Wednesday Roundup: Update Your (Primary) Calendar

As the session nears closing, big things have a habit of happening, sometimes all at once. Yesterday was one of those "all at once" days. For instance, if you were really hoping to vote in a February 5th primary in Texas or to suppress voter turnout by way of the Voter ID bill, your dreams have been dashed.

The Chron does remind us in this story that the bills technically have until midnight tonight to become a topic for debate in the Senate, but everyone is figuring that it is all over. Of course, everyone figured the primary date would change for certain as well, and it didn't, so anything could happen.

Also, Tom Craddick failed to make a miraculous recovery overnight; he is still in the political doghouse, as it were. Even the so-called Craddick D's are defecting, as the Statesman reports that Patrick Rose and Eddie Lucio III have bailed off the USS Speaker. Also, reportedly, every Republican in the House is running against him in 2009 for Speaker.

Okay, so that last bit was a little overblown, but he does have quite a few challengers. Fred Hill, Brian McCall, Jim Pitts, and Jim Keffer have all said they're in it to win it; I wouldn't be surprised if one or two more Republicans got into it before Hill or Cook or somebody makes a motion to remove Craddick. In these waning days of the session, that motion will have to happen soon, and I fully expect it to. Far too many people have moved against Craddick for them to let him make it out of the session without some official scathing, lest they suffer at his hands during primary season.

Oh yeah, check this out: the Senate voted 30-1 to roll back some of the changes to CHIP which will increase enrollment by what the Dallas Morning News projects will be around 100,000 kids. Not everyone is crazy about cretain provisions of the bill, including some sort of electronic verification of income, but hey: more kids with health insurance is more kids with health insurance. There are more kids that need the coverage than will be included by this bill, but progress begets progress. Senator Jane Nelson was the lone dissenting vote. I wonder if I'll see a billboard in Lewisville saying something about how she keeps poor kids and doctors apart, and if I do, I wonder if it will be from her or her opponent.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram is tired of you, 80th Legislative Session, and would like you to go away. I have mixed feelings about recaps of a legislative session in which the greatest hits list is replaced by a litany of things deemed to be political drama. That being said, I guess it is fair to note that I am a political drama junkie, so I may be the wrong demographic for this editorial. The piece does make a good point about the Speaker's Race and all of the resultant fireworks: if most of you want Craddick gone, why not throw the bum out now and get on with things? There are complex forces at work, and obviously deals have to be made before such an action can be taken, but seriously. Don't make me wait for sine die. Have it out or hug it out.

Arlington got the Super Bowl it was bidding on. If I see one more story about "What the Super Bowl means for North Texas!?!" I will write a tersely-worded letter. It means tax revenue. It means traffic will be even worse than it already is for a week in 2011. It means some cities will pass bonds to build newer, better things ahead of the Super Bowl. It also actually means very little to the average citizen of North Texas, other than when you watch that particular Super Bowl on TV (which you probably will, at $1000 a ticket) you will recognize the surrounding area. There. Now no one has to write any more about it.

Lastly for today, Democrats at the federal level buckled like a belt on the Iraq funding bill and submitted a version without dates for troop withdrawal. They did include new measures which place the onus for success on the Iraqi government, though. It makes me wonder if maybe they're trading one provision on this bill for something on immigration. At any rate, this will lead to other attempts at end runs around the ever-pending veto, and they've pledged to bring timetables up again in later measures. This is likely an admission of an unfortunate political reality, and I doubt they are done with timetables.