For important Texas Congressional and statehouse races outside of the Austin area, keep checking here. We'll keep an eye on everything from Tom DeLay's old Congressional District 22 to the four-way (oops, sorry, five-way) mud bath in the goobernatorial race.

Keep hitting your "refresh" button between now and on through November 7. We'll be updating frequently with our latest dispatches from the campaign trail. On Election Night we'll be posting live coverage with the latest returns. Rather than bouncing all over the Net looking for various race results, just stay here and let us do the surfing for you. We'll be your one-stop shop for races that affect Austinites. The blog will be divided into three sections; in this area we'll keep tabs on the city of Austin bonds, county races, and local statehouse and congressional seats.

It wasn't all that long ago when Austin Energy was the city's shining star, a national leader in producing clean, efficient energy with cutting-edge technology. Just an all-around good-guy city utility that zipped along for 17 years without a rate increase. What went wrong?