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April, 2016:

Saturday video break: It’s A Sin To Tell A Lie

Combining two of my favorite things in this post, beginning with the Asylum Street Spankers:

Man, I miss these guys. I caught every show they did in Houston for several years running, including some in the most smoke-filled room in town, a dive called Rudyard’s, back before the city’s no-smoking ordinance was extended to bars and other non-eateries. Probably took a couple of years off my life, but it was worth it. They owned any stage they were on, and their range and musicianship could not be beaten. Oh, and they all had potty mouths, as I probably should have warned you before you played that clip. Oh, well.

Did you know that Brent Spiner, a/k/a Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation released an album back when that show was on the air? It was called Ol’ Yellow Eyes Is Back, and it featured this song. You can probably guess what happened next:

With bonus Patrick Stewart, even. This, THIS, is why the Internet was invented. Anyone who tells you otherwise is telling you a lie. And you know what telling a lie is.

UPDATE: How about this, from the Quebe Sisters?

Awesome. Thanks to Ginger in the comments for the recommendation.

SCOTUS declines to intervene in voter ID case for now

Not what I would have wanted, but not the end of the line.

Still the only voter ID anyone should need

Still the only voter ID anyone should need

Even as a federal appeals court prepares to review the constitutionality of Texas’ controversial voter ID law, the law will remain in effect, the U.S. Supreme Court said in an order Friday.

However, noting the time-sensitive nature of the case as the November elections approach, the Supreme Court also hinted that if the full U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals hasn’t issued a definitive ruling by July 20, the justices may revisit the issue.

[…]

Oral arguments are scheduled for May 24.

In the interim, civil rights groups filed a petition with Justice Clarence Thomas, who sits at the head of the 5th Circuit to review emergency appeals. One the groups, the Campaign Legal Center, asked the Supreme Court to strike down the questionable laws while their legality is determined, so that there is sufficient time to spread information about who can vote in the November general elections.

Texas officials asked the justices to let the law stand, arguing that Texas will ultimately win the case. If the law were struck down temporarily and then restored later, it would cause “irreparable injury,” they said.

On Friday, the Supreme Court sided with Texas officials – but seemed to push the 5th Circuit toward making a speedy ruling as the presidential election approaches.

“The Court recognizes the time constraints the parties confront in light of the scheduled elections in November,” the Supreme Court’s order said. “If, on or before July 20, 2016,” the 5th Circuit hasn’t taken any action, the nine justices might revisit the issue, it added.

See here, here, and here for some background. A fuller quote from the SCOTUS ruling, via the Chron story, is “If, on or before July 20, 2016, the Court of Appeals has neither issued an opinion on the merits of the case nor issued an order vacating or modifying the current stay order, an aggrieved party may seek interim relief from this Court by filing an appropriate application. An aggrieved party may also seek interim relief if any change in circumstances before that date supports further arguments respecting the stay order.” We’ll see if this at least puts a bit of a fire underneath the Fifth Circuit’s robes. A statement from the Mexican American Legislative Caucus (MALC) is beneath the fold, and the Lone Star Project and Trail Blazers have more.

(more…)

GetMe waits in the wings

No matter what happens with the rideshare repeal referendum in Austin, there will be at least one vehicle for hire company in the capital city.

Early voting is underway in Austin on Proposition 1, where residents will decide which regulations the city should adopt for vehicle-for-hire companies like Uber and Lyft.

Both companies have pledged to leave the city if the proposed ordinance is not adopted — a claim they’ve made good on in three Texas cities this year. But at least one ride-hailing company insists it can fill the gap Uber and Lyft would leave behind.

“We’re not going to be the donkey or the elephant,” said Jonathan Laramy, the chief experience officer for Get Me LLC, which the company has stylized as getme. “We’re here to stay. Vote Prop. 1, vote Prop. 2 – we don’t care.”

[…]

Laramy said getme — which currently operates in Austin, Dallas, Houston and Las Vegas — is willing to adhere to any local regulations, as long as the process for obtaining fingerprint-based background checks is “fast, easy and cost effective.”

“We’re a good corporate citizen,” Laramy said, adding that the company is willing to collaborate with cities on their regulations.

While his company is still working out the specifics, Laramy said that “at some point, we will fingerprint all of our drivers” — even in cities without a requirement.

If Austin voters do not approve the proposed ordinance, Uber and Lyft have said they will leave the city — although The Daily Dot reported last week that Uber fully intends to stay, regardless of the outcome of the election. If the companies leave, Laramy said getme would be prepared to process a potential influx of driver applications.

“We have a platform where we could actually — and we already have this in place and ready to go — sign up conceivably 5,000 drivers in a month, if not more,” Laramy said. He would not elaborate on specifics of the plan, but he said it involved “using information that’s already been done and then verifying and showing us that.”

After starting up in Dallas in February 2015, getme recently relocated its headquarters to Austin. Laramy said it has more than 10,000 drivers across the four cities where it operates, more than 2,000 of whom are in Houston. The company boasts 6 corporate employees and a handful of contractors, making it a significantly smaller operation than ride-hailing giants Uber and Lyft.

Laramy says the company soon plans to offer services in Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago and Atlanta. In Texas, he said, the company is launching operations in Galveston next week and Corpus Christi this summer.

This follows Uber’s cessation of operations in Galveston and Corpus Christi earlier this year after both cities adopted fingerprint background check requirements. Laramy said getme’s interest in both cities was unrelated to Uber’s actions and that they had planned to launch in both locations well before Uber left.

“You can’t get home if you take a ride down there,” said Laramy, describing someone looking to travel between Houston and Galveston using getme. “It’s silly not to have both cities.”

See here and here for more on GetMe, which will likely get a little extra exposure here in Houston now as well. That Daily Dot report seems thinly sourced and contradicts everything we’ve heard so far, but who knows. Regardless of the outcome on May 7, I suspect there will be more than a few people in Austin looking for an alternative to Uber and Lyft, so whether they clear out or not, this is a smart move on GetMe’s part. Has anyone out there used them?

Cornyn files bill to speed up floodgate construction process

Credit where credit is due.

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn filed legislation Wednesday that he says would expedite the long process of constructing a hurricane protection system for the Texas coast, including the particularly vulnerable Houston region.

But while local officials cheered the high-profile support, it’s unclear how much the measure would actually speed anything up.

Most agree on the need to build a project known as the “coastal spine” — a massive floodgate and barrier system — to protect the Houston region from a devastating hurricane that could kill thousands and cripple the national economy. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has estimated that construction on any such system for Texas couldn’t begin until 2024 at the earliest.

Cornyn’s bill is intended to hurry things along by requiring the Corps to take local studies into account and by eliminating the need for Congress to authorize construction of whatever project the Corps recommends.

The Corps has already said it would consider locally done studies, however. And while getting rid of the need for Congressional authorization could shave off a small amount of time, the real hurdle will be getting Congress to help fund what is sure to be a multi-billion-dollar project.

“The devil’s in the details, right?” said Bob Mitchell, president of the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership. “But I will tell you that for the senator to step up and start this process is very positive, and it can’t do anything but help … the positive is Senator Cornyn has done something, and we’ve got to build on it.”

See here, here, and here for the background. Shortly thereafter, Cornyn’s bill had a House companion.

Two days after U.S. Sen. John Cornyn filed legislation seeking to expedite a hurricane protection plan for Texas, U.S. Rep. Randy Weber said he expects to introduce a companion bill in the U.S. House in the coming weeks.

The two Republicans hope their efforts will speed up the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ long process of studying, approving and building a hurricane protection system for the Texas coast. (The Army Corps has estimated that under a normal timeline, construction on such a system could not start until 2024 at the earliest.)

“We’re heightening awareness, we’re trying to get this ratcheted up as quickly as we can, so that when appropriations do come into play, we can say, ‘OK, here’s the project we’ve been talking about, here’s why it’s important, and we’re just one step closer to getting funding for it,'” Weber said Friday in a phone interview.

As you know, I have zero faith that Congress will pay for any of this. I think Cornyn will have a hard enough time just getting his bill to a vote in the Senate, and I have less faith that Weber can do the same in the dismal catastrophe that is the Republican-controlled House. Nonetheless, someone still has to file a bill like this, so kudos to Sen. Cornyn and Rep. Weber for taking the first step. They has their work cut out for them from here, and they are both a part of the reason why it’s basically impossible to get stuff like this done nowadays, but they did file their bills, so good on them for that. The Press has more.

Don’t let the mosquitoes bite

That’s going to be a challenge.

Mosquitoes don’t breed in flood waters. They drown in them, said Dr. Mustapha Debboun, director of the Mosquito Control Division at Harris County Public Health and Environmental Services.

But it’s after the flood waters subside that mosquito breeding becomes an issue, he said. And with the Zika virus on everyone’s radar over the past few months, Debboun said they’ll be heading into neighborhoods to mount an education campaign once the high waters recede in order to keep the spread of the virus under wraps as much as possible.

[…]

Debboun said that, even after the floods, there is no need to panic. There are several things that people can do to keep potential Zika-carrying mosquitoes away. For one — and this one’s a bit of a no-brainer — people should wear insect repellent, especially as the temperatures begin to rise in May, Debboun said, if they don’t want to get bitten. Most importantly, though, people need to drain any small or large containers that filled with water during the flood, Debboun said. The mosquitoes like to breed in shallow, stagnant water, whether in big buckets or flower pots or even a water bottle left outside. And mosquitoes that carry Zika are exactly the types of mosquitoes that live in your backyard, who like these environments. “People have to help us in denying mosquitoes the chance to breed in those containers full of water,” Debboun said.

At a meeting in Greenspoint Wednesday night, Mayor Sylvester Turner also urged residents not to leave wet debris and ruined furniture from their homes out on the curb or their front lawns so as to not attract mosquitoes. He said Waste Management has pitched in by providing dozens of large dumpsters in those worst-hit neighborhoods.

As the story notes, Zika is already here. How much of a problem it becomes remains to be seen. I’m sure there will be plenty of spraying and other mitigation done by the city and the county, but do your part, too. Get rid of standing water, and use mosquito repellent. Let’s try to keep the little bastards under control.

Friday random ten: In the city, part 8

More Memphis!

1. Leningrad – Billy Joel
2. Lisdoonvarna – Ceili’s Muse
3. Liverpool Sunset – Gerald Jay Markoe
4. Lodi – Creedence Clearwater Revival
5. London Homesick Blues – Flying Fish Sailors
6. (Making The Run To) Gladewater – Michelle Shocked
7. Marching Bands Of Manhattan – Death Cab for Cutie
8. Memphis Exorcism – Squirrel Nut Zippers
9. Memphis in The Meantime – John Hiatt
10. Miami – Shorty Long

Manhattan isn’t technically a city, unless Death Cab for Cutie was writing about Kansas, but it is a county (New York County, technically) and I did allow for counties before, so we’re good. Memphis currently has a 5-2 lead on New York, though I have two versions of “Fairy Tale of New”, so you could look at it as 5-3. It’s still a lead, though having looked ahead a couple of weeks, I can tell you (spoiler alert) it’s a lead that won’t last. Enjoy it while you can, Memphis.

