Texas Politics

The most pressing question to be answered in Saturday's U.S. Senate election is who will come in second. Robert Krueger, the newly installed, Shakespeare-quoting Democratic appointee is virtually assured of coming in first. And once there is a second-place finisher, the real contest begins. Confusing? Perhaps. But that is sometimes the way of Texas politics. This particular scenario has not been played out since 1961, when Lyndon B.

Texas musician, author, politician, animal rights activist and all-around raconteur Kinky Friedman will return to Southern California in December on his BiPolar Tour. The tour will cover a wide swath of the Midwest and West Coast, including a Dec. 7 date at McCabe's in Santa Monica. Friedman, who first gained notoriety in the 1970s with his band Kinky Friedman & the Texas Jewboys, became a successful writer of mystery novels, most of them starring himself and his cronies. He also has famously run for office at several levels in Texas politics, first as justice of the peace of Kerrville, and later angling for governor against Rick Perry, who launched an unsuccessful bid to be the 2012 Republican presidential nominee.

Up in Amarillo, reporters say outsiders take cheap shots at the governor. In Austin, some writers think visiting colleagues don't quite grasp Texas politics. In Houston, journalists marvel at out-of-towners' time and resources. Appraising how their state has fared in the national press, many Texas journalists say that, although the coverage sometimes distorts what it's like here, Texas is unbowed from all the attention. And perhaps better off.

The Supreme Court is likely to decide early this week whether to act on an appeal from Texas Republicans and block the use of an election map that could help three or more Latino Democrats win seats in Congress next year. The case of Rick Perry vs. Shannon Perez is the first redistricting battle to come before the high court in the round of political line-drawing that followed the 2010 census. It mixes partisan politics with a continuing legal dispute over the role of the Voting Rights Act in aiding minority candidates.

When Texas GOP gubernatorial front-runner Clayton W. Williams Jr. was told recently that his Democratic foe, Ann Richards, claimed to have poll results showing that she was closing on his lead, he retorted: "I hope she didn't go back to drinking again." His remark outraged the supporters of Richards, who is a recovering alcoholic. But beneath their indignation was a thinly concealed satisfaction: Clayton Williams had shot his mouth off again.

Even before the first votes are counted, Republicans appear to have gained an advantage over Democrats in today's Texas gubernatorial primary, the first tangible test in the two-party struggle for national political dominance in the 1990s. After six months of campaigning, maverick Republican businessman Clayton W. Williams not only has emerged as the prohibitive favorite to gain his party's nomination, but also as the most compelling political personality in either party.

After vowing to create a "new Texas" in her inaugural address in January, Gov. Ann Richards wasted little time starting to make good on her promise. With her folksy charm and down-home humor, Richards has taken the capital by storm. And her hallmark has been an aggressively populist approach to government. In contrast to her Republican predecessor, the nearly invisible Bill Clements, Richards has been an accessible governor.

The Supreme Court is likely to decide early this week whether to act on an appeal from Texas Republicans and block the use of an election map that could help three or more Latino Democrats win seats in Congress next year. The case of Rick Perry vs. Shannon Perez is the first redistricting battle to come before the high court in the round of political line-drawing that followed the 2010 census. It mixes partisan politics with a continuing legal dispute over the role of the Voting Rights Act in aiding minority candidates.

Once again, it is blood-on-the-floor time in Texas politics. It is politics as a contact sport, politics as an endurance test. The arena this time is the race for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Democrat Lloyd Bentsen, chosen by President-elect Bill Clinton to be the new Treasury secretary. And what it means is that during the next two years there will be at least three and possibly four elections for the Bentsen seat. It all started Tuesday when Gov.

When former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk was chosen this week to run for Senate on the Democratic ticket, a carefully crafted comeback strategy went into effect for a party that has slumped dangerously close to irrelevance in Texas politics. Kirk is one-third of a so-called "Dream Team," a racially diverse triumvirate that Democrats hope will win back a portion of the party's long-lost Lone Star eminence.

