TRAIL BLAZERS

Dallas Rep. Jeb Hensarling and others have proposed that the House GOP adopt an immediate, unilateral moratorium on earmarks. House Republicans will meet Thursday to discuss the idea, and it looks like the fix is in. Minority Leader John Boehner. Boehner and the rest of the House GOP leadership, including Texans Pete Sessions of Dallas and John Carter of Round Rock, just issued a statement supporting the idea:

"For millions of Americans, the earmark process in Congress has become a symbol of a broken Washington. We believe the time has come for House Republicans to adopt an immediate, unilateral moratorium on all earmarks, including tax and tariff-related earmarks.... When Republicans take back the House, we will rein in out-of-control federal spending and bring fundamental change to the process by which Congress spends American taxpayers' money."

Republicans are no strangers to earmarks -- spending decisions that lawmakers insert in legislation without having them vetted, debated and prioritized against all the other spending decisions the federal government makes. Earmarks represent a relatively small fraction of the budget, and even going cold turkey wouldn't have much immediate impact on the federal deficit and debt. But it's a potent talking point. Good fodder for a Contract With America/Version 2010, or whatever they end up calling it -- but the temptations when they're back in power will be hard to resist....

Gov. Rick Perry just appointed John Moore as the new TYC ombudsman, a position that he left unfilled for four months.

Moore, of Denison, has a law enforcement and military background. He retired after 25 years as a U.S. marshal and also had worked as a state trooper and with the Amarillo police department.

He replaces Catherine Evans, who resigned in November 2009 after being accused of trying to carry weapons and other contraband into a TYC facility.

The ombudsman is charged as a watchdog over TYC following the 2007 sexual assault and abuse scandal that shook the agency, which was placed under a conservatorship until safeguards could be established.

Larry Duncan and Clay Jenkins, candidates for Dallas County Judge, have one thing in common. They both claim to be endorsed by Dallas Mayor Pro tem Dwaine Caraway.

But Caraway said Tuesday that he's not backing anyone in the April 13, Democratic runoff for county judge. He made a similar claim just days before the March 2 general election.

The winner of the Jenkins/Duncan runoff will face Republican Wade Emmert in November.

"I'm in the same position I was in last time," Caraway said. "I know they both say that I've endorsed them. That must say something about my popularity...God bless everybody."

Duncan, the Dallas County Schools Board President and former council member, helped Caraway in his bid for City Council.

Jenkins, a Dallas lawyer, has listed Caraway as a supporter for months.

Caraway was one of the few Dallas politicos backing Houston businessman Farouk Shami for governor. He said he expects to support former Houston Mayor Bill White for the general election.

I just bumped into Texas' senior senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison, in the basement of the Capitol. For the record, Texas' Leading Newspaper has requested interviews, through aides, several times since her loss in the gubernatorial primary, to no avail. We tried unsuccessfully to find her at the Senate last week and yesterday. The big open question is whether she'll serve out her term or resign early and, if the latter, when. Politico managed to find her near the Senate subway yesterday, for all the good it did them: "I have nothing to say, and I won't for a while," she said.

The Friday before the March 2 primary, Hutchison told WBAP's Mark Davis that she'll stay through November to fight the Democrats' health care bill. But aides said that isn't set in stone. She has said unequivocally that she won't run for reelection. Her current term runs through the end of 2012.

I asked if she would talk with me. She said no. I asked if we could set something up soon. She said no. Frozen out. Well, that can't last forever -- maybe just for another 8 to 34 months.

The new Capitol Visitors Center is awash in heroines this morning, as Congress honors the surviving women aviators whose efforts were so crucial in World War II. The DMN's Sherry Jacobson wrote about the WASPs today. The Women Airforce Service Pilots was a corps of 1,000 or so who flew every type of military aircraft, including B-29s, in every situation except direct aerial combat, some 60 million miles.

In Emancipation Hall, the WASPs in the seats of honor were a sea of cotton-white heads, basking in the gratitude of luminaries, surrounded by a large portion of Congress, plus thousands of family and guests. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and "Greatest Generation" author Tom Brokaw were on hand, among others.

These women weren't formally part of the military back then. They paid for their own training, travel and, when necessary, burials during and after the war. They weren't awarded veterans benefits until 1977.

Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who co-authored the legislation awarding these women the Congressional Gold Medal, with Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, told them the ceremony was part of an ongoing effort to right the nation's wrongs and acknowledge debts. The Tuskeegee Airmen and Navajo Codetalkers got their recognition in recent years, she noted, and now the WASPs.

