Former Congressman Martin Frost has persisted as a center of Democratic political power since his redistricted loss to Pete Sessions, and now he is lending his clout as the new president of America Votes, a coordinating body dedicated to the mobilization of many of the nation's top liberal and labor organizations.

The Senate will have their long-awaited vote of no confidence in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales today, and it is likely to end up just as you expect.

If you have the itch to mount a run for Congress, please stop everything you are doing and read this article. If you don't feel like weeping, and avoided saying "But it will be different for me!" at any point during your reading, you may have the right stuff — proceed to your next class, "Campaigns and Elections 1020: You need money to run for Congress," M W F 6:30 - 9:30.

For this episode of On The Record, we speak with Shondra Wygal, president of the Texas Young Democrats.

As you might guess, we've gotten a number of letters about the veterans' issues series we're running this month.

Congressman Lloyd Doggett (TX – 25) introduced this bill to eliminate reporting loopholes in our national defense against lobby abuse. The bill targets “stealth lobbying” and it was recently passed by the House.

Dennis Quaid and Rick Perry were hanging out together yesterday as Perry signed legislation enticing the film industry to shoot in Texas. From an overhead standpoint, it is obviously cheaper to shoot here than in New York or Los Angeles, but whether we'll be able to compete with Canada, the current reigning favo(u)rite place to go shoot, remains to be seen. Their incentive package involves a scheme where one of our dollars is worth more than one of theirs.

For today's edition of On The Record, we speak with Dian Cuellar Ruud, SDEC Committeewoman for Senate District 24.

Mikal Watts got things off to a rousing start by matching Cornyn's first quarter money totals dollar for dollar, to the tune of $3.8 million. The Chron has it that Watts wants to start off with a level playing field, which he and Cornyn now have.

If you had told me yesterday that you could count on the CNN Republican debate to provide jokes this morning, I would have believed you. I didn't count on the jokes stemming from this case of what will no doubt be seen as cosmic hilarity (irony, instant messaging, what have you): as Rudy Giuliani began to answer a question about his pro-choice beliefs, lightning shorted out the sound system in the building. We can't make this stuff up, folks.