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Updated: Lieutenant governor-elect Patrick says liberals “picked wrong battleground”

Dan Patrick and Leticia Van de Putte, Texas Senate colleagues and rivals for lieutenant governor (AP pool photo, Sept. 29 KLRU debate)

Update at 9:45 p.m.: Dan Patrick said his election reaffirms the state’s conservative tilt.

“Texas voters sent a powerful message to the rest of the country – the liberal, Washington-style agenda my opponent so proudly boasted simply has no place in Texas,” he said in a written statement. “Tonight’s decisive victory proves they picked the wrong battleground.”

Van de Putte told supporters that she called Patrick and offered “sincere congratulations on a well-disciplined campaign.” Van de Putte, who didn’t have to give up her Senate seat to run statewide, added that she assured Patrick “I would continue in my public service.”

Update at 8:28 p.m.: Van de Putte has conceded, congratulating Patrick for “running a disciplined campaign.”

In a statement, she thanked supporters and said she looks “forward to continuing to serve my community and this great state.” See note below about how she retains her Texas Senate seat.

“This campaign and my service have always been about securing the future for the next generation, para mis hijos y nietos,” Van de Putte concluded.

Update at 8:16 p.m.: AP has called the race for Patrick.

Original item at 8:08 p.m.: Republican and tea party darling Dan Patrick established a solid lead over Democrat Leticia Van de Putte in Tuesday’s tally of the early vote for lieutenant governor.

With more than 2.1 million early votes counted, Patrick is leading Van de Putte with 56 percent to her 41 percent.

Playing rope-a-dope in the fall contest, Patrick avoided gaffes and lowered his public profile. This was after he ran a highly combative campaign to capture the GOP nomination earlier this year.

But while Patrick coasted through the general election, he didn’t tone down his staunchly conservative views.

Au contraire.

Seizing full advantage of the summer’s influx of unaccompanied children from Central America, the rise of the Islamic State in the Middle East and the arrival of Ebola in Dallas, Patrick hewed to his hard line on immigration and border security.

He raised the prospect of Islamic terrorists crossing the Texas-Mexico border in his fall TV ads.

In other ads and his single televised debate with Van de Putte, he also stood firm against abortion, under any circumstance; and for school voucher-like proposals to shake up public schools.

Van de Putte, not well-known beyond her San Antonio base, didn’t raise the big money that fellow state Sen. Wendy Davis did in the governor’s race.

But as Patrick’s senior colleague in the Texas Senate, Van de Putte soon could be in an interesting position: Last year, she drew a four-year Senate term and thus did not have to give up her seat to run for lieutenant governor. If she loses to Patrick, she can sit back and watch him preside — and offer critiques, if she chooses.

Van de Putte edges Patrick, barely, in recent fundraising

Lieutenant governor rivals Dan Patrick, left, and Leticia Van de Putte shake hands last month at their only televised debate (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Update at 12:48 p.m.: I have inserted the two campaigns’ reactions.

Original item at 11:27 a.m.: Democrat Leticia Van de Putte raised more money — barely — than her GOP rival for lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, in the latest reporting period, according to reports posted Tuesday on the Texas Ethics Commission website.

Van de Putte banked $2.086 million in contributions, compared with $2.052 million pocketed by Patrick, the reports showed. So her edge was about $34,000.

“This is what an upset looks like,” Van de Putte campaign finance director Nikki Bizzarri said in a statement. More than 5,200 different donors gave to Van de Putte during the reporting period, which was Sept. 26 through Saturday.

Patrick, though, outspent her by nearly $1 million and enjoyed a better than $1.3 million cash advantage at the period’s close.

“We’re running hard, all the way to the finish line,” Patrick said in a statement. It said nearly 1,000 individuals gave money to him during the period.

Patrick entered the period with nearly $4.3 million, to Van de Putte’s $2.2 million. He spent $3.1 million and had just over $2.8 million in the bank as of Saturday.

She spent $2.2 million during the period and wound up with just less than $1.5 million in cash.

Patrick’s campaign still owes him more than $2 million. Van de Putte hasn’t borrowed for her campaign.

Both candidates are state senators — Van de Putte, from San Antonio; and Patrick, from Houston. They are competing to succeed Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, whom Patrick ousted in a hard-fought Republican primary.