"They blazed a trail in the sky" that opened doors for today's female military pilots, she said. "We are closing a circle today of unrecognized achievement."

Hutchison noted the "incredible enthusiasm" among lawmakers in both parties to add the WASPs to the nation's honor roll. "On behalf of a grateful nation, thank you for your service," she said.

That famous line (amended here) from Animal House is one way of looking at Karl Rove's clash with former White House spokesman Scott McClellan over the disclosure of the identity of a CIA operative. Rove assured McClellan that he had nothing to do with the outing of Valerie Plame. McClellan went out into White House briefing room and assured the country that Rove wasn't involved. In fact, Rove was involved. He was the second source for columnist Bob Novak and told a Time magazine reporter that "Joe Wilson's wife" at the CIA was working on weapons mass destruction. McClellan was damaged, Rove stayed above the fray -- and in interviews promoting his new book, he continues to defend himself. In effect, Rove's saying McClellan screwed up, not him. Herewith, our take on Karl as Otter:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Purple Heart recipient and Democratic state Rep. Allen Vaught of Dallas is up on the big screen in the movie Green Zone in theaters on Friday.

An Iraqi war veteran, Vaught was interviewed by The Washington Post reporter Rajiv Chandrasekaran in 2003 about operations in Fallujah. Chandrasekaran went on to write the book upon which the movie is based. He got back in touch with Vaught in 2007 and asked for help with technical points about uniforms and historical aspects of the war.

Vaught and numerous other Iraq and Afghanistan veterans were subsequently invited to take roles in the movie. Vaught plays a staff officer in a briefing scene.

"It was a great honor to have a small part in the Green Zone," Vaught said.

He said his character is fictional and not based on anything he did during the war or who he was as a solider, but the director Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Ultimatum, United 93 and The Bourne Supremacy) did allow him to name his character after his son, Jonathan.

"That was very special to me and something that I hope Jonathan will appreciate when he is a few years older. Our daughter Morgan was born after filming, so we might have a problem there unless there is a sequel," he said.

Vaught served as a captain in the U.S. Army Reserve's Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command. He saw combat operations in Fallujah and Sadr City in 2003 and 2004. Vaught was the de facto mayor of Fallujah during the early months of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He was eventually injured in a roadside bomb in Sadr City and discharged from the Army. His commendations include the Purple Heart, Combat Action Badge and Valorous Unit Award.

As he launches his book-promotion tour, Karl Rove has sought to deflect and deny responsibility for a host of problems that bedeviled the Bush years. A lot of it is complicated -- weapons of mass destruction, the CIA leak scandal -- and Rove is adept at navigating thickets of information to invoke plausible deniability. But sometimes, a single question can reveal a lot. Such was the case today on NBC's Today show where Matt Lauer quizzed Rove on why the White House was so slow to respond to Katrina.

MR. LAUER: You also write in the book, "We did not have the ability to get real-time information, so did not realize the initial reports we were getting were wrong."
This is the president of the United States.

MR. LAUER: Did anyone at the White House turn on the TV?

Hard to dodge that one. For his part, Rove blamed the media and local officials.

Lobbyist David Sibley, the former state senator who Kip Averitt replaced, isn't exactly beating back speculation that he might be interested in the spot. Averitt said, as explained in an earlier post, that he will resign his seat because of health reasons. Sibley, a lawyer and an oral surgeon, is also a former mayor of Waco.

Here's Sibley's statement:

"Kip Averitt has been an outstanding State Senator and he remains a friend. I understand his health concerns and support him in making the changes he needs over the coming months and years."

"Many in the District have asked about my interest in the position and I am honored they would consider me. In my discussions with supporters and Republican county chairs I have heard a lot about the need for conservative, effective, common-sense government and look forward to continuing these conversations in the coming days."

Bill White knows what's coming from the Rick Perry campaign and thinks his down-to-earth, earnest (albeit a little dull) straight-talk is waht voters want to hear.

In his first extensive interview with The News since the primary, White said Perry will try and hang labels on him, the biggest one being liberal, but he sees himself as a fiscal conservative, businessman who has won elections by huge,bipartisan margins in a large and diverse city by being Mr. Fix-It.

"People want somebody who will shoot straight. Not just somebody who is the voice of one wing of one party, or who is using the governor's office to run for some other office," White said.

His talk was mostly about how he saw the upcoming campaign shaking out and where he will concentrate his message.

Much of it will be about public education -- improving the state's 30 percent attrition rate of high schoolers who don't graduate -- and access to higher education. He said without having people prepared for good jobs, the state will decline and be left behind by a global economy.