More on the Uber ultimatum

Initial reaction is not terribly receptive.

Uber

Ride-hailing giant Uber threatened Wednesday to stop operating in Houston unless city leaders amend local regulations the company said are making it tough for them to recruit drivers.

The ultimatum, the latest skirmish in what has been a contentious relationship between Uber and the city since it started operating here two years ago, drew a strong rebuke from city leaders.

“This is just not how we do business in Houston,” said Mayor Sylvester Turner, who added the city “will not compromise on public safety.”

[…]

The Uber announcement, which officials viewed as a threat to meet the company’s demands or lose the service, was met with frustration by city leaders, some of whom have grown increasingly exasperated by the tumult.

“If you don’t want to follow the rules we all agreed to, have a good opportunity in another city,” District E Councilman David Martin said. “But we cannot be blackmailed when it comes to public safety.”

[…]

Uber and its supporters argue that part-time driving for the company helps people make money while keeping rates for riders cheap.

The company in its report said drivers take an average of four months to sign up with Uber and complete the city permitting process. Houston officials said the longest a driver has waited is two months, and that the average time to clear the regulations is 11 days. About 47 percent of drivers received a license within a week, officials said.

“What they are putting out is factually incorrect,” Turner said, adding that he thought the company’s motive is to put pressure on politicians to capitulate.

See here for the background. I didn’t expect Uber’s announcement to be greeted warmly, but I am a bit surprised that no one stepped forward to defend them, or at least to criticize the fingerprint policy, in the story. CM Martin’s comment is of particular interest, since Uber’s main allies on Prop 1 in Austin are a couple of conservative Republican Council members there. I’ve look around at other coverage but have not seen any other reactions from Council members. I will be very interested to see who, if anyone, is in Uber’s corner on this. It was one thing to advocate for allowing Uber to operate here. This is a whole ‘nother level, and unless a Council member comes under pressure from constituents, it’s rather a large stretch.

The Press brings up another aspect of this fight.

Notwithstanding the curious timing (voters in Austin will decide May 7 whether to keep similar regulations; early voting for the ballot measure started this week), it’s hard to know what to make of Uber’s claims. Officials with the City of Houston insist that, by pretty much any trackable measure, Uber has been a resounding success here. The city’s Administration and Regulatory Affairs department says that every month it sees an increase in drivers who want a license to drive for the company. And, according to city officials, judging by the company’s revenue in Houston (under the regulations passed in 2014, Uber pays 2 percent of gross bookings to the city), Uber is doing quite well.

It seems there’s either fundamental difference of interpretation or someone’s not telling the whole truth. We’d love to get to the bottom of this, but here’s the problem: Uber has sued to block the city from releasing pretty much any internal data that could show whether Houston’s regulations have been a success or unreasonable burden for rideshares.

Lara Cottingham, deputy assistant director of the city’s Administration and Regulatory Affairs department, insists that Uber has had an undeniably good run here since the city began enforcing its rules for licensing drivers for so-called transportation network companies (or TNCs) like Uber, limo services and taxi companies. “The number of drivers is increasing, their revenue is increasing, everything seems to be working out for them very, very well,” Cottingham told us. “But because Uber sued us to stop us from releasing [those numbers], I can’t tell you how successful they are.”

[…]

While Uber claims it takes drivers on average four months to get a city license, Cottingham says that’s just not the case. She says that according to a survey the city conducted this spring (which, of course, she can’t release because of Uber’s lawsuit), nearly half of all drivers got their license within a week of applying – almost all (about 84 percent) had al license within three weeks of applying, she claims. Whatever the case, Uber’s Meridia said in the letter to city leaders yesterday that demand in Houston “continues to grow approximately twice as fast as our ability to onboard qualified drivers.”

Cottingham says the city has streamlined the process as much as possible, but what Uber’s really asking for – axing the city’s additional background check provision – isn’t an option.

KTRK also noted that some of the facts in dispute cannot be checked on either end. That makes this more of a PR battle than anything else. Do people, who clearly like using Uber’s service, side with them against the city and buy into the argument that needless regulation is making it impossible to operate? Or do they see the fingerprint requirement as a basic safety measure, which Uber should have no issue with complying? That seems to me to be the basic outline of the dispute, and it’s why I’m so interested in who Uber’s proxies will be in the fight. I’m sure Mayor Turner’s response to this has been along the lines of “I don’t need this $#!+ right now”. Who will be on his side? BOR has more.

Rangers investigating Rep. Dawnna Dukes

Busy days for them.

Rep. Dawnna Dukes

The Texas Rangers have joined a Travis County District Attorney office criminal probe into state Rep. Dawnna Dukes’ use of staff, the Texas Department of Public Safety confirmed.

“At the request of the Travis County District Attorney’s Office, the Texas Rangers are assisting in an investigation into alleged criminal misconduct of Dawnna Dukes,” DPS spokesman Tom Vinger said in a statement released Tuesday.

The Texas Tribune reported in February that the State Auditor’s Office had launched an investigation after Dukes’ then chief of staff, Mike French, asked whether it was legal for the Austin Democrat to ask staff to work on the annual African-American Heritage Festival. The festival is an event Dukes helped create 17 years ago to raise money for scholarships to Huston-Tillotson University.

The auditor’s office referred the case to Travis County prosecutors on April 15, according to the Austin American-Statesman.

See here for some background. I’m sure if Rep. Dukes winds up getting indicted for something, Ken Paxton and Rick Perry will stand with her in solidarity over these overly politicized investigations. Until then, we’ll see what happens. The Austin Chronicle has more.

Council approves body camera storage funds

Good.

City Council voted Wednesday to spend $1 million to buy servers and other equipment to store video collected by city police officers equipped with body cameras.

The vote, passed with relatively little fuss following months of sometimes-contentious public debate, marks the next step in the Houston Police Department’s ongoing effort to equip more than 4,000 patrol officers with the devices.

The storage will cost the city about $8 million over five years, with about $585,000 more per year in additional staffing costs, officials said. An alternate proposal to use cloud-based storage would have cost the city even more.

[…]

The city plans to purchase 4,500 body cameras, of which about 400 would be spares. Wednesday’s vote cleared the way for the city to purchase Dell Compellent computer servers with space to hold 1.5 petabytes of data, and a similar amount of space to hold a duplicate copy of the data.

One copy would be stored in HPD’s data center, with a separate copy stored in the city’s Disaster Recovery Center, according to the police department.

The move to store the data in-house had prompted worries from some that the data could be more easily tampered with, a concern Mayor Sylvester Turner brushed aside in brief remarks after the meeting.

“I’m comfortable the integrity of the system is sound,” he said.

See here and here for some background. I’m a little surprised that a cloud solution was more expensive, but no big deal. A petabyte, by the way, is one step up from a terabyte, which is one step up from a gigabyte. If your PC has 500 GB of hard disk space, then 1.5 petabytes is like 3000 of your hard drives. So yeah, a lot of storage space.

The city wasn’t the only entity taking action on body cameras. From the inbox:

In a move to strengthen service, the METRO Board unanimously approved issuing body cameras to METRO police (MPD) officers as part of their regular uniforms.

“Our officers are excited about this. We see this as an enhancement not only for our officers but for our employees and patrons,” said MPD Chief Vera Bumpers.

The $184,125.00 contract with Watch Guard covering the purchase and implementation of the 195 cameras, will provide new surveillance capability for security purposes. Each camera costs $699.00, and all officers as well as sergeants will all wear the units.

“We are pleased to take this step. We expect this program to enhance our police department from a investigative and training perspective as well as strengthen community trust in law enforcement with increased transparency and accountability,” said Board Chair Carrin Patman.

Anticipated delivery and roll-out of the new security program is projected to take six months.

Camera data is planned for storage on MPD’s video management system for 90 days unless it is classified as evidence. Storage of the video data will require the purchase of additional hardware with an estimated cost of $253,015. The METRO Board has not yet approved that expenditure.

Good for Metro. I hadn’t been aware before now that they had been working on getting body cameras for their 191 officers. We should remember that there are a whole lot of law enforcement agencies in Texas, and the more of them that equip their officers with body cameras, the better off we’ll all be. The school districts, community college districts, universities like Rice and UH and TSU, and the many small cities in the area should all have plans of some kind to get on board with this. Don’t be the last holdout.

Another FEC complaint filed against Cruz

We’re up to two.

Not Ted Cruz

Not Ted Cruz

The Texas Democrats have filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging presidential contender Sen. Ted Cruz and his associates violated campaign finance laws.

The complaint, dated April 22, asserts that Cruz national co-chair, J. Keet Lewis, broke election laws at an official campaign fundraiser in December by asking attendees to donate unlimited amounts, as well as to make corporate contributions to the pro-Cruz Stand for Truth PAC.

Cruz and his wife, Heidi, reportedly attended the Dec. 30 event in Dallas.

Federal law prohibits coordination between candidates and Super PACs. While a candidate or agent of a candidate can solicit donors to a PAC, it is illegal for them to solicit unlimited contributions or corporate contributions to a Super PAC. They can only solicit up to $5,000 from individuals.

The Texas Democrats say Lewis clearly violated those terms when he told donors “If you hit your max then we have a table for you that is the unlimited table. It can take corporate dollars, it can take partnership dollars, and that’s the Super PAC, Stand for Truth…” according to the complaint.

Lewis also said “The method to our madness is this: You max out and then get engaged in the Super PAC,” the filing states.

Lewis has denied wrongdoing and told Politico, which reported the potential violation earlier this month, that he is not an agent of the campaign under federal standards. Lewis was one of roughly 50 co-hosts. Texas Democrats argue that he is, given his national co-chair role.

A copy of the complaint is here. As the story notes, there was another complaint filed with the FEC against the Cruz campaign in January, this one alleging that he failed to disclose financial support from Goldman Sachs and Citibank for his 2012 Senate campaign. I have no idea what the timetable is for either of these, but I won’t be surprised if they are not concluded till after the campaign. The Trib has more.

Uber says it will leave Houston if it does not change its fingerprinting requirement

I called it.

Uber

Uber announced Wednesday that the company plans to cease operations in Houston if the city council does not repeal its existing regulations relating to vehicle-for-hire companies.

Houston is one of two cities in the country where Uber continues to operate despite a local requirement that its drivers undergo fingerprint-based background checks. Uber has recently left three cities in Texas for approving similar regulations and has threatened to do the same in Austin.

The company’s main competitor, Lyft, pulled out of Houston over a year ago in response to the new rules requiring its drivers to undergo fingerprint-based background checks. Uber had continued to operate in the city while publicly criticizing the regulation as burdensome.

“We have worked hard and taken extraordinary steps to help guide drivers through the current process in Houston,” said Uber General Manager Sarfraz Maredia in a letter to Houston City Council on Wednesday. “However, a year and a half later, it is clear the regulations are simply not working for the people of this city.”

Uber also released a report Wednesday detailing, “The Cost of Houston’s Ridesharing Regulations.” The report claims Houston’s regulations have led to a decrease in Uber drivers and in turn, “fewer safe rides.”

Here’s Uber’s press release, their letter to Council, and the report mentioned in the story. Before I get into any details, here are some further news bits. First, from the initial Chron story.