Barfield pleads guilty to embezzling $1.8 million from David Dewhurst campaigns

The former campaign manager and long-time political adviser to Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst pleaded guilty Tuesday to embezzling nearly $1.8 million from Dewhurst’s campaign accounts for five years until his theft was uncovered in late 2012.

One-time Austin political consultant Kenneth “Buddy” Barfield faces a maximum sentence of 28 years in prison on three charges, including wire fraud, falsified tax returns and theft of campaign funds from a candidate for federal office.

Barfield, now residing in Alabama, entered the plea before U.S. Magistrate Mark Lane in federal court in Austin. He refused to comment after leaving the courtroom.

“While working on behalf of the David Dewhurst Campaign and Dewhurst for Texas, Barfield knowingly and intentionally engaged in a scheme to defraud the entities of campaign dollars for his own benefit,” a plea agreement signed by Barfield stated.

“Barfield used the stolen funds to pay for expenses such as his home mortgage, school tuition for his children, personal investments and other living expenses.”

Dewhurst campaign officials said Barfield concealed his theft from the campaign accounts by falsifying bank deposit slips, vendor invoices and finance reports to make it appear that the accounts had far more cash on hand than they actually contained.

In the meantime, Barfield and his side businesses, such as Alexander Group Consulting, were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for services that were never performed.

Barfield earlier agreed to turn over his lavish West Austin home and various business assets to Dewhurst to settle a civil lawsuit filed by Dewhurst last year to recover the funds. A final judgment executing the settlement was signed by a state judge last November.

Sales proceeds from Barfield’s home, which has been listed at $2.8 million, will be pooled with the assets of Barfield’s businesses to repay Dewhurst’s campaign accounts for lieutenant governor and his 2012 U.S. Senate race. The home was valued at $1.37 million by the Travis County Appraisal District in 2013.

Patrick blasts Van de Putte for vote that was, well, unanimous

Dan Patrick answers reporters' questions after a Sept. 29 televised debate. (AP Photo/The Daily Texan, Ethan Oblak)

Republican lieutenant governor hopeful Dan Patrick is attacking Democratic opponent Leticia Van de Putte for a nearly decade-old vote she cast in the Texas Senate.

Van de Putte’s purported transgression, though, was at worst a very common one: She joined every other state senator in voting “aye” on a tax bill amendment in 2005.

Patrick’s latest TV ad hits Van de Putte for the vote, saying she “even supported a tax on employee wages, an income tax on Texas workers.”

But tax experts say that’s misleading — in part, because the tax under discussion was an existing one on businesses that was being tinkered with, not a new one on individual Texans.

Patrick’s ad also omits crucial context, such as that the amendment was offered by a Republican; it was approved, 31-0, though it never became law; and the four GOP senators remaining in the Senate who also voted “aye” are today powerful figures with whom Patrick will have to work closely if he wins on Nov. 4. They include Finance Committee chief Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, and Natural Resources Committee leader Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay.

Is he calling them liberals, I asked Patrick spokesman Alejandro Garcia.

On Thursday, Garcia did not directly respond to my question, though he stood by the ad, which the Patrick campaign titled “Liberal Leticia.”

“She is clearly a liberal in every sense of the word,” Garcia wrote in an email. He attached a spreadsheet of legislative scorecards from the past two sessions that he said prove his point.

Leticia Van de Putte, in her post-debate press gaggle. (AP Photo/The Daily Texan, Ethan Oblak)

The ratings are by the Texas Association of Business and five staunchly conservative groups, including ones underwritten, respectively, by conservative Midland oilman Tim Dunn and billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch of Wichita, Kan. Curiously, the Patrick campaign did some averaging of the 12 scores, presumably to show Van de Putte is more liberal than Sen. Eddie Lucio, D-Brownsville, and roughly as liberal as Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin.

Garcia said, as the ad does, that Van de Putte supported a statewide property tax in 2003 and opposed property tax relief in 2007. However, as we noted in a story in Thursday’s paper, in one of the two votes from 2007 the ad cites, Van de Putte ended up with a bipartisan majority that had business backing in killing a Patrick effort to tighten residential appraisal caps.

