Texas Sen. John Cornyn thinks a wall along our southern border is “irrational” – um, except where we need one.

So Cornyn said in a live video speech to the Border Trade Alliance at its annual International Conference Monday at the Driskill Hotel. The BTA, as its name implies, promotes business interests along the U.S. border – interests that have been harmed since 9/11 and the anti-immigrant rhetoric that followed. While the BTA certainly must have its conservative elements, its take on issues such as border-fencing is at odds with the rabid Republican base. As Cornyn said, “I’ve always noted that the closer one gets to the border, the more people seem to be focused on trade issues and economic issues. The farther you get away from the border, it seems like more people tend to focus on security issues.”

Like the 2008 presidential elections seeming to have already started, the lege is beginning to gear up for the 2009 session. Over the last week, Speaker Tom Craddick has made a series of announcements to committees that will start to develop new policy. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst has yet to make his picks, so it will be interesting to see whether he compliments or counters Craddick's choices with his appointees.

The real highlight for Austin readers is that local Democrat Dawnna Dukes get two appointments on two groups – Medicaid, and Sporting Goods Sales Tax. But for you hardened lege watchers, more appointments below the fold.

When Gov. Rick Perry took a jaunt to Israel back in June, there was hot debate that he was building foreign-policy credentials for an attempted vice-presidential run. But now it seems that it was less about political posturing, and more about economics.

On Tuesday, Perry officially established the Texas-Israel Chamber of Commerce. While Texas is already Israel's number three US trading partner, there's room for improvement, especially since they have so much in common (insert gag about both wanting to put big walls up to keep their neighbors out here.) Calling Israel the other Lone Star State (it's a flag joke), he talked up the possibility for public and private partnerships, especially in the high-tech industry. Perry also boosted the idea that it will improve trade with the European Union - which kinda makes you wonder if he's very clear on where Israel is.

Of course, it wasn't completely free of political posturing. Yet again, he called for the Texas Employees Retirement System and Teachers Retirement System to divest themselves of any investments in companies that do business with Iran. It's a topic that so infuriates him that, even though the press release he put out was allegedly about the new chamber, the first four of its nine paragraphs are actually about how bad Iran is. But the plea to the ERS and TRS is an interesting step-down: back in July, Perry was threatening to either use his powers as governor or call a special session to force divestment. Now he's down to asking nicely.

Approximately 100 people convened at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Ga., on Sept. 15, after a weeklong 105-mile march to protest treatment of detainees at the private, for-profit facility operated by Corrections Corpor­ation of America, under contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The rally was organized by the Prison and Jail Project based in Americus, Ga. In general, protesters decried the trend of private prisons making a buck on human misery. Specif­ic­ally, activists criticized subpar conditions at Stewart, as well as the remote, rural locale, separating detainees from families and legal help.

“Imagine the effect [of isolation] on 1,400 immigrant workers unjustly and needlessly locked inside this for-profit prison,” says PJP’s Anton Flores. The center was to house convicts but in the fall of 2006 was converted to house immigrants, many apprehended in armed ICE raids. Though on its website CCA objects to the “myth” that “private prison companies are in the immoral business of profiting from prisons,” the firm also trumpets to investors that its stock rose 51.1% in 2006, giving credence to criticism that prisoners are becoming a mere commodity.

It looks like some concerted opposition to potential changes to Austin's solicitation laws – potentially making it harder on the homeless – are emerging.

At the start of tomorrow's City Council meeting, the ACLU of Texas, Communication Workers of America #6132, House The Homeless/Universal Living Wage Coalition, the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund (MALDEF), the Religion and Labor Network of Austin, and the Workers Defense Project will be on hand to oppose any broadening of current state and city bans on panhandling and solicitation. If you missed it, council is receiving a 2pm presentation on current laws at the behest of Jennifer Kim; she and Brewster McCraken are sponsoring a resolution setting public hearings for possible changes next month.

The presser:

Proposed Anti-Solicitation Ordinance Faces Stiff Community Opposition

AUSTIN – This Thursday, as the Austin City Council is presented with a new proposal for anti-solicitation ordinances, a coalition of organizations - including faith leaders, day laborers, student groups, and homeless and legal advocacy organizations – will hold a press conference on the subject. The coalition will be calling on City Council to not consider the anti-solicitation ordinances proposed by Council Member Jennifer Kim and instead to include all stakeholders in the process before moving forward with any new ordinances. Council members are to decide whether to set a public hearing on the proposals.

The ordinances are so broad that it would make a host of activities illegal, including the poor asking for food, day laborers seeking work, hailing a cab, car washes, and firefighters seeking charitable donations, to name but a few.

