It must be that heady time of year when legislators have been working long hours and start making bad decisions. Behold State Senator Tommy Williams: he showed up on the Senate floor wearing a Darth Vader mask. I can see the opposition mail piece now. "Darth Williams: He Will Crush Social Services WITH HIS MIND."

To file a case in federal court, a potential litigant must meet what is called the amount in controversy. Basically, if your case is not worth a minimum of $75,000, then you can’t make a federal case out of your problems. There are, of course, many exceptions.

For this installment of On The Record, I spoke with Clifton Walker, Legislative Director for Texas State Representative Joe Farias.

Peter Stern just sent me this email that's making the rounds among Texas Republicans. You usually only see these kinds of emails when the GOP is trying to whip their people into a panicked frenzy. It includes the usual litany of ridiculous claims:

To the surprise of no one who knows me, I'm a big fan of transparency in government. I'm also a big fan of using technology to make access to information easier for everyone.

In the post for this week's episode of Who's Blue, I referred to Sam Coats and Don Hill as "two Democratic candidates in the non-partisan race for Dallas City Mayor." Several people have pointed out, since yesterday, that Dallas City Councilman Ed Oakley is also a Democrat, and is also running for Mayor, so I am glad we didn't say that Coats and Hill were the only Democrats. As always, visit every candidate, judiciously, and remember to vote in your city elections.

Many conservative politicians, pundits, and demagogues claim the answer to illegal immigration is to build a fence, wall, moat, or whatever it takes to keep the Mexicans out. The problem with this theory is that fences work well for keeping animals in or out, but don't work so well for people. People have a keen sense for learning how to overcome such minor obstacles as fences and walls. They climb over, dig under, cut through, fly over, or avoid them altogether and just drive through the border crossing.

The Texas media is all atwitter with news that House Speaker Craddick has lost control of the store, the inmates are running the asylum, the wheels have come off, and so forth. Though it took longer to happen than I had originally thought, the weaknesses exposed by the contested race for Speaker back in January are starting to show themselves.

"To toll or not to toll?" — that's not much of a question.

Gov. Rick "39-percent" Perry has spent years pushing toll roads for wealthy special interests, much like one of those not-too-slick snake oil salesmen that used to get run out of towns throughout Texas. This session, he again went before the state Senate and House to preach the toll agenda. More or less, Perry repeatedly says that without toll roads Texas won't be building any more roadways any time soon.

When I worked for the Arizona Department of Economic Security back in the day, I was tasked with finding out how people within the department communicated with one another. What I found out was that there were no guidelines for purchasing computers and no standards for compatibility. Each division within the department operated on its own LAN with its own software. It was so varied that the Director, my boss, could not send a department-wide email because it would not reach everyone.