No departure date has been set, Uber spokeswoman Debbee Hancock said.

“We have not set a specific deadline,” she said. “We want to work with the city to develop regulations that work for riders, drivers and the entire community. We understand this process may take a few months.

[…]

Meanwhile use of Uber in Houston surges, something both sides have said bolsters their case. The city argues use means Uber is profitable even with the regulations, though the company says they stifle supply of drivers.

From the Statesman:

The company does not disclose to the media or public how many drivers it has working in Houston, and it obtained a court order preventing city of Houston officials from releasing that information. (Lyft does not operate in Houston.)

The report released Wednesday by Uber includes a chart purporting to show drivers-per-million residents in Houston, Austin and Los Angeles, and the chart is presented in such a way as to imply that Austin (with no fingerprinting required until Feb. 28) has many more drivers per million residents.

But the chart has no numbers listed on its vertical scale of drivers per million residents, rendering it qualitative in nature, not quantitative. Given that and the company’s refusal to release driver figures, it is impossible to confirm the company’s claims about driver supply there.

The letter and report do not mention that Houston has a process under which a driver can get a 30-day “provisional” license without first going through fingerprinting. But according to Uber, a Houston driver, even to get that provisional license, must complete a physical, take a drug test, appear at Houston municipal court to get a check of outstanding criminal warrants, buy a fire extinguisher for the car, get his or her car inspected by a city inspector and get an Uber identifying marker for the car.

From the Houston Business Journal:

According to the letter and a corresponding report on Uber’s Houston operations, 59 percent of its Houston fleet drives less than 10 hours a week. That’s compared to 79 percent of drivers in Austin, and 77 percent in Houston’s outer limits. Uber argues that for these part-time drivers, the regulations are too oppressive and prevents new drivers from signing up.

Mayor Turner held a press conference yesterday at 4 to give his reaction. The Chron story that contained it was updated too late for me to see it last night, so I’ll do another piece tomorrow to discuss that. Click2Houston reports him saying he was “surprised” and that when he had last spoken to Uber reps a few months ago they gave no indication they were dissatisfied; I received another statement from Uber later in the day that takes issue with that, but I’ll get to all that tomorrow. The one thing that surprises me about this is that Uber announced it before the results of the Austin referendum are known. I had assumed they’d wait and pounce if they were successful in repealing Austin’s ordinance; if they failed, I figured they’d still make some move in Houston, but they might be more circumspect about it. Winning the referendum in Austin gives them leverage, which I strongly suspect is part of the point. Maybe this is a show of confidence on their part, maybe it’s just bravado, or maybe this was the plan all along. Who knows?

There are three logical ways Houston can go with this:

1. Do what Uber wants, which would surely have the effect of bringing Lyft back as well. That would not be my first choice, but if Prop 1 passes in Austin, there may be a lot of sentiment here for that.

2. Stand pat and let Uber do what it’s going to do. Get Me is operating in town, so it’s not like there’s no vehicle for hire alternative. One could argue that Uber’s abandonment of many Texas cities, potentially including Austin, would pave the way for another competitor to arise. The demand clearly exists for this service, and opportunities like this don’t come along every day. This is a better strategy if Prop 1 fails, and the bigger the margin the better. It also assumes a commitment to ensuring that no legislation that pre-empts local rideshare ordinances gets passed in the 2017 Legislature.

3. Try to negotiate a compromise. I still kind of like Austin Mayor Adler’s proposal for voluntary fingerprinting, which then becomes part of a driver’s profile and which customers can request. Let’s see what the free market has to say about that, shall we? There are certainly other possibilities, and again, this is likely to be more feasible if Prop 1 goes down.

Anyway. I don’t know as I write this what Mayor Turner had to say beyond his surprise, nor do I know what the prevailing opinion on Council is. Whatever the case, I’m sure this will be a big part of the discussion over the next few months, which I’m sure is exactly what the Mayor wanted given the forthcoming budget battle, the ongoing flood cleanup, the continuing search for an HPD chief, and everything else on his agenda. Well timed, Uber.

Dan Patrick supports potty package check legislation

Of course he does.

RedEquality

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, weighing into a national controversy over transgender restrooms, said Tuesday he supports keeping men out of women’s restrooms, even if it takes legislation to do so.

Since the issue erupted into controversy nationally, some Texas lawmakers have said they will support a state law for single-sex restrooms, and the endorsement of that position by Senate-leader Patrick is likely to give that movement momentum.

“I think the handwriting is on the bathroom wall: Stay out of the ladies’ room if you’re a man,” Patrick said outside his Capitol office, confirming a post on his Facebook page that affirmed his opposition to cross-sex restrooms.

“If it costs me an election, if it costs me a lot of grief, then so be it. If we can’t fight for something this basic, then we’ve lost our country.”

[…]

Patrick, who last year along with Gov. Greg Abbott and other GOP officials supported the repeal of a Houston ordinance on transgender restrooms, dismissed threats of boycotts and business opposition in other states as “bluff and bluster.” he noted that since Houston repealed its so-called HERO ordinance, by a wide margin in an election, the city has hosted the Final Four basketball championships and will host the Super Bowl in 2017.

I guess the North Carolina experience doesn’t enter the equation. I mean, look, this is what the modern Republican Party is. The business community has been closely aligned with them for a long time due to shared interests on taxes and regulations and stuff like that. The same business community also supports comprehensive immigration reform, greater investment in infrastructure and public education, and LGBT equality. All of these things stand in opposition to what the GOP supports. Heck, the North Carolina Republicans are wearing the backlash as a badge of honor, and you can see in Dan Patrick’s language the same sentiment. Will this ever cause a schism? I keep thinking that one of these days it will, but I keep being disappointed, and they keep supporting the same old politicians who keep opposing the same things they say they support. I wish I could say I expect something different from the business community this time, but as of now at least, I can’t. Trail Blazers, the Trib, and the Current have more.

Kill that trash subsidy

Works for me.

Mayor Sylvester Turner

Mayor Sylvester Turner

Mayor Sylvester Turner, working to close a $160 million budget deficit, has proposed scrapping payments that scores of Houston neighborhoods served by private trash haulers receive to help offset the cost of their waste contracts.

The idea when the program started in the 1970s was that residents should not have to pay property taxes for city trash services they were not receiving – particularly because they were already paying for waste pickup in their homeowner association dues. The city also came out ahead because the $6 monthly per-house subsidy was cheaper than the cost of the city serving each home itself, now estimated at $18 per home per month.

In scraping together a balanced budget for the fiscal year that starts in July, however, Turner felt the program was expendable. In many cases, the subsidies go to residents who have chosen to pay for more extensive services than those the city provides, such as having the trash picked up more frequently than once a week, or having workers walk up a resident’s driveway to retrieve the trash rather than the homeowner rolling a bin to the curb.

Cutting these “sponsorship” payments to the 48,000 homes participating would save the city $3.5 million.

“When I drilled down in every department and every line item and I saw that line item sticking out, my question was, ‘Is this one that people can give up without hurting them and the core services, things that are essential to the city?'” Turner said. “I decided this was something the city at this particular point in time was not in a position to continue to sponsor.”

City Council will begin hearings on Turner’s proposed budget on Monday, leading up to a final vote that could come as early as May 25.

[…]

“If they end up saying it’s that big of a difference, that they will give up their contracts and will turn to the city, then yeah, OK, more than likely I’ll remove it,” Turner said. “I’m not trying to make their situation bad, I’m simply trying to balance a budget that’s $160 million short, and I’ve asked people to engage in shared sacrifice.”

The mayor also suggested, wearing a slight grin, that reporters examine the subdivisions now receiving trash subsidies.

The three City Council districts home to 83 percent of the city’s sponsorship agreements, records show, also are the three districts with the highest median household incomes in the city: District G on the west side, District E in Kingwood and Clear Lake, and District C, which covers much of the western half of the Inner Loop.

[CM Dave] Martin acknowledged that he and many of his neighbors receiving private trash service in District E can cover a $6-per-month increase in their civic association dues.

“If you’re used to getting your trash picked up twice a week and you’re used to backdoor service, most people are probably going to say, ‘Keep my six bucks,'” Martin said. “They’re mostly the people that have the means to pay an extra $6 a month.”

Yes indeed. And now is the time for the city to say to these folks that we can no longer afford to subsidize their premium trash collection service. We all have to make sacrifices in these lean times, don’t you know. The irony is that if enough people decide that the sacrifice they’d prefer to make is the higher level of service, in return for saving a few bucks a month, then it won’t be worth the city’s effort to make them make that sacrifice. I suspect that the vast majority of them will take the original deal, of keeping the service but paying full price for it. If nothing else, it will allow those who are so inclined to piss and moan about how hard they have it now. Surely that’s worth the six bucks a month to them. KUHF has more.

Texas blog roundup for the week of April 25

The Texas Progressive Alliance is gathered here today to get through this thing called mourning the loss of Prince as it brings you this week’s roundup.

(more…)

Houston Area Survey 2016: Harris County becoming more Democratic

Whoa.

A majority of Harris County residents lean Democratic for the first time ever, propelled by plummeting support for Republicans among Latinos, according to a survey released Monday by Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research.

The finding, in the midst of a particularly divisive presidential campaign, could signal an important shift in arguably the nation’s largest swing county, which narrowly went to President Barack Obama in 2012 by only about 970 votes. It might also portend that the long-sleeping giant of Latino voters will, finally perhaps, be roused from slumber in an election that has featured decidedly anti-Latino and anti-immigrant rhetoric, particularly from billionaire Republican contender Donald Trump.

“Frankly I’m not all that surprised,” said Jim McGrath, a Republican political consultant in Houston and spokesman for former President George H. W. Bush. “These are the fears realized by those on the Republican side who are worried about the irresponsible rhetoric surrounding the illegal immigration issue.”

According to the annual survey, which was conducted between January and March, 52 percent of Harris County residents said they identified more with the Democratic Party compared to 46 percent in 2012. Only 30 percent of residents leaned Republican this spring, about the same as in 2012, meaning that it is the share of undecided and new potential voters whom have swung largely Democratic.

[…]

Support for the GOP has stayed steady among white and African-American residents for the past decade, with 54 percent of the county’s white population swinging Republican and 39 percent Democrat, though there was a slight increase in Democrat support among Anglo voters in the county over the past two years. Similarly 82 percent of African-American residents lean Democratic and 8 percent Republican.

Among Latinos, however, there has been a sea change.

From about 2000 to 2008, some 40 percent of the county’s Hispanic residents identified as Democratic compared to fewer than 30 percent who felt Republican, Klineberg said. That began to change around 2009 when their support for Democrats increased to nearly 50 percent and the share of those leaning Republican dropped to 25 percent.

The gap widened once more around the 2012 presidential election when Republican Mitt Romney received the lowest share of the Hispanic vote — 27 percent — than GOP nominees had tallied in the previous three election cycles in a campaign during which immigration was particularly divisive.

This spring, Harris County’s Hispanic residents registered the lowest amount of support ever for Republicans — only 18 percent — compared to 68 percent of Latinos who said they lean Democrat.

“It’s a powerful message to the Republican party, reach out to these Latino voters, don’t push them away,” Klineberg said. “And for the Democrats, get out the vote.”

The survey is conducted by land line and cell phone calls among a statistically representative sample of 808 residents, not eligible voters, in Harris County. Among 604 Harris County residents who can vote, 46 percent leaned Democrat and 41 percent Republican.

See the Urban Edge blog for more details on the poll. There’s quite a bit more to the 2016 Houston Area Survey than this, but for now we’ll just focus on this particular data point, for obvious reasons. This is not a poll in the standard sense – it doesn’t ask which candidate you will support, nor does it try to determine who is a “likely” voter – but it is consistent with what we are seeing in national data as well as swing states. Latinos were slightly more likely to vote Republican in Texas in 2012 than they were elsewhere, though that was partly a turnout function, as polling data at the time showed that lower-propensity voters were more strongly Democratic. If – the big if – Latino voters are more strongly motivated to turn out this year, it is consistent for them to be more Democratic even without taking the Trump factor into account.

What could this mean in practical terms?

Some advocacy groups, such as the William C. Velásquez Institute, a national Latino public policy research group in San Antonio, predict Hispanics in Texas this year will account for more than 3 million registered voters and cast more than 2 million votes, both of which would be records. Overall, the state has about 14.2 million registered voters.

Their expectations are largely predicated on population growth. Since 2012, Texas gained 600,000 eligible Hispanic voters, expanding to 4.8 million – second only to California, according to the Pew Research Center, a think tank in Washington, D.C. The Latino share of Texas’ eligible voters increased 2 percentage points in that period, to 28 percent.

Bearing in mind all of the usual disclaimers, let’s do a little back-of-the-envelope math for the fun of it. Here are three statewide scenarios for this year:


Total votes    Latino  Not Latino     Pct
=========================================
  4,650,000    480,000  4,170,000  58.75%
  3,350,000  1,120,000  2,230,000  41.25%

  4,570,000    400,000  4,170,000  54.40%
  3,830,000  1,600,000  2,230,000  45.60%

  4,670,000    500,000  4,170,000  53.00%
  4,230,000  2,000,000  2,230,000  47.00%

Scenario 1 is basically what happened in 2012. No change in Latino turnout, which based on 2012 polling is 20% of the total, or Latino propensity for voting Democratic, which was about 70% that year. Scenario 2 is the “two million Latino voters” possibility that the Velasquez Institute mentioned. For that, I’m assuming 80% Democratic support, which is consistent with the polling data we have so far for matchups against Donald Trump, and with the data noted above that lower-propensity Latino voters are more heavily Democratic than Latinos overall. Sure, this may be a bit optimistic, but I’m playing a what-if game here, so stay with me. Scenario 3 is the bluer sky version of #2, where Latino turnout is 2.5 million at the same 80% Democratic rate. Note that in all cases, non-Latino turnout and propensity is the same. This is mostly to make the calculations simple; basically, I’m isolating the Latino voting variable. One could play around with the hypothesis that a Trump candidacy might also depress base Republican turnout, but I’ll leave those calculations to you. In scenario 2, Latinos make up about 24% of the voter universe, while in #3 they are 28% of total turnout, which as noted is about their share of total eligible voters.

I’m not arguing any of this is likely, or even realistic. I am showing that the ground is shifting, and even a relatively modest change could have a sizable effect. It’s not enough to turn Texas blue, but the state would be a lot less red. As noted before, that effect would surely be felt downballot, with Harris County likely being an epicenter. The bigger question would then be if any of that might carry over into a non-Presidential year, or if the same patterns we have observed in recent elections would persist. That’s beyond my scope here, and depending on how things end up may be irrelevant. But clearly something is happening. Even if it’s not enough to change the state, it’s more than enough to tilt Harris County, whether there is a concerted turnout effort (which I hope there is!) or not. Campos has more.

Paxton’s pity party

Oh, boo hoo hoo.

Best mugshot ever

Best mugshot ever

Attorney General Ken Paxton has blasted his indictments and other legal problems – including a previously undisclosed IRS investigation and frozen accounts – as a political witch-hunt fueled by fellow conservatives and the media.

At a Tarrant County tea party meeting Saturday that also featured Glenn Beck and U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Tyler, Paxton asked the crowd to imagine a trusted neighbor who gets a new job and then is plagued by all kinds of problems – including having his accounts frozen and being subject to an IRS audit.

“He’s got some of his bank accounts have been shut down. Some of his retirement accounts are being shut down,” said Paxton. “You find out the guy is being investigated by the Travis County DA, and then the Dallas County DA, and then the Collin County DA. And then you find out the person is being investigated by the SEC.”

He then added, “You have to ask yourself, ‘Is there a character problem here? This person has been no trouble for 35 years and then, suddenly, they’re having all this trouble.’ Well that’s, in that sense, what’s happened to me. I have no speeding ticket in my life. Never been audited by the IRS. Never been investigated by—never, no bar grievances with the state bar. I get sworn into office and everything I just mentioned happened.”

[…]

Also on Saturday, Paxton said that one of his biggest challenges in state government has been Republican disunity.

“Since been running for AG, you may have noticed I’ve been under a little bit of a political attack. You might have noticed the media doesn’t cover me very well, says a few unflattering things,” he said. “The reality is when you go down to Austin and you’re going to stick to your conservative principles, there are people in our own party often times that find that too enlightening.”

Poor, poor baby. There’s audio at the link if you can stomach it. It may well be that Ken Paxton was a complete choirboy for the first forty-something years of his life, and then he got corrupted by his years in Austin. We know Paxton has made a tidy little fortune since first being elected, it’s hardly a stretch to imagine. And isn’t that “power corrupts” narrative something that teabaggers love to believe?

Anyway. Turns out Paxton is not being audited, just hyperbolic. That link has video of the speech, if you’re even more morbid. It may well be that Texas voters will tolerate a scoundrel or two – or at least, it may well be that the current Republican voting majority will tolerate a Republican scoundrel – but a whiner? There’s also the inconvenient fact that our scoundrels have for the most part not gotten themselves convicted. Someone who gets accused and gets off is an underdog who beat the system. Someone who gets convicted (if it sticks, anyway), is just another crook. That story has not yet been written about Ken Paxton.

“Space City” fight escalates

It’s getting real.

The Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau is asking a federal judge to stop a rival comic convention from using the phrase “Space City” for its three-day festival scheduled for NRG Center over Memorial Day weekend.

The convention bureau filed a request Friday for a temporary restraining order to prevent Space City Comic Con from continuing to use the phrase the bureau trademarked 12 years ago to promote the city.

The bureau owns 50 percent of another comic convention, Comicpalooza. That show is scheduled for the George R. Brown Convention Center in mid-June.

U.S. District Judge Nancy F. Atlas heard the request at 3 p.m. Monday, but did not issue a ruling. The dispute has been brewing for months but reached the courthouse earlier this year when the bureau sued Space City Comic Con along with its owner George Comits over alleged trademark infringement. The bureau is seeking profits from previous shows in which Comits used “Space City” as part of its name.

That was the early story. The judge has since declined to issue the TRO to the Visitors Bureau.

Instead of a court order, she suggested a much simpler solution: adding a disclaimer on tickets and brochures that Space City Comic Con event is not affiliated with the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau.

“I’m not prepared to shut the conference down,” Atlas said.

[…]

The convention bureau calls Comicpalooza, which drew about 45,000 visitors last year, “Houston’s Official Comic Con.” In its request for a temporary restraining order, the bureau said the use of “Space City,” is causing irreparable harm to its business of promoting tourism, trade and conventions in the Houston area.

Not only will it likely cause public confusion, it will also destroy the bureau’s goodwill and reputation with its current and prospective customers, the convention bureau said in court documents.

During the hearing Monday, Atlas pointed out that the bureau’s arguments gave her pause, since many businesses already use “Space City,” a nod to Houston’s long-time connection to the space industry through NASA’s Johnson Space Center. She also questioned why the bureau waited so long to seek a restraining order after filing suit in February.

[Space City Comic Con owner George] Comits testified that the bureau won’t even put Space City Comic Con on its calendar of events because of its investment in Comicpalooza. Atlas was surprised to learn that the convention and visitors bureau had a financial interest in Comicpalooza. “Really?” she asked.

See here for the background. Judge Atlas has scheduled a hearing on the request for the TRO today at 8 AM, so we could have an answer to that part of the fight shortly. I personally remain lukewarm to the idea that “Space City” is a term that requires traademarking or that people will be confused by two different events at two different locations in two different months, but then considering how little information people have about other things, I can see an argument. I like the disclaimer suggestion and hope the two sides can work this out peacefully.

Endorsement watch: Against Prop 1

The Statesman urges a vote against the divisive referendum to repeal Austin’s ordinance regulating transit network companies like Uber and Lyft.

Uber

Voting against Prop. 1 is the best way to ensure that Lyft, Uber and other ride-hailing service drivers, undergo the most thorough criminal background checks endorsed by law enforcement: fingerprint checks. By contrast, Lyft and Uber are demanding name-based background checks. Prop. 1 would accomplish that by eliminating fingerprint checks. But you won’t see or hear mention of “fingerprint checks” in ads or fliers Uber and Lyft are floating.

You also won’t hear or see an equally important issue at stake in the May 7 election: Whether it should be corporations or Austin’s elected leaders that write the rules for doing business in the city. That power, in our view, should remain in the hands of the democratically elected officials who represent Austin residents — not private companies with deep pockets. Voting against Prop. 1, crafted by Lyft and Uber, keeps that authority with Austin’s elected City Council.

On those terms, the question on the ballot is relatively simple, but the issues are being cleverly camouflaged in the high-dollar ad campaign being waged by Lyft and Uber through the companies’ political action committee, Ridesharing Works for Austin. Lyft and Uber contributed $2.2 million to the group — an unprecedented amount for an Austin election. The primary group opposing Prop. 1, Our City, Our Safety, Our Choice, reported raising and spending less than $15,000.

[…]

Lyft

Over the past months, Lyft and Uber have used various messaging to drive support for their Prop. 1. Initially, the companies threatened to bolt if the City Council required fingerprint checks. Then they said approving Prop. 1, which eliminates fingerprint checks, would keep the companies operating in the city.

Their step away from that message might signal that the public favors fingerprint-based background checks or is divided over that point. Either would be risky for Prop. 1.

Certainly a city like Austin needs as many transportation options as possible, so if Lyft and Uber left it would greatly diminish the ability of Austin residents to move around in an increasingly congested city. And no one denies that Lyft and Uber contribute to public safety in taking drunk drivers off the road. That is why we urged the City Council to compromise with Lyft and Uber through incentives or other voluntary measures to get drivers to undergo fingerprint checks — rather than requirements.

The council could modify its current ordinance to work toward that goal. But if voters approve Prop. 1, fingerprint checks will be eliminated and Lyft and Uber will have little — if any — incentive to compromise.

For all of those reasons, as well as the other safety requirements that would be eliminated by tossing out the current ordinance and replacing it with Prop. 1, Austin residents should reject Prop 1.

See here for some background. I basically agree with everything the Statesman editorial board says and would vote No if I were in Austin. I also continue to believe that if Prop 1 passes, it’s just a matter of time before Uber takes action to eliminate Houston’s fingerprint requirements. I would very much rather not see it come to that.

In his email newsletter, Ed Sills of the AFL-CIO echoes some of these concerns and provides a bit of on-the-ground reporting:

My family has come to cherish and dread (“dreadish”?) the half-dozen calls from “Research Center” each day over the last few weeks. My wife made it clear to the Uber folks that we are unalterably AGAINST the ordinance, but evidently they noticed there are four voters in our household, so we seem to be getting four times the calls. My personal technique in answering these calls is to count to two during the delay and hang up at the moment a live voice comes on. I figure the more time they spend trying to contact a household where they are about to go 0-4, the less time they can spend talking to people who are gullible enough to believe the lies spewed in this Rich Uncle Pennybags campaign.

I have never done a block-walk as overwhelmingly locked in as the one my daughter and I went on Saturday in the Highland neighborhood in Austin, and I have walked some great progressive neighborhoods in contested elections. Nor have I ever previously experienced multiple situations in which folks were staring daggers at us until they realized we were in agreement – and then greeted us as old friends and took signs. (At one point, I told my daughter to go talk to a 78-year-old woman – her first solo encounter on a block-walk – while I knocked the house across the street. “You can probably outrun her if you have to,” I explained. When I stole a glance, the woman was practically giving Graciela a hug.)

I have never before done a block-walk in which all I had to say to get a commitment was, “Don’t you hate those ads on television?” And people still held forth on the merits about why they can’t stand what Uber and Lyft are doing.

Thank goodness I didn’t have to explain every nuance of the ordinance approved by the Austin City Council, which sets standards for fingerprint checks, fees to be collected from ride-share companies, etc. People understand the proposed ordinance written by Uber and Lyft relaxes the background check standard and lowers the fees the companies have to pay. But this is one of those rare political situations in which while the details may matter, all you absolutely have to know is that the proposal at hand is, well, Horse Feathers. (Trust me, Groucho Marx lovers, you want to click on this link.)

A large majority of voters we spoke to get that a fundamental principle is in play. If Uber and Lyft can spend millions to write their own ordinance in Austin, they will be trying the same thing next in Houston, which adopted strong fingerprinting requirements for drivers. And regardless of how that goes, Uber and Lyft will be at the forefront of the right-wing move in the Texas Legislature to take away the ability of local governments to make progress not just on ride-share regulation, but on wages, discrimination and work rules. A success by Uber and Lyft would launch a parade of corporations that would weigh options and budget millions more to overturn local laws that offend them.

The try-anything attitude among supporters of Prop 1 has continued. The Austin Chronicle reported that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce warned Austin may jeopardize its “Smart City” initiative if voters turn down the Uber/Lyft ordinance rewrite. Apparently the bald-faced lie in the pro-Prop 1 ads that Austin taxpayers would suddenly be on the hook for fingerprint checks if they vote “no” wasn’t working.

This election is about a larger issue – the ability of local voters to control their local destiny.

Sills notes that this is no prediction of victory, and that turnout in an oddball special election is paramount. It’s all about who shows up. I for one would rather live in a world where this sort of thing fails. I hope I have enough company in that regard.

Still debating the Trump effect in Texas

This time with input from trained professionals.

Republicans say it’s just wishful thinking, but Democrats are hoping that Trump’s controversial comments will make some GOP voters stay home in protest and boost the number of Democrats going to the polls to vote against him if he becomes one of the presidential nominees. If that happens, it could help Democrats down the ballot.

“Democrats know they have no choice but to turn out and vote,” said Deborah Peoples, who heads the Tarrant County Democratic Party. “The more caustic and divisive that Trump’s message becomes — and he has insulted every group in America — the more it energizes people to turn out and do something.

“And if Republicans decide to stay home and Democrats decide not to stay home, it could be a good thing for us in Tarrant County.”

Either of those options could affect candidates farther down the ballot, from state representatives to constables, who already see fewer votes than candidates at the top of the ballot.

Local Republicans say they hope Democrats don’t get their hopes too high over the possibilities if Trump is the GOP presidential nominee.

“I think there will definitely be a Trump effect,” said Jennifer Hall, who heads the Tarrant County Republican Party. “Trump affected almost every vote in the primary — people either came out to vote for him or against him.

“But we are hearing from a number of Democrats who say if Trump is our nominee, they will vote for him,” she said. “They say they like him better than Hillary [Clinton] or Bernie [Sanders].”

[…]

“County and city races may be hardest hit, along with judicial races,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, an associate professor of political science at the University of Houston. “Without a steady Republican turnout, the usual higher turnout in a presidential election will bring more Democrats and may cost the party some local seats.

“When given a reason, Democrats do turn out in big numbers, especially in presidential elections,” he said. “Trump’s bombastic political swagger may encourage less frequent Democrats to get to the polls and spike Democratic numbers around the area.”

Not only that, but GOP candidates in general might be tainted for some voters.

“The image of Republican candidates in down-ballot races would be tarnished in the eyes of some regular Republican voters due to their indirect association with Trump as their party’s presidential standard bearer,” said Mark P. Jones, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston.

“Trump’s anti-Latino rhetoric would be utilized by Democrats to ramp up Latino turnout and to drive a wedge between Latinos and the Republican Party,” he said. “Since Latinos in Texas tend to lean Democratic, higher Latino turnout alone will benefit Democrats, let alone if formerly Republican leaning Latinos switch their support to Democratic candidates as a result of Trump’s candidacy.”

We’ve discussed this before, and I’ll say once again that the way to move away from pure speculation and into slightly better-informed speculation is to get some polling data. Downballot races are where any effects will be felt, but a macro view of the statewide mood will help us gauge what those effects might be. Harris County, with its knife-edge balance these last two Presidential years, could definitely look a lot different after November. As for Tarrant County, it’s been an amazingly accurate mirror of statewide Presidential results over the past few cycles:


Year  Tarrant R  Texas R  Tarrant D  Texas D
============================================
2012     57.12%   57.17%     41.43%   41.38%
2008     55.43%   55.45%     43.73%   43.68%
2004     62.39%   61.09%     37.01%   38.22%

It will be interesting to see if that holds again this year. Maybe someone can just do a poll of Tarrant Count as a proxy for the state as a whole. We don’t have statewide poll numbers yet, but as do know that Latinos are extra engaged this year, that they really hate Donald Trump, and thanks to shift in Latino preferences, Harris County is more Democratic than ever. I’ll have more on that latter link tomorrow, but in the meantime what we do know points in one direction. The question is how far in that direction it points.

Don’t expect any flood project funding from Congress, either

Nice thought, but ain’t gonna happen.

Rep. Gene Green

Rep. Gene Green

As the flood threat across much of the Houston region lessened Friday, local leaders began shifting their focus to recovery and two Houston congressmen announced legislation to fund more than $300 million worth of regional flood control projects.

U.S. Reps. Al Green and Gene Green said their bill, which they filed Thursday, might mitigate devastation like that caused by this week’s deluge they called the “Tax Day floods”: 240 billion gallons of rain water, more than 17 inches in some areas, drenched the county in the most significant downpour in 15 years.

“It’s important for us to say that we want to take care of our city,” said Al Green.

[…]

The Houston congressmens’ bill would appropriate $311 million projects on several bayous across the county, including an ongoing widening project on Brays Bayou. Earlier this week, the bayou spilled over its banks, flooding dozens of homes, as it did last Memorial Day, when swaths of Meyerland were inundated by flood waters.

Funds would also go toward bridge replacements, detention ponds and widening and deepening measures on Clear Creek, Greens Bayou, Hunting Bayou and White Oak Bayou.

President Barack Obama’s 2017 budget currently does not allocate funds despite multimillion dollar need, a challenge local officials said was part of an ongoing struggle

The Brays Bayou project was initially expected to be finished in 2016, but the completion is now anticipated for 2021, according to flood control district executive director Mike Talbott, in large part due to funding constraints.

Flood control district spokeswoman Kim Jackson said work on the Hunting Bayou – specifically an alteration to the shape of the channel that would allow water to better flow through – is also on hold due to lack of federal dollars. So are improvements to the White Oak Bayou, including a work on the channel from Cole Creek to upstream of Jones Road and the construction of one detention basin.

“We keep designing, designing and we’ll construct as we can,” Jackson said. “That’s what’s kind of gotten us behind.”

It’s not to say bayou improvements have not been made over the years. Three flood control basins have been built as part of the Brays Bayou project, along with 12.3 miles of improvements to the channel. Almost $212 million in federal dollars have gone toward the project since 1998.

The flood control district estimates that without some of the improvements, 2,000 homes and business would have been flooded during last year’s Memorial Day flood last year.

But flood control officials say more work is needed. If passed, the $311 million in the legislation would provide a steady stream of funding for a decade, boosting many of the projects toward completion.

Despite enthusiasm for the bill’s passage from both Congressmen, University of Houston – Victoria political science professor Craig Goodman said it would be an uphill battle, in part because the sponsors are Democrats in a Republican-controlled legislature.

“Appropriations is going to be really tough in this Congress,” Goodman said.

As with the coastal floodgate proposals, the first problem is simple partisanship. Democratic-written infrastructure bills have no chance of being passed in a Republican Congress. There are scenarios under which some of these things get some funding, but they all involve some level of Republican support. What do you think are the odds of that? KUHF has more.

Disaster declaration made

From the inbox:

HoustonSeal

Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s office today confirmed that President Obama has approved the governor’s request for a federal disaster declaration for Fayette, Grimes, Harris and Parker counties. The action paves the way for federal recovery assistance to begin flowing into the Houston area.

“I hope this leads to help for all of our residents who were impacted by the flooding, including our most vulnerable residents in the 17 apartment complexes in the Greenspoint area,” said Mayor Sylvester Turner. “Many of these families have lost everything and they do not have the financial means to recover. They have a whole host of needs that include housing, transportation and more. I urge the Federal Emergency Management Agency to be flexible in its decision making regarding assistance for these residents.”

More than 1900 apartment units were damaged in the 17 complexes in Greenspoint. Approximately 200 of these units took in as much as six feet of water. In addition, hundreds of single-family homes in Houston along White Oak and Brays Bayous also suffered extensive damage.

Houston residents and business owners who sustained losses in Harris County can apply for assistance by registering online at www.DisasterAssistance.gov, calling 1-800-621-FEMA (3362), or by a web enabled mobile device at m.fema.gov.

The City of Houston has established a website to help residents navigate the disaster recovery process, which includes the latest information from FEMA, as well as ways to receive and give help following the flooding. Visit houstonrecovers.org for more information.

Here’s the Chron story. If you or someone you know has been affected by this flood, do be sure you get the help you need.

Also of interest for county residents:

The Harris County engineering department has opened a phone line for residents seeking information on permits and inspections they may need to rebuild flood-damaged homes.

Residents can call 713-274-3880 from 7 a.m. until 10 p.m. daily.

Depending on where residents live and the type of structural repair necessary, they might need an inspection and development permit from the county. County officials are encouraging people to call the number to sort out what steps they need to take.

Again, please get all the help you need, and take all necessary steps to protect yourself from unscrupulous operators who would try to cheat or deceive you in making repairs.

Endorsement watch: Why bother?

The Chronicle barely musters a shrug for the special election in HD139.

Jarvis Johnson

Jarvis Johnson

The winner of this election will cast no ballots in the state Legislature – presuming that Gov. Greg Abbott doesn’t call an unexpected special session. At the very best, that person will get to sit on a few interim committees and use the office’s bully pulpit to bring attention to important community issues.

With this position’s limited scope in mind, the Chronicle endorses Jarvis D. Johnson in the special election for District 139.

The former three-term city councilman did not receive our endorsement in the actual race for this seat. While on council, Johnson faced allegations of trying to direct city contracts and was charged with evading arrest. However, his opponent for the May 24 race, Kimberly Willis, is not running for this placeholder position. Instead, Johnson is running against Rickey “Raykey” Tezino, a self-proclaimed “conservative Democrat” who didn’t respond to requests for an interview.

That would serve as a pretty good dictionary example for the word “lukewarm”. The Chron didn’t waste any effort covering the race, either. You can be upset and cynical about this, or you can bear in mind that the stakes for this election are so low as to be basically non-existent. When you have a Legislature that only convenes every other year, it’s hard to be excited about an election that only affects the odd year out. The election that matters is May 24. This one is what it is.

Early voting for May 7 elections begins today

Hey, remember that special election to fill out Mayor Turner’s unexpired term in HD139? Early voting for it – and for the other elections on the May 7 ballot – begins today. Who knew, right? Here’s the press release from the County Clerk’s office:

HD139_early_voting_locations

The Early Voting Period for the May 7, 2016, Special Election in State Representative District (SRD) 139 begins Monday, April 25, and continues through Tuesday, May 3. The election is being held to fill the position vacated January 1 by City of Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner. A detailed Early Voting Schedule can be found at www.HarrisVotes.com.

“This Special Election provides voters in SRD 139 the opportunity to let their voices be heard and familiarize themselves with the new Early Voting locations in the area,” said Harris County Clerk Stan Stanart. “Since the last presidential election, we have added two early voting locations in the SRD 139 area to relieve voting lines at the Acres Homes Early Voting site.”

In total, there will be four early voting locations where registered voters in SRD 139 may cast votes in the Special Election, including:

  • Acres Homes Multi-Service Center, 6719 W. Montgomery Rd., Houston, Texas 77091;
  • Lone Star College, Victory Center, 4141 Victory Dr., Houston, Texas 77088;
  • Fallbrook Church, 12512 Walters Rd., Houston, Texas 77014; and
  • The Harris County Administration Bldg., 1001 Preston, Houston, Texas 77002

“I encourage voters in SRD 139 to vote at any one of the four early voting locations,” emphasized Stanart, the chief election officer of the County. “Voting early is the best option because, by law, voters are limited to voting at their designated polling location on Election Day.” There are approximately 91,000 registered voters in State House District 139.

To obtain more information about the SRD 139 Special Election, including an early voting schedule, a personal sample ballot, or a list of acceptable forms of photo identification required to vote in person, voters can call the Harris County Clerk’s office at 713.755.6965 or visit the Harris County Clerk’s election website, www.HarrisVotes.com.

Harris County voters may also visit www.HarrisVotes.com to find out if they are able to vote in any of the over 85 political entities within Harris County that are conducting elections on May 7, 2016.

The full early voting schedule is here. Now you may ask yourself, who exactly is running in this special election? Turns out, there are two candidates: Jarvis Johnson, who as you know is in the primary runoff for the Democratic nomination (the winner of which will be elected in November), and Rickey “RayKay” Tezino, who also has a Congressional campaign website that doesn’t specify a district, and an unclear idea about how long the term of office he is running for is. I’m going to step out on a limb and suggest that Jarvis Johnson will win this race, which will give him a leg up on seniority if he also wins on May 24. Here’s my interview with Jarvis Johnson from the March primary if you happen to be thinking about voting in the special. At least there won’t be a runoff for this one.

Also on the ballot on May 7 is Katy ISD Board of Trustees, which has one contested race and one uncontested race. Katy ISD, like the city of Katy, exists in Harris, Fort Bend, and Waller Counties, so this election is not being administered by the Harris County Clerk. Katy ISD voting precinct information is here, and early voting information for it is here. I interviewed candidate George Scott for the contested race, in District 1, and you can listen to that here.

Beyond that, there are various races in Fort Bend County – you can see a list of the entities holding elections and sample ballots for them here, and the early voting schedule and locations here. I know nothing about any of these races, so I’m afraid you’re on your own there. And of course there’s the Uber ordinance referendum in Austin, which will likely have implications around the state and maybe the country. Any races of interest in your area? Leave a comment and let us know.

The state is starting to feel the squeeze

Things are tough all over.

BagOfMoney

The state is facing big problems affecting vulnerable populations that will take significant money to fix at the same time that a slump in the energy industry is chipping into its revenues, House Speaker Joe Straus warned Tuesday.

“Writing a balanced and disciplined budget that appropriately funds our top priorities is going to be a significant challenge,” Straus said in a letter to House budget-writers, expressing confidence they are up to the challenge.

“This is not a theoretical exercise, but rather a task that affects children, taxpayers, and our state’s future,” he wrote.

Oil prices that stood at close to $60 a barrel when the Legislature adjourned last year are averaging “closer to $37 a barrel,” Straus wrote. And the state sales tax has marked five monthly declines.

Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar last year reduced his estimate of anticipated tax revenue for the current budget period by billions of dollars, while still leaving more than enough money for the state to pay its obligations.

Even before this week’s costly flooding, lawmakers were facing budget challenges such as addressing a foster care system in crisis, Straus wrote. A federal judge has ruled that the system violates the rights of children who most often “leave state custody more damaged than when they entered.”

The public school funding system also is under court challenge. A state district judge already has ruled it unconstitutional, suggesting that a fix could cost up to $11 billion. The state has appealed the case to the Texas Supreme Court, which could rule this year.

In addition, Straus said, the program providing health-care benefits to retired teachers is in need of a long-term solution.

Those challenges will require “significant financial resources,” wrote Straus, R-San Antonio, and they alone would pose a challenge for lawmakers who return in regular session in January 2017.

[…]

In addition to looking at state program needs, leaders including [Lt. Gov. Dan] Patrick are setting the stage for additional tax relief in the next legislative session. Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a Houston Republican named by Patrick to head the Select Committee on Property Tax Reform and Relief, said there will be room for reducing taxes and that zero-based budgeting, in which all spending items must be justified, will help accomplish that goal.

Of course there’s room for property tax reductions. There’s always room for property tax reductions. We can do those other things with whatever’s left. Wafer-thin mint, anyone?

I don’t know what the Lege will do about this next year – who knows, the price of oil may go back up and we’ll all have forgotten any of this happened by then – but I do know how I’d be planning to run a campaign in 2018. The Republicans running this state are all crooks or crook-coddlers. They busted the budget giving tax breaks to big corporations, while the rest of us get standardized tests, jam-packed highways, a foster care system that kills kids, and no solutions from state leadership. They’ve been in complete control for 15 years. It’s time for a change.

Maybe that would work and maybe it wouldn’t. I doubt it could be any worse than what we’ve done before, and who knows? Maybe the business community will finally have had enough by then, especially if the Lege goes all North Carolina on gays and all Trump on immigration. Democrats would still need good candidates running on a whole lot of faith, the money to get that message out, and some clue how to boost turnout past the pathetic 1.7 million in off years level we’ve been stuck at. I can dream, can’t I? Trail Blazers has more.

Don’t expect Congress to pay for a Gulf Coast floodgate system

I sure don’t.

After nearly a decade of bickering and finger pointing, Texas scientists and lawmakers finally seem to agree that building some version of a “coastal spine” — a massive seawall and floodgate system — would best help protect the Houston region from a devastating hurricane.

But with a price tag sure to reach into the billions, the spine will almost certainly require a massive infusion of federal money, state officials agree. Whether Texas’ congressional delegation has the political backbone to deliver the cash remains to be seen.

While state officials say the project enjoys the full support of Texans in Congress, almost every member has been silent on the issue, including those who hold the most sway.

“Everything depends on how long it takes us to get Congress,” said Bob Mitchell, president of the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership, a local economic development organization. “We could have a hurricane in three months.”

In March, The Texas Tribune and ProPublica published an extensive look at what Houston’s perfect storm would look like. Scientists, experts, and public officials say that such a hurricane would kill thousands and cripple the national economy.

Building some sort of coastal barrier system around Galveston and Houston would rank as one of the nation’s most ambitious public works projects and would be unlikely to succeed without champions in Washington. State leaders and Houston-area congressmen cited U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and Rep. Kevin Brady of Houston as those most likely to fill the role of standard bearer.

Cornyn and Brady, both Republicans, declined repeated interview requests about the coastal project over a period of months. The state’s junior senator, Ted Cruz, is busy running for president, and his staff has said he is waiting results of further studies. Of the 36 members representing Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives, only five agreed to interviews on the subject.

At the state level, Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush, who has made coastal protection one of his top priorities, said he hopes for support from Brady, who chairs one of the most powerful committees in the U.S. House. He also mentioned Cornyn.

Congressman Randy Weber, a Republican from Friendswood, said he is already pushing the issue, but added that a senator’s support will be critical.

“John Cornyn, of course, a senior senator, majority whip over on the Senate side, would be a great one to champion the cause,” he said.

[…]

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers also just started studying the issue, and Cornyn’s office emphasized that he signed a letter last October in support of that effort. But the study will take at least five years.

In another letter sent last November, 32 members of the House delegation urged the Army Corps to speed up the process even though it is at the mercy of funding from Congress.

Meanwhile, the next hurricane season is just two months away.

“Don’t just write a letter and think that you’re done with it,” said Michel Bechtel, the mayor of Morgan’s Point, an industrial town on the Houston Ship Channel that was nearly wiped out during Hurricane Ike in 2008. “Let’s get some dollars flowing down here and let’s build it.”

Republican Congressman Pete Olson said the Corps is taking too long and should have started its efforts earlier. But for years it didn’t have the money to study hurricane protection for the Houston region. The agency was able to start last fall only because the Texas General Land Office agreed to pay for half the $20 million study at the insistence of Bush.

Congress is supposed to provide the rest, but the Army Corps will have to ask for it every year until the study is complete.

Asked if he thinks Congress will commit to the $10 million, Olson said the Corps had never given him that dollar figure. “They told you that, but not me that,” he said.

[…]

Weber said he thinks the federal government should help pay for a hurricane protection barrier, but he wouldn’t comment on whether his colleagues in Congress agree with him.

“I don’t know, well, maybe,” he said.

See here, here, and here for the background. I say the odds of Congress agreeing to pony up some $10 billion or so for a coastal floodgate system are pretty damn low. I cannot imagine Randy Weber’s nihilistic teabagger caucus members going along with it. Hell, I’d bet money right now that the Texas Republican Congressional caucus is not all on board with the idea, and I’ll even exclude Ted Cruz from consideration. Look at the recent track record of Congressional Republicans not wanting to appropriate funds to places that had been hit by actual disasters (two words: Superstorm Sandy) and ask yourself why they would vote to spend money on a disaster that hasn’t happened and may never do so in their lifetime. All spending is political now, and the death of earmarks makes dealmaking a lot harder. The fact that there isn’t unanimity about the best kind of flood mitigation system doesn’t help, either. Maybe someday, in a different political climate, but not now. Don’t be surprised if you see another article like this being written a couple of years from now.

Oh, Borris

Not good.

Borris Miles

Borris Miles

State Rep. Borris Miles, a Houston Democrat, repeatedly failed to disclose his business interests in three companies as state law requires.

The lawmaker did not report on state ethics forms for several years that he had an ownership stake in two hospice agencies or that he owned an entertainment company that operates a cigar bar in south Houston.

Miles rectified these omissions in recent days after the Houston Chronicle inquired about them. Through his attorney, he filed “corrected” ethics statements and “good-faith” affidavits in which he says, “I swear, or affirm, that any error or omission in the report as originally filed was made in good faith.”

On the new forms, Miles disclosed that he had business interests in Attentive Hospice from 2012 through 2015, in A-1 Hospice of Houston in 2009, and in Goodlife Management from 2009 through 2013.

Ethics watchdogs consider Texas’ ethics act weak but say its requirement that lawmakers, other public officials and candidates disclose business ownership can enable the public to determine whether they are engaged in conflicts of interest.

And when they don’t disclose? Craig McDonald, director of the nonprofit Texans for Public Justice, said public officials rarely are punished sufficiently for failing to properly report.

“When the minimum disclosure standards that we have are violated, we need tougher and swifter penalties for it,” he said. “It’s a lack of enforcement. That comes from an unwillingness among legislators to regulate themselves with respect to transparency on their finances.”

The penalty for failing to file required items on the ethics statements ranges from $500 to $10,000 if the Texas Ethics Commission takes action under its rules. If a sworn complaint is filed alleging a violation, the commission can order a fine up to $5,000 or triple the amount at issue, whichever is more. A prosecutor also can pursue a misdemeanor charge.

The issue of whether Miles should be sanctioned for not initially disclosing three of his business interests highlights flaws with the ethics law, said Tom “Smitty” Smith, director of the Texas office of Public Citizen, a nonprofit watchdog group.

The state ethics commission doesn’t audit personal financial statements filed by public officials and candidates to track whether they disclose everything about their businesses, he said. “And we don’t prosecute them for their failure to fully disclose,” Smith added. “As a result, people can blatantly ignore the personal financial statement requirements and there’s really no consequence except for a fine that is less than the rounding error on the business income at question.”

I like Rep. Miles and I hate to have to write about this stuff, but our disclosure requirements are woefully inadequate enough as it is, and there’s no excuse for this. It would help if the Legislature got around to creating real penalties for failing to comply with these requirements – Greg Abbott has paid lip service to this, but failed quite miserably in the last session to achieve anything – but even in the absence of penalties that sting, compliance is not optional. If someone wants to file a complaint over this with the TEC and/or the Harris County DA, that’s their right, and Rep. Miles will need to face whatever consequences follow from that. In the meantime, I hope everyone else is reviewing their own disclosure statements and bringing them into compliance if they are not fully there. I also hope the Lege revisits the issue of penalties for non-compliance. In effect, the Legislature has the power to oversee itself, since they have the power to grant or rescind oversight authority to the TEC. Let’s take that job a bit more seriously, shall we?

Weekend link dump for April 24

At some point, you’d think they’d have to actually find a Bigfoot, right?

It’s time for Animaniacs once again.

Has Carroll Spinney passed the torch on playing Big Bird and Oscar?

You want to claim your product is “all natural”, you’re going to have to prove it.

“Today, throughout white evangelicalism and the rest of white Christianity in America, we remain determined to cling to the hermeneutics and the lessons taught us by the people who were vastly wrong while ignoring and marginalizing the vision of the people who were consistently and admirably right.”

You should dump Apple Quicktime if you’re a Windows user.

Neil Gaimain is writing a six-part Good Omens TV miniseries. And I will watch the hell out of it.

“Have you ever joked that you wished you could clone yourself? Well, it looks like if you’re an extremist of any stripe who spends a lot of time on social media, you’ll soon be able to fulfil that dream.”

RIP, Doris Roberts, best known for her role on Everybody Loves Raymond.

Alas, Boaty McBoatface. It just wasn’t meant to be.

James Dobson is a lying liar who lies a lot.

“In practice, the only effect of registering with a party is to be able to vote in its primaries. You’re not promising to vote for that party. So if you’re really upset about not being to vote in a primary, why register independent? (That’s not a dig or rhetorical question.)”

What Sen. Elizabeth Warren says.

Good move, ESPN. Curt Schilling was so not worth it. Also, what Roy says.

“How hackers eavesdropped on a US Congressman using only his phone number”.

RIP, Joanie Laurer, a/k/a former pro wrestler Chyna.

RIP, Prince. You don’t need me to tell you who Prince is, do you? Man, it’s been a rough year for musicians.

The Internet has been flooded with Prince coverage, of course, and you should read it all, including this piece by my college buddy Steve Smith.

“A political insider in an expensive suit is conveying the message that Trump is domesticated now. So that’s what the mainstream press wants you to hear.”

Storm debris collection begins in Houston neighborhoods

From the inbox:

HoustonSeal

Beginning Saturday, April 23, 2016 the City of Houston Solid Waste Management Department and private contractors working on the City’s behalf will begin storm debris collection in the single-family neighborhoods impacted by Monday’s flooding. This includes the following areas.

  • Acres Homes
  • Alabonson
  • Chateau Forest
  • Kempwood/Bingle, Hollister
  • Larchmont
  • Link Meadow
  • Linkwood
  • Meyerland
  • Spring Branch, Blalock, Gessner, Hemstead
  • Westbury

The City asks residents to help by separating everything into the following six categories.

  • Normal Household Trash – Normal household trash and bagged debris of any kind will not be picked up with debris as part of this program. You should continue to follow your normal garbage schedule.
  • Vegetative Debris – leaves (do not put in bags), logs, plants, tree branches
  • Construction & Demolition Debris – building materials, carpet, drywall, furniture, lumber, mattresses, and plumbing
  • Appliances & White Goods – air conditioners, dishwashers, freezers, refrigerators, stoves, washers, dryers and water heaters
  • Electronics – computers, radios, stereos, televisions, other devices with a cord
  • Household Hazardous Waste – cleaning supplies, batteries, lawn chemical, oils, oil-based paints, stains and pesticides

Residents should not place debris piles near other objects like fire hydrants and mailboxes or under power lines or low hanging branches that would interfere with the collection equipment.

The City is also continuing to help with debris removal from inside 17 privately-owned apartment complexes in the Greenspoint area.

And in other news:

It took until the wee hours of the morning, but all remaining flood evacuees who had been sheltering at M.O. Campbell Center have now been relocated into hotel rooms and the shelter has been closed. Well over 150 families are being provided hotel rooms for up to three weeks at a cost of about $150,000. The City is using the Greater Houston Storm Relief Fund to cover the costs.

“I promised we would get everyone out of the shelters by the weekend and we have kept that promise,” said Mayor Sylvester Turner. “These families have been sleeping on cots in a high school gymnasium since last Monday. They have lost everything and have nowhere else to go. They deserve to be treated with dignity and respect in this time of need. That means providing a warm bed on which to lay their heads, showers and privacy.”

Catholic Charities and the American Red Cross are working to coordinate meals for the hotel guests. Yellow Cab and METRO assisted with the massive transportation effort from the shelter to the hotels. Everyone was placed in hotels in the immediate Greenspoint area so their children are in close proximity to their schools. The hotel accommodations are meant to be temporary housing until apartment repairs are finished or alternative units have been identified.

Approximately 1800 apartment units suffered minimal to major flood damage in the Greenspoint area. The apartment owners have 400 workers on site making repairs. In addition, the City has stepped in to help with debris removal so it does not pile up and become a breeding ground for mosquitoes.

Debris collection begins today in the single-family areas impacted by the floods. 20 contract crews are working seven days a week with the City’s solid waste staff in nine neighborhoods. They are unable to get to the Kingwood/Forest Cove areas because flood waters remain high.

Donations for the relief effort are being accepted through the Greater Houston Storm Relief Fund at www.houstonrecovers.org. The donations will stay in our community and be used to help storm victims and relief organizations in Harris, Fort Bend and Montgomery Counties

The Mayor’s office is also partnering with Airbnb, which has asked its hosts in Houston to share for free any extra space they have. The temporary accommodations are available to displaced residents and volunteers here helping with the relief effort. The offer is good from now until May 14. Listings of the available housing can be found at https://www.airbnb.com/disaster-response.

Glad to hear it. The Chron story on this is here, and as always, don’t read the comments if you want to maintain any faith in humanity. The Rockets made a $500,000 donation to The Greater Houston Storm Relief Fund before Thursday’s game. Hopefully many others will follow that lead.

Ken Paxton says he’ll run again in 2018

As I fully expect he will.

Best mugshot ever

Best mugshot ever

Embattled Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, facing state criminal charges and a federal complaint about his private business affairs, plans to run for re-election.

“Let there be no doubt that at the appropriate time General Paxton will make the official announcement that he fully intends to seek re-election and keep fighting for Texas,” Jordan Berry, a political consultant for Paxton, said in a statement Thursday.

The former state legislator who won the attorney general’s seat in 2014 faces federal and state securities fraud charges stemming from his time as an investment adviser before he took office. He was indicted by a Collin County grand jury last year, and the U.S. Securities and Exchange brought charges against him earlier this month.

But why let any of that get in the way? As I’ve been saying all along, until such time as the power structure, starting with Greg Abbott, turns against him, Paxton has every reason to believe he’ll be as welcome on the ballot in 2018 as he was in 2014. So what if he’s been convicted of felony charges by then? He’ll still be out on bond pending appeal. More importantly, he’ll still be the same all-in sue-the-feds-for-everything culture warrior that got elected in the first place. Republicans put him into office, and Republicans are going to have to do at least some work to take him out, either in a 2018 primary (which I doubt they’ll do) or by not voting for him that November. It would be nice to think that Democrats will have figured out how to get more of their people to come out and vote in an off-year election, but even if they do it’s unlikely to be enough without some loss of GOP voters. Which, again, is what I hope having a convicted felon (or two) on the ballot will provide. So run, Kenny, run. We’re all counting on you. Trail Blazers has more.

If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, you must acquit

I knew there was a lawsuit going on over the provenance of Stairway to Heaven, but I hadn’t realized there were Texas connections to it.

In a few weeks, jurors will decide if Led Zeppelin lifted the guitar intro to “Stairway to Heaven” from an instrumental song “Taurus” by the California psychedelic pop-rock band Spirit. Three of the former members of Spirit live in the Houston area.

The suit was filed in 2014 by original Spirit bassist Mark Andes and the estate of “Taurus” composer Randy Wolfe, known in his Spirit days as “Randy California,” a handle bestowed upon him by none other than Jimi Hendrix. After leaving Spirit, Andes held down the bottom end for Jo Jo Gunne; soft-rockers Firefall; and then, during their chart-topping 1980s run of pop hits, Heart. After leaving Heart, Andes moved to Austin with one-time love interest Eliza Gilkyson and stuck around after their relationship ended. Since then he has married and now lives in Montgomery County, just north of Houston. Citing the ongoing suit, Andes politely declined to comment.

Houston is also the home of Austin-bred brothers Al and John Staehely, both of whom played in Spirit after Andes’s departure and the composition of “Taurus.” Al Staehely is now Houston’s most prominent entertainment lawyer.

Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page and singer (and former Austinite) Robert Plant, composers of “Stairway,” are the defendants. The suit seeks to have Wolfe listed as a co-composer alongside Page and Plant, who have long claimed to have written the song in the stark, rustic confines of Bron-Yr-Aur, an isolated Welsh cottage, near where the faeries gambol and the hobbits frolic.

Here’s the Spirit song in question:

I trust you know how Stairway to Heaven begins, but you can click over to the Texas Monthly story for a video embed of it if you need to. The guitar riff that is clearly the basis of the lawsuit starts about 55 seconds in. There’s definitely a similarity, but to my amateur musician’s ear, it’s just too basic to be copy-able. I don’t know that I could bring myself to find for the plaintiff, but if you read the story you’ll see that based on past cases, it doesn’t take much for the plaintiffs to prevail in this kind of action. You’ll also see that there’s another song, from Robert Plant’s childhood, that might have been the real inspiration for Stairway. What I know is that the YouTube video of Spirit’s Taurus has more than four million views, so even if they lose this lawsuit, they’ve already won in a way. Take a look and listen and see what you think.

Want to buy a big piece of land near the Medical Center?

Here’s your chance.

A single tract of land large enough to hold multiple office towers, high-rise residential buildings and a hotel doesn’t often come available inside Loop 610. One near the Texas Medical Center is even more uncommon.

After 45 years, Shell Oil Co. is selling 21 acres it owns at the southwest corner of Old Spanish Trail and Greenbriar, just south of the Medical Center’s main campus and directly west of the Woman’s Hospital of Texas.

The site houses a midrise office building, a parking garage and several warehouse structures.

As far as most people in real estate development would be concerned, they’re all teardowns. The value of the property is in the land, which is likely worth tens of millions of dollars.

The land is next to a giant parking lot owned by the Medical Center that is the proposed location of a medical research project to be called the TMC3 Innovation Campus.

The facility would bring together several Medical Center institutions and for-profit commercial components, such as hotels, shops and restaurants. It would have a large plaza shaped like a double helix, a nod to intertwining strands of DNA.

The Shell property is along the light-rail line and represents the largest contiguous redevelopment site in the Texas Medical Center area, according to Cushman & Wakefield, which has the listing.

I used to work out that way, and I can tell you, the stretch of Old Spanish Trail from 288 to where it meets up with Main Street, just to the west of this property, used to be mostly run down and vacant lots but is now packed with new Medical Center complexes and residences. The “giant parking lot owned by the Medical Center” referenced is in front of the Smithlands light rail station, which is two blocks from the main entrance to the for-sale tract. That lot is always full – there was a dedicated traffic light put in for it on OST between Greenbriar and Stadium – so I have no idea what will happen when it gets developed as well. I would also note that the large tract of land at Main and Greenbriar where The Stables once was is still a vacant lot after just shy of a decade has passed. In other words, just because a large tract of land is coming on the market, doesn’t mean something will get built on it any time soon. Anyway, if you have a few million bucks lying around, this might be a nice piece of land to pick up.

Saturday video break: Istanbul (Not Constantinople) revisited

I posted three videos of the classic “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” a few years back, including a video of the original, by The Four Lads. Now here’s a video of the They Might Be Giants version, done over a montage of “Pink Panther” cartoons:

And here are four rats from the short-lived “Muppets Tonight” doing a few verses Greek chorus-style:

And for something less frivolous, here’s a trio called Harpeth Rising doing a nifty instrumental version:

So there you have it. I assure you it was mere convenience that Istanbul was on yesterday’s city-themed random ten list. As for more videos, I may have to go on the Page 2 results to get anything else of interest for this one.

First look at how HISD will balance its budget

Seems to be fairly well-received.

Ken Huewitt

The Houston school district’s interim superintendent on Thursday rescinded his proposal to reduce funding for gifted students amid concerns from parents and board members.

At the same time, Ken Huewitt proposed bolstering the budgets of schools with significant concentrations of low-income students, using $21 million from federal funds. Schools with the highest percentage of poor children would get the most extra money – an attempt to address the academic challenges at what Huewitt called “hyper-poverty” campuses.

Huewitt’s plan calls for revamping how campuses are funded at the same time as the Houston Independent School District faces an estimated $107 million budget shortfall in the coming year. The financial woes stem from the district expecting, for the first time, to have to send tens of millions of dollars back to the state because it is considered too property wealthy.

“This is about funding the needs of our kids,” Glenn Reed, general manager of budgeting for the school district, said after the board’s budget workshop Thursday.

To balance the budget, Huewitt has proposed several cuts, including ending the $10 million bonus program for teachers and other school staff, and cutting $11 million in contracts with outside vendors.

He also would eliminate the $19 million that went to help a few dozen low-performing schools, as part of former Superintendent Terry Grier’s “Apollo” reform program.

See here and here for some background, and remember again that this is not HISD’s fault, it’s the Legislature’s fault. I don’t know how the search for the next Super is going, but if the search firm/screening committee isn’t asking every candidate detailed questions about how they would have handled this situation, they are not doing an adequate job. I hate that HISD is having to go through this, but from what we have seen so far, Interim Superintendent Huewitt seems to have done a pretty good job of it. We’ll see what comes out when the Board votes on the budget.

Being Sid Miller

It’s complicated, especially when your stories keep changing.

Sid Miller

The Texas Rangers are currently investigating whether Miller broke the law when he took those out-of-state, taxpayer-funded trips in February 2015.

The first was to Oklahoma, where internal emails from the Department of Agriculture indicated he planned the trip solely to obtain the Jesus Shot, which some believe cures all pain for life. Miller, who claimed the trip’s intent was to meet with Oklahoma lawmakers, said he would repay the state for the trip out of an “abundance of caution” after it was revealed in March by the Houston Chronicle that he missed a meeting with the state agriculture commissioner, Jim Reese.

“There was an official purpose for him to be in Oklahoma, and that was to meet with the commissioner of the state of Oklahoma,” insisted Todd Smith, Miller’s political consultant of 17 years, on Thursday. Smith attributed the missed meeting to a “comedy of errors.” He could not answer why those issues were not discussed at a conference both Reese and Miller attended just days before the so-called Jesus Shot trip.

Miller also traveled to Mississippi on the state’s dime, where he participated in the National Dixie Rodeo. When asked about the trip, the Department of Agriculture provided more than one version of how it came to pass, and late Thursday, Smith offered a much different account than his boss.

Initially, the Houston Chronicle reported that Miller took the state-paid trip to Mississippi to participate in the National Dixie Rodeo but sometime after that tried to set up a work meeting with the Magnolia State’s agriculture officials, making it a legitimate state-covered business trip. Miller said after those meetings fell through, he repaid the state for the trip with campaign funds because he also met with donors and advisers.

More than a week before the Chronicle story, Miller’s then-communications director Lucy Nashed told The Texas Tribune that the Mississippi trip — which was always designed to be a personal trip — was mistakenly booked by a staffer as a business trip. Once the staffer realized the trip was personal, Nashed said, Miller repaid the state for the trip out of campaign funds and $16.79 from his nursery’s business account. Earlier this month, Nashed resigned, saying there was a “tremendous lack of communication” at the department.

Miller has told the Tribune there was “absolutely no validity” to the complaints from liberal advocacy group Progress Texas that led to the Rangers investigation, calling them “harassment.”

“There’s nothing absolutely illegal or wrong with either of those trips,” he said.

But on Thursday, Miller’s political consultant told the Tribune a new version of the Mississippi trip. He said it was always supposed to be a business trip to meet with Agriculture Commissioner Cindy Hyde-Smith and that those meetings did occur, contrary to what his boss has previously said.

“I think there was some discrepancy about whether or not he had a meeting with her on that trip,” Smith said. “He met with her multiple times. He went to the rodeo with her.”

Tribune attempts to confirm whether Mississippi officials met with Miller have been unsuccessful.

As for Miller’s rodeo-ing while on a state-paid trip, Smith said there was nothing wrong with it and compared it to buying souvenirs while on a business trip.

“He can’t flip a switch and say, ‘I’m no longer the agriculture commissioner here, and I’m the agricultural commissioner now,’” Smith said.

Well, when most of us buy souvenirs on business trips, we pay for them with our own money. We don’t put them on the company card and then claim that we intended he purchase to be for business purposes when the accounting department asks us to explain the expenditure. And I for one can’t wait to hear what Commissioner Hyde-Smith has to say.

Actually, as it turns out, we don’t have to wait.

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller has met with his Mississippi counterpart multiple times since being elected, but there are no records indicating any meeting during Miller’s trip to the Magnolia State to compete in a rodeo in February 2015.

Mississippi Agriculture Commissioner Cindy Hyde-Smith traveled to Austin to meet with Miller in December 2014, and the two also spoke during conferences in February and June of 2015, according to emails and budget records released by the State of Mississippi. No documents exist about a meeting during Miller’s trip, however.

Texas officials also said they have no records of any meeting during the trip.

The absence of records appear to undercut statements made by Miller and his political consultant, Todd Smith.

I’m sure you can imagine my reaction to this, but just in case you can’t:

It’s like one big Meghan Trainor video up in here. What really boggle my mind is that there was no real reason to make up another explanation. Miller’s previous excuse, however risible, was at least consistent. Why would you go to the trouble of offering a new, easily fact-checked reason and thus keep this part of the story in the news? Like Dogbert once said, sometimes no sarcastic remark seems adequate.

Now you may be asking yourself, what happens if Miller finally does resign? Who would be best suited to step in for him? Well, don’t you worry, never fear, Jim Hogan stands ready to be called to service.

A criminal investigation into Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller has just begun, and while it is far too early to speculate about its result, one candidate is putting his name forward for any opening necessitated by a resignation: Jim Hogan, the Cleburne farmer who opted not to campaign when the Democratic Party nominated him to run against Miller in 2014.

Hogan said in an interview that he has been closely following the news about Miller and believes it could end in him being appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott to fill the position.

“Well, of course,” Hogan said. “If you had a tournament and the first guy was disqualified, wouldn’t you pick the guy that got second? Why would you pick someone who got out in the quarterfinals?”

[…]

For Hogan, the spending is troubling, but he said he also was disturbed by another aspect that had not gotten very much attention — the fact that both trips took place during work days.

“I’m just different,” Hogan said. “If I wanted to go to a rodeo, I guess I’d find one on a Saturday.”

Well, you can’t argue with that. I just wonder, did Jim Hogan call reporter Brian Rosenthal to tell him what he thought about this situation, or did Rosenthal call him out of a sincere desire to know what Jim Hogan was thinking about this? In ether case, I’m sure someone will advise Greg Abbott of Hogan’s readiness. Paradise in Hell has more.