Democrat Chris Bell said today he has filed an ethics complaint against Health and Human Services chief Albert Hawkins, charging that the commissioner violated the state's ban on conflicts of interest by also serving as a trustee of the Texas Health Institute, a nonprofit organization that has reaped contract work and grant money from his agency. The Statesman reported last week that Hawkins failed to provide this information in his personal financial disclosure statements filed with the Texas Ethics Commission. Bell blamed his Republican opponent, Gov. Rick Perry, for not enforcing conflicts of interest laws within his administration. Hawkins, a Perry appointee, also served as budget director for former Gov. George Bush.

With the election just days away, the debate in Nevada over one ballot initiative, Question 7 – a measure that would legalize and tax-and-regulate the use of marijuana by adults over 21 – is getting more and more heated. Indeed, the folks backing Q7, the Committee to Regulate and Control Marijuana have filed at least one lawsuit, against a host of Nevada public officials, asking the court to restrain them from using their public office – and thus, taxpayer funds – to stump against the measure, in violation of the state’s Ethics in Government Law. Among those named in the suit is Las Vegas Metro Police Dept. Lt. Stan Olsen who is part of the anti-Q7 group called – I kid you not – the Committee to Keep Nevada Respectable. Not only has Olsen signed off on the CKNR campaign finance reports, but the Committee’s official address is listed as – you guessed it – LVMPD headquarters, a circumstance CRCM argues is a clear violation of the ethics law.

Day 10 of early voting in Travis County saw a sharp jump in the number of ballots cast. Today, 9,592 of you finally made up your minds and punched your tickets. That beats the previous high (from yesterday) by 1,818. The grand totals: combining early in-person votes with mail-in ballots, 67,244 Travis residents have done their patriotic duty; that translates to 12.1% of the county's registered voters.

And man, what is it with that Randalls grocery on Research? Northcross Mall used to always be the most popular site for early voters, but the Research Randalls leads the pack currently with 6,557, followed by 5,651 at Northcross and 5,158 at the Randalls on South MoPac.

Eastside voters! Wake up! If you don't participate in your democracy, you're going to keep getting screwed. The lowest turnout has been at the Northeast Health Center (568), with the Albertsons on Riverside (726) and the HEB on East Seventh (804) joining it as the only sites that have yet to crack 1,000. I'd insert that great Warren Beatty line from Bulworth here, but I just know I'd get called a racist.

Majority Watch is predicting a Democratic landslide in the House, while Electoral-Vote.com is calling a 50-50 Senate (which, of course, favors the Republicans, since Vice President Dick Cheney would cast the tie-breaker vote on any 50-50 votes). Majority Watch has narrowed its races considered "ties" from five to two this week. If its current polls prove accurate, the Dems would capture 240 seats (218 constitutes a majority).

If you turn on your TV to cable access Channel 17 (the Travis County channel) right now (Wednesday, at 7:41pm), it appears they are showing some sort of candidate forum. Speaking at this moment is James Crabtree, the Republican who is challenging Dana DeBeauvoir for the office of county clerk. And over on Channel 10, well-known Austin political consultant Mike Blizzard is telling you why you should support the bonds.

And over on CSPAN, you can see the candidate debate for the Indiana 9th Congressional District. Of course, your best bet is to flip over to MSNBC and watch Keith Olbermann, the bravest journalist on corporate TV since Edward R. Murrow.

Bill Welch's fundraising woes are over, thanks to an enormous wad of campaign cash from sources other than his personal piggy banks. The Republican nominee for Travis Co.'s HD 47 seat collected nearly $700,000 in the last month, most of it from major GOP PACs, including House Speaker Tom Craddick's Stars Over Texas. (Democrat Valinda Bolton raised $277,820 in the same period.) Quorum Report did the math on both candidate's big contributions, but Welch's were particularly intriguing because of his previous fundraising problems. QR pointed out that more than $250,000 of Welch's winnings came from Texans for Lawsuit Reform. The sudden windfall effectively kills the buzz that Welch was having to self-finance his campaign because his old primary rival for the House seat, Susan Combs, a GOP leader and the party's nominee for comptroller, still harbored a grudge against the man she beat in '96. For whatever reason, the rumored money embargo has been lifted.

The Travis County Democratic and Republican parties are hurling charges at each other of, either willfully or accidentally, suppressing voter turnout with misinformation and harrassment.

Chris Bell's newest commercial is his first to gun directly for Rick Perry. In "Sick," Bell takes down the guv's cozy relationship with TXU and its disastrous health and environmental effects on the state. (At least Perry got the world's largest bong out of the agreement.)

Watch "Sick" below:

It’s been a tough couple weeks for independent gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman. For starters, his campaign has been fielding a handful of nasty e-mails regarding the Kinkster’s health care plan, dubbed TexasCare, which he unveiled Oct. 18. Essentially, the TexasCare plan would offer subsidized health coverage for all Texans, paid for on a sliding scale – thus, single folks sans kids, for example, would pay the most for coverage.