A Senate aide says she's "not at liberty to say" why Senator John Whitmire's desk has caution tape around it. But Statesman reporter Ken Herman did catch the culprit on video. More to come.
With just ten days left in the session, Democrats in the Texas House are delaying action on the controversial Voter ID bill (scheduled to hit the floor tomorrow) by talking-to-death, aka "chubbing" numerous minor bills on the local and consent calendar.
Senators, whose bills are now being held hostage, are none too pleased. They're caucusing Friday morning to try and see what leverage they have to move things along. The answer from House members? Not much.
There doesn't seem to be much organization as to who chubs which bills, but Democrats clearly got the message that they would slow down the pac...
The Austin Chronicle, the city's snarky alterna-weekly, always features a long list of personal ads at the end of its paper issues and online. Woman for man, man for woman, man for man... they run the gamut from sweet to uh, not-so-sweet. But this ad particularly jumped out at us:
So, this secession talk has picked up so much steam that someone told me a DPS trooper jokingly drew up a plan for how he'd police the sovereign state of Texas. I'm working on getting a copy of that. Meanwhile, the late night comedians couldn't resist working Perry into their monologues last night:
There comes a time in the second half of session where you start inserting Senate speak into regular conversation. For instance, I was telling a friend today that at the end of this week, I'm going on vacation... for three several days. (Badumdumching!)
OK, it's really more like a full week vacation, to be with mom and dad, who I see far too l little of. My goal was to have an Impact Player interview queued up to post while I'm away, but alas, I fall short of my goals. Don't stay away though, a non-partisa...
Political Junkie's gotten a KVUE-ized makeover, to better fit with the KVUE look. I'm still here doing the bloggin' and nothing changes except for style. (And now you get ads for Best Buy and the like!) Let me know what you think, and if there are any style issues with the template you're running into. Thanks, reader(s).
It's Hutto day at the state Capitol. (The town mascot is the hippo... leading to an unfortunate team name for their high school basketball team - Hutto Lady Hippos.)
Senator Steve Ogden recalled that when he first took office in 1997, Hutto was a town of just 800, and now it's grown to something like 17,000. To celebrate, state Rep. Diana Maldonado is hosting a hippo-riffic reception tonight. Check out the invite:
Senate just passed SR 510 to honor Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst for his upcoming induction into the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame. He's a champ in the cutting horse competition and was formerly a roper. On Friday night, he'll be inducted in a ceremony in Belton. The Senate adopted the resolution without any objection.
"I know that since you like being a cowboy, this is a big deal," said state Sen Troy Fraser, R-Horsehoe Bay.
"That was sneaky," Dewhurst said. "I didn't realize [the resolution] was my own."
Senators hit the halfway mark of the legislative session with a visit from Miss Texas Rebecca Robinson and Miss Teen Texas Sydney Capello.
State Sen. Eddie Lucio was impressed by Miss Texas' Spanish-speaking abilities and wound up getting a photo with her; the other senators did the standard meet-and-greet with the lady guests. This is neither here nor there, but I am always impressed by pageant queens' excellent posture.
Elise Hu is KVUE's Political Reporter and your dedicated blogger. There's too much politics in Texas to fit into a newscast, so the fun continues here. Email your ideas and feedback to ehu@kvue.com.
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