Politex

Journeys with Joe Barton

Ciao, y’all

U.S. Rep. Joe Barton and wife Terri are back today after a fun-filled weeklong trip to Slovenia and Italy. The congressional junket, courtesy of the taxpayers, included 11 members led by Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., under the auspices of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Although there were all the obligatory meetings with local officials and European parliamentarians at a conference in Slovenia at the beginning of the trip, all the attention riveted on the trip’s stops in Venice and Naples and the luxurious accommodations, fine eating and opera planned for the members that the Washington Post’s Al Kamen detailed in a column last week.

Berkley defended the trip to the Las Vegas Review-Journal saying that “It is a busy, busy agenda, and in between, there is some time for actual pleasure and enjoyment.” In Venice, she added, "I am going to go on a gondola after I have done the Air Force base and the liquid petroleum meeting."

And Berkley said she and her husband were planning to attend the opera in Venice. (Members buy their own tickets.) No word yet on whether Barton, an Arlington Republican who has served since 1985, and his wife took in Tosca.

-- Maria Recio

Wolens on electric market: just like college dating!

One of the more famous casualties of the recent National Power meltdown is none other than former State Rep. Steve Wolens, the former House member from Dallas who co-authored the state's electric deregulation law.

You may recall that National Power recently signaled that it could not meet its financial obligations and so has dumped thousands of customers to high-priced "provider of last resort" electric companies. Wolens, a Democrat, was one of those customers.

The Texas Public Utility Commission on Thursday said that anyone dumped to POLR service should get off -- but quick. It's just too expensive.

Wolens has followed that advice, and said Thursday that the switching experience was "great."

"Easy experience," Wolens said in an email note. "My 3rd (retail electric provider). It's like my early college days dating!"

-- R.A. Dyer

Challenge to Collin County Democrats denied

The Texas Democratic Party's temporary credentials committee voted unanimously this evening to deny a challenge aimed at unseating the entire Collin County delegation from attending next week's state convention.

Frederick Barrow, an Obama supporter from Collin County, tells us the committee decided to reject the challenge after it was discovered the man who made the challenge didn't live in Collin County.

During debate on the challenge this morning, at least two members of the 10-member temporary credentials committee signaled they may be willing to vote in favor of deseating the Collin County delegates because the county party held their convention last month on the wrong date.

For more details, click here for our earlier post.

-Aman Batheja

Cornyn's counting on the counties

Sen. John Cornyn says he's got the counties covered --- all 254 of them.

The first-term Republican gearing up for his re-election fight with Democratic state Rep. Rick Noriega of Houston, announced Thursday that he'll have a campaign team on the ground in every Texas county for the fall campaign.

"Each team member has committed to supporting Senator Cornyn’s campaign in their respective counties by dispensing campaign information, recruiting volunteers and encouraging their neighbors to vote for Senator Cornyn in October or November," camp Cornyn says in a news release.

The senator's point person in Tarrant is GOP activist Paula Day.

Some polls show that the incumbent, who's a former state attorney general and a Texas Supreme Court justice, might be in a tough fight. A couple of recent surveys put the incumbent just a few percentage points ahead of his less well known and well underfunded challenger.

But Cornyn is touting a new poll by the Republican firm of Baselice & Association. That one, conducted last week and surveying 801 registered voters, shows him up by 16 points. The margin is 49-33.

But Democrats are taking heart in that even the GOP shows Cornyn polling under 50 percent, which is considered a bit anemic for candidate who's been on statewide ballots dating back to the early '90s.

-- John Moritz

Area Democrats may be uninvited to state convention

It was a localized version of the Michigan/Florida debate in Grand Prairie today and once again, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama supporters were at odds.

Local Clinton supporters advocated Thursday for unseating ALL of the Democratic delegates from Collin County because their senate district conventions were held on the wrong day.

Officials with the Collin County Democratic Party said they chose to hold the convention a day late because there wasn't a large enough venue in the county available for the scheduled date of Saturday, March 29. Party officials warned at the time that the eligibility of their delegation may be challenged.

PUC emergency meeting, Part 2

Recent spikes in the wholesale electricity market may bring very high prices for several thousand North Texans who have been involuntarily moved this month to default electric providers.

That’s the word from the Texas Public Utility Commission, which met in emergency meeting Thursday after spot prices on the wholesale power market spiked to the maximum level allowed by law. That spike occurred on Wednesday, although very high prices were also recorded on Tuesday.

Wholesale prices directly impact those rates charged by the so-called providers of last resort, which are those companies that provide continuity of service for Texans whose regular electric companies have gone bankrupt or abruptly leave the market.

Apparent failures at two separate electric companies this month sent thousands of North Texans to such providers of last resort. According to back-of-the-envelope calculations, a customer on a fixed-rated contract    from one of those failed companies could see their rates more than double when they go to the POLR.

During the emergency meeting Thursday, PUC commissioners urged customers to get off Provider of Last Resort companies as soon as possible. They also signaled to POLR companies that although PUC rules allow POLR companies to charge high rates based on the wholesale market, they can also charge less.

A representative of Assurance Energy, an affiliate of TXU that serves as a POLR company in North Texas, did not have estimates readily available of how much it would be charging.

The spiking prices in the wholesale energy market also could spell bad news for ratepayers generally, as they may signal upward pressure on retail energy prices. Likewise, the high wholesale costs could cut deeply into the bottom line of electric retailers, with some analysts predicting  more financial failures in the months ahead.