And he expects to be peppered with "a long list of adjectives, but this isn't a school yard brawl." He said he wants to talk problems, answers and visions.

"People throughout this state want their elected officials to offer solutions and not just sound bites. People are tired of politicians who talk past each other in order to score a point rather than those who are trying to find a solution and a result," he said.

Sen. Kip Averitt, R-Waco, said he will officially resign on March 17, allowing Gov. Rick Perry to call a special election to fill his seat on May 8.

Averitt, whose district extends north to Ellis and Johnson counties, announced last month that health concerns will sideline his political career. He told voters that he was withdrawing from the race, which is in a strong Republican district where no Democrat had filed to run against Averitt in November. He was expected to win an easy re-election, and even after his withdrawl, he did just that with 60 percent of the primary vote over Darren Yancy, a Tea Party leaning challenger from Burleson.

Averitt's victory and timeline to resign will open the door to other Republican candidates - presumably stronger than Yancy - and, yes, even some Democrats.

The Texas budget shortfall for next session -- whether it's $11 billion or $15 billion -- just got bigger.

Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Tom Suehs just told House budget writers that the recession has overwhelmed predictions for how many Texans would sign up for Medicaid, the nation's main health care program for the poor.

It's well known that last year, lawmakers low-balled caseload growth and health care inflation in Medicaid. Suehs said he got money to cover a 3.4 percent growth in the rolls in the current fiscal year, which ends Aug. 31. Instead, enrollment will increase by 11 percent, he said. Many more poor Texans who didn't turn to Medicaid in the past, even though they were eligible, are now enrolling, he said.

"Based on caseloads, we're showing a $1.5 billion [state revenue] shortfall," Suehs said, actually understating it by some $65 million. Of that, almost $1.3 billion was Medicaid-related shortfalls.

The good news? Without federal stimulus money, which boosted the feds' Medicaid matching rate through this calendar year, Suehs' shortfall would be nearly twice as big.

Retiring six term Rep. Carl Isett, R-Lubbock, says the budget shortfall isn't as large, on a percentage basis, as the one that lawmakers bridged seven years ago, during the last recession.

Isett said that, considered as a share of Texas' current $182 billion, two year budget, the anticipated shortfall next session isn't as huge as the gap faced in the 2003 session. Back then, he noted, the deficit was $9.9 billion, but in a two year budget of about $105 billion. (It was actually about $114 bil, but his point stands.) And lawmakers next year will have much, much more -- some $8 billion -- set aside in the state's rainy day fund, Isett said.

"While there will be those who are doom and gloom, we really are not in as bad a shape," he said.

Though he's a conservative, Isett made a plea for lawmakers to consider tightening the state's constitutional spending cap, so they can be more compassionate in crunch times. He said a tighter cap would leave the state with a bigger surplus, which it then could use during economic downturns to help Texas families. That's better than having a bare fiscal cupboard during recessions, and having to cut their services, as happened in 2003, he said.

"It's very difficult to take kids off programs," Isett said.

The state's chief revenue estimator says the jobs picture in Texas has brightened a bit, though he's taking a Missouri approach -- show me -- on whether there soon will be a burst of shopping activity by Texans.

"It looks like we have turned the corner on our employment picture," John Heleman of Comptroller Susan Combs' office told the House's budget panel this morning. He noted Texas added slightly more than 30,000 jobs in January, some two-thirds of them with temporary help agencies.

But Heleman says the state economy is at a "turning point" between recession and recovery, which makes it very tricky to predict what will happen with the state's revenue workhorse, the sales tax. After several months of double-digit declines in sales tax receipts, they declined in February by only 8.8 percent from February 2009, he said, citing preliminary figures. That's good but not a trend to count on, Heleman said.

Here's a cool display put together by Layne Smith of our graphics department from data from Tuesday's election. You can see where voter turnout was heavy and not-so-heavy in Dallas County in the two primaries for governor and the Democrats' race for county judge. The pattern is as you would expect -- Republicans in the north and Democrats in the south -- but you can examine individual precincts and find some surprises. Enjoy.

Two days after her drubbing in the GOP gubernatorial primary, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison slipped back to Washington unannounced and apparently unnoticed, and cast four votes Thursday afternoon.

So, one point for getting back to work. As to transparency in government, not so much.

I can't speak for other news outlets, but The Dallas Morning News asked several Hutchison aides to let us know when she would return to work in the Senate. They didn't. We've also requested a postmortem interview to discuss her campaign and her plans regarding how long she'll keep her Senate job. No response. For all we knew she'd been hunkered down at home in Dallas, or an island somewhere.