The 2005 “wage tax” amendment, by then-Sen. Kim Brimer, R-Fort Worth, came as Texas lawmakers, under GOP leadership, grappled with how to raise enough state tax money to deeply cut local school property taxes. They were racing to comply with a court order that said the state’s school finance system was unconstitutional. Brimer’s amendment didn’t become law.

It took lawmakers two special sessions in 2005 and a third in 2006 before they finally traversed a minefield of prickly business sectors and professional groups and settled on a more broadly applied business franchise tax. While the old one largely was a tax on corporations’ net income, the new one swept in liability-protected partnerships and professional associations, which had previously been exempt. And it gave employers the choice of deducting employee compensation, cost of goods sold or a flat 30-percent cut from the total revenues that are taxed.

On Thursday, I spoke with some state tax policy experts, including some who declined to be identified because they fear offending Patrick if he wins the election and becomes the Senate’s powerful presiding officer. They agreed that Brimer’s measure wasn’t an income tax on workers, because it would’ve been paid by employers. And though it would have taxed wages, wages were one of three options a business could choose: Paying a tax consisting of 0.025% of net assets, 2.5% of net income or 1.75% of wages.

At the time of Brimer’s amendment, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page and FreedomWorks leader Dick Armey foamed with indignation that Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and the Senate were leading Texas astray — with a “fancy disguise for a personal income tax,” in the Journal’s wording; or, in Armey’s, “just a clever disguise for an income tax.”

Patrick cited the Journal editorial in his ad attacking Van de Putte.

Nearly three years ago, though, the Texas Supreme Court in the Allcat case ruled that the margins tax lawmakers eventually passed in 2006 isn’t a personal income tax, but a tax on businesses, not individuals.

Almost forgotten in the fierce rhetoric is that it was passed in order to offset the state’s giving more aid to schools so they could lower their local property taxes; and as part of a tax swap package that was supposed to be close to revenue neutral, though it turned out to be something of a net tax cut.

“They were just throwing one thing after another on the wall, to see what stuck,” said tax expert Dick Lavine of the center-left think tank the Center for Public Policy Priorities, recalling the Brimer amendment.

Yep. Sort of like a political campaign does.

You can see the Patrick ad here:

Patrick, Van de Putte air attack ads as lieutenant governor race intensifies

Lieutenant governor hopefuls state Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, left, and state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, right, shake hands following their televised debate on Sept. 29 in Austin. (Pool photo by AP's Eric Gay)

Lieutenant governor hopefuls Dan Patrick and Leticia Van de Putte sought to rally their base voters by launching hard-hitting TV attack ads Wednesday.

Patrick’s spot appeals to economic conservatives — and perhaps, to people worried about their jobs. Meanwhile, his Texas Senate colleague Van de Putte targets women, suggesting Patrick’s an extremist and insensitive to their concerns.

Patrick’s ad slams Van de Putte as “liberal Leticia.”

It cherry-picks her votes on tax-related bills going back 11 years, including at least one in which she sided with business groups, not he.

But Patrick’s ad makes Van de Putte out to be a tax-happy liberal. It says he’s the guy who, through tax cuts, will keep Texas’ economy vibrant.

“Liberal Leticia opposed property tax cuts, supported a statewide property tax and even supported a tax on employee wages, an income tax on Texas workers,” a narrator says. Then Patrick appears. Speaking to camera, he introduces himself as “a conservative who sponsored one of the biggest tax cuts of any state during the recession, helping Texas lead the nation in job creation.” He’ll keep that going, with property tax cuts, he says.

As the Great Recession bit into state revenues, Patrick did sponsor a tax cut in 2009. He was Senate sponsor of a bill exempting more small businesses from the state franchise or margins tax. The bill exempted businesses with less than $1 million a year of gross receipts from having to pay the tax. The threshold had been $300,000.

The ad doesn’t mention, though, that Van de Putte also voted for the measure. Calling it “one of the biggest tax cuts of any state during the recession” may have significance for conservatives, as many states raised taxes in 2008-2009. In the big picture of state revenues, though, the relief set no record for size: It reduced revenues over two years by $172.1 million, or three-tenths of 1 percent of all general revenue-related receipts the state collected in 2010-2011.

