The conversation in the halls is mostly about House committee assignments and who'll get what. The underlying political tension is between Democrats who think Speaker Joe Straus should reward them for making up 80 percent of the vote that put him in the corner office, and Republicans who think he needs to consolidate power within his own party in the closely divided chamber to have any chance of hanging on to the controls. Full Story
The House has its rules in place after a long day of warbling and negotiating, and the one that sticks out is the rule that lets the House depose a speaker with only 76 votes — a simple majority. The speaker no longer has the power to ignore privileged motions, including motions to "vacate the chair." And an effort to raise the bar — to require 90 votes, or 100, to unseat a speaker fell short. It's 76: If it were a rear-view mirror on the Speaker's dais, it'd have words on it: "Warning! Hostile representatives in mirror are closer than they appear." Full Story
Week three. Speaker race, over. House, kumbayahed. Two-thirds rule, guarded condition. Senate, patching things up. Revenue estimate, ouch. Base budget, tight. President, sworn in, twice. Full Story
The House elected a new speaker. The Senate started with a partisan dogfight. The comptroller filed a gloomy forecast on the state's revenue for the next two years. The Republican candidates for governor — that's an election more than a year away — revealed multi-million-dollar bank balances. Once all that had rolled out, lawmakers left for a week. The House will return next week for a day, then do rules the week after that. And the Senate is gone until January 26. Soon enough, it'll seem like they never left. Full Story
You remember when Speaker Tom Craddick said the state was sitting on a $15 billion budget surplus? Full Story
Kay Bailey Hutchison's term in the U.S. Senate runs through 2012 and she now says she won't resign earlier than the end of next year if she runs for governor. She has formed an exploratory committee. Full Story
Add two more official candidates for Speaker of the House, calls for the head of House Parliamentarian and former Rep. Terry Keel, a constitutional amendment that would allow future coups in the House, and a "Solve for X" strategy and you'll be up to date on the contest for control of the Legislature's lower chamber. Full Story
Kay Bailey Hutchison answered the "Does She or Doesn't She?" question about whether she wants to run for governor, filing the papers required to run a campaign for state office. Full Story
Blame Irving. The combination of a slow count in Dallas County and an impending excuse to back off (that'd be Thanksgiving), there's not much happening at the moment in the race for Speaker of the Texas House. Full Story
The balance has shifted. Full Story
A lobbyist who doesn't want his name in this newsletter or anywhere else offered up a new phrase for this phase of the race for speaker: Legislative Osteoporosis. He's referring to bone loss in the spines of some lawmakers. Full Story
Get used to that headline — we're keeping it until the race for speaker is over. Full Story
The dollars in Texas political races tell you what the moneyed folk are interested in: They're interested in the Texas House. Full Story
It took five days in 2004 to get the first 10 percent of the voters to the polls. It took three days this year. Early voting in those first three days was up 73 percent in the state's top 14 counties, according to the Texas Secretary of State. Full Story
When it comes to campaign cash, the adage "better late than never" holds true. But the question remains: How much better? Full Story
If we listen only to Republican consultants, they'll sweep the statewide seats, hold off Democratic challengers in two congressional seats, knock off one and maybe two Democrats in Congress, hold onto all three contested state Senate seats, and gain a net of four seats in the House, ensuring another two years with the GOP in control of all statewide offices, the congressional delegation and both chambers in the statehouse. Full Story
Uncertainties over the presidential race, Hurricane Ike's after-effects, and the rapidly changing economic news have political people on both sides of the aisle looking at bloated lists of hot races in the Texas House. Full Story
U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison told her colleagues in the Senate that she won't be seeking reelection to her Senate leadership job, and on a little (but not much) more private level, she's telling colleagues she'll soon form an "exploratory" committee to start raising money and gathering intelligence in anticipation of a 2010 run for governor. Full Story
The state's politicians are forced to regroup four weeks before voting begins. Full Story
They say good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment. Full Story