Governor's race remains close and the money is coming in

The Bill White campaign just announced how much the Democratic gubernatorial candidate raised until June 30 and the amount, along with the latest poll, show that the race for Texas governor is as tight as political observers have been predicting.

Since Dec. 4, when White declared his candidacy, he has raised $16.4 million and after all expenses the former Houston mayor still has more than $9 million left, according to campaign spokeswoman Katy Bacon. The re-election campaign of Gov. Rick Perry has not announced how much the 10-year incumbent raised during the first half of this year.

The mid-year reports to the Texas Ethics Commission are due by no later than mid-night.

The White campaign contributions report came shortly after the latest Rasmussen Poll showed Perry leading White 50 to 41 percent. However, another poll last week showed the two candidates tied at 43 percent.

In all, White is doing much better than Perry's previous Democratic opponents, former Houston Congressman Chris Bell in 2006 and Laredo oilman Tony Sanchez in 2002. Bell had trouble raising money and though Sanchez spent more than $70 million, mostly his own money, he always trailed Perry in the polls.

However, even in a close race Perry is favored to win. One, because he is the incumbent; two because Texas is one of the reddest states in the nation; and three because in the Lone Star State, Republicans usually raise more money than Democrats.

But with the election still three and a half months away, anything can happen between now and Nov. 2. The Democrats certainly feel good about their chances.

A game of musical chairs in the Texas Senate

It is not often that the Texas Senate makes major changes during the interim but today Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, the presiding officer of the chamber, shuffled eight chairmanships.

However, Sens. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, and Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, remained chairmen of their respective committees, State Affairs and Redistricting.

"Texas is facing a number of complicated challenges, from creating jobs and balancing the budget, to securing our border, improving public education, building new highways and ensuring a clean environment," Dewhurst said in a statement. "That is why it is critical to continue to have experienced legislators serving as committee chairs as we prepare to meet these important challenges when the 82nd Legislature convenes in January."

The most important change Dewhurst made was taking the Transportation & Homeland Security chairmanship from Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, and giving it to Sen. Tommy Williams, R-the Woodlands. Carona has been an outpoken critic of the embattled Texas Department of Transportation.

Also, Natural Resources, a committee critical for West Texas becasue it deals with water issues, went to Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, a West Texan.

What remains to be seen is how Senate Democrats and Austin watchers respond to the shuffle. Although 12 of the 31 members of the Senate are Democrats, all chairmanships went to Republicans.

Texas Democrats having their convention but GOP is stealing the show

Texas Democrats are holding their biennial convention in Corpus Christi today and tomorrow but some Republicans are stealing the show.

In a strongly-worded letter state Rep. Burt Solomons of Carrolton just sent to his Republican colleague Leo Berman of Tyler, he starts out by telling Berman "You are a liar."

Solomons tells Berman he is "profoundly disappointed in the manner in which you disparage legislators and have chosen to grossly distort the facts regarding illegal immigration reform in the Texas Legislature."

Berman - who earlier this week declared his candidacy for speaker of the House because in his view the current leader Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, is not conservative enough and made deals with most House Democrats to get elected - is best known for his bills targeting illegal immigrants in Texas.

In the 2007 and 2009 session Berman's proposals were killed in the House State Affairs Committee. Solomons has chaired the panel since last year but in the 2007 session, Rep. David Swinford, R-Dumas, chaired it. Swinford said publicly that he killed about two-dozen bills Berman and other legislators filed after consulting with Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott.

Like Swinford, Abbott has said that even if the Legislature had passed Berman's bills they would not have survived court challenges and the state would have had to spend more than $20 million defending them, like California did in the aftermath of Proposition 187 in the mid-1990s. One of Berman's bills would have denied basic public services to illegal immigrants like public education and the other would have denied U.S. citizenship to any American-born child whose parents were here illegally.

The other headline-grabbing development is the news that some people close to Gov. Rick Perry, including his former chief of staff, spent more than a half-million dollars trying to get a Green Party candidate on the Texas ballot. The idea behind, according to the Dallas Morning News, which broke the story, is that the Green Party candidate would take away votes from Democratic candidate Bill White. In the most recent opinion poll White, the former mayor of Houston, and Perry are tied at 43 percent.

The Democratic convention just started so there could be a few more surprising developlemnts - but from Republicans

Now it's the Democrats' turn to get a black eye

How quick things change.

Last week U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Ennis, and state Rep. Linda Harper-Brown, R-Irving, gave Texas Democrats lots of political ammunition. Barton, the ranking Republican on the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee, for apologizing to BP. And Harper-Brown, a member of the influential Transportation Committee, after the Dallas Morning News reported that she drives a 2010 Mercedes Benz owned by a company that does millions of dollars in business with the state.