Dan Patrick makes a point during the debate televised from KLRU-TV. (Pool photo by AP's Eric Gay)

Also, one of the bills Patrick’s ad cites to say Van de Putte “opposed property tax cuts” was an unsuccessful Patrick floor amendment in 2007 that would have tightened the cap on annual growth in appraisals of residential property, to 5 percent, from 10 percent. Van de Putte joined nine other Democrats and 10 Republicans in tabling Patrick’s measure. Business lobbyists have opposed the tigher cap because it would shift the property tax burden away from homeowners and toward commercial and industrial property.

Van de Putte’s ad also loosely interprets a past Patrick vote: His opposition last year to the two-year state budget, as rejiggered by House-Senate negotiators. The final passage vote can be construed as a vote against everything state government does, though Patrick at the time set out reasons he voted “nay,” such as changes in some education programs and what he felt was insufficient spending on state law enforcement efforts at the Texas-Mexico border.

Van de Putte equates Patrick’s vote against the overall budget with opposition to inclusion of money to pay to test a backlog of 20,000 untested rape kits sitting on evidence shelves in police departments across Texas.

“Allowing rapists to walk free,” a narrator says, to ominous music.

The ad opens with a snippet of Patrick, explaining his opposition to abortion even in cases of rape and incest. It was from the two candidates’ Sept. 30 debate, the only one Patrick has granted. Van de Putte wanted five.

“Now I understand there’s some people that have a difference of opinion on rape or incest,” Patrick says. A female narrator interrupts, “No, rape is always rape.” An actress, playing a rape victim, sheds a tear. The spot omits Patrick’s follow up explanation in the debate, which is that the fetus resulting from such crimes “is still born in the image of God and is still a living, human being.”

The narrator, noting his stance on abortion and his purported opposition to rape-kit testing money, says, “These are not minor differences. Dan Patrick is just too dangerous.” Twenty seconds in, the spot abruptly shifts to cheery music. Pharmacist Van de Putte, wearing her lab coat, speaks to camera from a drug store interior.

“We need to respect women and their families,” she says. “As lieutenant governor, I’ll fight for you.”

Her campaign said the 30-second spot “is part of a multimillion-dollar ad buy across major markets in the state.” Patrick’s camp said his ad, also 30 seconds, “is now running in major markets across Texas.”

Early voting begins Monday. You can view the two ads below:

UPDATED: Patrick raises nearly $4.3 million to Van de Putte’s $2.6 million

Democratic lieutenant governor nominee Leticia Van de Putte, at her televised debate with Dan Patrick last week. (AP photo/Eric Gay)

Update at 2:12 p.m.: Dan Patrick raised $4.273 million in a recent 13-week period and spent $804,000, says his campaign’s senior strategist, Allen Blakemore.

He ended the period with $4.297 million in the bank, Blakemore said.

While Patrick did not reserve TV ad time before Sept. 25, the end of the reporting period, Blakemore said the Republican lieutenant governor nominee will air ads before next month’s election.

He offered no details.

Blakemore said, jokingly, “We’ll have Dan in camouflage or something.”

So Patrick entered the home stretch with a money edge of about $2.1 million over Democrat Leticia Van de Putte. Her spokesman, Emmanuel Garcia, said in a Monday interview that she spent “upwards of $1 million” on TV ads that have been running for about a month.

Neither side is putting out their campaign-finance reports, which may not be available online at the Texas Ethics Commission’s website until Tuesday. They have to be filed by midnight Monday.

Update at 12:43 p.m.: Democratic lieutenant governor candidate Leticia Van de Putte raised more than $2.6 million in the latest reporting period, her campaign announced Monday.

Even after making “a substantial television ad buy” for her fall race against GOP rival Dan Patrick, Van de Putte closed out the period with almost $2.2 million in the bank, said spokesman Emmanuel Garcia. He has declined to say how big the ad buy was.

“Senator Van de Putte has posted another strong fundraising report,” Garcia said in a statement. More than 6,000 people contributed to her campaign between July 1 and Sept. 25, he said.

While Van de Putte has made “bold policy proposals on every major issue,” Patrick “continues to defend his reckless education cuts and hide from general election voters,” Garcia said.

