This is a smart move, people.

If you wanna seal up the Witty Vote, late-night's the way to go. I've heard she has a good sense of humor, but this will be the first time she gets to show potentian voters her ability to Be Funny past everyone's bed time.

It takes a certain something.

In the past few months, Hillary Clinton mocked her own laugh on SNL, Barack Obama promised David Letterman that he'd name Mitt Romney the Secretary of Lookin Good, and Mike Huckabee told Stephen Colbert he'd need every superdelegate he could get - before "realizing" (jokingly, of course) that only Dems have super delegates. D'oh!

Pricelesss moments, all of them. I never miss this stuff, and you shouldn't either. But if you do, no worries - we'll post the segment right here on Trailblazers, because the folks at Comedy Central so totally love us.

When a man expressed concern about illegal immigrants getting driver's licenses in New York and relocating to Texas, Craddick said: "Well, we can just ban New Yorkers from moving to Texas."

Wonder if that remark was really a joke?

All right, ya'll. I know we've been pretty quiet around Capitol Letters lately - only because we've been trying to get over our session hangover.

And I use the term "hangover" loosely, for all you amateurs out there.

Meanwhile, CL won't be active again until the Texas Lege resumes in 2009 - but we've got a whole new party kickin off over on Trailblazers - where all of us same DMN writer types, rockstars and rabblerousers will be doing the same exact thing, only different.

And not really that different - we'll just be taking in national politics as well as local and state, so it'll be your One-Stop-Shop-for-Madness.

So those of you with RSS feeds, if you still have them, move em on over to Trailblazers and stay with us for next 15-18 months.

Trust me. The party's just gettin started.

Que pasa, Tony Garza? Apparently, not a race for governor – at least not in 2010. A recent spate of stories previewing a potential barnburner of a gubernatorial race in Texas mentioned Garza – a former South Texas judge and Texas railroad commissioner and now the U.S. ambassador to Mexico – as a potential candidate.

No way, he said in a statement Tuesday. (Or as Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison once said, when asked to say something in Spanish, nolo contendere.)

Speculation is the next race for governor could pit Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst against Sen. Hutchison. Others in the mix include outgoing Texas Secretary of State Roger Williams and state Sen. Dan Patrick, the Houston talk radio host and fan boy of the populist right.

But as for Tony Garza, who recently married the billionaire heiress of the Corona beer fortune, he says such speculation is “flattering but off the mark.”

Here’s his statement:

“I love Texas and have enjoyed serving it both at home and abroad. But the fact is, I’m not running.

“Why this statement now? I have read the stories and known for some time that seeking the nomination in 2010 was not something I was going to do. I would prefer not to have that sort of speculation detracting in any way from the important work that is still to be done here in Mexico.

“I intend to continue serving as Ambassador to Mexico as long as the President has confidence in my abilities and doing so furthers this most important, and indeed unique, bilateral relationship.”

So what’s next? Garza says lots of people serve their state without serving in office. “This is what I would like to do when my tenure as Ambassador is complete: be one of those Texans who stand outside the political arena but who continue to serve and make a positive difference in people’s lives.”

Translation: Look for Garza and his wife to buy a house here in Texas, maintain his political ties in the state and look for an opening for future statewide office. Can anybody say 2014?

That's what Denise Davis was making when she resigned last month - although it's about $20,000-plus more a year than she was when she started in 2003.

At any rate, this isn't too surprising, since Mr. Keel assumed the position upon Denise's dramatic late-session resignation over the whole Absolute Power thing.

His assistant parliamentarian will be the smart, perky Kate Huddleston - who we first met working in his media office in 2003.

That means Craddick didn't hire Ron Wilson, who acted as Mr. Keel's asst parliamentarian at the end of the session --- and, thus, had to put up with accusations on the floor that he was unethical and hadn't paid fines to the commission, etc.

But don't read too much into that. Wilson's an entertainment lawyer in Houston. Who do you think he'd rather represent? Craddick or ZZ Top?

NOW we know who Gov. Rick Perry was hobnobbing with at this month’s top-secret international meeting of the corporate and political elite known as the Bilderberg Conference. The event was held in Istanbul, Turkey. And the Texas governor was among the invitees this year.

His fellow conference-goers included Henry Kravis, who heads the leading investor group in the $32 billion purchase of TXU. So while the Legislature was debating the deal back home, the governor apparently was with the New York billionaire leading the buyout. TXU is seeking federal approval for the deal. It made headlines during the legislative session, in part because of TXU’s attempt to build more coal-fired generating plants – an effort backed by Mr. Perry.

Others attending the four-day gathering of international movers-and-shakers included neocons Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Pearle, key figures in the Bush administration’s war policy in Iraq. Also Harvard economist Martin Feldstein, a former economic adviser to President Bush. Democratic pollster Peter Hart. Richard Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations. And Henry Kissinger, needs no introduction.
Other titans of industry in attendance were top executives of Microsoft, Google, German-based Siemens, Britain’s Royal Dutch/Shell oil company, Sweden’s Ericsson and the European Central Bank.

The Bilderberg Conference has been held since 1954. The group has inspired conspiracy theories for years among critics on the extreme right who warn it is a prelude to one-world government.

