Free Republic

The House voted this afternoon to strip almost all of the money out of the budget Gov. Rick Perry uses to pay his staff and operate his office. During debate over the proposed state budget for the next two years, the House voted for an amendment by Rep. Jessica Farrar, D-Houston, to move about $4 million from the governor’s office to veterans’ programs. Then the House approved an amendment sponsored by Rep. John Davis, R-Houston, to more than $18 million out of the governor’s office and into mental health crisis services. Davis said the House budget that came out of...

HUNTSVILLE, Texas — Gov. Rick Perry, in a rare and uncharacteristic move Thursday, spared the life of condemned prisoner Kenneth Foster, hours before he was to be executed for his role in a San Antonio robbery-shooting. The halt to Thursday's execution marked only the second time since Texas resumed carrying out executions in 1982 that the parole board voted to stop an execution this close to punishment time. And in that case, in 2004, Perry rejected the board's recommendation and the prisoner was executed. But this time, Perry agreed with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles' equally unusual recommendation...

AUSTIN – A property rights bill that went awry and a mandate for the Trans-Texas Corridor to follow the state's existing highway system were among the 49 bills that fell victim to Gov. Rick Perry's veto pen on Friday. Mr. Perry targeted at least two bills that he believed would open the courthouse doors to more litigation, including a bill that would have provided a greater balance in eminent domain proceedings. The bill spelled out what public land uses were acceptable in order to take private land and provided more recourse for land owners. But a provision tacked onto the...

AUSTIN -- Key negotiators were still working Wednesday night to hammer out a compromise version of a toll-road moratorium bill that Gov. Rick Perry won't veto. Earlier Wednesday, Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, said a compromise between the House and Senate versions of a transportation bill had been negotiated, but key House members quickly insisted that a deal had not been reached. The compromise version would require both chambers' approval. Perry vetoed a toll-road moratorium bill last week, citing concerns that it would cost the state federal funding of transportation projects. Different versions of a second moratorium passed both chambers last...

AUSTIN — A protest against toll roads highlighted a rally on the Capitol steps Friday, but the Texas Independence Day holiday put folks in the mood to raise hell about other grievances as well. Many also complained about a national animal identification tag. Some grumbled about the state's loss of control of its borders. A few warned about the coming "North American Union." And some excoriated the United Nations for wanting "to take your gun," exhorting anyone within earshot to "get us out of the U.N." The "liberty or death" chant of a thousand or more protesters marching up Congress...

AUSTIN — Gov. Rick Perry ordered today that schoolgirls in Texas must be vaccinated against the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer, making Texas the first state to require the shots. The girls will have to get Merck & Co.'s new vaccine against strains of the human papillomavirus, or HPV, that are responsible for most cases of cervical cancer. Merck is bankrolling efforts to pass laws in state legislatures across the country mandating it Gardasil vaccine for girls as young as 11 or 12. It doubled its lobbying budget in Texas and has funneled money through Women in Government,...

Nugent insists Perry loved show Aide admits the governor may not agree with rebel rocker's attire AUSTIN — Gov. Rick Perry to rocker Ted Nugent: "Give 'em hell." Nugent insisted Monday that the governor loved his inaugural ball performance last week and never criticized his decision to wear a shirt emblazoned with the Confederate battle flag. In a telephone interview Monday, he said Perry approached him backstage after the Jan. 16 event, complimented him on "the greatest rock and roll" and thanked him for coming. The governor followed that up with a weekend telephone call that ended with Perry telling...

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- Hours after Gov. Rick Perry kicked off his second full term in office, Ted Nugent helped him celebrate at a black-tie gala, but not all attendees were pleased by the rocker's performance. Using machine guns as props, Nugent, 58, appeared onstage as the final act of the inaugural ball wearing a cutoff T-shirt emblazoned with the Confederate flag and shouting offensive remarks about non-English speakers, according to people who were in attendance. Perry's spokesman, Robert Black, downplayed the Tuesday-night incident. "Ted Nugent is a good friend of the governor's. He asked him if he would play...

Two private-sector groups have submitted proposals to develop the Trans-Texas Corridor-69, a 600-mile thoroughfare that may wind around Lufkin and Nacogdoches one day. The bid process is part of the effort to create a public-private partnership that the Texas Department of Transportation says would speed the construction of "one of the state's priority transportation projects." Trans-Texas Corridor-69, if and when it is built, is expected to connect with Interstate 69, which will stretch from Canada to Mexico. The proposed Texas corridor would start in South Texas and pass Houston, Lufkin and Nacogdoches before hitting Texarkana and/or breaking off into Louisiana....

