The three-judge panel responsible for figuring out the melody to go along with the Supreme Court lyrics on redistricting has set out some deadlines for the next round in LULAC v Perry, et al. 

Briefs & maps & data are due July 14.  Responses are due July 21.  Oral arguments are set for 9AM on August 3 in Austin.  Regular electronic filing requirements are suspended.

Make your reservations for the media circus now.

Hat tip to the left-leaning Lone Star Project for the link to the court order and having more information than you could possibly stand on redistricting.

Looks like the Gang of Four has finally found an issue on which they can all agree.  After years of contentiousness, what’s it take for the gang to finally pull together?  

Yep, our Gang of Four, which includes 3 lame duck commissioners and the lame duck county judge, have come up with a budget plan that gives themselves a cushy pay raise.  According to our Fearless Leader, the county judge will get about a $470 per month raise, commissioners about $575 more a month. 

Our gang didn’t stop there.  The high sheriff will get a mere $300 raise - maybe it’s because he can’t seem to pass a jail inspection.  Elected constables will get $333 more, the County Attorney will get $559 more and county court-at-law judges will get a whopping $1,023 a month more. 

We see a couple of problems with all this largess for elected officials.  First and foremost being where is all this money going to come from?  The gang of four and all these other elected officials are busy picking your pocketbook with one hand while pledging to reduce taxes and spending with the other.  We have a bridge in Brooklyn for you if you really believe that.

To say that everybody else is doing it is the oldest excuse in the book.  It should sound familiar.  Got any tweeners or teens at home??  Moooooommmm…..  Equally bogus is to whine that’s what other officials are paid in other counties.  Every candidate knew what the job paid when they ran for it.  To shed crocodile tears over the salary of an office you run for is shameful. 

We don’t have a problem paying a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work.  Would a 40-hour work week be too much to ask?  Heck, we’d be happy and settle for 30 hours a week.  Commissioners are paid $70K for what is essentially a part-time job.  Don’t get us started on the hours the rest of our elected officials keep or don’t keep and the businesses they run from their county offices.  Walk through any county office on Friday afternoon and you will find mostly county employees toiling away trying to make their bosses look good. 

There is a reason it is called public service. If you want more money - get a real job.  Buy some cheese to go with that whine, but don’t expect the taxpayers to pay for it.  It is your money they are showering on themselves.  It’s your call and it’s your vote.  Keep that in mind in November.

The Supremes included Texas redistricting in their final set.  According to the Houston Chronicle, the ruling tossed part of the new map and a couple of redrawn minority districts.  

One of those redrawn districts just happened to belong to erstwhile congressman Chris Bell.  That’s interesting.   Think he’ll withdraw from the governor’s race to run for his old seat in congress?  Oh wait, the dimocrats won’t let anyone withdraw from a race, will they now??? 

More on this later, when the decision is posted.

UPDATE  UPDATE  UPDATE:  Here’s what the NY Times has to say about the ruling, which allows states unlimited redistricting ability.  Henry Bonilla’s CD 23 was one of the districts singled out by the Supremes.  

Here’s the 132 page SCOTUS opinion. 

UPDATE  UPDATE  UPDATE:  To clarify our original post, while Chris Bell’s old seat was redrawn as a minority seat during redistricting, it wasn’t specifically part of the ruling today.  We guess the dimocrats are stuck with him as their nominee for governor.

Hmmm.  Looks like making your new BFF the Secretary of State has some benefits for the governor after all. 

According to the Statesman, Roger Williams is “leaning” against letting She Who Will Not Be Named be listed as “Grandma” on the ballot.  He has sent her a letter asking for her to prove “Grandma” is not a campaign slogan but a real nickname. 

Maybe we need to make it real easy for voters to figure out who they should vote for - since they can’t seem to remember a freakin’ name.  Or in her case, four, or five or maybe even six names by November….

But hey, what’s fair for the goose is also fair for the gander.  Maybe Perry should be listed by his real name - which is James by the way (See A Boy Named Sue).  We’ve heard from some republicans out there who would prefer to see him listed as “Adios Mofo”.  The dimocrats just wish his hair would fall out.

As another one of the candidates is so fond of saying, “Why the hell not?”

It took him long enough, but the Secretary of State certified Kinky Friedman and She Who Will Not Be Named as independent candidates for governor in the November election. 

According to the official SOS press release on Thursday, the petitions were expeditiously certified.  The onerous task of verifying the signatures was outsourced to TELA Technologies.  Working at the speed of government, it took nearly six weeks to certify the signatures.  At that rate, we can’t see why the job was outsourced in the first place.  Maybe they ought to look up the definition of expeditious over there.

