We expect today to be a pretty busy day, so we’re going to throw out a little link dump in the hopes we’ll be able to address some of this in more detail later today:
Justice for Sale: The Price of Immunity, $2,000,000: Today the Texas Supreme Court takes up an issue that goes to the heart of what it means to be a Texan: Are we accountable for the consequences of our behavior? Lord John Brown, former CEO of British Petroleum and his special interest peers say no. They argue that they are above the law-literally. [Burnt Orange Report]
Two Executions Halted Over Different Challenges: In the nation’s most active death penalty state, two November executions have been halted because of pending capital punishment issues before the courts. On Tuesday a federal judge in Sherman stopped the Nov. 6 execution of Allen Bridgers, whose attorneys claim he is mentally retarded. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that mentally retarded people cannot be executed. In another case, a judge in Fort Worth stopped the Nov. 27 execution of Dale Devon Scheanette following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to consider the legality of lethal injection. [Austin American-Statesman]
Conditions At North Texas Youth Lockup Are Dismal: The September inspection report about a Texas Youth Commission lockup in North Texas paints a grim picture. The buildings are “structurally suffering, dangerous and unclean,” states the confidential assessment by Ombudsman Will Harrell, who ranked the Victory Field Correctional Academy in Vernon as “the least adequate” of any he’d visited since he took the job in May. [Austin American-Statesman]
Group Opposes Sale Of West Texas Mountain Range: The controversial proposal to transfer the pristine Christmas Mountains to private interests continued fueling opposition Wednesday. A conservation group criticized Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson and launched an online petition drive calling upon Gov. Rick Perry and Attorney General Greg Abbott to intercede. [Fort Worth Star-Telegram]
Corny Votes Against SCHIP, But Really Supports SCHIP. WTF?: We got the most amazing newsletter this week. Apparenty John Cornyn really DOES support SCHIP. We’re sort of wondering why he would vote against it, if he supports it. [Texas Clover Leaf]
Walle Makes A Run In HD 140: Armando Walle, a native of Aldine, recently announced he would be challenging Kevin Bailey for the Texas House District 140 seat. Bailey is one of several “Craddick D’s” being challenged, and I must say Walle is definitely running hard for the seat; so hard, that Cody Garrett at the Texas Observer has noticed. [Dos Centavos]
Thanks to the Easter Holiday, this has been an extremely busy week for Capitol Annex. Wednesday was very hectic, and Thursday will be non-stop, wall to wall busy for us. So, we may not get to post anything else today, but will be back up to speed for Friday.
As a result, all we’ve got for you this morning is this little link dump. (And one notice we’ll be posting later on!)
Senate Criminal Justice Committee OK’s TYC Reform Bill (DMN)
Perry backs Religious Expression Legislation (Chron)
It’s Easter Sunday. For some folks that means dressing up and going to church, for some folks that means an Easter Egg Hunt and for some folks it means getting to bite the ears of a huge chocolate bunny and/or trying to figure out what happens when you microwave marshmallow Peeps.
At any rate, here’s a Sunday Link Dump for you. Even though Capitol Annex is on Easter Break until Monday, we can’t leave you without *something* to read.
Job’s Anger has an interesting piece about one of the “local” bills we rarely hear much about during the legislative session. It’s about a water district bill in Parker and Wise Counties and how it still allows oil companies to waste water.
Marc’s Miscellany has a nice “catch-up” round up of things you may have missed in political news recently.
As you could expect, even though we’re taking a break from blogging, we couldn’t just leave you hanging all weekend.
So, here is your Saturday Link-Dump. For Protestants and Catholics, call it your Holy Saturday Link Dump, should you desire to be so spiritual. For everyone else, just call it “Saturday.” This link dump is certified Anna Nicole Smith Free.
A new-to-us blog, an examination of free will, has picked up on the story about Dan Patrick absenting himself from the Senate Floor when a Muslim offered a prayer. The last time Democrats tried to absent themselves from the floor of the senate, they were fined, shunned and forced to hole’ up in a hotel in New Mexico. (Could we send Patrick to New Mexico? Doubt it. It’s against federal law to transport dangerous materials across state lines).
