Some interesting news from the DSCC: Hamilton Beattie & Staff has a new poll, and it happens to be about John Cornyn. In news that can't be much of a surprise to anyone, John Cornyn can't get above 50% against a generic Democratic candidate among 800 likely voters. What may surprise you is that he has incredibly low name ID — 39% of respondents didn't know enough about him to rate his as favorable or unfavorable. Details and PDFs inside.

The Voter ID bills will undergo debate in Austin today, and I am not the only one who thinks there are severe problems with them. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram ponders whether requiring a picture ID to vote and a certified copy of a birth certificate, passport, or proof of citizenship to register is a poll tax, and rightly so — getting those documents costs money that not everyone has.

The media continues to legitimately receive criticism for its poor performance during the run-up to the Iraq war.

For this installment of On The Record, I spoke with Matt Glazer, editor of the Burnt Orange Report and Communications Director and Legislative Aide to State Representative Pete Gallego.

Time Warner, the largest magazine publisher and news media owner in the nation, has cooked up an idea that will cost many of us even more of our rights to freedom of speech. Few have heard of this effort, because it hasn't been publicized except on listener-sponsored and/or free media.

It's a week old, but I haven't seen anyone write on it around these parts (author's revision: Josh wrote about it in his Morning Roundup last Wednesday), so here it is: One of our state legislators publicly stated last week that increasing tuition rates is "like crack" for Texas universities.

The Texas House will soon vote on a measure to take control of the TDEx database away from Governor Perry. Representative Swinford, author of the proposal which includes that measure as well other Homeland Security concerns, said it came about because of a "crisis in trust." Indeed. It seems like Republicans can trust their own leadership for support even less than they trust the opposition these days — the guys on top of the GOP keep making life hard.

About five years ago, my office was located in the same building as the local chapter of Communities in Schools (CIS). The staff at CIS would have lunch with us and recruit us for various events. I took several field trips and made some school visits, and I found that kids today are as bright, sassy, and nervous as when I went to school. These kids, however, needed a little bit more help to keep them on the road to graduation due to other distractions going on in their lives.

Joe Trippi has joined the John Edwards campaign. Rejoice, activists in search of a people-powered candidate: the Man Who Forged The Netroots With His Bare Hands has chosen a candidate. His insight can only be a boon to Edwards.

For this episode of On The Record, I spoke with Deborah Angell Smith, chair of the Democratic Party of Collin County.