Friday Roundup: Perry's Sweet New Pad

You have probably heard that the Governor's mansion is undergoing some renovations and that Texas' first family will be elsewhere during the work. You may not have known that Perry's temporary housing will cost taxpayers some $10,000 a month. Small government, indeed!

Of course, some people are having a problem with how much money this is costing the state. That may be because most Texans with a family the size of Perry's couldn't imagine laying out $10,000 in total expenses per month, let alone just for rent. Columnist Kelso yuks it up above by pondering how much money the state could save by putting Perry up in a motel, but consider his estimate for costs as within the ballpark of reality: at $9,900 a month, the planned 18 months will cost $178,200.

Now, for those of you that might worry that his new residence might create constitutional problems — according to the state's constitution, the Governor must live in Austin, and Perry's new place is not strictly in Austin — Perry's stalwart aide Robert Black says don't sweat it. Where he lives is fine because it is not a permanent address, just a temporary one.

In other sad news for Republicans, the debate they'd really been hoping to have in Texas in November has been indefinitely postponed. Forever. It seems that not many candidates were really interested in coming to Texas, and organizing Republicans weren't really interested in doing anything with the Congressional Black Caucus.

And that's not really a surprise, either. Observe the Republican debate put on by Tavis Smiley, concerning minority issues. Giuliani, Romney, McCain, and Thompson couldn't be bothered to show, but I love what the debate organizer did to mark that snub: they had lecterns for those candidates to stand at, totally empty on stage with the other candidates.

In other ways that Republicans are making themselves look bad, how about that SCHIP veto threat from the White House? Here is an issue that Democrats are going to beat Republicans on every time, and the fact that they know they will likely be able to override Bush's veto is just part of a plan to expose Republican ideals — in case you were wondering, the ideal on display here is "disregard for poor kids," as opposed to the "disregard for minorities" in the previous paragraph.

Lastly today, the Supreme Court intervened in an execution last night, issuing a stay on the constitutionality of lethal injection. That issue is turning into a complex, multistate case and will likely be making headlines for a few weeks to come.