Original item at 11:34 a.m.: Republican state Sen. Dan Patrick has raised at least $3.4 million for his lieutenant governor bid since July 1.

On Monday, Patrick’s campaign announced that at the end of the latest reporting period, it had $4.3 million in cash.

GOP lieutenant governor candidate Dan Patrick answers questions after televised debate with Democrat Leticia Van de Putte last Monday night. (AP Photo/The Daily Texan, Ethan Oblak)

As of June 30, after a costly but smashingly successful primary battle against incumbent Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, Patrick’s campaign cash dwindled to $947,000.

Patrick did not release his latest report. It was due Monday at the Texas Ethics Commission and covers July 1 through Sept. 25.

He hasn’t aired TV commercials in his fall contest against Democrat Leticia Van de Putte, a fellow state senator. Unless Patrick bought time in advance, it’s likely that his spending was light in the latest reporting period.

Senior Patrick campaign strategist Allen Blakemore said in a written statement that Patrick surpassed his fundraising goal for the period. Blakemore, though, did not specify either the goal or the amount actually raised. If the overhead was virtually zero, Patrick would have added at least $3.4 million to the $947,000 he had on June 30 — and perhaps more.

“We remain on track with our plan for victory,” Patrick said in a statement.

Blakemore said that since July 1, 2013, Patrick received more than 6,000 contributions totaling more than $12 million. Of that, as much as $2 million was loans from the candidate, who co-owns two radio stations.

On June 30, Van de Putte had nearly $1.2 million in cash, after raising slightly more than $2 million in the first six months of the year.

Asked how much cash she now has, Van de Putte spokesman Emmanuel Garcia demurred.

“We will have our release coming out soon,” he said.

Mexico condemns Perry for “political” border deployment of troops

Texas National Guard troops watch for illegal immigrant crossings near McAllen as a full moon rises over the Rio Grande on Sept. 8. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

updated at 12:25pm with comment from Perry’s office and at 4:45 with Dewhurst comments.

WASHINGTON — The government of Mexico took Gov. Rick Perry to task on Thursday for sending National Guard troops to the border.

In a terse statement issued by the embassy in Washington, Mexico said it “deeply rejects and condemns the deployment.”

And it accused the governor of taking the actions to further his political ambitions. Perry has been a frequent visitor to Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina as he prepares for a second presidential run, in 2016.

“Mexico underscores that it is irresponsible to manipulate border security for political reasons,” the statement said. “…The unilateral measure taken by the government of Texas is undoubtedly mistaken and does not contribute to the efforts in which our two countries are engaged to build a safe border and create a solution to the phenomenon of migration.  The measure will not lead to greater understanding between our societies, and it stands in opposition to the values and principles by which Mexico and the United States govern our bilateral relationship.”

Perry spokeswoman Lucy Nashed offered this response:

“Our borders should not be open and vulnerable to exploitation by ruthless criminals. The governor is focused on ensuring drug cartels and other criminals don’t get a free pass into Texas and the rest of the nation because our borders are unsecured. We look forward to continuing to work with Mexico to address illegal immigration and the tragedy of unaccompanied minors.”

Gov. Rick Perry salutes National Guard troops at Camp Swift in Bastrop, Texas, on Aug. 13 after talking to them about their upcoming mission along the border. (AP Photo/San Antonio Express-News, William Luther)

Thursday afternoon, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst rejected the Mexican government’s input, calling it “offensive” on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2011, attacks.

Mexico, he said, seems to want “Texas to throw open our international border to illegal immigration, trafficking in drugs and human lives, and potentially even terrorists who wish to harm America.”

He called the allegation of politics “insulting,” given that he and other Texas leaders have devoted more than $800 million over seven years to buy aircraft and gunboats to compensate for a shortage of federal investment at the border.

In late July, Perry ordered 1,000 guardsmen to the border to assist the Texas Department of Public Safety’s “Operation Strong Safety,” a border crackdown he says is necessary to compensate for federal inaction.

The guard members aren’t authorized to act as Border Patrol, but are deployed in support roles such as observation and tracking of illegal activity in the Rio Grande Valley. Perry has demanded a Guard deployment by President Obama for several years, but the administration has brushed aside the requests.

