Almost all of the Senate Democrats gave emotional speeches against the Republicans' ultimately successful resolution to waive the Senate's "two-thirds" rule on Wednesday. One of the most eloquent and to-the-point orations came from Austin Senator Kirk Watson. The full text is below the fold.

After last night's continued drubbing by the Sunset Advisory Commission, the Texas Youth Commission has announced it will be making more staff cuts. 430 full-time employee positions are to go, but that doesn't mean 430 people losing their jobs. Only 100 employees will be laid off (although 'only' never reflects the personal impact), while 330 empty positions will remain unfilled. Since TYC now houses 2,400 inmates (less than half the number in 2007) the cuts are meant to reflect its smaller workload while still maintaining adequate staff-to-inmate ratios. The redundancies take effect on Feb. 28. The cuts will be a big cost-saver, and money remains a big part of the argument about what to do with TYC. Shifting from what Sunset chair Rep. Carl Isett, R-Lubbock, calls "warehouses" to smaller, 35-40 bed facilities near the urban centers that most TYC inmates come from will cost cash. At the same time, small towns that depend on TYC employees will fight hard not to lose their economic cornerstone. However, advocates of moving more towards a "probation and treatment" paradigm and away from the "prison and punishment" school of thought that has run Texas justice point to the savings to be made from investing in preventative programs like drug rehab and better family services.

Please note, "Newsdesk" now has a central gathering spot for its 81st Legislature coverage: "LegeLand." Bookmark it now (or click on the button on the front of the Chronicle website) and return several times a day for blog updates, as well as links to stories from the latest print issue. We'll be down at the Capitol on a regular basis, watching the sausage being made so you don't have to.

While neither Perla Cavazos, Rick Cofer, or Chris Riley has formally announced which City Council seat they're running for (Lee, you're killing us!), the candidates are already trying to drawing distinctions from one another on the important issues of the day. But really, who cares about all that? Not when we can discuss the candidates' logos! Cavazos site seems like a work in progress, and as the following only appears once there, at a low-res, we're making a leap in assuming this to be the official logo. But we like what we see. The pink, aside from instantly transmitting Cavazos gender to voters, also subtly speaks to her Hispanic heritage through the southwestern color selection, while the star and type toughen things up a notch …

The Texas Youth Commission has inched closer to being dissolved tonight after the joint House-Senate-appointee Sunset Advisory Commission voted 6-5 to recommend that the legislature dissolve the agency and merge it with the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission to become the Texas Juvenile Justice Department. The plan will now move into the legislative process for further discussion. The proposal to replace the scandal-racked TYC was originally made by the Sunset staff, but in the meeting it was Commission Chair Rep. Carl Isett, R-Lubbock, who made the argument to merge the two and end the old standing problems of poor communication between the two agencies that had failed children for so long. He explained, "To effectively serve the youth of program […] the state programs need to fit together seamlessly." Three of the 'nay' votes came from the House (Reps. Ruth Jones McClendon, D-San Antonio; Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham; and Linda Harper Brown, R-Irving) and two from Senate (Sen. Craig Estes, R-Wichita Falls, and Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa, D-Mission.)

Speaking of bad precedents (see my post about the Senate below), I caught an after-the-gavel party near the Capitol tonight, a welcome-back affair, co-hosted by Democrat Jim Dunnam of Waco and Republican Franke Corte of San Antonio. The entertainment for the evening was the Dunnam-led cover band the Bad Precedents, and it was … well, bad. Don't give up your day jobs, folks. (Among the "performers" I recognize: Rep. Terri Hodge, D-Dallas (fourth from left), Rep. Richard Raymond, D-Laredo (light brown jacket and red tie), and Dunnam (keyboards, far right). Because I actually want you to return to this blog, I will refrain from posting any audio.

The Texas Senate has voted, 18-13, to scrap its rule requiring a two-thirds vote of the membership to bring a bill to the floor for debate if a voter ID bill comes up. Democrats – and one Republican, John Carona – argued passionately against the rule change, but the rest of the GOP wouldn't budge. More on this later tonight. UPDATE: Okay, I lied, I'm too exhausted to follow up on this tonight. I'll just say that the Dems followed the vote with a very bitter press conference warning that Dan Patrick and his buddies may really, really regret the precedent that they set today, especially when the state's demographics tilt toward the Dems. Tomorrow I'll dig out the juiciest quotes from today.

[audio-1] We're back with a new installment of Hust FM, sifting through Carole Keeton Strayhorn's press conference announcing for mayor earlier this week. (Forgive the Hustle's error in stating she first won the mayor's office in 1981, instead of 1977. Oopsy!) Enjoy the listen, and if you haven't yet viewed City Hall Hustle's vlog of the kickoff, check it out here. Thanks for listening, and keep hustling!

The latest in the fight over the adoption of rules for the Senate: First off, see the posts below about the fight over the two-thirds rule and voter ID if you're not up to speed. After the Democrats unsuccessfully tried to amend SR 14 to death, Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, raised a point of order that has shut things down for a while. He claimed that Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst's many rulings on various amendments and points of order today are moot, because his power to make such rulings was granted by the rules of the 80th Legislature. Since this is the 81st Lege – for which no rules have been made yet – Shapleigh says Dewhurst does not have the power to make the rulings, and the past four hours – as well as the swearing in of the senators and senate staff yesterday – have been for naught. And that's the circular argument that has everyone vexed today: How do you have a debate to create the rules, when no rules have been created to govern the debate? At that, Dewhurst and his parliamentarian had the equivalent of a computer logic error and crashed. We are currently in a 15-minute recess to sort it out. I just heard Mario Gallegos, D-Houston, joking that he's been "voting illegally." UPDATE: Oh, this sucks: City Council Member Mike Martinez's big campaign kick-off is set to begin in one hour (5:30pm) at Nuevo Leon. But his wife, Lara Wendler, is an aide to Sen. John Whitmire of Houston. And she's still stuck here. Oops. UPDATE2: The came back, and then recessed again when Whitmire asked for a "caucus of the whole" (all the Senators), so they're off to the back room again. Dammit, I wanted to go to the Martinez event too.