Tuesday Update
Live from the Lege, I'm in one of a slew of overflow room watching the rollcall for the new Lege here in Austin. First time viewer, longtime follower. Nifty little capitol we have here. At some point when P-Diddie & I are done blogging this place up I'll have some more long-winded thoughts. For now, this room is about to erupt when they call Borris Miles' name in a sec.
For now, consider the gate not only crashed, but blitzkrieged ... there's nearly 500 Borrisites in attendance here.
12:40 Update: Heh ... Perry has left the room for food while I "guard" his laptop. Sucker!!!
Oh, I'd be remiss to note the presence of a lot of big names tagging along with Team Borris. City Councilman Peter Brown is here also ;-)
Seriously though ... the drive up here was nice. We hooked it down I-10, which I thought was weird. But by the time we ventured up on SR-71, I realized this was worth the weirdness. Just a stunningly beautiful way to head to Austin, even though winter has stripped a lot of the color off of the trees. The views of the Colorado River right before and after that intersection make it worthwhile alone.
2:04 Update: Well, lunch today consists of a small pack of Hershey's Kisses. I'm kicking myself for getting those instead of the Twix bars. Seems the line for the cafeteria was ginormous and I wasn't about to elbow out any of the little old ladies in line for Borris' spread. I only managed to get lost about 20 or so times along the way. Found the souvenir shop on that jaunt, though. My bounty includes an assortment of refrigerator magnets: a Texas flag version, a "Come and Take It" flag version, one with Davy Crockett's famous quote before heading to Texas, a "Life Is Good" Texas flag version. There's also a nice postcard of Sam Houston in my haul. I did stop myself before spending the day poring over the cartography aisle.
I tried to get Peter Brown to do a little podcast, but he seemed to think my voice recorder was a substitute loudspeaker for the viewing room we're in. Too funny. The 5 second audio clip I get to play with when I get home tonight is also equally funny.
One other thing to note: never ask a lost Capitol tourist where something is. I think I gave three equally lost Borris visitors a full workout and great tour of one floor of the Capitol annex. Karen Loper of Hubert Vo's office to the rescue ... she fed my posse while I gathered my bearing a bit better. The woman's an angel if there ever was one.
2:17 Update: Hmm, over in the other chamber, Mario Gallegos was named President Pro Tem. I'm curious what that means for those rumors/wishcasts of his impending retirement in 2008. Full disclosure, I'm among those that'd like to see some new blood representing Harris County in the Senate. Just wondering if this is a last hurrah type of deal for him or a sign that his recent stop in rehab and this combine for him getting a second wind of staying in office.
71 is the only way to go, particularly fo the divided highway (I hate that part of 290 that isn't).
And yes, much more scenic.
All it means is that Gallegos was next in line for the job. They go in order of descending seniority, one for the interim and one for the session (I would assume until a certain point before starting back at the top again, otherwise we'd eventually have freshman members starting off as the pro-tem). Case in point is that Frank Madla was President Pro Tem for the first part of the interim between the sessions - Royce West (D-Dallas) was elected shortly before Madla's retirement to fill out the interim. John Carona (R-Dallas) is next in line and will likely be the Pro-Tem for the interim once the session ends.
See the senate page here for the seniority list - http://www.senate.state.tx.us/75r/Senate/senior.htm
I get that part, actually. But as one who might hope that Gallegos retires into the sunset, I'm just curious if the combination of this and his recent recovery from alcoholism might have an effect on whether he decides to hang it up after a good run or keep at it for at least another term.