Gov. Rick Perry has called special elections for the vacant Senate seat in District 22 and the vacant House seat in District 100 and set the date for May 8. These are the seats vacated by Sen. Kip Averitt's (R-Waco) resignation and Rep. Terri Hodge's (D-Dallas) resignation after her guilty plea in federal court to a felony charge. The filing deadline is April 7, and early voting runs from April 26 to May 4. All candidates from all parties file on the same ballot for special elections. There are no primaries. If no candidate receives 50 percent of the vote, then Perry will schedule a runoff approximately one month later. The winner of the election serves the unexpired term, which lasts until Jan. 2011. Eric Johnson defeated Hodge in the primary and is unopposed in District 100 for the full term, while new nominees for the Averitt seat full term have not yet been selected.

Republican David Sibley, who served in the Texas Senate from 1992 to 2002, announced this morning that he will run for the seat being vacated today by Sen. Kip Averitt (R-Waco), who has occupied the seat since Sibley left. Gov. Rick Perry is expected to call a special election, but no word yet on when it would be held.

Said Sibley in a statement:

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About 12,000 non-citizens, including illegal immigrants and non-permanent legal residents, received in-state tuition fee rates at public universities and colleges in 2009, the Dallas Morning News reported today.

This is an issue LSR has been following for several years, though bills seeking to scrap in-state tuition for illegal immigrants never seem to gain traction in recent legislatures.

The Houston Chronicle reported earlier today that Rep. Al Edwards (D-Houston) is requesting a vote recount in the primary bout he lost by 10 votes March 2 to former Rep. Borris Miles.
 

Edwards filed the paperwork and submitted a $4,400 deposit this morning at the state Democratic Party headquarters in Austin, a spokeswoman confirmed.

Election day results showed Miles with an 11-vote lead. After an early-voting ballot board canvassed provisional and mail ballots, 39 votes were added to the total in the House District 146 race, and Edwards closed the gap by one vote. The tally stands at 5,050 for Miles and 5,040 for Edwards.

The Edwards campaign will cover the cost of the recount unless the outcome of the race changes, in which case the state party would pick up the tab.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has an oped in the Houston Chronicle, in which he explains that he wants a court to order the Environmental Protection Agency to do its own scientific review of greenhouse gases, which the agency has claimed will lead to climate change that will endanger public health and welfare.

The Environmental Protection Agency recently concluded that man-made greenhouse gas emissions — including carbon dioxide — are harmful pollutants and must be regulated. The lawsuit I filed challenging that finding does not address the disputed science surrounding global warming. Instead, it focuses on the indisputable fact that the EPA relied on information that has been discredited, manipulated, lost or destroyed, and sometimes evaded peer review. The lawsuit does not attempt to show that the globe is not warming. It does, however, show that the process used by the EPA in deciding to regulate greenhouse gases is riddled with errors that render its conclusion untrustworthy.

Before regulating man-made greenhouse gas emissions, the EPA was required to conduct a scientific assessment. Rather than conduct its own assessment, the EPA relied on reports by third parties. The EPA's conclusions rest primarily on information gathered by a creation of the United Nations called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC — an organization that has become mired in scandal because the reliability, objectivity and scientific validity of its work has come under fire.

The State Board of Education passed its revisions to controversial social studies textbook standards today by a vote of 11-4, demonstrating the power of conservatives have on the board. The standards go to a second and final reading in May.

Decisions made by the SBOE mirrored the the conservative sweep in January’s meeting. They included: ...

With the final reading of changes to the English and Language Arts textbook standards revisions approved today, a highly anticipated discussion over changes to Social Studies requirements began. Fifty-four persons were signed up to speak as of this morning, not including three Texas House members who popped in to share their two-cents worth on the changes. By 4:15 p.m., all but 12 persons on the sign-up list had spoken.

East Texas Legislators Reps. Dan Flynn (R-Van) and Wayne Christian (R-Center) spoke prior to public testimony, outlining the details of a letter (viewable here) from the 60-legislator Texas Conservative Coalition.

"We fear that State Board members have been pressured throughout the TEKS revision process to wash the TEKS clean of any references to Judeo-Christian faiths while promoting references to other religions," the letter read. ...

After winning the GOP Primary 60-40 percent, Sen. Kip Averitt (R-Waco) announced his resignation less than a week following the election.

"Your vote of confidence last Tuesday, election day, was most gratifying.  I am humbled by your support," Averitt said, in a press statement.  "Now, the time has come for me to step down."

Averitt indicated he would resign as of midday March 17, allowing Gov. Rick Perry to call a special election for May 8 to fill his seat.

LSR Managing Editor William Lutz recently published an opinion column in The Washington Examiner discussing this week's primary for governor. My basic point is that in most Republican primaries, it's the social issues that dominate. But this year was different: fiscal conservatives made their voices heard, and Gov. Rick Perry got renominated by appealing to fiscally conservative values. Click here to read the column.

Here is a key excerpt:

Immediately after Gov. Rick Perry's victory in the Texas GOP primary, the press in began trying to discount the Tea Party movement. It had not met the artificially high expectations set for it, neither in the governor's race nor in down-ballot challenges to sitting Republican members of Congress.

But this misses the larger point. After years of playing second fiddle to Texan values voters, fiscal conservatives made their voices heard in Tuesday's Texas Republican primary. Although social issues like abortion, guns, and prayer in school still mattered in this race, taxes and government spending took center stage, up and down the ballot.