Bay Area Houston reminds us that justice can be purchased in Texas. (At least if you are Bob Perry and Justice Nathan Hecht needs a little change to help pay the costs associated with the discipline he received for pimping his girlfriend to be a SCOTUS justice.)
With all of the excitement last week’s filing deadline for new legislation before the Texas Legislature (don’t worry, we’ve got a round-up on all of that good last-minute legislation coming later this week), it’s kind of a slow early Monday morning, so we’ve got a link dump for you.
It’s the weekend, and you know that means we’re going to send you dancing around the Internets (which are a series of tubes invented by Al Gore before he discovered Global Warming) after the best stuff related to Texas politics.
And, this Link Dump, unlike every major mainstream media outlet in the Known World this weekend, it is free of all things Anna Nicole Smith—unless someone in the Legislature authors a memorial resolution in her honor or Dewhurst and Craddick create a Joint Select Committee To Determine The Impact Of The Anna Nicole Smith Litigation On The Texas Family Code.
State Rep. Garnet Coleman has up a new Vcast on toll roads and the Trans Texas Corridor.
Dig Deeper Texastells us that the Radical Right is now going after percieved “liberal bias” in Wikipedia and has launched Conservapedia.
Half Empty takes a look at the Shapiro-Eissler bill to eleminate TAKS testing and notes it would require physics be taken for students to graduate on certain high school graduation plans. As someone to whom Algebra, Physics, and Spanish are all foreign languages, we’ll make a deal with Senator Shapiro: If she can answer this problem for us without any help, we’ll cut her a little slack:
A skier starting from rest descends a 24.3º slope. If the coefficient of friction is 0.122 , what is the skier’s speed (in m/s) after 6.46 seconds?
Inside The Texas Capitol has given us a new name for the 80th Legislature: The Three Letter Session. We love this, and hereby vow to use it until everyone is as tired of it as they are of Anna Nicole Smith.
Also, Rep. Senfronia Thompson is back to blogging! We gave Rep. Thompson a good-natured hard time on this blog about the need for her to get back to blogging some time ago. Then, we failed to notice that she had done so. Check out her posts on the Top 10% Rule Under Attack and her “Welcome Back” post. We can’t wait to read more.
Capitol Annex made its first foray into the world of Conservative BlogTalkRadio this week, appearing as a guest on Right of Texas‘ recent show. Unfortunatly, my phone kept dropping the call, but it was a fun experience. Hopefully, we can appear again to actually argue with Right of Texas about something. This time, we were just discussing opinions of presidential candidates and what not.
The Texas Observer Blog has a nice post on the symposium held this week on the 2003 Redistricting and its aftermath.
Three Wise Mentells us that the Cherokee Nation is going to vote on whether or not to expel “freedmen” (ie, the descendants of slaves held by Cherokees) from their ranks. How insane.
Winding Road in Urban Areaponders why Newt Gingrich still doesn’t get “it.”
And finally, if you don’t have time to run out and see a horror film this weekend, just go to Who’s Playin? and check out this photo of Congressman Michael Burgess (R-Flower Mound).
We’re experiencing an especially busy morning at Capitol Annex, so we probably won’t update you further until lunch. In the interim, please accept the following as your Tuesday Link Dump:
It seems as though Indiana and other states are involved in projects very similar to the Trans Texas Corridor: long-term leases for toll roads. Check this in the Detroit Free Press (hat tip to NCSL’s Grass Catcher).
Hector Gomez’s RVG Politics Revisited has a post up about a very interesting partnership between the San Juan EDC and a production company that will allow a movie to be filmed in San Juan. Check it out.
The Chron has a story about yet another state university (Angelo State) and a possible merger with a major university system (Texas Tech). It seems as though there will be few independent public universities left one of these days…
And, finally, the Tyler Morning Telegraph has a lengthy piece on their newly-redesigned website (thank God they finally redesigned it) on all of the controversy over State Rep. Leo Berman (R-Tyler) and his anti-immigration bills.
Do you know that you can 
