Tuesday Roundup - Democrats for Reform

January is the slowest month of the session, so the fact that the Speaker's Race and how it played out is still holding sway over much of the machinations in the Capital doesn't seem unusual. The Democrats for Reform, also known as the Democrats who supported Craddick in the Speaker's Race, want to use their positions of (relative) power to push the Democratic agenda, to which they swear they are committed.

They had what amounts to a We're Sorry Pizza Party yesterday, and only one of the other Democratic representatives showed up out of more than fifty invites. As an indicator of the growing rift, Representative Paul Moreno is quoted as referring to the Democrats for Reform as "Uncle Tom's Democrats."

In other hot lege action, the Dallas Morning News has this shocking news that utility lobbyists are spending a bunch of money this session and throwing their influence around. While I disagree that this is news in that it happens every day, it never hurts to keep up with the current trends, which you can do here. This year, utilities are running 350 lobbying contracts and will spend up to a planned $20 million to fight regulations and price control, so remember that investment when you get your electricity bill, or try to breathe.

Speaking of breathing, Perry is trying to finagle more money for environmental purposes. I am not one of those hacks who will complain if a Republican does anything at all, even something good, so I won't say that trying to get some cash for any kind of anti-emissions initiative is bad. But when you're running this and the coal plants project at the same, it gets a little weird and I start to wonder about your priorities.

More on breathing: Have you heard about this mulch pile in Helotes? It caught fire on Christmas Day and has been burning ever since. The fire apparently can't be put out and must instead burn itself out, which has created some less than idea air-quality conditions in the area surrounding it. Bexar County put some residents up in hotels that reported health problems exacerbated by the fire, but they're about to run out of money for that.

A discussion of the finer points of legislation is usually better left to Karl's Bill Tracker, but I wanted to point your attention to HB 28, which denies state benefits to children of illegal immigrants born in the United States. The author of this piece editorializes a bit, writing with what seems to be disbelief that someone would file a bill denying anything to someone the Constitution declares to be a citizen. Five Republicans are in on it, including author Leo Berman.

I found a couple of land use stories that were interesting: In Amarillo, city planners and developers used a Block Grant to convert an old nursing home into a rent controlled apartment complex. In Lubbock, a mounting eminent domain battle ended when the City Council settled with property owners on a price rather than condemning the land. A big redevelopment and street-widening project is underway there, so there might be more wrangling in the future.

Finally, after a period of turnover in the post caused by various ballot irregularities in the runup to and through the last election cycle, Williamson County has a new Elections Administrator. This position has become more high-profile, both in Williamson County and elsewhere, since 2000's general election recounts in Florida and the advent of electronic voting machines and problems they have presented.