The Evening Brief: Feb. 21, 2012

New in The Texas Tribune:

• Fisher v. Texas Headed to High Court: "University of Texas at Austin President Bill Powers has responded to the U.S. Supreme Court decision to hear an affirmative action case that argues the university's race-concious admissions policy violates the rights of white students."
  

• Perry Leaning Toward a Run for Re-election: "In his first extended sit-down interview with a Texas news outlet since leaving the presidential race, Gov. Rick Perry said Tuesday he is leaning toward running for re-election in 2014 and possibly another stab at the White House two years after that. He said he knows now he got into the race too late."

• Texas House Speaker Endorses Romney: "Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is picking up a big Texas endorsement Tuesday — from Speaker of the House Joe Straus."

• New Paul Ad Assails Santorum on Debt, Pork: "In a scathing new ad set to air in Michigan, Ron Paul attacks GOP front-runner-of-the-moment Rick Santorum for not being fiscally conservative."

• Interactive: The Racial Makeup of Texas Cities: "Using 2010 census data, this interactive shows which neighborhoods are clearly defined by a racial majority and where racial groups are moving in or out across Texas cities."

Culled:

• Pitts sees little desire for special session to ease school cuts (The Dallas Morning News): Chief House budget writer Jim Pitts says his Republican colleagues in the Legislature are leery of demands for a special session to ease budget cuts that could force additional teacher layoffs at school districts this fall.

• GOOOH announces four candidates for Congress (Austin American-Statesman): "A group led by a politically frustrated former Dell Inc. employee has four candidates on the hook to challenge incumbent congressmen from Texas. Tim Cox of Liberty Hill, who left his job as a software engineer and product manager in 2007 to create Get Out of Our House, or GOOOH (pronounced 'go'), has maintained the lofty goal of voting out every member of the U.S. House of Representatives with people he calls 'citizen representatives' who are not beholden to special interests, party directives or political self-preservation."

• Texas remains $4.1 billion short on its budget (The Associated Press): "The Texas economy is coming back, but the state budget is still in trouble. The chairman of the Legislative Budget Board John O'Brien told lawmakers Tuesday that they did not appropriate enough to cover state expenses for Medicaid and other programs. The state is short more than $4.1 billion in the current budget."