Interview with Rhonda Hart

Posted on October 9, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

Rhonda Hart

From the Railroad Commission to Congress today, where we meet a candidate that I specifically wanted to meet. I wrote about Rhonda Hart after she announced her candidacy in CD14, a red district with a truly awful incumbent (yes, even by Texas standards) in part because of her compelling story. Her 14-year-old daughter was murdered in the mass shooting at Santa Fe High School in 2018, and like many such parents before her she has been working tirelessly to improve our nation’s excessively lax gun laws. She actually managed to get a bill named for her daughter through Congress, one that would put some requirements on safe storage for guns in the home, but it did not pass the Senate. That still gives her a better record for passing legislation than the incumbent. She’s also a military veteran and the kind of person with grace and humility that we ought to want more of in Congress. Listen here and see for yourself:

PREVIOUSLY:

Erica Lee Carter, CD18 special election
Sylvester Turner, CD18 general election
Lindsay London, Amarillo Reproductive Freedom Alliance
Plácido Gómez and Dani Hernandez, for the HISD bond
Ruth Kravetz of CVPE, against the HISD bond.
Katie Shumway, League of Women Voters Houston
Teneshia Hudspeth, Harris County Clerk
Katherine Culbert, Texas Railroad Commission

Posted in Election 2024 | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

The “Can Allred win?” question

Posted on October 9, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

At least we’re asking the question. Usually, we don’t even get that.

Colin Allred

Democrats are closing the gap in their uphill campaign to unseat U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, with polls showing improvement for Democratic U.S. Rep. Colin Allred and national Democrats’ spending in the race a month ahead of Election Day.

For the first time this race, Allred pulled ahead of Cruz in a statewide poll last month, and he continues to poll within a margin of error with Cruz. National Democrats announced Texas would be included in a multi-million-dollar ad buy last week. Allred is consistently outraising Cruz, bringing in more than $1 million in a day twice in the third quarter.

Allred has also built a bipartisan coalition, securing the support of both his party’s left-wing bigwigs and prominent Republicans who have soured on Cruz. This week, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez both encouraged voters in Texas to turnout for Allred. Former U.S. Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, who both were on the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, have endorsed Allred.

Independent race ratings groups have taken notice. Cook Political Report shifted its rating for the race from “Likely Republican” to “Lean Republican” on Tuesday. Inside Elections shifted its rating from “Likely Republican” to “Lean Republican” last week.

“Allred’s unique coalition of voters, the resources and work of his campaign, and Cruz’s weaknesses all put the Texas Senate race in play,” Allred campaign manager Paige Hutchinson wrote in a memo Tuesday. “There is more work to do as we continue sharing Allred’s message, mobilizing our supporters and reminding voters what they don’t like about Cruz – but the Allred campaign is entering the final weeks of the race in the strongest possible position to secure victory.”

Allred still has a challenge ahead of him. He is running against one of Republicans’ best known and best funded candidates in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat into statewide office in more than 20 years. Cruz is one of the most adored candidates among Texas conservatives along with Gov. Greg Abbott, while Allred has had to battle his low name recognition outside of Dallas all cycle.

And at the top of the ticket, former President Donald Trump continues to poll ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris in Texas. That could give down-ballot Republicans a leg up, though Allred has higher approval in the state than Harris and has strategically kept the presidential campaign at a distance.

[…]

Cruz’s campaign has been able to lean on the dominance of conservatism in the state. The state voted for Trump with a margin of more than 5 points in 2020. The Harris campaign is not viewing Texas as a battleground this cycle, focusing instead on more easily attainable swing states.

Cruz’s attacks on Allred have portrayed the congressman as aligned with the most progressive wings of the party, noting he has voted faithfully with his party’s leadership when it was in the majority, though Allred is running as a moderate Democrat.

But as demographics in the state shift with a growing moderate, diverse and suburban population, both candidates are making plays for the center. Cruz launched a group of Democrats for Cruz in the spring, and Allred announced a coalition of Republicans for Allred with Kinzinger on Wednesday.

“They’re calling it the Kamala effect,” O’Rourke said last week during a campaign stop with Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff. “Young people are getting registered to vote in record numbers.”

Since O’Rourke’s near victory in 2018, Republicans have won by larger margins in statewide races, including by nearly 10 points in the 2020 race between Sen. John Cornyn and Democrat MJ Hegar. O’Rourke lost his 2022 gubernatorial race against Abbott by 11 points.

As far as Republicans for Allred goes, you can add this:

Glenn Whitley is the kind of old school business-friendly Republican that used to be ubiquitous in Texas but are now largely relics. I don’t know how many votes this moves – people like Whitley have for the most part either fully consumed the Trump kool-aid or they’re already Democrats – but the more Whitleys out there saying they’re voting for Harris and Allred, the more potential there is for others to follow their lead. You can see some more of the crew that Rep. Kinziger brought along here.

The comparison of Beto’s result in 2018 to Dem results in other years is valid but limited. All those results, including Beto in 2018, were affected in part by the greater national atmosphere. 2018 was a Democratic year, 2020 was more neutral, 2022 was (at least in Texas) more of a Republican year. I think 2024 is somewhere between 2018 and 2020, but it’s hard to say which one it’s closer to.

The poll numbers, which are the basis for stories like this and the ratings change in the race, are cautiously encouraging, but there’s still just that one poll that shows Allred in the lead, and then only by one point, 45-44. Allred as noted has consistently outperformed Kamala Harris in the Texas polls, which allows for the possibility of him squeaking out a win while Trump still carries the state. I remain skeptical of that, as there’s two elections’ worth of evidence that Trump is the low performer among Republicans, but this is a weird year. This scenario still depends on Harris running a close enough race in Texas. I think she’s on track to do better than Biden did in 2020, but she’d probably need to get close to 48 percent for Allred to have a strong chance; this is on the assumption that the third party candidates will have a more minimal effect at the Presidential level.

It’s easy to get tangled up in the what-ifs, so let me sum up a bit. Yes, I think Allred has a fighting chance. I’d feel better about that if there were more polls showing him with a lead and/or more polls showing Kamala Harris within at most three points of Trump. I’d feel better about it if the Harris campaign were in on trying to win Texas, I’d feel better about if if the DSCC had been involved earlier, and I’d feel better if there were more legislative pickup opportunities with more visible campaigns for them. This is the hand we’ve been dealt, and the fact that Allred is competitive despite the lack of complementary positive factors is encouraging in its own way. I can’t get my hopes up too much, but I do have some hope. I hope that’s good enough.

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We’re not cutting our way out of this

Posted on October 9, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

A preview of today’s budget debate from the Houston Landing.

Four city council members are proposing a 5 percent increase in Houston’s property tax rate they say would enable the city to avoid $86 million in spending cuts and bring in enough revenue to cover $40 million in cleanup costs left by the May derecho and Hurricane Beryl.

The increase, pitched by At-Large Councilmembers Sally Alcorn and Leticia Plummer, District H Councilmember Mario Castillo and District I Councilmember Joaquin Martinez, is one of two proposed rates on next week’s council agenda.

Mayor John Whitmire is proposing to keep the tax rate at its current level of 51.9 cents per $100 of assessed value.

The rate being pushed by the four council members is 55.2 cents per $100 of assessed value.

The difference between the two proposals for the owner of a home valued at $300,000 with a standard 20 percent homestead exemption is about $78.

The proposals come less than a week after City Controller Chris Hollins warned officials to develop a plan to raise revenue or risk a downgrade in the city’s overall credit rating.

Hollins said Friday he recommended the city publicize a plan to create a structurally balanced budget.

“This means cutting costs, bringing in more revenue, or some combination of both,” Hollins said in a statement. “We also need to ensure that we are maintaining our reserves at levels comparable to those of other major cities. These reserves are critical when unexpected emergencies like Hurricane Beryl or the derecho storm impact Houston and the City has to quickly respond.”

See here for more on what Controller Hollins had to say. Before we go on, a brief reminder about the state of our city property taxes.

As a result of the city cap, Houston has had to cut its tax rate in nine of the last 10 years, from 63.88 cents per $100 of property value in 2014 to 51.92 cents in 2024. Altogether, the restriction has led to $2.2 billion in lost revenue over the past decade, and Houston’s current tax rate is lower than that of all major Texas cities except Austin, according to [city Finance Director Melissa] Dubowski.

So thanks to the stupid revenue cap, every year except one for the last decade we have cut the property tax rate, whether that made fiscal sense and we could afford to do so or not. As has been documented many times including very recently, all of this promiscuous tax cutting has cost the city over $2 billion in revenue. Call me crazy, but we would be in a much stronger financial position right now if the city had taken in that revenue instead. And even with all that, this modest increase would still leave the tax rate substantially lower than it was in 2014 when the cut-a-palooza began. Truly, I have no idea why this is so controversial.

But never mind, Ernst and Young will save us.

The council members’ proposal comes as city leaders fast approach an Oct. 28 deadline to raise the taxes. Proponents of an increase have cautioned potential impacts to city services, but critics say the city could stand to make more cuts before hiking taxes.

Alcorn said the issue at hand wasn’t a matter of either rooting out waste or raising the taxes.

“It’s not a matter of this or that,” Alcorn said. “It’s this and that.”

Alcorn said she understands and respects where the mayor’s coming from with cutting waste, but she also believes something needs to be done to bring in more revenue to the city.

“When you’re in the hole, you’ve got to stop digging,” Alcorn said Monday evening.

Financially, Houston is up against a $230 million deficit, Alcorn said. Expenses still left to pay include a $1.5 billion settlement Whitmire secured for Houston’s firefighters union after an eight-year contract stalemate. The city may also need to add $100 million a year to street and drainage projects should an appellate court reject the city’s appeal in a longstanding lawsuit.

Houston has historically been unable to raise its tax rate because of state and local revenue caps. But the disaster declarations for the May derecho and Hurricane Beryl unlocked a gap in those laws that allow the city to raise its taxes for disaster recovery purposes.

Finance director Melissa Dubowski told council members during a September Budget and Fiscal Affairs Committee meeting the city had incurred $211 million in damage from Beryl and the derecho. While the federal government is supposed to foot a majority of that bill, the city will be on the hook for around $53 million – $40 million of which will come from the city’s general fund.

The disasters and issues surrounding staffing shortages at the Houston Police Department signaled to Alcorn the tax hike needed to come forward.

A tax hike after extreme weather isn’t unprecedented.

City leaders have voted to raise its tax rate three times in the last decade after disasters – once following the Memorial Day flood in 2015, again after the Tax Day flood in 2016 and again after Tropical Storm Imelda in 2019, Alcorn said.

As Whitmire hammers on going after government waste, two studies are currently in the works to help weed it out – one audit by Houston-based consulting company Ernst & Young and another approved this past May that looks into Solid Waste’s operations.

The Ernst & Young study is supposed to be completed in the next week, Whitmire’s spokesperson Mary Benton said. She did not provide a timeline for the results of the Solid Waste study. The council on Wednesday will also vote to expand the Ernst study to look into the city’s Tax Increment Reinvestment Zones, or TIRZs.

Plummer worries about potential cuts in the Solid Waste, Parks and Recreation and Library departments, which are are all already struggling. Parks and Recreation’s budget alone for the year is more than $89 million, while the libraries’ budget hovers at more than $51 million.

But the reality of how any potential cuts to government services would play out is unclear, Alcorn said. Should the city keep its tax rate the same, $86 million in cuts would need to be made to the city’s budget. Where those cuts would happen haven’t been decided.

“I just don’t know how the City of Houston is going to be able to survive if we do not (raise taxes),” Plummer said Monday.