Consumer advocate Randy Chapman said the PUC should insist on more financial and performance assurances from electric companies so consumers have more confidence that when they select an electric company, it won't go abruptly out of business.

“Anyone with two SUVs, a Persian carpet and $100,000 can call themselves an electric company in Texas," he said.

--R.A. Dyer

Energy price spike prompts emergency PUC meeting

AUSTIN — Texas regulators have called an emergency meeting this morning after unexpected spikes in wholesale energy prices began driving up rates charged to Texans who have been involuntarily switched to other electric companies.

“Due to the urgent public necessity that may result due to this reasonably unforeseeable situation, this matter cannot wait for the next regularly scheduled open meeting of the commission,” the Texas Public Utility Commission declared in an official notice. “Accordingly, the commission must meet promptly to discuss and possibly take action to provide guidance to affected customers and retail electric providers.”

At issue are rates charged by “Provider of Last Resort” companies, which are those companies that provide continuity of service when a customer’s regular electric provider goes bankrupt or suddenly leaves the market. In the last month, two companies — Bridgeport-based PreBuy Electric and Houston-based National Power — failed to keep up with their financial obligations and as a result thousands of their customers were forcibly switched to providers of last resort.

Rates charged by POLR companies are typically higher than other competitive offers. However, the PUC said spikes in certain wholesale costs have unexpectedly driven up those prices even more.

The wholesale prices in question hit the $2,250 during one interval Wednesday, and were above $1,000 for several interval on Tuesday. Typically, those wholesale energy prices are less than $100.

“The unforeseen and substantial increase in (wholesale costs) caused the rates charged by providers of last resort to also increase substantially — consequently, this rise in POLR rates was also not reasonably foreseeable,” the PUC stated in its emergency notice.

 

A senator steps aside

State Sen. Kyle Janek, a Houston Republican who has served in the upper chamber since 2003, will leave office at the end of the week.

The lawmaker, one of two physicians in the Senate, announced earlier this year that he was quitting politics to pursue as yet unannounced private business ventures. The only mystery has been the timing.

The resignation of Janek, who served in the House for four terms before winning his Senate seat, will prompt Gov. Rick Perry to call a special election. And the hopefuls from both parties are wasting little time getting their names in front of the public.

Republican activist Austen Furse of Houston reportedly has a campaign apparatus ready to go. And state Rep. Charlie Howard, a Sugar Land Republican, is also considered a possible candidate.

Among the Democrats, 2006 gubernatorial nominee and former U.S. Rep. Chris Bell is getting encouragement to seek the seat, an aide said. State Rep. Scott Hochberg of Houston is also taking a look.

Janek's District 17 has been safely Republican since Buster Brown wrested it from Democrat Babe Schwartz in 1980. But the Democrats say shifting demographics and perceived GOP fatigue could make for a competitive contest in an open seat.

-- John Moritz

Both Abbott and Democrats claims victory in dropped lawsuit

Attorney General Greg Abbott shot out a press release declaring victory in federal court in Marshall today after Democrats agreed to drop a lawsuit regarding his mail in ballot fraud investigations.

Democrats say Abbott's purposely leaving out one detail: the suit was only dropped because both sides agreed to a settlement,

"Greg Abbott can spin this all he wants as a victory but at the end of the day, he has agreed to change his prosecution policies in regards to the election code," said Gerry Hebert, a lawyer for the Democrats.

Hebert said Abbott agreed to some key changes in exchange for dropping the lawsuit. Among them, he agreed to no longer go after "hypertechnical violations" of the election code such as people who handle other voters mail-in ballots but forget to sign their name and address on the ballot envelope, Hebert said.

"That’s important because the people we brought this case on behalf of were people who were prosecuted for the hypertechnical violation of not signing the envelope," Hebert said. "These kinds of cases will receive less consideration than in the past unless they involve actual evidence of fraud."

Hebert said the settlement marks a major change in Abbott's policy regarding mail-in ballots.

Abbott, meanwhile, appears to sees the outcome differently.

“After more than a year and a half of pre-trial maneuvering and discovery the plaintiffs discovered that their claims were without basis in fact or law. Today’s dismissal marks an important victory for the integrity of the electoral process," Abbott said in a statement.

UPDATE: Further complicating the "who won/who lost" tabulation, Abbott's office is framing the agreement as more of a policy suggestion. In fact, spokesman Jerry Strickland says it wasn’t much of a change at all from the office’s current stance.

“The settlement is entirely consistent with the office of attorney general’s previous actions,” Strickland said.

-Aman Batheja

Voter fraud lawsuit dismissed

Attorney General Greg Abbott's office emailed this press release regarding today's trial:

Plaintiffs Drop Lawsuit That Attempted to Prevent The State From Enforcing Election Law Provisions

Six Individuals, Texas Democratic Party Drop Lawsuit

MARSHALL – Six individual plaintiffs and the Texas Democratic Party today agreed to drop a lawsuit that sought to prevent the Texas Attorney General from enforcing specific portions of the Election Code. After initially claiming that a law governing mail-in ballots was unconstitutional, the plaintiffs dropped their lawsuit just before a trial was scheduled to begin in federal District Judge T. John Ward’s East Texas courtroom. Today’s agreement to dismiss marked the latest in a string of victories for the State of Texas, which consistently maintained that its efforts to protect the integrity of the elections process were entirely constitutional.

More details to come...