Coalition members will present their concerns about the anti-solicitation ordinances, and their continued desire to work with the City to create community based solutions, at City Hall at 10am on Thursday September 27th.

First it was the Conservatives issuing their thumbs-up, thumbs down on legislators, now it's the Conservationists.

The Texas League of Conservation Voters has issued its analysis of how green each state legislator's voting record was last session. The scorecard, based on 27 key ecological bills and amendments, was issued yesterday and had some good news for the Austin caucus as a whole, but with some significant offenders.

Sen. Kirk Watson and reps. Elliott Naishtat, Donna Howard and Eddie Rodriguez all got 100%, A++ ratings: but then, how did the Austin bunch come in with a caucus average of 85% green? It's still better than the House average of 57%, but with Republican Mike Krusee bringing up the rear with an negligible 35%, that score become a bit easier to understand. The TLCV condemned him, as well as Democrat Robby Cook and GOPer Dan Gattis, for opposing an amendment to House Bill 3732 that would have tied coal-plant incentives to emissions cuts.

But the biggest state-wide offender? Speaker Tom Craddick: less for his actions, more for his appointment of Dennis "The Menace" Bonnen, R-Angleton (28%), as chair of the Environmental Regulations Committee. Bonnen, whose *ahem* "robust" management style has been seen as putting industry first, managed to kill off dozens of green and regulation-strengthening bills, including several that had passed happily through Senate. As the TLCV puts it, "Ladies and gentlemen, the fox is eating the hens."

The entire scorecard can be downloaded as a pdf.

Attention headtrippers: This morning an interactive history kiosk, part of the Austin Past and Present project, will blur the boundaries of space and time at the Convention Center (a place not beholden to man's petty laws of physics – or accounting, for that matter). And who else to bridge the present to the past than Betty Dunkerley? The revelation:

City to unveil, launch electronic historical kiosk project linking Austin's past, present and future

Mayor Pro Tem Betty Dunkerley will join with creator and producer Karen Kocher Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2007, in a ceremony unveiling and formally launching the Austin Past and Present Kiosks project, a dynamic, interactive multimedia presentation.

Dunkerley and Kocher will discuss the importance of the kiosks and the project's role in communicating the history of Austin to visitors, students and others. In addition, Past and Present Kiosks will be available for viewing by the media and for hands-on demonstrations.

Austin Past and Present kiosks are scheduled to be installed at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport later this week and at Austin City Hall next week. One kiosk will be housed at the Austin Convention Center near the main registration area.

That's this morning, at 11am in the Waller Terrace Room of the Austin Convention Center. We hear if you synch the press conference up with Dark Side of the Moon, you'll totally lose your shit.

After a series of battles over whether cities can pass their own immigration laws, a much bigger fight is looming between Illinois and the federal government over confirming residency status.

On Monday, the office of the US Attorney's for Central Illinois filed suit over an amendment to the state’s Right to Privacy in the Workplace Act. This dealt specifically with the government’s E-Verify system, an online system that allows subscribing businesses to verify the employment and immigration status of all job applicants. Currently, the US government informs employers about employee eligibility in 93% of cases in a day: however, Illinois lawmakers have said the information is incomplete and can often take over a week to get to them. Their legislation demands that the system give responses to 99% of all inquiries within three days, and until then Illinois employers cannot use it.

The Illinois law, like other attempts to create local exceptions to federal immigration law, will face a tough battle. The court system has tended to rigorously enforce the constitutional concept of pre-emption, which gives the feds final say on matters like immigration. However, most local immigration law debates in recent months have been over whether cities and municipalities have violated the pre-emption clause by creating their own, stricter ordinances – like when Dallas suburb Farmers Branch tried to pass an ordinance turning landlords and employers into de facto immigration officers. This may be the first significant recent case where local government is being sued for a bill advocating non-compliance.

Newt Gingrich is back, and he’s going to save America through online workshops!

On Saturday, Sept. 29, Gingrich’s public advocacy group American Solutions for Winning the Future will be running a bunch of web-based symposia, all as part of his Solutions Day. According to his press release, the plan is that local groups will get together, log on, and listen to Gingrich and some like-minded friends explain how they would save the world. Sort of like an FDR fireside chat, but with bandwidth and pop-ups. Included in the list of moderators will be Texas’ own Michael Williams, Chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission, advocating nuclear power and “clean” coal.

The non-partisan, non-profit org said in its press release it aims to “address the challenges facing America.” Which is probably why they’ve got libertarian talk show host Neal Boortz talking about flat taxes and David Barton, president of church-and-state-unifiers Wallbuilders, running a workshop called “Rediscovering God in America."