The event itself is all hush-hush (we got the list of participants from a political intelligence newsletter). So we’ll have to speculate on how the dinner talk might have gone in the event the governor from Paint Creek shared a table with, say, Queen Sofia of Spain or the finance minister of Finland or Guido Westerwelle of Germany’s Free Democratic Party (sounds vaguely anti-Craddick).

And uh, no, Paris Hilton wasn't there. She had another commitment.

"The rules of the Texas House of Representatives do not provide for a motion to conduct a Speaker's race in the midst of a session’s business. Furthermore, the rules are clear with regard to the Speaker’s power of recognition.*

"Speaker Craddick acted correctly under the House Rules, the Texas Constitution, and was consistent with traditions of parliamentary practice. But more importantly, the citizens of this state were well-served in that the important business of the legislature prevailed over the internal politics of a speaker’s race."

*House Rule 1, Section 9 reads, “Responses to parliamentary inquiries and decisions of recognition made by the chair may not be appealed.” House Rule 5, Section 24 reads, “There shall be no appeal from the speaker’s recognition….[the speaker decides] if recognition is to be granted.”

House Ways and Means Until He Gets Busted Chair Jim Keffer is calling on AG Greg Abbott to weigh in, formally and officially, on House Speaker Tom Craddick's use of "absolute authority" to refuse to recognize House members who wanted to remove him from the speaker's chair at the end of the session.

Ah, Greg, you lucky-lucky man.

Rock, meet hard place.

Best:
Rep. Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas
Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas
Rep. Byron Cook, R
Sen. Bob Deuell, R-Greenville
Rep. Scott Hochberg, D-Houston
Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham
Rep. Jerry Madden, R-Richardson
Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan
Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston
Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands

Worst
Gov. Rick Perry
House Speaker Tom Craddick
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst
Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth
Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa
Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay
Rep. Charlie Howard, R-Sugar Land
Sen. Eddie Lucio Sr., D-Brownsville
Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston
Rep. Debbie Riddle, R-Tomball

Honorable Mention:Rep. Eissler, Sen. Eltife, Rep. Gattis, Rep. Hill, Sen. Hinojosa, Rep. Smithee, Rep. Solomons, Rep. Strama, Rep. Thompson, Sen. Whitmire, "the Insurgents" - Dunnam, Talton, et al

Dishonorable Mention: Reps. Flores, Haggerty, Harper-Brown, Sid Miller, O'Day, Quintanilla, Zedler

Furniture: Reps. Alma Allen, Alonzo, Christian, Farias, Macias, Armando Martinez; Sens. Estes and Mike Jackson

This time, knowing that we may actually wind up with an 18-month interim for the first time since 2003, I was reportedly a little nostalgic at the media party over the session actually ending.

(Yeah, I’m going to need to take someone else’s word for that. I’m an unreliable witness to my own actions on Monday night.)

Tuesday morning, as I lounged in my cool, dark apartment, sleeping past noon and listening to the sweet silence with no TV, radio or cell phone distractions, something else happened.

I got over it.

It’s over, and now it’s time to breathe.

Time to pay the bills that have stacked up on the entry table (I counted 15 envelopes on the way out the door this morning), time to collect the papers out of the front yard and do about three weeks worth of laundry and dry cleaning. Time to remember what it feels like to breathe fresh air instead of 50-degree air conditioning. Time to go out for lunch (outside the four-block radius) instead of slam trail mix or stand in line behind a bunch of citizens so I can consume a $9 tuna sandwich in the Capitol extension.

Time to make reparations to friends and family and pets who don’t really understand – because few do – the life-sucking implications of covering the Legislature and really did think I had abandoned them for the past few months.

(Though the pets are usually the only ones who show their great displeasure by peeing on my cowboy boots...)

Time to try and quash the ding-ding sound of the voting bell that stays in my head for days after the session ends, time to find something else to dream about at night besides legislative anxiety (covering a press conference in your underwear? Anyone? Bueller?) Time to lose weight, my God.

And time for the shout-outs.

First, I send one in particular to the hard-working, hard-partying, burn-the-candle-at-both-ends staff I came to know and respect during the session (holla, clerks!).

Also, to the readers who both kept us on our toes and defended us from those who wished to throw rocks. People in ivory towers like to do that, so thanks for keeping them in their places when my editors (with good reason) wouldn’t let me do it.

And to the editors, who were all the way up in Dallas but still managed to understand exactly what we were going through.

Rarity.

Thanks, thanks, and thanks.

And also, of course, to the lawmakers, for making this one of the most dizzying and, yes, extraordinary sessions in memory.

Props for that.

Peace out. It's still light outside, and Brooksie needs a cocktail.

The list begins, after the jump:

Can't believe we made it, can you?

By 11:45 the chamber had mostly cleared out, as lawmakers finishined off last-minute resolutions. I wouldn't say I saw a lot of teary eyes either -- folks seemed exhausted, giddy and ready.

I know I am.

Expect the mother of all fresh eyes posts tomorrow, as I condense everything I've learned into one blog entry.

I'll admit I feel a creeping sense of nostalgia -- or maybe even homesickness. What the heck are we going to do without these people for the next year and a half?