Maybe that's where she is now. They ain't saying.

The senator's career plans remain opaque. Gov. Rick Perry gave her political cover yesterday to set aside repeated public vows to resign early, when he said he hopes she serves out the rest of her term.

Senators typically use one particular set of doors to the Senate chamber. The DMN had a reporter stationed at that door during the votes yesterday but there was no sign of Hutchison. It's easy enough for senators to slip in and out through side doors that aren't easy for reporters to stake out, though. She didn't give any floor speech. No news outlets apparently noticed her return.

But Senate records show that she was present for the four roll call votes held on Thursday, between 2:45 p.m. and 3:51 p.m. (The next votes will be on Tuesday.)

The Senate was debating a Democratic package of tax breaks. Hutchison joined other Republicans in trying to include a discretionary spending cap for the next four fiscal years. The tally was 59-41, one vote short of the 3/5 majority required.

Hutchison voted for a six-month payroll tax cut proposed by the newest senator, Scott Brown, R-Mass., but that was rejected 44-56. Budget Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., had painted the idea as an effort to "raid" the stimulus.

Hutchison voted against a proposal by Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., to create a national tax holiday, with unspent stimulus money used to reimburse states and localities for temporarily waiving sales tax and other levies. That failed 22-78.

Hutchison also voted to confirm a federal judge in Wisconsin, adding her support to a lopsided 99-0 tally.

So, she was on the losing side twice, and the winning side twice.

The primary's over; time for a little lobby news. Frank Sturzl might be retiring from the Texas Municipal League, but he's not retiring. He will be joining Hillco, the lobby and corporate relations firm headed by Buddy Jones and Bill Miller.

Sturzl, the TML's executive director for 22 years, is well known around the Capitol and state agency halls. Logically enough, he'll be heading up the municipal practice for Hillco.

Democratic gubernatorial nominee Bill White says he's for the death penalty, isn't a 911 truther, is "a full supporter of 2nd Amendment rights" and took "a more aggressive approach" on immigration while mayor of Houston than did counterparts in practically every other U.S. and Texas city.

"With the possible exception of Farmers Branch," White said moments ago on KRLD-AM in Dallas.

White (above, Michael Ainsworth photo) said he once belonged to Mayors Against Illegal Guns but left the group after it expanded its agenda beyond efforts to crack down on a black market in stolen guns being sold to felons.

He said he supports abortion rights. "There are some very personal life decisions that should be left to citizens and not to the government," he said.

The most animated part of White's interview with KRLD's Scott Braddock came when he explained why he voted against Prop. 2, the constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, which Texans passed in 2005.

"It was in the state statutes anyway, and I just see it as sort of a wedge issue," White said. "I think the politicians ought to spend a little bit more time thinking about staying married themselves than [about] who marries whom."

Let the healing continue: Gov. Rick Perry, fresh off his primary throttling of Kay Bailey Hutchison, told WBAP talkmeister Mark Davis today that he would like Hutchison to remain in the Senate through her term, to continue fighting the Obama administration on health care, climate-change legislation, etc.

WBAP's story, linked above, lacks the money quote, about staying through the end of her term (which expires in 2012), but yours truly heard it for himself, albeit in the car, so my notes are sketchy.

This could be an important moment in the ongoing saga of what does Kay do? (Todd J. Gillman and Tom Benning had a good story on this today.) Big-name Texas Republicans are providing Hutchison with political cover to break her pledge and stay in the Senate, if she so chooses.

These were, I believe, Perry's first public comments since his Tuesday night victory speech. I thought there were three other interesting tidbits, if you care to read on:

Hi folks. Theodore Kim here. Here's a post about Tuesday's GOP primary for a seat on the powerful Railroad Commission of Texas. In a true shocker, unknown challenger David Porter trounced incumbent Victor Carrillo despite being outspent by 20 to 1.

In a lengthy email to supporters and some news media this afternoon, Carrillo blamed his loss largely on the fact that he is Latino. Here is the email in its entirety:

Dear Family, Friends, Colleagues, Supporters:

As you now surely know, last night I was defeated (61% / 39%) in my statewide Republican Primary by my opponent, David Porter. Porter, an unknown, no-campaign, no-qualification CPA from Midland residing in Giddings filed on the last day that he could file while I was waiting in Abilene to bury my dad.

He has never held any elected office, has no geoscience, industry, or legal experience other than doing tax returns for oil and gas companies.

To continue this post, click on the link below...