I’ll go on record now and say that we will get nowhere near the amount of cuts we would need to make the budget work from these audits. I’d be shocked if we got enough to just cover the cost of the derecho and Beryl. I’m sure there are some savings to be had, but once you take out HPD and HFD, which are not being audited and which couldn’t be cut even if we wanted to (and quite clearly we do not) and debt service, there’s just not that much left unless you want to start eliminating entire departments. And while it probably makes sense to combine things like parks and libraries with Harris County, there needs to be a proposal on the table to do that and it needs to make sense from the county’s perspective as well. If anything like that is in the works, I’m not aware of it.

I’m old enough to remember when “cutting waste, fraud, and abuse” was going to be Ronald Reagan’s golden ticket to balancing the federal budget. We know how that turned out. We’re way past the point of needing to recognize that the city has a revenue problem. This year gives us a unique opportunity to address it, at least for the short term. We’ve done this in the past. To not do it now is just irresponsible. There’s no other way to describe it.

UPDATE: A different path emerges.

The city of Houston likely will keep its existing property tax rate after receiving notice Wednesday that the state will deliver $50 million in disaster relief funds to southeast Texas communities affected by the May derecho and Hurricane Beryl.

The announcement by the governor’s office prompted a quartet of City Council members to withdraw their proposal to raise the city’s property tax rate 5 percent to avoid a pending deficit that is expected to be worsened by storm cleanup costs.

Mayor John Whitmire said he spoke with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott last week in Austin, resulting in a state contribution of $50 million for debris removal.

The governor’s announcement states the $50 million will be spread among several southeast Texas communities. Houston’s share was unknown Wednesday, a mayoral spokesperson said.

Assuming this is a fair distribution and not an HGAC-like screw job, this should be sufficient to at least cover the storm damages. Not sure why it took so long for this to happen, but better late than never.

Posted in Local politics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Judicial Q&A: Justice Julie Countiss

Posted on October 8, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

(Note: As I have done in past elections, I am continuing the series of Q&As for judicial candidates in contested November elections. I am running these responses in the order that I receive them from the candidates. Much more information about Democratic candidates who are on the ballot in Harris County, including links to the interviews and judicial Q&As done for March and for November, can be found on Erik Manning’s spreadsheet.

Justice Julie Countiss

1. Who are you and in which court do you preside?

Justice Julie Countiss, Court of Appeals for the First District of Texas, Place 7

2. What kind of cases does this court hear?

This court hears appeals from all of the district courts in our 10-county district. I hear criminal cases and civil cases.

Within those categories are cases involving probate, family law, personal injury, governmental liability, contracts, parental rights, property rights and more.

3. What have been your main accomplishments during your time on this bench?

My chambers has consistently been a high-producing chambers. Each term, we have complied with the clearance rate metrics to keep my docket timely and moving forward.
In 2023 I was named the Appellate Justice of the Year by the Texas Association of Trial and Appellate Specialists. This is a non partisan group of board-certified attorneys who specialize in the types of civil cases our court hears.

4. What do you hope to accomplish in your courtroom going forward?

My top three priorities are:
1) meet my deadlines to issue cases timely
2) provide strong mentorship and networking opportunities for my spring/summer interns
3) continue the work of Color of Justice, my service on the Texas Children’s Commission and my work serving on HBA committees.

To address these I must continue to uplift my support staff and work in a timely and organized manner making sure to manage my time closley. I also have to stay out there in the community attending events and being accessible.

5. Why is this race important?

Our intermediate appellate courts in Texas, like the First Court of Appeals where I serve, are usually the last chance parties have for justice. Our decisions affect the life, liberty and property of the parties involved and set precedent for similar cases in our district.
We are an important check and balance for the Texas legislature.

6. Why should people vote for you in November?

As the incumbent and having served on this bench for five years, I now have extensive experience in appellate practice. There is no meaingful reason to replace me with a new, untested candidate. Each term, I am a high-producing judge and my docket moves forward smoothly. Our court works as a team to meet our court-wide clearance rate
each term and we haven’t had any backlogs at the First Court of Appeals in the five years I’ve been at the court.

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SCOTUS leaves Texas anti-EMTALA ruling in place

Posted on October 8, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

Another reminder of what the stakes are this election, in case you needed it.

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to require doctors in Texas to perform certain emergency abortions when the procedure would conflict with the state’s strict abortion ban.

The justices left in place a lower-court ruling that rejected the Biden administration’s claim that federal law requires access to emergency abortion care even in states that restrict the procedure.

As is common when the court refuses to review a lower court decision, the order — issued on the first day of the Supreme Court’s new term — did not explain the justices’ reasoning. There were no noted dissents.

The court’s action comes just months after the justices intervened in a similar case in Idaho and reflects continued fallout and confusion from its decision in 2022 to overturn Roe v. Wade and eliminate the nationwide right to abortion after nearly 50 years.

In the Idaho case, the justices in June temporarily cleared the way for emergency room doctors to terminate pregnancies without being subject to prosecution under that state’s abortion ban. At the time, abortion rights groups and medical experts called the Idaho decision a preliminary victory that did not settle the broader question of whether a federal emergency-care law preempts strict state abortion bans.

In both Idaho and Texas, the Biden administration has asserted that the federal law — the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act — mandates emergency abortion care when it is the only treatment that can save a pregnant woman’s life or prevent serious harm to her health, including conditions short of death such as organ failure or loss of fertility.

[…]

Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar had urged the Supreme Court to get rid of the 5th Circuit decision in light of its action in the Idaho case. Defending the administration’s position, she said a separate decision from the Texas Supreme has led state officials to disclaim any conflict between the Texas law and the federal interpretation of EMTALA. Prelogar said a lower court would probably find that there was no longer any live controversy to resolve.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton had asked the justices to leave the 5th Circuit ruling in place and drew a distinction between the abortion bans in Idaho and Texas. The Texas law, he said, allows for abortion when necessary to prevent a serious risk of “substantial impairment of a major bodily function.”

In both Texas and Idaho, however, the medical exceptions included in abortion bans are vague, using language that has left doctors unsure of how sick a woman must be before they can legally terminate a pregnancy.

“Given that neither exception is particularly clear, and the interpretation is ongoing, it’s not really obvious how different they are,” said Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California Davis who specializes in abortion issues.

By refusing to consider the Texas case, months after sending the Idaho case back to lower courts, the Supreme Court has left all options open for future rulings on emergency abortions, Ziegler said.

“It’s just as likely that Idaho will win in a big way as it is that the Biden administration will win,” she said. “All of these outcomes are on the table.”

Alexis McGill Johnson, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, responded to the court’s action by saying the justices had for a second time this year “punted on clarifying that existing federal law applies to everyone, including those who are pregnant.”

“Pregnant people must be able to obtain the emergency care they need in hospital emergency rooms — which includes abortions, regardless of a state’s abortion ban,” she said.

See here, here, here, and here for some background. The original EMTALA ruling in Texas was for a restraining order, so my presumption here is that SCOTUS is saying they’re not going to change anything until the case has been fully litigated and presumably appealed back up to them. Which is similar to what they did in Idaho except that the initial court ruling there was to enforce EMTALA. As usual, we get the short end of the stick. It will be when this all comes back to SCOTUS in, I don’t know, another year or two, that we see who wins. As Professor Ziegler says, all possibilities remain on the table. CBS News, NBC News, the Associated Press, TPM, and Reform Austin have more.

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One out of three will have to do for now

Posted on October 8, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

The Chron endorses two Supreme Court incumbents and one Democratic challenger. I’m going to focus on that one.

Christine Weems

Campaign donations came in from all over the country, and at first Christine Vinh Weems didn’t know why. The Democrat running for a spot on the Texas Supreme Court filed her papers to run as soon as the application process opened in December.

“It took me a second to realize what was happening,” Weems told us. “What was happening in December was Kate Cox.”

You may recall that Cox became national news after she asked Texas courts to clarify whether the medical exception in the state’s abortion ban would apply to her. She’d recently learned that her expected baby had a fatal genetic condition. Carrying the pregnancy to term could have endangered her health and her ability to have kids in the future.

The all-Republican Texas Supreme Court blocked a lower court’s order that would have allowed Cox to have an abortion. She obtained one in another state. Other Texas women have had to wait until their bodies go into sepsis before doctors, afraid of severe criminal and civil penalties, have been willing to perform abortions to save their lives. In Zurawski v. Texas, a unanimous decision by the court did not provide many of the clarifications women sought.

We’ve repeatedly expressed exasperation over the failure of the Legislature, courts and Texas Medical Board to protect the lives of pregnant women — and we considered the Texas Supreme Court’s rulings on abortion in making the following endorsements. Yet, most cases before this court don’t have to do with hot-button issues. It hears appeals in civil cases such as medical malpractice settlements and disputes over property. We put a premium on integrity, competence and relevant experience, and often endorse candidates with whom we disagree on specific issues.

[…]

Place 4: Christine Vinh Weems, Democrat

The Republican incumbent in this race, John Devine, really is an activist and ideologue masquerading as a judge. In the primary, he narrowly beat out a principled conservative with experience as an appellate judge. We hope enough Republican voters are willing to put integrity above party in the general election.

Devine, 65, did not meet with us. He also routinely misses oral arguments so he can tour Texas to make the sorts of partisan speeches that judicial codes of ethics discourage. Judges ought to approach cases with an open mind, not with their fist jammed on the scales of justice. Another no-no are conflicts of interest, or even the appearance of one. That’s essential to maintaining the trust of the public, but Devine didn’t recuse himself from a sex abuse case the Texas Supreme Court heard against former Southern Baptist Convention leader Paul Pressler, even though Devine worked at Pressler’s law firm at the time the alleged abuse occurred. He’s bragged about being arrested at anti-abortion protests and gained notoriety for putting up a painting of the Ten Commandments in his courtroom. For voters who may agree with his belief that the concept of church-state separation is a “myth,” we ask you to consider whether his conduct matches your deeply held values.

The Democratic candidate, Christine Vinh Weems, 48, is a district court judge in Harris County who hears civil cases. In the Houston Bar Association judicial evaluation she received high marks, and she manages her docket efficiently. Her family fled Vietnam, and she would be the first Asian American elected at a statewide level in Texas. We wish that Weems had more experience in appellate law, but her temperament and experience as a judge will serve her well.

Devine not only violates basic codes of judicial conduct, he’s not showing up for work. We urge Democrats and Republicans to vote for Weems.

In a better world, Devine would never have won an election, but that’s not the world we’re in. I personally think it’s fine to elevate abortion access as an issue in these races and thus support the three Democrats running, if only to send a message and maybe add a bit of viewpoint diversity to the Court. But if for some reason you can only vote for one Democratic Supreme Court candidate, make it Christine Weems so we can get John Devine out of there. By any measure, the Court would be a much better place.

Posted in Election 2024 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Interview with Katherine Culbert

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

Katherine Culbert

Every two years we have an election for Railroad Commissioner, which means that every two years we get a batch of articles explaining how the Railroad Commission has nothing to do with railroads or trains. It’s about energy and regulating the oil and gas industry in Texas, which the Commission and its three Republican members would rather not do. This election’s candidate to change that is Katherine Culbert, who has plenty of knowledge of the industry thanks to her career as a process safety engineer. Among other things, the RRC has oversight on pipelines, which we all became a little more aware of after that deadly crash and massive fireball in the Deer Park/La Porte area. That was one of many things Katherine Culbert and I talked about, which you can listen to here:

We’re getting close to the start of early voting and I’m getting close to the end of this interview series. I still have a few more for you, so stay tuned and as always let me know what you think.

PREVIOUSLY:

Erica Lee Carter, CD18 special election
Sylvester Turner, CD18 general election
Lindsay London, Amarillo Reproductive Freedom Alliance
Plácido Gómez and Dani Hernandez, for the HISD bond
Ruth Kravetz of CVPE, against the HISD bond.
Katie Shumway, League of Women Voters Houston
Teneshia Hudspeth, Harris County Clerk

Posted in Election 2024 | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

The cost of the HISD bond

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

I feel like this would be getting less attention if it weren’t for Mike Miles.

Houston ISD’s $4.4 billion school bond would add an estimated $8.9 billion in debt for the district over more than 30 years if approved by voters in November, according to the election order.

As required by state law, the HISD Board of Managers approved an order on Aug. 8 calling for the school bond election during the upcoming general election. The document includes the ballot language, proposed bond projects and the district’s annual, preliminary projected debt obligations through 2058 if either or both of the propositions in the bond measure pass.

The bond proposes allocating about $2 billion for rebuilding and renovating schools and $1.35 billion for lead abatement, security upgrades, and heating, ventilation and air-conditioning improvements. It would also provide $1 billion to expand pre-K, build three new career and technical education centers and make technology upgrades without raising taxes.

It will be split into two propositions on the ballot that people can vote on separately. Proposition A would allocate $3.96 billion for school building renovations and expansions, including safety and security infrastructure, while Proposition B would allocate $440 million for technology equipment, systems and infrastructure.

Along with the listed cost on the ballot, the election order states that Proposition A will include more than $4.4 billion in estimated interest for the debt obligations, which would equal a combined cost of nearly $8.4 billion. Proposition B would add $89 million in interest payments in addition to the $440 million principal payment, with an estimated total cost of $529 million.

In total, if the bond passes, the principal costs of both measures would be about $4.4 billion, while the total estimated additional interest will be $4.5 billion.

According to the election order, HISD would have a debt service of approximately $2 billion through 2043, independent of the bond election results. The two bond propositions, if passed, would add more than $8.9 billion in debt through 2058 — increasing HISD’s total debt service to more than $10.9 billion, according to district estimates.

The projections are based on several assumptions, including a 30-year term for the four bond issues in 2025, 2026, 2027 and 2028. It also assumes a state-mandated $100,000 homestead exemption, a 5.5% interest rate on the debt and the availability of the Permanent School Fund Guarantee for all debt obligations.

“If the foregoing assumptions are met, the district does not anticipate the need for a tax rate increase to pay debt service on bonds issued pursuant to Proposition A,” the election order said. “Therefore, the estimated maximum annual increase in the amount of taxes imposed on a residence homestead to repay the debt obligations, if approved, is expected to be $0.”

Several HISD parents, teachers and other community members have expressed opposition to the bond due to a lack of trust in state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles, concerns over transparency and accountability and the total cost of the bond measure, which would be the largest in state history if passed. Leaders of the Harris County Republican and Democratic party, HISD’s largest teachers union and the Houston NAACP are among the groups urging residents to vote against both propositions.

“Internal HISD documents reveal that with interest the bond will actually cost nearly $9 billion, more than double the $4.4 billion the district has claimed publicly,” said Zeph Capo, president of the Texas American Federation of Teachers. “Houston families don’t want to spend 30 years paying off this debt as appraisals rise and our taxes inevitably go up.”

I don’t care for this line of attack on the bonds. I don’t know what the exact conditions were for the previous bonds that we passed in 1998 and 2002 and 2007 and 2012, but I would expect that they were similar in nature – bonds are paid back with interest, interest compounds, and that results in a significant increase in the total amount paid. Take a look at your mortgage or car note sometime and see how much the overall amount paid will be if you just make the regular monthly payments. The numbers will vary and would be less if the interest rate were lower, but the basic math is the same.

And that’s why I don’t care for this. At some point, assuming as I do that this referendum will go down, we will want to pass a bond, as we have done every few years in the past and as so many of the current opponents have voted for before. Everyone agrees a bond is needed, the issue is with this one and that issue is Mike Miles. Why make it harder to do when you want to do it? The reason to oppose this bond issuance if one chooses to do so is because we don’t trust Mike Miles. I don’t see why it needs to be more complicated than that.

And again, if you are undecided on this bond or just want to know what people are saying about it, listen to my interviews with Plácido Gómez and Dani Hernandez for the HISD bond, and Ruth Kravetz of CVPE against it. I hope that helps.

Posted in Election 2024, School days | Tagged , , , , , , | 18 Comments

Art Car Museum to get a new home

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

A very pleasant surprise.

Six months ago, Houston’s Art Car Museum rolled out the news that it would shutter at the end of April. But now, plans are revving up to not only keep it open, but give it a brand new home – one where its delightful quirkiness will find a kindred spirit in strangeness.

A $1.25 million gift from the Harithas Family through the South Texas Charitable Foundation will give the recently closed museum a new home on the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art’s soon-to-be-redeveloped campus, located at the intersection of two of Houston’s most culturally significant neighborhoods, the Third Ward and the East End. The gift will ensure a permanent space celebrating art cars.

Visitors can expect rotating exhibitions of mobile masterpieces designed by local, national, and international artists, as well as the personal art car collection of Ann Harithas, who founded the Art Car Museum in 1998 with her husband, Jim. Ann passed away in 2021. Jim followed in 2023 and the beloved museum was left to their heirs, son Thomas Pascal “Will” Robinson and daughters Madeline Merrill, Molly Kemp, and Stephanie Loeffler.

[…]

The family says the Orange Show is a perfect place to carry on the art car legacy.

“The Orange Show was built on a foundation of supporting artists from all walks of life, and encouraging anyone to explore their personal creativity,” said Robinson, who sits on the Orange Show Center’s board. “We couldn’t be happier to entrust the Orange Show with our mother’s legacy and continue allowing Houston and the world.”

No opening date has been set, but it’s likely to be years in the future. Back in 2021, the Orange Show announced a major expansion project, which included expanded exhibit space adjacent to the Orange Show Monument.

See here for the background. I completely agree that the Orange Show is the best place for a revamped Art Car Museum. The Orange Show has been an integral part of the Art Car Parade for decades. They’re as compatible a set as you’ll find. I look forward to the grand opening, whenever it will be.

Posted in Elsewhere in Houston | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Weekend link dump for October 6

Posted on October 6, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

“Back in the Reagan era, Republicans made “neighborhood” a key component of their political vocabulary. But in Trump’s bizarrely dystopian rendering of cities, meaningful place-based ties either don’t exist or don’t matter. Democrats can take the term back, making it the centerpiece of a fresh progressive vision.”

“The FBI is warning timeshare owners to be wary of a prevalent telemarketing scam involving a violent Mexican drug cartel that tries to trick people into believing someone wants to buy their property. This is the story of a couple who recently lost more than $50,000 to an ongoing timeshare scam that spans at least two dozen phony escrow, title and realty firms.”

“Your Favorite Musician’s Favorite App Is About to Disappear“.

“I think we can all agree it’s time to reform the Supreme Court. As of today, I have the bill to do it.”

“Congress is wholly unprepared for a mass casualty event”.

“Confessions of a (Former) Christian Nationalist“. A good and somewhat surprising read.

Don’t depend on Google image searches for your mushroom safety info right now.

“Here are 11 times Trump obeyed the extremist group behind Project 2025″.

RIP, Kris Kristofferson, singer and songwriter who penned “Me And Bobby McGee” among others, and actor who starred in A Star Is Born and many more.

RIP, Dikembe Mutombo, basketball Hall of Famer, humanitarian, star of an iconic Geico commercial. My wife overlapped with him for a year at Georgetown and always said he was a delightful person. Jonathan Feigen of the Chron has some nice words to say as well.

RIP, Pete Rose, famous baseball player. I’ll leave it at that.

“The 2024 Chicago White Sox now stand alone in baseball’s hall of futility — 121 losses and counting, a staggering total too extreme to completely grasp. It’s surreal. It’s jaw-dropping. And if it had not actually happened, you might think it was impossible.”

Four words: Golden Bachelor in Paradise. I’m all in, but honestly what I really want to see is a Gen X Bachelor season. Make it happen, ABC.

“A lifelong Republican who voted twice for Mr. Trump, Mr. McGregor said that he had never imagined that speaking up on behalf of his workers would imperil his family.”

Local radio stations have been a vital lifeline to the people trying to recover from Hurricane Helene.

RIP, John Amos, actor best known for Good Times and Roots.

RIP, Gavin Creel, Broadway actor who won a Tony for “Hello, Dolly!” in 2017.

“Internal Emails Reveal How Hate Overwhelmed Springfield After Trump’s Lies About Haitian Immigrants”.

“A man who for some reason smashed up a guitar with a hammer in Texas may have thought it had been signed by Taylor Swift — but it was not, in fact, an official Swift-certified guitar.”

“How polls have adjusted since 2016″.

“This report aims to increase awareness of the DPRK’s efforts to obtain employment as IT workers and shed light on their operational tactics for obtaining employment and maintaining access to corporate systems.”

“So in comes Melania—and with her, one of the most persistent storylines of the Trump era: Donald Trump may be an extremist but the women around him are supposedly a moderating force. His wife in particular, with her projected sense of mystery and speculation that she is the silent victim of an awful man, has served as a convenient vehicle for this narrative.”

“At least three women are claiming to have had romantic relationships with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in just the last year, as he pursued a long-shot bid for the presidency”. How did this guy even have the time to pretend to run for President? And how is this just coming out now?

“By some estimates, Spruce Pine accounted for 70 percent of the high-purity quartz needed to produce the pure silicon used to make most advanced chips, including those needed for AI. On top of that, a single company in Taiwan, TSMC, manufactures the majority of those chips. And now, the disaster in Spruce Pine is drawing attention to how fragile the global chip supply chain already is.”

“In a previous era, Special Prosecutor Jack Smith’s newly unsealed 165-page brief about whether Donald Trump is immune from prosecution would generate Watergate-level coverage. These days, though, the newly unsealed document detailing the former president’s frantic efforts to steal the 2020 election had already rolled off the top of the New York Times and Washington Post’s homepages by Thursday morning.”

WordPress drama. Just please don’t screw up the software, I cannot do another conversion.

Posted in Blog stuff | Tagged | 1 Comment

Maybe those Appraisal District elections weren’t such a hot idea

Posted on October 6, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

Thanks to Tarrant County for setting the bad example.

The Tarrant Appraisal District’s recent changes to local tax policy might violate Texas law, according to a state lawmaker.

“I don’t believe the actions they’ve taken are legal,” Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, said at a Senate Committee on Finance hearing in early September.

Bettencourt is the architect behind a constitutional amendment that reshaped the way taxing districts are governed in Texas. The amendment approved by voters in November gave residents the power to elect some appraisal district board members for the first time in history. Now, the lawmaker is concerned about the legality of the Tarrant Appraisal District’s subsequent shift in direction, which included major changes to its reappraisal plan — and he’s not the only one.

The Texas Taxpayers and Research Association, which explores the tax and fiscal impacts of proposed legislation, published a report detailing the ways in which Tarrant’s actions could violate state law. The district’s actions, the report states, “raise concerns about equal and uniform taxation, the scope of a (board of directors’) legal authority, and the integrity of the property tax system” should other taxing entities follow in Tarrant’s steps.

But legal concerns haven’t stopped other county appraisal districts from doing just that. Several counties have followed the lead of the Tarrant Appraisal District by enacting changes to their reappraisal plans, including moving reappraisals to once every three years, requiring a new level of evidence to raise property values, and freezing values after a successful protest.

Such changes are a few examples of the way that appraisal districts across Texas are grappling with the unforeseen consequences of a paradigm shift in the way county appraisal district board members are selected. The May elections largely flew under the radar; in Tarrant, they attracted only 6% of registered voters, and turnout rates were far lower in many less populous counties.

Since then, newly elected board members have taken action to address statewide frustration with the property tax burden faced by homeowners. Residents who fear being taxed out of their homes have praised efforts to change reappraisal plans while school districts have derided them, arguing that changes to how properties are assessed will wreak havoc on school finances.

Brent South, chief appraiser for Hunt County and the legislative chair for the Texas Association of Appraisal Districts, said the association didn’t really know what to expect when voters first approved the new elected positions. The association has always taken the position that politics and appraisals don’t mix, and the elections represented a fresh injection of politics into the system.

“And so there was some concern,” he said. “You don’t know the sky is falling until the sky is falling, and while I’m not saying the sky is falling, appraisal is a science.”

South said messing with that science — which is mandated by Texas tax code — could spell trouble.

“If boards of directors are dictating that the appraisal district should no longer appraise at market value, it kind of creates a conflict with what we’re required to do and what the local boards are expecting to be done,” he said.

There’s a lot more, so read the rest. One aspect of this that this story covers but I don’t recall seeing anything about before all the elections was that the Bettencourt bill/amendment largely undoes a signature law from 1979 (called the “Peveto bill” after its author, then-Rep. Wayne Peveto) that created the central appraisal districts and was intended to de-politicize the appraisal process. I like to say that you can’t take the politics out of an inherently political thing, and one can certainly debate how successful the Peveto bill was by its own standards.

But however you look at it, the Bettencourt bill was a huge change from that, one that got basically no debate and no public information beforehand. What it did get was slates of candidates like the three who were elected in Tarrant County (the story also looks at Johnson County, which went further than Tarrant, and Bexar County, which was a lot more modest in its changes) who came in with an agenda and bulled their way through it. And now not only does even Paul freaking Bettencourt think they may have overdone it (thanks for your concern, dude!), but cities and school districts are worried about what it all will do to their finances going forward.

At least here in Harris County we narrowly avoided that fate, thank to Kathy Blueford-Daniels’ win in May. That will only hold if Annette Ramirez wins the Tax Assessor race in November, so don’t get complacent. Maybe Bettencourt will try to clean up his mess a little in the next session. There will be November elections for these positions going forward, though as far as I can tell they will still be conducted as non-partisan races, which will give the zealots some cover. Go read that story and see what we thankfully missed out on, this time. Next time, let’s try to give ourselves some more cushion. Reform Austin has more.

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The Ted Cruz Curse continues

Posted on October 6, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

Sorry, Astros fans.

The Ted Cruz curse strikes (no pun intended) again. Allegedly.

The Texas senator’s attendance at sporting events across the state is famously dreaded, for reasons beyond politics. His appearance at ballparks, football fields and basketball courts has been frequently associated with various Texas teams’ ensuing losses.

And the phenomenon seemingly continued this week, after Cruz was spotted at Minute Maid Park Tuesday and Wednesday for both games of the Houston Astros’ back-to-back losses, which put a quick end to the baseball team’s postseason.

The “Cruz curse” was also the basis for a social media ad last month by Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, who is running to unseat Cruz this November

“Sports fans from across Texas are suffering from the same affliction,” the commercial’s narrator says, going on to blame Cruz for major losses including the University of Texas football team’s defeat in January’s Sugar Bowl and the Houston Rockets’ dashed playoff dreams back in 2018.

“Want to win? Lose Cruz,” the 30-second video concludes.

I first noticed the Cruz Curse after that Longhorn loss in the Sugar Bowl. He was at Kyle Field this September when the Aggies lost to Notre Dame. I’m not sure what’s funnier, that this is a thing at all or that it transcends sports and teams. Sports fans are deeply superstitious and they carry grudges, so you’d think he might be a bit more circumspect about this sort of thing by now. But then, if he were blessed with self-awareness, he wouldn’t be Ted Cruz.

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Guest post: Cornyn Houston Office Protest Week 400

Posted on October 6, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

The following is a guest post from my friend and blogging colleague Neil Aquino, who has led and maintained a civil protest in front of the office of Sen. John Cornyn for nearly eight years. Today he celebrates a milestone for the efforts of all those who have participated. You can join with them at future events on any Tuesday.

Cornyn office protest

The John Cornyn Houston Office Protest will be at the corner of Memorial & Detering for its 400th week this Tuesday, October 8th, 11:30 AM -1 PM, 5300 Memorial Dr.

The Cornyn Houston Office Protest began in January, 2017 as one of a number of Tuesday protests at Republican Senate offices across the country after the election of Donald Trump. It is the only one remaining.

The Cornyn Protest estimates it has been watched by approximately 1200 HPD units. Things we’ve had thrown at us include lit cigars, batteries, potatoes, eggs and a softball. Earlier in 2024, the Protest secured a misdemeanor conviction against a man who had thrown eggs at the group from a moving car.

For all of that however, reactions from passers-by at our busy corner are each week strongly positive. Friendly honks and kind words are far more common than middle fingers. We have longtime supporters in motorists who expect to see us each Tuesday, and a social media presence that brings us followers from across Texas.

The bottom line of the Protest is for others to see people just like themselves willing to stand openly and confidently for democracy. We won’t be pushed out of public space by aggression. With clear threats from authoritarianism coming from the right, we must–in addition to voting–be ready to show up in any way required in the fights ahead.

Please join us Tuesday, October 8th to celebrate our 400th week of effective advocacy on Houston streets.

Posted in Local politics | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Eighteen million registered voters

Posted on October 5, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

Number go up.

Still the only voter ID anyone should need

Texas has been one of the nation’s fastest-growing states since the 1970s, but its voter rolls have at times been stagnant. From 2000 to 2012, the number of registered voters grew by 1.2 million. In only the last four years, the state has added that many voters and more, contributing to the state’s growing competitiveness.

One reason for the recent spike of nearly 1.4 million additional voters is that advocacy groups have learned to work efficiently within the state’s strict rules for registering new voters and have invested money and time in mass voter drives.

“No state makes it as difficult as Texas to register voters,” said Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, the founder of Jolt who is now the executive director of a national voter registration group called NextGen America.

State Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, said the state is only trying disincentivize cheating so voters have confidence that the process is fair.

“We hope when people see that the system is safe, they will be even more likely to participate,” he said.

[…]

In 2013, campaign operatives who previously worked for President Barack Obama launched a group called Battleground Texas. Their mission was to navigate the minefield of Texas voter registration laws to grow the voter rolls. Despite the barriers, Battleground Texas and other groups started to make headway in signing up voters. Other groups joined the effort over the coming years, including Jolt, The Lone Star Project and Be One Texas.

Tzintzún Ramirez said the focus now is on registering younger voters in Texas, between the ages of 18 to 35, who traditionally have some of the lowest registration rates.

“If we look at closing the registration and turnout gap we had to focus on young people,” she said.

[…]

At first Republican groups scoffed at the work of Battleground Texas and Jolt. But as the state’s voter registration has boomed and races have gotten closer, the GOP started responding more aggressively.

Going into 2020, a handful of GOP donors started a super PAC called Engage Texas with the goal of educating and registering Texas voters. The Republican Party of Texas also announced its own initiative called the Volunteer Management Project, which includes longtime Texas GOP strategist Karl Rove, aimed at getting potential Republican voters registered.

They use analytics programs to track people moving to Texas from other states to determine whether they were registered Republicans or voted in GOP primaries in other states. From there, volunteers mobilize to reach out to those potential voters to get them registered and make sure they turn out to vote.

Dave Carney, a top political advisor to Gov. Greg Abbott and Rick Perry before him, said it speaks to a new reality in Texas with a constantly changing electorate that looks different from one presidential election cycle to the next.

“Every campaign is a new campaign,” he said. “What you did last time has no impact on the future. If you want to sit on your past success, pretty soon you’re going to be lamenting the good old days.”

Sen. Hughes’ words are transparently self-serving bullshit, but that’s to be expected. Dave Carney is evil, but he understands the environment he’s in and has been making adjustments. Voter registration growth is a good thing, but that doesn’t mean it’s all to the benefit of one party.

This companion article gets into the numbers.

Texas has surpassed 18 million registered voters for the first time as an increasingly urban and diverse population reshapes the state’s political landscape and pushes the GOP to retool its decades-old playbook to keep a grip on the state.

The state’s voter registration rolls are expanding at a quicker pace than other fast-growing southern states like Florida, North Carolina and Georgia. And they’re surpassing the state’s population growth, a sign that more than just new Texans are signing up to vote.

Since U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz was last on the ballot in 2018 and narrowly won reelection by just 215,000 votes, Texas has added nearly 2.6 million voters — the size of Connecticut’s entire voting rolls.

There’s more, some of which will be quite familiar if you’ve been reading here for awhile, so read the rest. A bit of context here, in 2020 there were 11.3 million votes cast out of just under 17 million registered voters, for 66.7% turnout. With 18.4 million voters now, at that same turnout level there would be about 12.3 million votes cast. Assuming a couple hundred thousand for the minor candidates, the winner in this state will need about 6 million votes. That’s a heck of a lot, but do bear in mind that State Supreme Court Justice Jane Bland hit that number in 2020. Joe Biden got over 5.2 million, a nice achievement but a long way to go. Keep that 6 million mark in mind, and also keep in mind that it could easily be too low. There’s plenty of work to be done.

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ERCOT will connect to the US grid

Posted on October 5, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

How about that?

The power grid better known as the Texas Interconnection, operated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), is famous for being isolated from the other major U.S. grids. But that may soon finally change.

The Department of Energy (DOE) announced Thursday that it would provide up to $360 million in public funding to construct a 320-mile line connecting the ERCOT grid to power grids in the southeastern U.S. According to the DOE, the line, called the Southern Spirit, will be used to “enhance reliability and prevent outages” during potentially catastrophic weather events.

ERCOT’s grid, which can draw power from other grids but is otherwise contained in its own bubble, infamously failed in February 2021 during a significant freeze that gripped the entire Lone Star State. Also known as Winter Storm Uri, the freeze led to outages in 4.5 million homes across Texas.

The DOE said Thursday that the Southern Spirit line, which will run for 320 miles across Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, will have a capacity of 3,000 megawatts (MW), enough to power a minimum of 600,000 homes. The DOE anticipates the project will create more than 850 construction jobs and 305 operations jobs.

“The U.S. transmission network is the backbone of our nation’s electricity system. Though our grid has served U.S. energy needs for more than a century, our country’s needs are changing,” U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy David Turk said in a statement. “DOE’s approach to deploying near-term solutions and developing long-term planning tools will ensure our electric grid is more interconnected and resilient than ever before, while also supporting greater electricity demand.”

The $360 million investment to connect ERCOT to a major U.S. power grid is part of the Biden Administration’s Investing in America agenda. According to Thursday’s announcement, three other energy projects across the country will also receive funding, totaling $1.5 billion in all.

I think we all know the history here, so I’ll skip over that. There was a bill introduced earlier this year to connect ERCOT to the US grid, but that didn’t go anywhere. This was an offshoot of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, according to that DOE press release. I don’t know if ERCOT applied for this grant or if it was awarded by DOE based on objective criteria, but either way we’re getting it.

This story, kindly pointed out to me by Ginger, adds some details.

The projects, spanning multiple states, will add nearly 1,000 miles of new transmission lines and increase grid capacity by 7,100 megawatts (MW). They’ll boost grid reliability, lower energy costs, and support the clean energy transition.

The projects will improve transmission congestion and resilience, especially as the country faces more extreme weather events. By improving connections between regions and making it easier to access renewable energy sources like wind and solar, these projects will make energy more reliable and cost-effective. They’ll also generate nearly 9,000 jobs, supporting local economies in Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas.

In addition to the transmission projects, the DOE released its National Transmission Planning Study, which outlines a long-term vision for meeting future energy needs through 2050. The study highlights the need to double or triple transmission capacity from 2020 levels to ensure reliability and resilience as the energy landscape shifts toward renewables.

A breakdown of those projects is listed, which includes the Southern Sprit line. The story says it’s “designed to prevent outages like the ones during Winter Storm Uri”, which is great to hear. I don’t know whether ERCOT had a hand in bringing this about or if it was just presented to them, but either way it sounds great. Here’s hoping it gets built before that extra capacity is needed.

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PAC-12 adds Gonzaga, UTEP to MWC

Posted on October 5, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

Round and round they go.

The Pac-12 is adding Gonzaga as a member in all sports the school plays starting in July 2026, the conference announced Tuesday.

Gonzaga brings a rich basketball tradition to the refurbished Pac-12, as the Zags have reached the round of 16 of the men’s NCAA tournament nine consecutive times.

According to sources, talks intensified over the past three days. Gonzaga brings strong media value to the league from a basketball perspective, as it’s one of the sport’s top brands and most consistent winners. The Bulldogs have reached every men’s NCAA tournament that has been played since 1999 — a streak of 25 straight years.

Gonzaga has one of the country’s most respected men’s basketball coaches in Mark Few, who has been at the school since 2000, a run that includes a pair of Final Fours.

In a statement, West Coast Conference commissioner Stu Jackson said they had been notified of Gonzaga’s decision, saying Gonzaga had been a “valued member of the WCC for more than four decades.”

Gonzaga is the overhauled Pac-12’s eighth member, but it does not count as the league’s eighth full-time member, as the school doesn’t have football. The Pac-12 still needs to add another member to reach minimum conference thresholds.

The Zags’ press release is here. As it happens, one of my nieces is now a freshman at Gonzaga; her parents and my parents are there visiting for parents weekend. I’m sure this is a big topic of conversation for them – my folks in particular have been big fans of the basketball team for awhile. The Big XII had sniffed around them shortly after UT and OU left and the four other schools joined, but clearly that never developed. This move is unlikely to have any major domino effect, but as noted the PAC-12 is still on the lookout for another full member, so stay tuned.

And along those lines:

UTEP has officially joined the Mountain West Conference, the league announced Tuesday. The Miners will begin competition for all conference sports in the 2026-27 academic year.

UTEP, which had been in deep discussions with the Mountain West in recent days, alerted Conference USA officials of its intent to leave the league prior to Tuesday’s announcement, sources told ESPN.

UTEP was an obvious target for the Mountain West based on its location and the school’s athletic tradition across a variety of sports. The school gives the Mountain West a highly coveted addition in Texas as the league rebuilds after five schools announced they were leaving for the Pac-12.

“We are excited to welcome The University of Texas at El Paso to the Mountain West as the next step in our strategic membership initiatives,” Mountain West commissioner Gloria Nevarez said in a statement Tuesday. “The addition of UTEP restores historic rivalries with several of our member institutions within the geographic footprint and provides valuable exposure in the great State of Texas. We welcome and look forward to competing against the student-athletes of UTEP.”

The addition of UTEP gives the league seven full-time members — joining UNLV, San Jose State, Wyoming, Nevada, New Mexico and Air Force. The Mountain West needs to build to eight members to become a formal conference. (Hawaii remains a football-only member.)

The Miners’ press release is here. I wasn’t aware of any UTEP rumors – or at least, I didn’t blog about them – but this makes sense. They are geographically close and have a past history with several MWC schools. I liked being in the same conference as UTEP and was sad that they didn’t move to the AAC when Rice did. Just as well in retrospect as far as that’s concerned. This is also unlikely to cause a big chain reaction, but I’m sure what’s left of C-USA will be looking for a replacement. And as noted, the MWC still needs an eighth member, too.

Which brings me to the most gobsmacking paragraph I’ve read in awhile, and as someone who follows politics as closely as I do you know that’s a big thing to say:

The Mountain West has also issued a verbal offer to Texas State in recent days, according to sources. No clarity or timeline has emerged on Texas State’s decision. The Pac-12 has also expressed interest in Texas State, sources said.

I for one did not have Texas State, which for the record has only been an FBS school since 2012, being an object of desire for two different conferences on my bingo card. Congrats to the Bobcats for being the belle of the ball right now. We live in such interesting times.

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Dispatches from Dallas, October 5 edition

Posted on October 5, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

This is a weekly feature produced by my friend Ginger. Let us know what you think.

This week, in news from Dallas-Fort Worth, we have a grab bag. There’s election news; Texas stock exchange news, including the return of Governor Goodhair; Tarrant County tax and jail news; news about exonerated convicts in Texas and Dallas County; schools news; an update on the nuns in Arlington; some Fort Worth history; a zooborn complete with Instagram reel; and more.

This week’s post was brought to you by the music of David Byrne’s Women’s Month music playlist. He posts a new playlist at the beginning of every month to his mailing list. I don’t like everything he puts on his playlists, but I always feel like I learned something from listening to them, and I always find something I like. He posts Spotify links, Apple Music links, and puts it on his own website as well. Check it out!

There’s no single story dominating the news this week, so let’s jump right in:

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Republicans for Allred

Posted on October 4, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

I have three things to say about this.

Colin Allred

Since moving to The Woodlands about two years ago, former U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger — one of the most vocal GOP critics of Donald Trump — says he’s met several Texas Republicans who are just as uncomfortable with the direction of his party as him.

Now Kinzinger is trying to convince them to do the unthinkable and vote for a Democrat. Kinzinger is leading a group of Republicans supporting U.S. Rep. Colin Allred’s bid against U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in one of the most hotly contested Senate races in the nation.

It is the latest effort by Kinzinger, who served on the House committee that investigated Jan. 6, to target Republicans involved in the effort to delay the certification of President Joe Biden’s election victory. Cruz was a key figure in the effort, objecting to Arizona’s electoral votes just before the mob breached the Capitol that day.

“When I talk to Republicans, I say, ‘Do you like where the GOP is now?’” Kinzinger said in an interview with Hearst Newspapers.

“There are some that do, and they’re going to vote for Ted Cruz,” he said. “But there are a lot that are embarrassed about where the Republican Party is that are holding onto this hope that, ‘Just after November, we’re going to wake up and come back to what we were.’ Well guess what, we’re not going to do that — particularly if Ted Cruz wins again, because he’s part of the reason we’re exactly in this position.”

Kinzinger, who withdrew from his reelection campaign in Illinois after his district was redrawn to pit him against a Trump-aligned Republican congressman, slammed Cruz for going from Trump’s “nemesis” in the 2016 GOP primary to his “chief supporter.” He argued Allred has no similar allegiance to his party or anyone in it.

“If the Democratic Party decided some day to go off the rails, similar to what the GOP did, I guarantee you, he would be like Adam Kinzinger or Liz Cheney, saying this can’t happen,” he said. Cheney, a Republican who also served on the Jan. 6 committee and is a vocal critic of Trump and Cruz, has also endorsed Allred in the race.

[…]

Kinzinger acknowledged Allred won’t win a majority of Republicans. But even a minority could help decide a close race.

“They’re ready to move on from him, and if we can win even a small percentage of that in a state like Texas, that’s the ballgame,” Kinzinger said.

[…]

The Republicans for Allred group also includes former state Rep. Jason Villalba of Dallas, who is co-chairing the group, as well as about a half dozen other former elected Republicans.

1. I somehow had no idea that Adam Kinzinger was now living in The Woodlands. I should try to interview him.

2. One of the big reasons why Democrats made such a huge stride forward in 2018 is that a whole lot of people who used to vote Republican started voting Democratic that year. You cannot explain the flips in CD07 and HD134, for example, without that happening. They’re far from the only example, and this didn’t just happen in Texas – it’s very much a national phenomenon, just as the migration of non-college-educated voters to the Republican Party has been.

Obviously, Dems did a million times better with turnout in 2018 than they did in 2014, or 2010, or 2006. Registering voters and developing a ground game have been vital as well. But the change in voter behavior, for which we saw a preview in 2016 and still saw remnants of in 2020, was a big factor. I don’t know if that well has been fully tapped yet – Adam Kinziger doesn’t think so, and I very much hope he’s right. The more right he is, the better Allred and other Dems can do.

3. The Cook Political Report has changed their rating of the Texas Senate race from “Likely Republican” to “Lean Republican”. Now, that and whatever the cost of a pumpkin spice latte is (sorry, not a coffee drinker) will get you a pumpkin spice latte. It’s still nice to see. The Trib has more.

Posted in Election 2024 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Trying to save the deep sea coral after the BP oil spill

Posted on October 4, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

Fascinating stuff.

In the early morning, at a lab not too far from the Galveston coast, Shannon Ainsworth is collecting hundreds of tiny, floating brown eggs from a tank of deep-sea coral. She sticks a little plastic dropper into the water, sucks up an egg or two, and deposits them into a beaker on top of the tank. Then she repeats.

The process goes on for several hours until all the eggs in the tank are gone. But that’s just the beginning. The hope is that the eggs will fertilize and then grow—albeit incredibly slowly—into new coral.

Already, some of the tanks in the lab have baby corals, which are growing on tiny rock tiles next to the older, adult coral. The new coral is two years old and the size of a half-fingernail.

“That girl over there,” Ainsworth said, gesturing to a big coral in the back of the tank. “It released over 2000 eggs yesterday. Then we collect them all by hand.”

Ainsworth has been a coral aquarist for almost a year at the Southeast Fisheries Science Center Wet Lab in Galveston with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – a scientific and regulatory agency focused on monitoring weather and oceanic activities. There, she works on the Mesophotic and Deep Benthic Communities – Coral Propagation Technique Development project – which is the long, scientific name for restoring ocean habitats below 164 feet by studying deep-sea coral reproduction.

The work is only one piece of a much larger restoration project, stemming from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill off the coast of Louisiana, which resulted in the discharge of 134 million gallons of oil into the Gulf and the environmental destruction of miles of habitat. About two-fifths of the oil sank to the bottom of the Gulf, contaminating an estimated 770 square miles – an area a bit bigger than the City of Houston – including deep-sea coral communities.

Since 2022, the scientists with the deep-sea coral project in Galveston are studying ways to restore the twelve different coral species from the spill’s damage. For Ainsworth, most days this means collecting eggs, feeding coral, and examining how different species are growing and adapting. Depending on the success of any given technique in the lab, the team could then apply the same technique to the oil spill site.

The work has another benefit too, according to Sasha Francis, gulf restoration education and outreach manager for the project. Unlike the more commonly-known shallow water coral, deep-sea coral is a big mystery in the oceanic world.

“The really impressive part of this is it really hasn’t been done before for these species of corals,” Francis said. “How often do they like to eat? Will they propagate or reproduce in these environments? So the coral labs, along with partner labs, are working together to really have a better understanding of the life cycle.”

There’s a lot more, with some great pictures, so check it out. While the scientists are hopeful about saving the deep sea coral, they’re also learning a ton about it as they go. I wish them all the best

Posted in Technology, science, and math | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Endorsement watch: Once again for Teare

Posted on October 4, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

For the second time this year, the Chron endorses Sean Teare for District Attorney.

Sean Teare

What impressed us most about Teare is his ability to see the bigger picture of the justice system and how all the pieces fit together. His experience certainly helps: he was a Harris County prosecutor for 11 years, trying both misdemeanor and felony cases. He’s tried two capital murders to verdict and was assigned to lead 10 others. He also served on the DA’s Capital Committee for six years, a group of senior prosecutors who sign off on every capital plea bargain and decide whether to pursue the death penalty. He currently works as a defense attorney for the Cogdell Law Firm.

Teare said he’s also been meeting with the Harris County Domestic Violence Coordinating Council and Houston Area Women’s Center to “inform the policies I intend to implement” around domestic violence prosecutions. He’s sitting down with the head of Harris Health Systems to discuss improving diversion programs for defendants with mental health issues. And he’s studying programs in other jurisdictions that serve defendants with substance abuse problems, hoping to find ways to “stop criminalizing behavior that, frankly, the public doesn’t want criminalized anymore.” Teare’s own mother died of a heroin overdose when he was young.

One idea he knows he wants to implement immediately is reinstituting an intake process that Ogg had done away with: a division with a rotating shift of veteran prosecutors with felony or misdemeanor trial experience who can earn overtime pay by working night and weekend shifts. He believes having that institutional knowledge on the front lines evaluating cases will lead to a lower case backlog and fewer defendants in an already overcrowded and unsafe jail.

“Fixing the intake and fixing the morale and making it an easier, better place to work all the way around will reduce the backlog, which will get cases to court faster,” Teare said. “One of the main reasons that we talk about the backlog is because of the humanitarian crisis going on in the jail. We’re killing people there, and we’ve got to find a way to reduce the population of that jail through quicker disposition of the cases.”

Teare added that he wants to foster a culture of mentorship in the agency. Rather than silo the most talented trial lawyers in the homicide division, Teare said he would scatter some of them throughout the agency, so that each misdemeanor and felony division had experienced prosecutors showing younger staff the ropes.

As was the case with the primary endorsement, the bulk of the piece is a critique of the opponent, this time Dan Simons, the previous time Kim Ogg. They had plenty of nice things to say about Sean Teare in addition to all that. You can go back and listen to my interview with Teare if you haven’t already. I’m excited to vote for him.

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Two bits of polling

Posted on October 3, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

Newsweek has a somewhat misleading poll-related story.

Colin Allred

Ted Cruz’s lead over his Democratic challenger Colin Allred in the Texas Senate race has narrowed, one recent poll shows, as voters appear to view the senator less favorably.

A Public Policy Polling/Clean and Prosperous America survey of 759 registered Texas voters showed Cruz is ahead of Allred by 47 percent to 46. In a previous August poll, the incumbent led Allred by 2 points (47 percent to 45). The poll was carried out on September 25-26. The results have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percent.

The survey adds Cruz has a negative net favorability rating, and has fallen from a minus 6 in August to minus 8 points (41 percent favorable and 49 said unfavorable).

Allred has a plus 5 net favorable rating (40 percent favorable and 35 percent unfavorable), down from a plus 7 net rating in August.

The PPP poll data is here; they also polled the Presidential and Senate matchups in Florida. The 47-46 number was in answer to the question “If the candidates for US Senate this fall were just Democrat Colin Allred and Republican Ted Cruz, who would you vote for?” The answer to that was 45 for Cruz, 43, for Allred, and 3 for the Libertarian. As that is the actual contest on the ballot, that’s the result they should have reported. The two-candidate result is sexier, but it’s not a race that actually exists.

They also didn’t report on the Presidential result in the story. That was 49-44 for Trump over Kamala Harris, with 1% for Jill Stein and 0 for independent Cornel West. Given that West is a write-in, and therefore won’t be on the ballot, and there is a Libertarian who will be on the ballot but wasn’t included, this is another result for a non-existent race. I expect better than this. Be that as it may, it’s another example of Trump doing better than Cruz in the polls for us to ponder.

What about Latino voting in Texas? Would you like another poll of Latinos in Texas? You’re in luck.

Vice President Kamala Harris and Democratic Senate candidate Colin Allred have made inroads with Hispanics in Texas, growing their lead over their Republican opponents among likely Latino voters in a recently released Televisa Univision poll.

In a Sept. 12-15 survey of 1,193 likely voters, 46% of Hispanic respondents answered they’d definitely vote for Harris in the Nov. 5 presidential election and another 15% said they probably would. About 24% of Hispanic pollees said they’d definitely vote for former President Donald Trump, with another 11% saying probably.

Allred, looking to unseat two-term U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, led among Hispanic likely voters, with 43% saying they’d definitely vote for him. Cruz garnered 19% definite Latino support in the poll, down from 17% in a Televisa Univision survey from April.

The most recent results marked an improvement for Democrats among this crucial bloc, which makes up about a third of Texas’ eligible voter population. The April survey had President Joe Biden polling at 39% among likely Latino voters in Texas before he dropped out of the race this summer, and Allred had 33% Latino support.

The home page for this poll is here and the Texas results can be found on this page – it’s the “2024 Media Predict Tracker – Texas” downloadable PDF you’re looking for. I don’t know why they only gave a partial result for Allred and Cruz in the Chron story, but the numbers in Texas are Harris 61 (as noted, 46 definite and 15 probable) to 35 for Trump (24 def, 11 prob), and 60 for Allred (43 def, 17 prob) to 29 for Cruz (17 def, 12 prob). Note that these are better numbers for Harris and Allred than in the UnidosUS 2024 poll I cited above. The Texas numbers for President are also right in line with the national poll, which you can get to from this page, the “2024 Media Predict – Swing State Polling” file. I’m not sure if this is all of the US or just the states they highlight on the home page, but either way it’s a larger sample than of just Texas. That one also has Harris up 61-35, with 48/13 def/prob for Harris and 25/10 def/prob for Trump.

No great insights to any of this. Just thought I’d throw some more data at you. Enjoy!

Posted in Election 2024 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Buzbee versus Diddy

Posted on October 3, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

The man stays busy.

Houston attorney Tony Buzbee on Tuesday afternoon announced plans to bring more than 100 lawsuits in multiple states on behalf of people claiming they were sexually abused or exploited by media mogul Sean Combs.

None of the lawsuits had been filed as of Tuesday afternoon. Buzbee said the cases would be filed individually, and the first would come within the next 30 days. He anticipated that lawsuits would be filed most in New York, California and Florida, he said during a news conference from his 75th floor office in downtown Houston.

Buzbee said his law firm and partnering firm AVA Law Group had received more than 3,000 calls from people claiming they were victims of Combs, who has also gone by the stage names Puff Daddy and P. Diddy, since his arrest by federal authorities last month.

After an initial vetting procedure, Buzbee said his firm had chosen to represent 120 people — 60 men and 60 women — in their claims against Combs. Some of the people say they were victimized as minors, Buzbee said. Some were allegedly sexually assaulted after approaching Combs looking for entry into the entertainment industry, other after being invited to his parties, Buzbee said.

“These are not easy cases,” Buzbee said. “They’re very tough. The process is hard, and in some cases the process is very lengthy. These cases are hard to prove. Many times, it’s the victim’s word against the alleged perpetrator. Each of these they will no doubt be publicly attacked by the alleged perpetrators, and in some cases the general public, the feckless and cowardly keyboard warriors love to attack. We know what we’re up against.”

[…]

Buzbee said the allegations of abuse happened between 1991 – when Combs was in the early days of his rap career – to 2024, after he had become a three-time Grammy winner and had an estimated net worth of $1 billion.

Buzbee suggested that other celebrities who attended Combs’ parties could be included in some of the lawsuits, as could banks, pharmaceutical companies and hotels that he said “ultimately profit off this culture and behavior.”

“Any entity who covered it up or helped cover it up, these people who know who they are, should just come forward now,” Buzbee said.

Buzbee has a long history of representing people in high-profile or highly visible cases, victims of the 2005 BP plant explosion in Texas City, embattled Texas Attorney General Ken Paxon and dozens of women who made sexual assault claims against former Houston Texans quarterback DeShaun Watson.

The Watson lawsuits also started as anonymous complaints, before two Harris County judges ruled they had to identify themselves in order for the cases to move forward.

“We’ll have to struggle with that with each one of these cases,” Buzbee said of efforts to keep the complainants anonymous. “Our intention is to file these cases and pursue them until the court tells us otherwise.”

Buzbee also represents a number of the AstroWorld victims; I’m not sure what the status of that litigation is. I don’t plan to follow this closely, but I saw the headline and wanted to make note of it. I hope everyone who was injured gets some justice.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Cool pavement

Posted on October 3, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

Very interesting.

More than 20 people died in Dallas and Tarrant counties from heat-related illnesses in 2023 as Texas saw record heat waves and triple-digit temperatures, according to the counties’ medical examiners.

Heat-related emergency visits to hospitals also spiked.

Cities nationwide are increasingly turning to “cool pavement” to find some relief, and this fall, Dallas officials will see the results of a pilot project.

Phoenix and Los Angeles pioneered pilot projects to coat their streets with cool pavement, which reflects more sunlight and absorbs less heat, reducing temperature spikes. In 2021, San Antonio became the first city in Texas to use the treatment to fight heat, testing it on a small stretch of asphalt.

In April, the city of Dallas shared its findings from a study that identified at least 10 neighborhoods as “urban heat island spots.” Heat islands are urbanized areas that experience higher temperatures than the surrounding countryside, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Cool pavement aims to reduce temperatures in urban environments and mitigate the urban heat island effect.

[…]

Cool pavement traditionally refers to a sealant that has a higher albedo, the fraction of light that a surface reflects, and reflects more incoming solar radiation, lowering the surface temperature and the amount of heat absorbed by the surface.

The definition of cool pavement has expanded to include surfaces that use evaporation to help cool the air, materials that alter surface effectiveness in emitting energy and other technologies that can be applied to help it stay cooler than conventional asphalt.

Cool pavement is applied like regular asphalt. Compared to traditional black asphalt, cool pavement appears lighter and grayer.

But roads must be in good condition for the material to be applied as a layer to extend the life of the pavement surface, which is a limitation.

It is an “overlay sealant,” said Douglas Melnick, San Antonio’s chief sustainability officer. “If the road isn’t in great condition, it doesn’t really adhere very well and deteriorates fast.”

Here’s some more info on the technology from the Environmental Protection Agency. We did our own heat mapping study in Houston recently, and I’m sure we could apply this solution to our city and county as well. I don’t know if anything is in the works, but I’d very much like to see a pilot program for this here.

Posted in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Technology, science, and math | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Texas blog roundup for the week of September 30

Posted on October 3, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

The thoughts and prayers of the Texas Progressive Alliance are with everyone affected by Hurricane Helene. The Eyewall has links to resources and organizations that are helping in the recovery.

Continue reading →

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Interview with Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth

Posted on October 2, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

Last year at this time, I interviewed Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth, whose office was then newly back in the business of running elections. They’ve had quite a few more opportunities to do that since then, from the city runoffs in December through the primaries and runoffs and the HCAD elections and those runoffs. By all accounts they’ve done an excellent job. This November will be perhaps their biggest challenge, as turnout is expected to break records, there are new and occasionally confusing laws and directives from the state, and of course the atmosphere for this election is, to put it mildly, off the chain. I wanted to know how they’re handling it all and what we can expect as we sally forth to the voting centers, and the best way to do that was to ask. So I did, and here’s what I learned:

Next week I’ll be back to candidates, beginning with Railroad Commission hopeful Katherine Culbert. As always, let me know what you think.

PREVIOUSLY:

Erica Lee Carter, CD18 special election
Sylvester Turner, CD18 general election
Lindsay London, Amarillo Reproductive Freedom Alliance
Plácido Gómez and Dani Hernandez, for the HISD bond
Ruth Kravetz of CVPE, against the HISD bond.
Katie Shumway, League of Women Voters Houston

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Amarillo’s Mayor and the abortion travel ban

Posted on October 2, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

A really interesting profile of Amarillo Mayor Cole Stanley, with a closer look at how he has handled the abortion travel ban issue that is now a referendum on their fall ballot.

Cole Stanley

In his brief tenure as mayor of the Panhandle capital, Stanley has managed to upset and surprise a whole range of constituents. Most notably, Stanley has been at the center of the citywide debate over a proposed abortion “travel ban” that would prohibit the use of streets and highways in Amarillo to obtain an abortion in a state where the procedure is legal.

Proponents of the ordinance expected Stanley, a Republican, along with the rest of the council to rubber stamp the proposal like so many other city leaders across Texas did. Opponents don’t think he’s done enough to squash the matter, which will be up for a citywide vote in November.

[…]

Stanley, 46, said he believes legislating anything related to abortion is above his grade.

“That’s just not my job,” he said in an interview with The Texas Tribune.

Texas lawmakers have already made abortion illegal in almost all instances. Various reports suggest more than 35,000 women have left the state to get an abortion, a fact that fuels the anti-abortion activists who pushed the ordinances in many rural towns and counties last year.

Amarillo, a city of 202,000 people, is a gateway to New Mexico and Colorado, two of the nearest states that allow abortion and have seen an influx of Texas women at their clinics. The city’s proximity made it a key target for the grassroots anti-abortion movement, which began focusing on these bans and other ways to limit abortion access in 2023, just as Stanley was elected mayor.

“I don’t think that was the kind of decision he thought he would be making when he was running for mayor,” said Harper Metcalf, co-founder of the Amarillo Reproductive Freedom Alliance.

Stanley — a conservative leader who ran on faith, family and freedom — rejected the ordinance after proponents signaled they were unwilling to compromise. Stanley was prepared to adopt a local policy that mirrored state law and defined Amarillo as a “sanctuary city” for the unborn but did not include the travel provisions.

Residents were surprised. For his part, Stanley handled the issue the same way he has many other issues that have crossed his desk. He keeps his even-tempered demeanor during meetings. He routinely checks if anyone else wants to address the council in public comment sessions — regardless of if it’s late in the evening and they didn’t sign up. Through this, the council has heard from women’s rights advocates, anti-abortion activists, doctors, lawyers, and every concerned citizen in between.

Stanley acknowledges that some voters might believe he’s abandoned his conservative values. He insists he hasn’t — a mayor has to think about the entire city, not just his own policy preferences.

“This has been a good test of if I can stay true to myself, and care more about others than I do myself,” Stanley said. “So far so good, but I’ve taken a few friendly arrows in the back along the way.”

[…]

Stanley tries to work at his actual job a few times a week, but being the mayor can be a full-time, unpaid job on its own, given the gravity of the role.

He’s spent even more time at City Hall since the anti-abortion ordinance was introduced. The council has been inundated with emails, calls and letters from both sides. Council duties feel heavier than a typical 40 hours at his job, he said.

“On construction sites, I don’t have a nine-hour meeting where I’m engaged with different sides trying to get the upper hand in a debate,” Stanley said.

There’s been no shortage of influential people weighing in from outside the city limits too.

Twenty state lawmakers voiced early support for it through a letter, and other municipal leaders have written letters to the council too. Meanwhile, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services this month to try to block a federal rule that protects the medical records of women from criminal investigation if she has an abortion in a state where it’s legal.

National women’s groups, including the Women’s March, have come out against it. And U.S. Senate candidate Colin Allred, a Dallas Democrat in Congress, stumped against it with the Amarillo Reproductive Freedom Alliance.

From the beginning of the debate, Stanley has been openly conflicted. He has said he personally opposes abortions and calls himself “pro-life.” However, he has been especially critical over the role the City Council should play. He believes in small government, and says this ordinance goes against that principle.

“It’s as big government as they come, in terms of jurisdictional overreach,” Stanley said.

Steve Austin, a spokesperson for the Sanctuary City for the Unborn Initiating Committee, said they’ve had a frustrating and disappointing experience working with Stanley and the council, aside from member Don Tipps. Tipps wanted the council to support the ordinance.

“We love Mayor Cole Stanley and the rest of the City Council, but they just really let us down,” Austin said in an emailed statement to the Tribune.

The so-called travel ban, which originally flipped the city upside down a year ago, is now weeks away from being decided by voters. Even after rejecting it, the council has still discussed the ordinance. The only difference is now, they’ve had to work out how to fit an 18-page ordinance on an election ballot so voters can be informed.

Metcalf, with the Amarillo Reproductive Freedom Alliance, said it would be better if the city wasn’t spending time, money and energy on the ballot proposition. However, she does think putting it on the ballot was the best the council, and Stanley, could do.

“He was put in a position where he had a difficult choice to make,” Metcalf said.

Austin, with the sanctuary city committee, said they don’t understand why the council rejected it. He suggested a campaign by local and national organizations may have played a role. Regardless, he says their mission is no longer to convince the mayor or the council, but to inform Amarillo voters.

It’s a long story and it starts with a wild tale about wrestling, so read the whole thing. I have no complaints with what Mayor Stanley and the Council did – there’s a process for putting items on the ballot in Amarillo as is the case with most cities, so once they did the right thing by voting down the SCFTU ordinance, it was out of their hands. I think the fact that they did vote it down is largely a testament to the Amarillo Reproductive Freedom Alliance and the fact that they had the better argument – this was an overreach, it was not needed, it couldn’t be enforced, it was a big infringement on individuals, and so on. I also get a sense of entitlement from the pro-forced birthers. They’re not used to being disagreed with by people they consider to be fellow travelers.

Anyway, as I said it’s worth your time to read. It’s also worth your time to listen to my interview with Lindsay London of ARFA, an organization that deserves your support. Winning this fight would be a very big deal.

Posted in Election 2024 | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Some tiny trimming of Miles’ wings

Posted on October 2, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

Ain’t much, but I guess it’s something.

Houston ISD has quietly published a new document draft that would reduce state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles’ authority in appointing members to the committee overseeing the potential $4.4 billion school bond if approved.

According to its five-page charter, the Bond Oversight Committee will be responsible for monitoring progress of bond projects, providing regular updates to district leaders, communicating allegations of wrongdoing, potential waste or fraud to the superintendent and other oversight duties if the district’s bond measure obtains voter approval on Nov. 5.

The oversight committee’s charter — which outlines the committee’s purpose, structure, membership, duties and responsibilities and ethics policy — was first completed in July. However, the district published a new draft of the charter earlier this month to expand the committee’s size, reduce the group’s responsibilities and adjust the appointment process.

The initial document said Miles would be the sole person responsible for appointing all members to the committee after consulting with the appointed Board of Managers. Under the new version of the charter, the Board of Managers will be responsible for appointing committee members in a vote at an upcoming public board meeting.

The district’s executive leadership team will still review each applicant’s experiences and qualifications before submitting their recommendations to Miles. However, instead of directly appointing candidates, he will recommend candidates to the board that they will vote on.

The modification to the charter comes after some HISD parents, families and community members had expressed concern about Miles’ sole role in appointing members, due to, in part, a lack of trust in his leadership in the district and the desire for a more independent accountability mechanism.

HISD community member Claire Robinson said it’s “better than nothing” that HISD has modified the charter to reduce Miles’ authority, but she wishes he was not involved in the process at all. She said she’s still skeptical about appointed board members being responsible for deciding on the makeup of the committee, particularly if Miles is recommending the candidates.

“I don’t feel the Board of Managers has a great track record of listening to the community and what our issues are and what our concerns are,” Robinson said. “I feel like, just like they have for the past year and some change, they’ll just approve whatever Mike Miles puts in front of them, and so that’s not satisfactory to me.”

[…]

While most of the committee’s responsibilities from the old charter have remained, the committee is no longer responsible for providing status reports on its activities to the Superintendent or the Board of Managers, reviewing the district’s efforts to maximize bond revenues or visiting facilities or grounds where bond funds have or will be expended.

HISD parent Brooke Bornick said she believes responsibilities should have been added — not subtracted — to the oversight committee’s charter, including the ability to investigate wrongdoing or require audits to ensure that bond funds are spent as planned.

The changes are “all about removing the ability for this appointed committee to have any insight into what’s happening,” Bornick said. “There’s no legitimate reason to remove them from any actual oversight, unless oversight was never the intention.”

Honestly, Claire Robinson and Brooke Bornick speak for me. Robinson’s reaction was almost word for word my own when I first read this story. Maybe the Board of Managers might give some real scrutiny to whoever Miles put before them. But I’m gonna need to see that happen before I believe it.

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Judicial Q&A: Judge Kristen Hawkins

Posted on October 1, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

(Note: As I have done in past elections, I am continuing the series of Q&As for judicial candidates in contested November elections. I am running these responses in the order that I receive them from the candidates. Much more information about Democratic candidates who are on the ballot in Harris County, including links to the interviews and judicial Q&As done for March and for November, can be found on Erik Manning’s spreadsheet.

Judge Kristen Hawkins

1. Who are you and in which court do you preside?

Kristen Hawkins
Judge, 11th District Court

2. What kind of cases does this court hear?

The 11th District Court hears civil cases, including those involving injuries, contract disputes, real estate, taxes, and injunctions.

3. What have been your main accomplishments during your time on this bench?

I have presided over more 60 jury trials and 95 bench trials. I have been appointed to preside over two complex multidistrict litigation cases. I am proud of my work as the Chair of the Jury Committee and Co-Chair of the Reintegration Task Force. In these positions I created the process to have fair and safe in-person jury trials during the pandemic. As a result of my work, Harris County led the state in jury trials during COVID. Tex-ABOTA honored me as Jurist of the Year for my work on jury trials during the pandemic.

4. What do you hope to accomplish in your courtroom going forward?

Going forward I will remain committed to due process, access to the courts, protecting the integrity of the court system, and maintaining an independent judiciary.

5. Why is this race important?

District courts hearing civil cases provide citizens with a way to resolve disputes and seek compensation. It is important that the judge presiding over this court remain committed to due process, access to the courts, protecting the integrity of the court system, and maintaining an independent judiciary.

6. Why should people vote for you in November?

I am a strong, qualified candidate with eight years of experience as a district court judge. I remain committed to finding ways to engage all citizens in our judicial system. I am committed to due process, access to the courts, protecting the integrity of the court system, and maintaining an independent judiciary. I am and have always been passionate and intellectually curious about the law, the justice system, and the 6th and 7th Amendment rights to trial by jury. I am double board certified in personal injury and civil trial law.

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HCDP opposes the HISD bond

Posted on October 1, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

I have no idea where they’re going to get the votes for this thing.

Both the Harris County Democratic and Republican Party executive committees have unanimously voted in favor of resolutions opposing the largest school bond in state history, which is facing more public pushback than HISD’s previous bonds due largely to community opposition to the state takeover and state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles.

The Harris County Democratic Party county executive committee adopted a resolution against the bond during its Sunday meeting, where it cited “the harmful impacts on HISD schoolchildren,” “ethical, governance and financial risks” and “lack of transparency and accountability to taxpayers” associated with Miles’ leadership of the district.

“While the Harris County Democratic Party supports public education and acknowledges the need for full funding, including bonds, it opposes the HISD $4.4 billion bonds, Proposition A and B, due to Superintendent Mike Miles’ fiscal mismanagement, inadequate oversight and the detrimental impact on students and public education since the takeover,” the resolution said.

Ruth Kravetz, co-founder of Community Voices for Public Education, said she supports funding for public education, but she wrote and presented the resolution at the committee’s meeting because she believes Miles and the Texas Education Agency’s intervention into the district is harming students, parents and teachers.

“I presume that the Harris County Republican Party has different reasons to oppose the bond than the Harris County Democratic Party, but for different reasons, people on both sides of the aisle found an abundance of evidence that says, ‘Not today. We need a better bond, and we can vote for a better bond sometime in the future,’” said Kravetz, a Democratic precinct chair.

[…]

Both parties’ official opposition to the bond comes as leaders of the Houston NAACP, the Houston LGBTQ+ Political Caucus, the League of United Latin American Citizens Council 60, and the district’s largest teachers union have already said they plan to vote against the bond due, in part, to their lack of trust in Miles and concerns over financial accountability.

The measure has, however, seen support from multiple HISD principals, elected trustees and a coalition of Houston organizations, including Good Reason Houston, the Greater Houston Partnership and Houstonians for Great Public Schools, who say the bond is necessary to fix urgent infrastructure needs in the district’s 274 schools.

You can listen to my interviews with Plácido Gómez and Dani Hernandez for the HISD bond, and the aforementioned Ruth Kravetz of CVPE against the HISD bond. Not everone pays attention to what the political parties do, and of those who do not everyone will follow them. As I’ve said, I’m an unenthusiastic supporter of the bond (I am a precinct chair and was at Sunday’s meeting; I did not vote on the resolution – it was a voice vote so I just kept my mouth shut). Anecdotally at least, I’m very much in the minority. If and when there’s a more visible campaign for the bond – there’s a colorful if perhaps limited campaign against it already going on – we’ll see if they have an effect. For now, I just don’t see how this thing passes. Campos, also a bond supporter, has more.

Posted in Election 2024, School days | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

RIP, Judge Frank Aguilar

Posted on October 1, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

I’m sorry to hear this.

Judge Frank Aguilar, who presided over the 228th District Court, died Sunday, according to county officials. He was 66.

Other judges were notified about Aguilar’s death around 9 p.m. in an email from 55th District Court Judge Latosha Lewis Payne, local administrative judge over the courts. Payne, without elaborating in the email, described Aguilar’s death as unexpected and asked that others pray for his family and the criminal district judges who knew him.

Aguilar, a Democrat, was elected to the Harris County bench in 2018. His term would have ended in 2026.

Details about his death were not immediately available.

As the story notes, it had been a challenging year for Judge Aguilar; I won’t get into that at this time. His term runs through the end of 2026, and as per law Greg Abbott will name a replacement to fill out his term. My condolences to Judge Aguilar’s family and friends.

UPDATE: More information.

The two-term criminal judge died Sunday after attending a Texans football game as he crashed his white Jeep Rubicon into a utility pole in the 7500 block of State Highway 288 feeder road, according to a friend and a source inside the Houston Police Department.

Paramedics rushed him to a hospital, but he did not survive. A 57-year-old passenger suffered non-life threatening injuries. Detectives pledged to investigate the crash further.

Very sad. May he rest in peace.

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Interview with Katie Shumway of the League of Women Voters of Houston

Posted on September 30, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

This week we’re going to spend some time with people who are working on the nuts and bolts of this election. For over 100 years, the League of Women Voters of Houston has been the premier organization for information about elections, candidates, the process of voting, and much more. Their annual voters guide – fresh off the presses for 2024 – is the go to resource for non-partisan information about who candidates are and where they stand on vital issues. Their staff and volunteers work to get people registered and to turn out to vote. That kind of work is a bit more challenging in this day and age, with ever-changing laws and a lot of misinformation being spread. I had the opportunity to talk to Katie Shumway, the Executive Director of the LWVH about their mission and methods, what they can do to help you or someone you know prepare to vote, and what you can do to help them help others like you. Here’s what we talked about:

On Wednesday I will have an interview with Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth. Next week we’ll be back to candidate interviews. Let me know what you think.

PREVIOUSLY:

Erica Lee Carter, CD18 special election
Sylvester Turner, CD18 general election
Lindsay London, Amarillo Reproductive Freedom Alliance
Plácido Gómez and Dani Hernandez, for the HISD bond
Ruth Kravetz of CVPE, against the HISD bond.

Posted in Election 2024 | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

Vote harvesting provision of omnibus voter suppression law SB1 blocked in federal court

Posted on September 30, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

Very timely, even if it took forever to get here.

A federal judge ruled on Saturday that part of a Texas law that enacted new voting restrictions violated the U.S. Constitution by being too vague and restricting free speech.

The ruling, made by U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez, immediately halted the state’s ability to investigate alleged cases of vote harvesting, such as the investigation into the League of United Latin American Citizens by Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Before today’s ruling, a person who knowingly provided or offered vote harvesting services in exchange for compensation was committing a third-degree felony. This meant that organizers of voter outreach organizations and even volunteers could spend up to ten years in prison and fined up to $10,000 for giving or offering these services.

According to Republican lawmakers, the provision was put in place to prevent voter fraud and secure election integrity. However, in the ruling, the judge noted that there was widespread confusion about how to implement the canvassing restriction from local election administrators. This confusion also left voter outreach organizations uncertain about whether they could provide volunteers with food or bus fare because it could look like compensation.

Many organizations – including La Union del Pueblo Entero, LULAC, and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund – have filed lawsuits against many other provisions of the law, including voter assistance and mail-in ballot restrictions. The challenges to these provisions have not been ruled on yet. The original complaints were filed in August and September 2021.

Before the law, organizations like OCA-Greater Houston, an advocacy organization for people of Asian and Pacific Island descent, would host in-person election events and allow attendees to bring their mail-in ballots in order to receive help like language assistance.

Nina Perales, vice president of litigation at MALDEF, wrote that “Today’s ruling means that voter outreach organizers and other advocates in Texas can speak to mail ballot voters about issues on the ballot and urge voters to support improvements to their communities.”

See here for some background. I had originally thought that this was a more recent action taken in response to Ken Paxton’s voter purge rampage, but no, this was an older lawsuit that had dropped off the radar because it’s been three years. Still, the timing is felicitous, though there’s always the danger of the Fifth Circuit putting a stay on the ruling. I’m just going to celebrate the win for now and worry about the rest later. There’s a copy of the ruling in the story, and Texas Public Radio has more.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

More on Fertitta and the WNBA

Posted on September 30, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

He does sound serious.

The Houston Rockets are putting together a proposal to bring a WNBA franchise back to the city but are currently awaiting further instruction from the league’s representatives, Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta and president of business operations Gretchen Sheirr confirmed Tuesday.

Although Fertitta had expressed his desire and intent to fund a Houston WNBA team multiple times in recent months, he had not previously disclosed details about talks with the league or a timeline. On Tuesday, at the grand opening of the Rockets’ new training facility, Sheirr said that she is leading the proposal and has engaged with an independent firm hired by the WNBA to lead the expansion process.

In its current round of expansion, the WNBA has awarded franchises to three cities — the San Francisco Bay Area, Toronto and Portland — to begin play in 2025 and 2026, and is looking to add a 16th team before 2028.

Sheirr said the WNBA has yet to set a deadline for interested parties to submit proposals.

“The WNBA recently adjusted the process a little bit given the immense interest in a variety of cities across the country, so they hired an outside firm, so we’re obviously working with them,” Sheirr said. “We have all the resources internally, so the city’s gonna play a part of that. But we’re in a good spot right now. We’re in a little bit of a holding pattern to see how they’re going to run this process.”

The Rockets’ bid will be entirely privately funded with Fertitta as the principal investor. Toyota Center is owned by the Harris County Sports Authority, but the Rockets’ lease stipulates that Fertitta has total control over the arena. Although the sports authority would have to sign off on a WNBA team at some point, the Rockets are firmly in the driver’s seat.

Nashville, South Florida, Philadelphia, Denver and Austin are among the other cities vying for a WNBA franchise. Most of those cities have been involved in the expansion process for months, if not years.

Fertitta acknowledged on Tuesday that the Rockets “came in a little late to the game,” but said he believes Houston is a strong expansion candidate because of the Rockets’ existing infrastructure.

[…]

“I felt like it’s time to step up, and the city of Houston deserves a WNBA team for all the young female athletes that live in the city,” Fertitta said. “Are we going to try to get it? Yes. Do I think that we’re in the top 50% just because of the strength of our NBA team and our leadership here? But it’s not an automatic. Do we want it? Yes, we’re going to put together a great bid.”

See here for the previous update. As the story notes, the cost of a WNBA franchise has gone up since the first expansion team was awarded, but it’s still well within his means. If he wants it, he can afford it. Whether we get it or not remains to be seen, but we ought to be genuine contenders. I’m rooting for him. The Press has more.

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Weekend link dump for September 29

Posted on September 29, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

“Parental Rights Face a Surprising Moment of Truth at the Supreme Court”.

“Immigrants are unsung heroes of global trade and value creation”.

“Elon Musk, from behind a massive army of bodyguards, now tweeting 150+ times a day”.

Lost was a very good show that just celebrated the 20th anniversary of its premiere. TV is what it is today in part because of Lost.

“Self-service kiosks at McDonald’s and other fast-food chains have loomed as job killers since they were first rolled out 25 years ago. But nobody predicted what actually happened.”

RIP, Eugene “Mercury” Morris, two-time Super Bowl-winning running back for the Miami Dolphins.

RIP, Kathryn Crosby, actor, singer, widow of Bing Crosby.

RIP, Dick Moss, lawyer who won the 1975 MLB arbitration cases involving Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally, thus ending the reserve clause and paving the way for free agency.

“That’s not hypocrisy, that’s consistency.”

“Nevertheless, the Harris-Walz agenda tilts heavily toward families just starting out. What’s missing is an equally robust set of ideas for families in midlife or nearing retirement. Gen X needs an opportunity agenda, too.”

“Even solar energy’s biggest fans are underestimating it”.

RIP, Zinetta Burney, trailblazing community activist and lawyer who founded the first African American female law firm in the U.S. and served for 15 years as a Justice of the Peace in Harris County. She was an icon, no question about it.

Hey Congress, you want to regulate AI, this would be a good place to start.

“Kmart, once one of America’s leading discount retailers, is closing its last full-size store in the mainland United States.”

“Sadly, by the way, there’s a lot of suburban women, a lot of suburban women that are like ‘listen, abortion is it, if I can’t have an abortion in this country whenever I want I will vote for anybody else.’ Okay, it’s a little crazy by the way, but especially for women that are like past fifty, I’m thinking to myself: I don’t think that’s an issue for you.”

“[Georgia’s new election] rules will almost certainly not hamstring the certification of Georgia’s electoral votes. And even if certification is delayed, such delays do not open up a legal loophole for Trump to overturn the election.”

“In a first, NHTSA proposed forcing car companies to limit the risk of pedestrian head injuries in a collision. If the proposal becomes law, models whose front ends pose excessive danger to people walking—think hulking SUVs and pickups—could no longer be legally sold. That would represent a major step toward addressing the soaring number of U.S. pedestrian deaths, which hit a 40-year high in 2021.”

“Beyond this, even if the hole is a genuine problem I keep wondering what people think we ought to do about it. On an individual level, sure, there are things that can help: therapy, self-help, meditation, religion, etc. But on a societal level? We’re just not going back to the 19th century.”

Remember the early aughts reality show Joe Millionaire? It really sucked.

If it’s not an official Netflix event, you should probably treat any so-called “Bridgerton experiences” with great suspicion.

“The time to act is now. The millions of people who rely on your products everyday deserve to know how you will protect their privacy in the future and the steps you are taking now to mitigate against the potential harms should extreme and far-reaching restrictions on abortion care continue to be established. It’s not enough simply to make pro-choice promises to the press or to offer your employees the benefits all Americans should have access to.”

“Major League Baseball, to my immense disappointment, does not have a provision for drawing lots. But even if it did, we wouldn’t have seen it used.”

Wishing Tommy Kramer all the best.

Rudy Giuliani has been disbarred in Washington DC. There are a lot more lawyers from the effort to overturn the 2020 election who deserve a similar fate.

RIP, Dame Maggie Smith, legendary actor known for Downton Abbey, the Harry Potter movies, and so much more.

Posted in Blog stuff | Tagged | 4 Comments