Although no one has accused Harper-Brown of any illegal activity, her critics have accused her of being unethical and the Texas Democratic Party has even asked House Speaker Joe Straus to remove her from the Transportation Committee.

Now it is the Democrats' turn to get a black eye. Various news organizations in the Rio Grande Valley are reporting that state Rep. Tara Rios Ybarra, D-South Padre Island, a dentist, has been indicted on Medicaid fraud charges. And yesterday, former state Rep. Terri Hodge, D-Dallas, reported to a federal prison in Kentucky to begin a year-long sentence for tax fraud.

If Rios Ybarra, a rookie, is cleared of the charges she won't be returning to Austin anyway because she was defeated in the March 2 primary. And Hodge, a 13-year-veteran, resigned before the primary in a plea bargain for a lighter sentence.

In all, last week's and this week's developments prove, once again, that in politics what goes around comes around.

Republicans give Democrats lots of ammunition

For months, Republicans across the state have been predicting major victories in November, particularly in the Texas House of Representatives where they currently have a slim 77-73 majority.

Texas Republicans plan to make the most of what they see as the growing public discontent with President Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress.

But some events this week have given Texas Democrats just as much ammunition and none more welcome than the comments of U.S. Rep. Joe Barton.

As anyone who watches Texas politics knows, the Ennis Republican was harshly criticized even by fellow Republicans for apologizing to BP. The congressman called the $20 billion the company has agreed to pay for economic loss claims in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, a "shakedown" by Obama. The Democratic National Committee and the Texas Democratic Party have made the most of Barton's comments saying Republicans only care about big donors like Big Oil and not average folks.

Another potential gift to the Democrats is a story in the Dallas Morning News about state Rep. Linda Harper-Brown. The story raises ethical questions about the Irving Republican because it says she drives a luxury car owned by a company that makes millions of dollars through state transportation contracts. Harper-Brown is a member of the House Transportation Committee.

The state Democratic Party has already called on House Speaker Joe Straus to remove her from the influential 11-member panel. Incidentally, in the 2008 election Harper-Brown won re-election by only 19 votes.

There were a few other events, like Mark Miner, spokesman for the re-election campaign of Gov. Rick Perry who was shouted down by dozens of supporters of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White as Miner tried to hold a press conference in front of White's campaign headquarters in Austin. But the Barton apology and the Harper-Brown story, some Democrats say, are just what they needed as they head for their biennial convention in Corpus Christi next weekend.

Is GOP sending mixed messages to Hispanics?

Which Republican message will get the attention of Hispanic voters? That's the question some people may soon be asking.

That's because the Republican Party of Texas has just released its first Spanish-language video of this political season in which six Hispanics - including a congressional candidate from San Antonio - explain why they are Republicans.

The video comes three days after the party faithful met in Dallas for the biennial convention where the majority of the more than 8,000 delegates made it clear that they want the state to get tough on illegal imigration. This includes a law like the one Arizona recently passed, which has most Hispanic activists up in arms because they see it as racial profiling.

This kind of tough GOP talk has prompted a good number of lifelong Hispanic Republicans, like public relations guru Lionel Sosa of San Antonio, to warn the party that its anti-illegal immigration rhetoric could hurt its efforts to reach out to Latino voters. Spanish-surnamed Texans now constitute more than a third of the state's population and are expected to be the majority group in three decades or less.

We could soon find out which Republican message Hispanic voters listen to.

The debate about gubernatorial debates

With the gubernatorial election five months away, it is too early to think about debates between incumbent Republican Rick Perry and his Democratic challenger Bill White.

Yet, reporters and pundits who get press releases from the Perry and White camps have known for weeks the respective campaigns of the two candidates have been holding their own debates about the gubernatorial debates. And for the time being, it doesn’t look like Texas voters will see Perry and White in at least one televised debate.

That became clear earlier today when White, at Perry’s insistence, posted his income tax returns going back to 2004, when he was mayor of Houston. The problem, said Perry’s spokesman Mark Miner, is that the returns should go back to the 1990s when White was deputy secretary of energy under President Bill Clinton.

“Governor Perry looks forward to debating Bill White when he fully comes clean in releasing his tax returns for his years for his years in public service, including the years he served under President Clinton developing energy policy that he has profited from,” Miner said in his daily press release.

It didn’t take White too long to react to Miner’s comments.

“Texans deserve a series of debate about the future of our state,” White said in a statement. “Career politician Rick Perry can no longer hide behind political games."

So, the debate about the Texas gubernatorial debates continues.