Critics of Perry’s move say the deployment is needless, because crime along the border is relatively low, and surge of Central American migrants over the last year — mostly unaccompanied children — has subsided and, in any case, those migrants were quickly turning themselves in.

 

Nelson hailed as first woman to lead a Texas budget panel

Sen. Jane Nelson, shown with Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst at a February Denton County GOP event. (Michael Ainsworth/Staff photographer)

Update at 4:03 p.m.: I’ve corrected original post to clarify that the Senate Finance Committee chief serves on, but is not co-chair, of the Legislative Budget Board. The lieutenant governor gets that plum assignment.

Original item at 2:27 p.m.:Sen. Jane Nelson on Tuesday became the first woman to preside over a budget-writing committee of the Texas Legislature.

The Senate Finance Committee, which writes a version of the two-year budget and vets all tax legislation, met to receive a briefing on state finances.

“Finance,” as it’s called, is decidedly male territory. While it has three new Republican members, all are men. As was true last session, males outnumber females, 12 to 3.

But the influential committee’s all-important gavel is now in a woman’s hand. By tradition, that will make Nelson the co-chairman of a House-Senate conference committee that at session’s end hashes out the budget’s final contours. And when the Legislature is not in session, she will serve on the Legislative Budget Board, a group of 10 key lawmakers. With the governor’s assent, it can shift money among line items.

Last week, Nelson joked with reporters about breaking a glass ceiling in state budget writing.

“We’re going to do it right!” she said.

At Tuesday’s hearing, two female senators, Democrat Sylvia Garcia of Houston and Republican Donna Campbell of New Braunfels, sat on the dais with the 13 members present — even though Garcia and Campbell aren’t members. Nelson had invited all senators to attend. They heard officials from the comptroller’s office and budget board present an overview of Texas’ fiscal condition. In a word, it’s good. If it were a nation, Texas would have the world’s 12th largest economy, ranking just behind Canada and ahead of Australia, said John Heleman of the comptroller’s office.

Nelson let out a whistle.

Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., D-Brownsville, right, shown at a hearing last month in South Texas about unaccompanied child migrants. (AP Photo/The Monitor, Gabe Hernandez)

Earlier, she let senators make opening remarks.

Garcia quickly noted the obvious — Nelson’s gender and her ascent to a budget chairmanship.

“I believe you are the first woman to do so,” Garcia said. “Viva la mujer!”

The Finance Committee is “a little light on women,” said Sen. Joan Huffman, a Houston Republican who has served one session on the panel.

She said Nelson earned her chops, logging 22 years in the Senate after serving two terms on the state Board of Education.

“Girlfriend, you worked your way to get this position,” Huffman said. “All those years on state board, all those years on [the Senate] Health and Human Services [Committee,] trying to get the state to do the right thing.”

Democratic Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. of Brownsville joined in the celebration — with a bit of ham.

“I must say you’re the best looking chair we’ve had since then, by far,” said Lucio, 68, noting that he has served on Finance since 1991.

He hastily added he’s sure Nelson also will be the panel’s hardest-working leader of modern times.

Perry says troops will be “force multiplier” to battle crime; sheriffs say they need deputies, not military

Update at 2:45 p.m.: Gov. Rick Perry and several other state leaders have announced the National Guard deployment. Perry called the troops a “force multiplier” that would help DPS and other law enforcement officials deal with criminal activity by those entering the country illegally.

The guard troops will be embedded with state troopers and other law enforcement because they cannot legally detain someone on their own authority.

“I will not stand idly by while American citizens are attacked and children are living in squalor,” Perry said in explaining his action.

He gave no indication where the funding for the operation would come from, instead saying that he hoped the federal government would eventually reimburse the state for the $12 million monthly cost of calling up the Guard.

Perry said he is concerned about the human costs of allowing cartel, gangs and criminals to come across the border while the Border Patrol is preoccupied with the surge of unaccompanied children.

“The price of inaction is too high for Texans to pay,” Perry said.

Attorney General Greg Abbott — the Republican aiming to follow Perry as governor — was also on hand and said his office was prepared to offer help with legal questions.

Democrats said the deployment was mostly for show. Sen. Wendy Davis of Fort Worth, Abbott’s Democratic opponent this fall, reiterated her call for a special legislative session to aid law-enforcement agencies and border communities.

