Tax Collector's Remorse
A state sales tax refund to "a large direct pay taxpayer" will cost the City of Stafford over $2.5 million — a stunning bit of news for a municipality with an annual budget of about $20 million. Full Story
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Suit Up
Political hacks all over the state are huddling over computers loaded with mapping software, finishing their federal court filings on congressional redistricting. Full Story
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No Exit
Tom DeLay can't get off the ballot. Full Story
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Back to the Maps
Texas and other states can redraw their political maps when they want to, according to the U.S. Supreme Court, but they can't dilute the strength of minority voters just to protect an incumbent those voters oppose. Full Story
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Everybody In!
Kinky Friedman and Carole Keeton Strayhorn both got enough valid signatures to get onto the gubernatorial ballot in November. Full Story
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Picking Up the Pace
He's still mostly ignoring Kinky Friedman, but Democratic gubernatorial candidate Chris Bell has trained his sights on Republican-turned-independent Carole Keeton Strayhorn, emphasizing what she's got in common with incumbent Gov. Rick Perry. Full Story
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Whoever Makes the Rules Gets the Gold
Republican Comptroller candidate Susan Combs is raising the stakes, saying if she's elected she will trash Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn's rulemaking work on the new school finance package as soon as she takes office. Full Story
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General Election: The House
More than half of the members of the next House -- 79, to be precise -- have already been determined, barring accidents, bizarre upsets, or other side effects our doctors haven't told us about. We count only 20 races that, on paper, could be competitive (including 13 where the incumbent's success has been a clear exception to local voting patterns). Full Story
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A Change of Season
Last week's government is this week's politics. Gov. Rick Perry is running TV and radio ads to define and claim credit for what the legislature just did on taxes and school finance, touting tax cuts, teacher pay raises, new business taxes, high school math and science standards, and so on. Full Story
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Who'd Have Thunk It?
If tax bills were lions and senators were acrobats, that would have been a helluva circus. Full Story
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Something New
A week of Senate infighting closed with a unanimous vote on tax cuts, school finance and education that put Gov. Rick Perry's tax reform package close to completion. But there was something more — Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst got his ears pinned back by a group of (mostly) Republican senators who weren't willing to follow his lead on the key tax cut and education bill. Full Story
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Just When You Thought Things Had Changed
It's been a bummer of a week for optimists. It looked for a minute there like the Texas Senate had everything lined up for a quick resolution on school finance, but they reverted to form and fell into a series of old and new traps. Full Story
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A Critical Weekend
If the Senate Finance Committee can make it to Monday or Tuesday of next week with four or five of the school finance components intact, there's a good chance Texans will see a new business tax, a cut in school property taxes, teacher pay raises and a bag full of other legislative wonders. But it's gonna be a long weekend. Full Story
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Spelling R.e.l.i.e.f.
So here's a question: Does the huge budget surplus make it harder or easier to pass the governor's proposed tax bill? Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn added $3.9 billion to the $4.3 billion that was already in the surplus — and those numbers don't include about $1 billion that's already in the state's Rainy Day Fund. Full Story
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Ready? Set...
That act following the Easter Bunny by a day is none other than your Texas Legislature, coming to Austin to work on a problem that has left them bewitched, bothered, and bewildered for years: School finance. Full Story
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Mixed Emotions
Folks who want to spend the state's surplus on school tax cuts are meeting arguments that the surplus is already used up. Full Story
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It's Not Dead Yet!
And for a tax bill that's been on the ground for 48 hours — with few surprises after all the leaks of the four months — that's remarkable. This one's going to sit out for 19 days before legislators convene to officially consider it, plenty of time for opponents to chew on it. Full Story
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Perry: It'll Hurt More if You Put it Off
Now that he's called a special session on school finance for April 17, Gov. Rick Perry has to sell lawmakers on the idea of raising state taxes to lower local property taxes while not putting new money into education. It's a swap, see, and not an increase in taxes. Full Story
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Selling Freezers to Eskimos
While former Comptroller John Sharp and the rest of Gov. Rick Perry's tax reform commission works on proposed revisions to the state's business taxes, they're starting to hear more noise from lawmakers and lobbyists. That's not unusual with a special session approaching, but it's dangerous for tax bills: An unprotected tax bill lasts about as long as free pot at a rock concert and isn't nearly as much fun. Full Story
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A Dog's Breakfast
Maybe it's a failure of imagination, but we don't see an overarching narrative line in the results of this week's primaries. It's like sitting with a palm reader who, after five minutes of scrutiny looks up and says, "Well, this is interesting." Full Story