The governor's race is becoming a referendum on the Trans-Texas Corridor toll road. Republican incumbent Gov. Rick Perry supports the TTC that would parallel Interstate 35 from Laredo to Oklahoma. However, it could gobble up 81,000 acres of rural land according to the Texas Department of Transportation. Also, a large chunk of the land used would be in North Texas. Lance Haynes, a Republican, said he wonders if his family's 68 acres in rural Collin County might be covered in concrete in the near future. The land lies within the path where the state could route the TTC and he's...

Secret parts of a contract for the Trans-Texas Corridor have been out for more than two weeks now. So has a development plan that outlines how state transportation officials and a foreign-led consortium plan to plow the countryside with toll roads and railways to relieve growing traffic on Interstate 35. That's plenty of time to begin scouring the thousands of pages — on the Web at KeepTexasMoving.com — to find out what the big secret was. But so far, no one can or will say if there's a detail, some twist or mumbo jumbo that, if found, would blow the...

On Sept. 30, about 100 people carrying protest signs and handfuls of dirt rallied at the Alamo to protest Gov. Rick Perry's massive toll road plan. Perry's feisty challenger, Carole Keeton Strayhorn, spoke at the event, which was not covered by the Express-News. Our no-show wasn't a judgment call. A reporter who was notified about the rally simply did not pass the information on to editors who decide what to cover and who will cover it. It was a flub, primarily by the Express-News, but also by the organizer, the San Antonio Toll Party, which needs to be more effusive...

The more William Molina heard about toll road plans, the more outraged he got, until finally he picked up his camera and did what he does best. Molina spent the past several months shooting more than 40 hours of footage at public meetings in San Antonio and nearby towns, talked to activists, tried to talk to toll road advocates and spliced together a film documenting what he says is a nexus of tremendous change. "I just wanted to capture history," the veteran filmmaker said. "One day we're going to look back at this and say, how did this happen." "Truth...

The Milam County portion of the “Hands Across the Corridor” Statewide Rallies was held Saturday, Sept. 30, on the Milam County Courthouse lawn. We had a great assembly of concerned Texans, Democrats, Republicans, Strayhorn Independents and even a couple of really “Kinky” folks. Everyone in attendance agreed that our current Governor and many of our senators and representatives have forgotten the constituents that they are supposed to represent. They seem to be representing only ‘big money contributors and companies' whose interests are not what is best for Texas, but how much money the ‘projects' (toll roads and corridor) can make...

The Texas Transportation Commission unrolled Sept. 28 the long-awaited road map for the Trans-Texas Corridor. Release of the Master Development Plan will result also in public disclosure of the full contract between the state and Cintra-Zachry, a private joint venture between the Spanish firm Cintra and the Texas highway contractor Zachry. Both Cintra-Zachry and the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) appealed a ruling from the Texas Attorney General’s office that the full contract is an open record. A trial was scheduled for Oct. 10 in Travis County district court. The master plan calls for the prompt building of seven segments...

Border security doesn't seem to matter to politicians, there is a move afoot to create a North American Union where the United States, Canada and Mexico would essentially be one market with a single currency -- the "Amero," a top Texas Eagle Forum official said Tuesday. Eagle Forum President Cathie Adams spoke to some 54 people at the Petroleum Club. Formed by Phyllis Schlafly in 1972, the St. Louis, Mo., and Washington, D.C.-based Eagle Forum is pro-family, pro-life group. She said those attending should keep their eye on the 2008 presidential race, ask their state representatives and senators to support...

North Texas grows by 150,000 people a year – about the population of Richardson and Rowlett combined. McKinney and Frisco each add 200 newcomers a week. Keeping pace with the mobility needs of the mushrooming region is a losing proposition if we use only traditional means: state fuel taxes and leveraged federal funds. Yet most positions taken by candidates for governor are unrealistically wed to yesterday's formulas for financing roadways. Here's the size of the North Texas funding gap over the next 25 years: a nearly $28 billion shortage for new highways and related projects, according to the Regional Transportation...

HILLSBORO, Texas — Leroy Walters has survived many a threat on the farm that has been in his family for 120 years — droughts, hailstorms, tornadoes, grasshopper attacks. But now he sees a manmade danger on the horizon: a colossal, 600-mile superhighway that will plow clear across Texas, perhaps cutting through Walters' milo and corn fields, obliterating family houses and robbing his grandchildren of their land. "I don't think they're going to want to pay a toll to go across this land," he said. "They want to enjoy it free, as Texans should enjoy it." That kind of fear and...