public Policy Foundation on this issue. He used to work at the Workforce Commission, and he makes a couple of instructive points: Two alternatives to shore up the trust fund balance without relying on that set of funds (and strings):
Aside from responding to hurricanes, I cannot remember the last time Rick Perry did something that resembled leadership. It's just not in him. The rejection of the stimulus package for unemployment compensation was all about political posturing: "I am here today...to stand with Texas employers and the millions of Texans
The main effect of Hans Klingler’s hire is that it is yet another signal from the Hutchison camp that she is in the race for the long haul and no matter how mean it gets. Otherwise, it doesn’t move the needle. Staffers switch jobs all the time. The RPT is
The state’s Republican leadership appears to be warming up to the $17 billion in federal stimulus money, Gov. Rick Perry’s voluble aversion notwithstanding. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who breakfasted today with Perry and House Speaker Joe Straus, gave some insight about the leadership’s thinking to reporters in
The Capitol gossip machine has worked overtime since Thursday’s explosive Senate Finance hearing, but Chairman Steve Ogden vehemently denies any coordination with the Governor’s office to ambush former UT Regent Robert Rowling. Everyone who hasn’t had a paper sack over their heads knows by now that Dallas billionaire Rowling quit
Here’s what a Hutchison hand told me. (I was driving and talking on my cell phone, so this is the gist of the conversation, not a verbatim rendition.) This is a legislative session in which Perry needs to show that he is a leader who can bring people together and
The resignation of Robert Rowling as a University of Texas regent and as chairmain of the UT System’s beleaguered investment company, UTIMCO, following Rowling’s appearance at a stormy session of the Senate Finance committee, was rife with politics. Rowling is a former Perry supporter who is backing Hutchison in the
Rick Perry’s designation of items for emergency action seems right on the mark. As most readers know, the Texas Constitution prohibits the Legislature from debating legislation in the first sixty days of a regular session, except for items that the governor identifies as emergency legislation. The emergency items are: *
Before writing about the rules debate in the House, I want to clear up a misimpression I may have created in a previous post. On Tuesday, before the governor’s State of the State address, I wrote a piece in anticipation of the speech in which I criticized the governor for
My general reaction to the governor’s speech is that it was not his best work. His delivery was off and his message was predictable. Indeed, if you’ll pardon me for saying so, I predicted most of it. In my post before the speech, I wrote that he would back off
Deep into the State of the State address, Gov. Rick Perry endorsed a proposal by Sen. Dan Patrick and Rep. Frank Corte to, in Perry’s words, “require those wanting to terminate a pregnancy to review their ultrasound before proceeding.” Perry told the assembled lawmakers today that “as we consider the
The context of Perry’s State of the State speech is that it takes place during a governor’s race in which he is no better than even-money to win. His remarks will be closely watched for clues about how he plans to position himself in his career-risking battle against Kay Bailey
In an interview with the Dallas Morning News this week, Gov. Rick Perry advocated an end to all diversions of gas tax money from the Highway Fund, which is used primarily to finance road construction. But two key senators believe the current budget estimates make that highly unlikely
Sure, there are circumstances under which he could regain the speakership. He has $3 million and a loyal core of conservative members who support him. He has time on his hands–nothing to do but make oil deals, raise money, and recruit candidates for 2010. The speaker’s statute is no longer
Proving his conservative credentials, Gov. Perry held a press conference with the Texas Alliance for Life to express his support for specialized “Choose Life” license plates.
To: Bill White, John Sharp CC: David Dewhurst, Florence Shapiro, Elizabeth Ames Jones, Roger Williams, Michael Williams, Kay Granger, Greg Abbott, members of the Texas congressional delegation Re: Texas Senate race You folks might want to reconsider your decision to run for the vacancy that will be created when Kay
It’s probably too late to ask the question, because it appears to have already been answered. With Bill White and John Sharp in the race to serve out the remainder of Kay Bailey Hutchison’s term, no obvious candidate remains to challenge the winner of the primary between Hutchison and Rick
No one should be surprised that Hutchison has a substantial lead over Perry. She has always polled better than he has. What is surprising—according to the Hutchison camp—is that his support among Republican primary voters is down 10% since his 2006 race. (I will ask the Perry forces for their
The search for a successor to Mark Yudof as UT chancellor has become a heated high-stakes political battle. The two top choices are former state senator John Montford, who has served as chancellor of the Texas Tech system and more recently has been an executive with AT&T, and Dr. Francisco
In case you think the governor is running for reelection just to keep from being a lame duck, you might want to read this letter that went out to supporters: Message from Texas Gov. Rick Perry: We have only begun to fight Dear Friend, While I was certainly disappointed by
UPDATE: I should have given Roger Williams credit in this writeup for his outstanding performance in the chair on the first day of the 2007 session, when he presided over the speaker’s race. He showed no favoritism and made a crucial ruling, overruling a point of order, that a secret
This is the text of a letter Armey sent dated December 4. During Hutchison’s political career, her commitment to conservative principles has been attacked at various times. The Perry forces have already raised the issue of her support for the bailout, which Perry opposes. Armey’s letter is a preemptive strike.