“The need for action remains, given the continued failure by our leaders in Washington to live up to their responsibility to secure our border,” she said in a written statement. “If the federal government won’t act, Texas must and will.  However, we should be deploying additional deputy sheriffs to the border like local law enforcement is calling for, rather than Texas National Guard units who aren’t even authorized to make arrests.”

Original item: The governor’s office confirmed this morning that Rick Perry will order 1,000 National Guard troops to the Texas border to beef up patrols in South Texas.

But sheriffs along the border said they have not been consulted and question the wisdom of sending military personnel who are not authorized to stop, question or arrest anyone.

“At this time, a lot of people do things for political reasons. I don’t know that it helps,” said Cameron County Sheriff Omar Lucio, pictured right.

Lucio said deputies, police and the U.S. Border Patrol work well together and that they have been able to handle the small uptick in crime along the border.

“I don’t know what good they can do,” Lucio said of military personnel. “I need people who I can hire who know the community, the language and who can help.”

Hidalgo County Sheriff Eddie Guerra also told the McAllen Monitor that the Guard troops can’t make arrests and he didn’t know what their objective would be.

“The National Guard — they’re trained in warfare; they’re not trained in law enforcement,” he said. “I need to find out what their actual role is going to be, but I think the money would be better spent giving local law enforcement more funds.”

Perry has appeared on news shows and at political events around the country saying that if Washington wasn’t prepared to secure the border, he would act unilaterally.

In a press conference scheduled for 2 p.m., Perry will appear with Attorney General Greg Abbott, who is running for governor, and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst to announce the military surge.

They have reasoned that drug and human traffickers might be taking advantage of border conditions and move contraband through the area. Along with redeployed state troopers, the Republican leaders have indicated that having “boots on the ground” might serve as a deterrent.

The border has been overwhelmed with the influx of 57,000 unaccompanied children, mostly from Honduras, who have been fleeing gang violence. Many are voluntarily turning themselves in to the first American authority they see.

The estimated cost to state taxpayers for the surge, including Department of Public Safety and the Guard personnel, is $5 million a week.

The border sheriffs said they could hire a lot of new deputies with that money.

“You just can’t come out here and be a police officer,” Lucio said, adding that he is concerned at the move to militarize the border.

“Eventually, they might get into trouble,” he said of the Guard. “They’re trained for different things.”

Dewhurst names new Senate leaders

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst issued new assignments for committee leaders on Friday to fill in for veteran lawmakers resigning, retiring or having been defeated in the primaries.

He said he is making the changes because some committee chairs will not be returning and he wanted to “ensure there is a smooth transition and the Senate is ready to hit the ground running.”

Earlier, he promoted Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, to head the budget-writing Finance Committee, replacing Tommy Williams, who left to become vice chancellor at Texas A&M University System.

The next spaces filled included naming Sen. Craig Estes, R-Wichita Falls, as chairman of State Affairs, which usually studies major legislation. Estes will step in for Robert Duncan of Lubbock, who resigned to become chancellor of Texas Tech University.

Estes will also retain his positions as chairman of Agriculture, Rural Affairs and Homeland Security; co-chair of the Joint Interim Committee to Study Water Desalination, and as a member of the Natural Resources Committee.

Taking over for Nelson as the leader of Health and Human Services will be Sen. Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown. Schwertner is an orthopedic surgeon.

And Sen. Kevin Eltife, R-Tyler, will head up the Business and Commerce Committee, replacing John Carona of Dallas who lost his re-election bid. Eltife also will remain chairman of Senate Administration.

Dewhurst, who lost his bid for re-election in the GOP primary to Sen. Dan Patrick, said he made the new assignments because the committees need to be laying the groundwork and studying interim issues before the next session begins on Jan. 13.

Patrick is facing Democrat Sen. Leticia Van de Putte of San Antonio in the general election to take over the position of lieutenant governor. The lieutenant governor presides over the Senate and makes all committee assignments. The successor will take office in January.

“While my successor may choose to realign assignments to best meet emerging challenges, these appointments ensure that all necessary work will be completed by the end of the interim, setting up the Senate for a successful session,” Dewhurst said.