Earlier today, the Texas State Board of Education, in a straight party line vote, voted down an amendment that would require Texas schoolchildren to study the reasons why the First Amendment prohibits the establishment of a state religion. The Board's seven Republican Board members voted against the amendment while the Board's five Democratic members voted for it. The amendment was proposed by Board member Mavis Knight (D-Dallas). For a group that has been running around Texas talking about how health care reform is unconstitutional and how Texas ought to re-affirm our sovereignty under the auspices of the 10th Amendment, it reeks of the deepest hypocrisy and the rankest moral dishonesty to privilege certain Amendments in the Bill of Rights while ignoring others. Welcome to Texas, where nothing is off limits for the Texas GOP.

Republican Commissioner Victor Carrillo has served on the Texas Railroad Commission for the last seven years. Commissioner Carrillo's defeat at the hands of accountant David Porter in the G.O.P. primary last night was one of, if not the most, shocking upset of the night for either party. The Texas Tribune's Brian Thevenot blogs this afternoon that Carrillo feels his Hispanic surname cost him the election. Anyone familiar with the xenophobic atmosphere of politics in the Texas G.O.P. these days shouldn't be surprised by such a statement; what is surprising is hearing it come from a Republican office holder.

Governor: Bill White ( @billwhitefortx ) vs. Rick Perry ( @GovernorPerry )

Lieutenant Governor: Linda Chavez-Thompson ( @ElectLinda ) vs. David Dewhurst ( @dewhurst4texas )

Last night's primaries on both sides of the aisle were some of the more memorable ones in my political lifetime. There was contention and drama in both the Democratic and Republican primaries, with statement victories at the top of each statewide ticket with a few incumbents either getting very close calls or being defeated further down the ballot.

Multiple news sources are reporting that Senator Edward Kennedy, Teddy to his family and Ted to most of us, passed away early this morning after a long struggle with brain cancer. He was 77.

Today is Tax Day in America. This year, it's also Tea Party Day. The Tea Parties are a grassroots movement (wherein "grassroots" means "pumped up by FOX News and Dick Armey") full of people who are six degrees of fed up with all of this big government spending. And the stimulus. And public assistance. And socialism. And...and...oh, it's not even worth making fun of it any more, folks.

Earlier today Georgetown Republican Dan Gattis and Amarillo Republican John Smithee both withdrew from consideration for Speaker of the 81st Legislature. Unless conservative grassroots pressure rallies the G.O.P. troops behind another candidate who can pull off a political Hail Mary of the highest order, in eight days San Antonio Republican Joe Straus will be the next Speaker of the Texas House.

The Austin American-Statesman's Postcards from the Lege blog is reporting that Representative Sid Miller (R-Stephenville) has confirmed that Representative Tom Craddick (R-Midland) has dropped his bid to be re-elected as Speaker of the House for the 81st Legislature.

The Dallas Morning News reports this morning that former Comptroller John Sharp has filed paperwork to run for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison in the 2010 cycle or in a special election after the 2010 cycle or when her term is up in 2012. Are those enough possibilities for you, dear readers?

The Dallas Morning News' Trailblazers blog has the content of the latest fundraising appeal from Governor Rick Perry. Perry is under an interesting deadline; as Governor, he can't raise money during the legislative session nor during the 30 days prior to the start of the session, while Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is free to continue raising money. This means that Governor Perry has an unofficial deadline of this Saturday to raise money before the next legislative session begins.

The Perry fundraising appeal contains this not-so-subtle — and grammatically questionable — barb directed at Senator Hutchison: