Hardly anyone who's not employed by Carole Keeton Strayhorn thinks she would win a Republican primary in nine weeks against Gov. Rick Perry. It's more his audience than hers. He can match her dollar for dollar and then some, and she's based her campaign all along on the idea that she needs swing voters in addition to moderate Republicans to wrest the Mansion away from the current occupant. Full Story
Saying that you're a Republican, and that you're a candidate for governor, or even that you're a Republican candidate for governor, is not the same as saying you'll seek the GOP's nomination for that office in 2006. And that's why the state's scribbling scrum of political reporters won't close the door on speculation that Carole Keeton Strayhorn will run as an independent next year. Full Story
Former House Speaker Pete Laney, D-Hale Center, surprised the political villagers by announcing he won't run again, but most of the pre-election news so far has come from people who are running for office after all. Full Story
Kinky Friedman has to have almost 50,000 signatures to get on the ballot as an independent candidate for governor next year. His campaign folks are aiming higher, hoping to get two or four times that many — 100,000 to 200,000 signatures — to show outsiders how serious they are. Full Story
Texas lawmakers have trapped local school districts between the costs of rising state education standards and a constitutional cap on property tax rates, removing local discretion over those taxes, according to the Texas Supreme Court. Full Story
What once looked like a frolic for a political junkie in Texas — a year with contested statewide races all up and down the ballot with stars running for governor and U.S. Senate and on and on — now looks more like a quiet night at home. Full Story
Remember in the comics how — whenever they ran out of ideas — they'd throw Superman or some other hero into an alternate parallel universe? That memory came instantly to mind when we saw the results of two polls done for the Texas Credit Union League. They hired a Republican pollster to talk to primary voters of the red persuasion and a Democratic pollster to talk to the blues. They found two distinctly different parallel worlds. Full Story
The committee that will poke and prod the state's tax system, searching for something more lucrative and less painless, has swollen to nearly two dozen Texans, and we've been able to snag most of the names (it's hard to keep a secret when that many people get involved). Gov. Rick Perry is hoping to finish the list and make it public within the next few days, and the panel could get in a couple of meetings before the holidays shut government down. Full Story
Remember potential energy? That was the bit in high school science class where you found out about the stored power of a bowling ball at the top of a staircase. The political equivalents of that teetering bowling ball are piling up. Lots of stuff could come bouncing down the stairs in the next few days and weeks. Full Story
Somebody around here should point out the remarkable similarities between Tom DeLay's defense, so far, and Kay Bailey Hutchison's defense against the same prosecutors in 1993 and 1994. Hutchison won acquittal after a searing public investigation and indictments, dropped indictments and re-indictments that threatened her political career. When the judge in that case, John Onion Jr., refused to pre-approve evidence seized by prosecutors from Hutchison's state treasury offices, prosecutors refused to present their case. With nothing from the prosecution to consider, the court acquitted Hutchison. And here's the political moral: She's been invincible in state politics since then. Full Story
Political advisors to Rep. Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, pulled the plug on an unusual fundraiser for "Speaker Tom Craddick's Political Action Committee" after inquiries about the event. Pitts, the House Appropriations Committee chairman, was traveling outside the U.S. and unavailable for comment. But before he left, he sent a letter to House colleagues from the Dallas delegation asking them to help with a funder on December 1: "I believe, together, we can plan an event that will honor Tom Craddick for his outstanding work during the 79th Legislative Session." Full Story
Tom DeLay has two fights on his hands. One is legal, and that's what all of the paper flying around the courthouse is about. The other is political, and that's why the lawyers and his supporters and detractors are spending so much of their time in the media, doing interviews and spinning, spinning, spinning. Full Story
A Travis County grand jury indicted U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, and two aides — John Colyandro and Jim Ellis — on charges of conspiring to illegally exchange $190,000 in corporate political contributions for that amount of non-corporate money. Full Story
Former state Comptroller John Sharp, who'd been informally exploring a run for governor, won't run next year. Instead, he'll head a blue ribbon committee for Gov. Rick Perry, looking for a better tax system for the state. Full Story
Every so often, an experienced reporter from somewhere else will get hired into the Capitol press corps and will proceed to surprise and dominate competitors with stories that should have been obvious to the natives. Full Story
A Travis County grand jury indicted the Texans for a Republican Majority PAC and the Texas Association of Business on charges relating to the use of corporate money in the 2002 legislative election. The five indictments include 130 counts alleging third-degree felony violations of campaign finance laws. Fines reach up to $20,000 per count, a potential total of $2.6 million. Full Story
A group that includes Dallas lawyer Fred Baron — the chief fundraiser for the John Kerry-John Edwards ticket last year — and Marc Stanley — the incoming president of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association — wants to reboot the Texas Democratic Party, infusing money and people to try to get that moribund organization running again. Full Story
Rick Perry won his first attempt at statewide office in 1990, in part because Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower didn't answer commercials being run by the Republican upstart. Full Story
If you've been watching closely as the Legislature ran aground, you've been spun enough. We'll make our autopsy report brief. The highlights: Full Story
House Speaker Tom Craddick is running radio ads in "selected markets across the state" — Houston, Dallas and San Antonio are on the list — defending the House's actions on school finance, attacking the Senate, and suggesting the Texas Supreme Court will have the final say on what lawmakers should do. Full Story