Reporting from Atkinson, Neb. Some might have been surprised to hear that plans to build a 1,700-mile oil pipeline through the Midwest to the Gulf Coast — a source of new oil and thousands of jobs — would drive an emotional fault line down the middle of the conservative heartland. But any skepticism would have quickly evaporated here in the noisy bleachers of the West Holt High School gymnasium. The proposed Keystone XL pipeline — the subject of public hearings convened by the State Department last week along the route from Montana to Texas — was alternately described as a plot by a foreign corporation to exploit America, a potentially perilous polluter of the nation's greatest freshwater resource, the answer to America's energy insecurity, a generator of the last great family-wage jobs and, oh yes, a dangerous new instigator of global warming.

Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison will not seek a fourth full term in 2012, she announced in a letter to supporters Thursday. The Republican senator, first elected in a 1993 special election, said she had held her current office longer than she ever intended and looked forward to returning to live full time in Texas. "Knowing that I have been able to truly help my fellow Texans and make a positive difference in their lives is a public servant's greatest reward," she wrote in her announcement letter.

Prosecutors investigating whether corporations illegally financed the Republican Party's rise to dominance in the Texas Capitol are negotiating agreements with several companies accused of making improper political donations, and analysts say the discussions could help elicit important leads in the probe.

Just two weeks before America's voters are expected to leave Republicans in control of the House of Representatives, the Supreme Court on Monday revived a legal challenge to an unusual redistricting plan in Texas that could shift six of the state's House seats to the GOP. In a one-line order, the justices told a lower court to reconsider whether the plan, the handiwork of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), goes so far as to be unconstitutional.

Robert J. Perry, the main financier behind the effort to discredit Sen. John F. Kerry's military record, is the most prolific political donor in Texas. A homebuilder who lives lakeside in this Houston suburb, Perry has helped bankroll the widespread success of Republican candidates here, has long-standing ties to many close associates of President Bush and has contributed to Bush's last four campaigns.

President Bush was feeling very good Tuesday, and who could blame him? After a thorough annual physical, his doctors pronounced him "in excellent health and fit for duty." The president also signed a hard-won bill that grants him broad authority to negotiate trade agreements. Above all, he was home at last at his beloved Prairie Chapel Ranch, where he intends to spend the rest of this month, mixing work with pure R&R in the blazing Central Texas heat.

Texas musician, author, politician, animal rights activist and all-around raconteur Kinky Friedman will return to Southern California in December on his BiPolar Tour. The tour will cover a wide swath of the Midwest and West Coast, including a Dec. 7 date at McCabe's in Santa Monica. Friedman, who first gained notoriety in the 1970s with his band Kinky Friedman & the Texas Jewboys, became a successful writer of mystery novels, most of them starring himself and his cronies. He also has famously run for office at several levels in Texas politics, first as justice of the peace of Kerrville, and later angling for governor against Rick Perry, who launched an unsuccessful bid to be the 2012 Republican presidential nominee.

Ann Richards, the Texas state treasurer who gained national prominence with a sarcastic keynote attack on George Bush at the 1988 Democratic Convention, edged into an early lead over Atty. Gen. Jim Mattox in the state's Democratic gubernatorial runoff election Tuesday. Richards and Mattox fought bitterly to win the chance to face Republican candidate Clayton Williams Jr.

When former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk was chosen this week to run for Senate on the Democratic ticket, a carefully crafted comeback strategy went into effect for a party that has slumped dangerously close to irrelevance in Texas politics. Kirk is one-third of a so-called "Dream Team," a racially diverse triumvirate that Democrats hope will win back a portion of the party's long-lost Lone Star eminence.

If demography is destiny, Latino businessman Tony Sanchez represents the inevitable future of Democratic politics in Texas. The question for Democrats is whether the future is now. Sanchez, the clear front-runner in Tuesday's primary for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, is the key figure in the party's strategy to restore its competitiveness in a state that has been dominated by Republicans.