The former state comptroller announced his candidacy today. He does not plan to form an exploratory committee but will begin raising money immediately. This will be Sharp’s second bite at the Senate apple. In 1992, when Lloyd Bentsen resigned his seat to become Secretary of the Treasury in the first
OK, so maybe he hasn’t “posted” any “updates” on Kay Bailey Hutchison’s exploratory committee, but I did catch Burka in the hall to do a video with me to at least talk about the interview he had with her yesterday. And I’m all, yesterday? She never returns my calls. In
Current speculation is sooner rather than later. The reason: The longer she stays, the greater the chances that she will have to cast votes on controversial issues. It took Rick Perry about a nanosecond after she voted for the bailout bill to come out against it. The Perry camp has
Referring to the poll from Hill Country Consultants (no one honored the embargo but us because we have things like “ethics” and “I’m kidding”), Burka says that the Republicans in Texas have blown it. (So, apparently, do the voters who said R’s are more arrogant, racist, and corrupt. Is that
Speculation is rampant that the Dew has set his sights on the U.S. Senate rather than run for reelection. Since Kay Bailey Hutchison’s seat will not be vacant until she resigns, probably in June, Dewhurst must hope that Perry appoints him to fill the vacancy. As everybody knows, they haven’t
Last week I met a lobbyist, a close friend of Governor Rick Perry’s, for lunch. As it happened, I pulled into a parking place right behind his truck. In a nanosecond, I lost my appetite. There on his bumper sticker was an “R,” styled to represent a brand, with wavy
Our weak governor asserts his strength.
Rick Perry’s Trans-Texas corridor conundrum.
Rick Perry’s inner monologue.
“He’s probably stronger now than when we were younger, but I’ve changed that same way. And we’ve probably gotten more conservative as we’ve gotten older.”
Rick Perry wins a few rounds.
Inside the election's numbers.
Is Kay Bailey Hutchison plotting a run for Governor? And other questions about Texas politics in the new millennium.
Twenty and a half million. That’s Texas’ projected population in 2000—an increase of more than 20 percent since 1990—and Republicans are salivating at the prospect of gaining seats in the mandatory 2001 redrawing of legislative and congressional districts. Any area that did not keep up with the state’s growth rate
The power brokers at this year’s legislative session aren’t elected officials. They’re lobbyists—and we know which ones have the most clout.
How to spend a huge budget surplus will be the defining issue of the coming legislative session. It will also determine the political futures of George W. Bush, Rick Perry, and Pete Laney.
Here’s what Republicans and Democrats were talking about after the November 3 election.George W. Bush’s coattails. They were frayed at best, even though the GOP swept every statewide race. The governor got 68 percent of the vote, but the victorious Republican candidates for lieutenant governor and comptroller, Rick Perry and
Candidates Rick Perry and John Sharp donÕt agree on much, but they both say the race for lieutenant governor is the most important one on the ballot this fall. They’re right.
Who gave—and to whom—in this year’s big statewide races.
This summer’s hot topic? Weather.
The hottest topic in the crucial lieutenant governor’s race between Republican agriculture commissioner Rick Perry and Democratic state comptroller John Sharp is the reliability of the Scripps Howard–owned Texas Poll. When the March poll showed Sharp leading with 41 percent of surveyed voters to Perry’s 35 percent, R’s complained vigorously
Winners in the March 10 primaries:George W. Bush His archnemesis, former Republican state chairman Tom Pauken, failed to make the runoff for attorney general, while his point man for his strategy to win Hispanic votes, former Secretary of State Tony Garza, won the GOP nomination for railroad commissioner.Big Money The
When you listen to Jim Hightower’s talk radio show, that’s the question you inevitably ask—about him, the medium, and Texas liberalism.