Now we have a five person race for who has the best hair in Texas -  the fifth being the libertarian candidate James Werner.  Our prediction is Werner will garner a commanding lead for 5th place come November - mainly because he has no nickname to put on the ballot like all the others.  Since he’s an IT transplant from California, how about Jimmy the Geek?

If you’re looking for a job - there are a couple of openings over at the Brushy Creek MUD.  The Statesman reported that after the June 10 grand opening of the water treatment plant, the interim GM, a supervisor, and some of the employees hung around and partied like it was 1999.  The official reception ended at 6PM.  Some of the guys partied down until 11PM.  Lightweights. 

But the big dogs romped until 5:30 the next morning.  Guess they had to give it up and go back to work maybe?  According to the Austin lawyer who investigated it all, that party was some thirsty work - with the MUD dobbers chugging “anywhere from 42 to 84 beers”, some winecoolers, and some other hard likker adult beverages.  That’s a big discrepency in beer counting - maybe they drank so much they were seeing double.

At some point during the rousing and carousing, some clothes were shed and swimming ensued.  In a retention pond full of water from Lake Georgetown.  You ever taste the water up in Georgetown?  Would you swim in that?  Beer for brains.  Apparently, some guy tried to dry out his socks with a cigarette lighter and burned them up instead.  That might have sounded like a good idea at the time.

MUD Board members were agast and appalled by it all and fired the lot - accompanied by dire legal-sounding justifications and ridiculous pontifications.  More firings are threatened, once the star chamber personnel hearings conclude. 

That’s the problem with partying like it’s 1999 in 2006. 

UPDATE  UPDATE  UPDATE:  Here’s John Kelso’s take on the MUD wrestling.   Here’s what our Fearless Leader has to say.

The Statesman sez the Secretary of State should have a decision about those pesky independent candidates by Wednesday. 

Woo hoo!!  Will “Kinky” and She Who Will Not Be Named get the chance to demolish “Chris” Bell, too?  You can vote for your favorite candidate over in the sidebar on the right.  Unlike some dimocrat voters, you can only vote once.

Yipee ki yay.  Looks like those litigious libs have done and gone and filed themselves another lawsuit.  Against the county of course.  Gotta take a stab and grab at those deep pockets.  Here’s what the Statesman wrote about it last week, and here’s today’s article.

Back in February, we told you about a particularly whiney bunch of folk, the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition (TCJC) (see 30 Days in the Hole). Seems the Texas Observer printed an article about the worst judges in Texas and Tim Wright and Suzanne Brooks got “dishonorable” mentions for not appointing every swinging defendant in their court a free lawyer. 

Makes no difference if the defendant didn’t want or need a free lawyer.  Nope, in the eyes of these guys, you are entitled to a free lawyer, so you ought to get one. 

Now, they have filed suit against the judges to force them to hand out free lawyers whether you want one or not.  Lucky for us, there is no shortage of lawyers in these parts who are salivating at the thought of latching on to the taxpayer’s teat.  According to the petition, the county has received more than half a million dollars in the past three years to pay for indigent counsel.

We’re not saying nobody needs court-appointed counsel, but we are saying not everybody needs a court-appointed lawyer.  Right now, it’s up to the judge to appoint one or not. That’s what they get paid for.  Might be interesting to find out which of our judges are actually working the bench and which judges are just warming the bench.  We have our own ideas about which judges are which, but getting some statistical proof might prove quite enlightening come election time.

The irony in all this is that the judges are getting representation at taxpayer’s expense, representation which they might be denying defendants in their courts.  You can check out the rest of the allegations and stuff here.

Looks like the Leaderthals finally have themselves a full up city council.  According to unofficial results, the electoral deadlock was broken when Michell Cantwell snatched victory from Simon Garcia by 23 votes (292 to 269).  Cantwell (see Amok Time) used to be the Place 1 councilwoman.

The brawling and bawling will resume at the June 27 council meeting swearing match swearing in.

Just a reminder that tomorrow is Flag Day.  It’s a scrap of fabric that symbolizes the greatest country in the world.  It is instantly recognizable to people all over the globe as the symbol of freedom. 

Five years ago in September, it became a symbol of our solidarity and sovereignity.  We weren’t afraid to fly it in our yards and on our cars.  However, times have changed. 

We’ll be out with our cameras tomorrow, looking for our flag and the people who are not afraid to fly it.  Take your best shot, too and send it to our tips.  We’ll post the best and the brightest - just let us know where you took the shot.