December, 2017:

Weekend link dump for December 31

Boomers, man. They’ve ruined it for the rest of us.

Lots of people are coming to terms with past associations with sexual harassers. It’s a tough thing to grapple with, but we’re all the better for being open and honest now.

Here’s a map showing how many Americans died as a result of above ground atomic testing during the 1950s.

“The Charterstone Condo Board is pleased to announce this year’s nominees for 2017’s Worthy Awards. Each daily strip has been carefully reviewed by the Condo Board, and this year’s nominees represent the best that Mary Worth has to offer.”

Dirk Nowitzki is a mensch. Be sure to follow the link from inside the story, too.

RIP, Heather Menzies-Urich, best known as one of the Von Trapp children on The Sound Of Music.

“And just what real-world noise is a dragon’s purr based on? Tortoises having very loud tortoise sex.” You’re welcome.

RIP, Bob Givens, animator who helped design Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd.

“Here is a complete list of the now 20 women who have come forward under their own names to accuse the president of sexual assault, unwanted touching or kissing, or other inappropriate sexual behavior.”

If you’re even a little surprised that female sports journalists have to put up with a ton of sexual harassment, you haven’t been paying attention at all.

“For anyone who ever thought their wedding guest list posed challenges, this one tops them all.”

The Library of Congress won’t be archiving your tweets any more.

RIP, Rose Marie, actor and comedian.

RIP, Erica Garner, daughter of police brutality victim Eric Garner.

RIP, Sue Grafton, mystery novelist.

The Nation on Our Revolution in Texas

Dec 31st, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

Here’s a feature story in The Nation from before the holidays about Our Revolution, one of the many grassroots groups that have become prominent post-Trump to organize and get better people elected. The focus of this story is on what OR is doing in Texas.

When Jim Hightower, Nina Turner, and the Our Revolution road show rolled into Tyler, Texas, Ed Moore liked what he heard. “This is basically what we’ve all been needing,” explained the retired factory worker and union leader, who lives in a town where factories and unions have taken a lot of hits in recent years. Moore, a city councilman who represents working-class neighborhoods shaken by deindustrialization, nodded in agreement as Hightower channeled old-school Texas populism into a warning: “The powers that be…are knocking down the middle class. They are holding down the poor” and attacking “the essential ethic that holds America together—and that is the notion that we are all in this together.”

Our Revolution is the national group created by backers of Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential run with the goal of transforming the Democratic Party. When Turner, a former Ohio state senator who now leads the organization, finished her address by declaring, “We can change the world—one community at a time, one state at a time…. Tyler, Texas, can we do this?,” Moore joined the enthusiastic multiracial, multiethnic crowd, which was packed into an activity center on the local college campus, in answering: “Yes!”

[…]

Of the many resistance and rebuilding groups that are working on the ground to renew Democratic fortunes in the states, Our Revolution has made a notable decision: It’s betting big on Texas. As soon as the Sanders campaign gave way to the organization—with its slogan “Campaigns End, Revolutions Endure” and its promise to “transform American politics”—Hightower and a new generation of Lone Star populists vowed that they would make Texas Our Revolution’s most engaged, active, and, they hope, politically successful state branch. And after a shaky start, Our Revolution is developing into a muscular grassroots organization with nearly 500 chapters in 49 states and a burgeoning capacity to organize on behalf of issues and to help win elections. This is about the recognition of a need: Political movements that evolve out of presidential campaigns often have a hard time defining themselves as more than a reflection of a particular candidate and a particular moment in history. To get to that broader definition, groups that seek to fundamentally change parties and politics must deliver successful examples of how the politics of an insurgent presidential campaign can elect candidates in other races.

[…]

Designated by Our Revolution’s national board as the organization’s first state affiliate, the Lone Star group has hired staff; used Sanders-campaign lists to connect with grassroots activists; and begun organizing chapters at the local, county, and regional levels. It has spelled out a progressive agenda—a $15 minimum wage, Medicare for All, worker rights, support for immigrants, policies to address climate change, and a commitment to get big money out of politics—and it is encouraging political newcomers who came of age in the Sanders campaign, as well as the worker-rights, immigrant-rights, and Black Lives Matter movements, to start running in Democratic primaries and nonpartisan local elections.

Some of these newcomers have already won. Activist La’Shadion Shemwell, 30, was elected in June to the McKinney City Council in conservative Collin County, north of Dallas. “If I can do it,” Shemwell says, “having been arrested, being a minority, having tattoos and dreadlocks, being a poor person with all the odds against me—if I can do it, then anybody can do it.” In San Antonio, history teacher John Courage surprised nearly everyone by winning his uphill run for a City Council seat. “We can’t overstate how huge an upset this is,” said Our Revolution, which backed him. “Education activist John Courage has won his race in San Antonio’s most conservative district!”

The group plans to endorse candidates in 2018 for posts like state commissioner of agriculture—where Kim Olson, a retired Air Force colonel and rancher who has become a dynamic advocate for sustainable food production, seeks the Democratic nod—as well as in hundreds of down-ballot contests that have often been neglected in recent years. And it’s exploring the possibility of endorsing for governor and US Senate. There will be some primary fights, but in many parts of Texas, Our Revolution activists are working with local Democrats and stepping up as candidates supported not just by Sanders backers but by 2016 Clinton backers. “They’re bringing energy and a lot of young people into the party,” says Lorraine Broll, president of the Circle-C Area Democrats club in Central Texas. She isn’t a member of Our Revolution, but she’s pleased the group is organizing in places like Hays County, an area between Austin and San Antonio where Trump narrowly won in 2016 but where Democrats hope to make dramatic progress in 2018.

Part of the Our Revolution Texas strategy is to run in places where Democrats aren’t supposed to have a chance. To that end, it’s organizing not just frustrated Democrats but also independents and members of the largest political group in the state: nonvoters. This emphasis on expanding the voter roll and the candidate list intrigues Texans who have grown cynical after years of hearing that the demographics of this minority-majority state will soon make Democrats dominant.

It’s always interesting to get an outsider’s perspective on things in Texas. Sometimes they see things we don’t, sometimes they provide a reality check on our warped perspective. And sometimes you shake your head and say “you really should have run this past someone who knows something about Texas”. I have a few admittedly nitpicky examples of the latter to discuss.

First, a genuine question: What practical experience does Jim Hightower have in grassroots organization, and turning that into an effective means of not just communicating but actually winning elections? All due respect, but I can’t think of any prominent recent efforts he’s been involved in. He does his pundit/humorist thing, and that’s fine, but my perception here is that his main function is eminance grise and “Texas liberal person whose name non-Texan readers of The Nation will recognize”. Maybe I’m selling him short and if so I apologize, but it might have been nice to have had his recent accomplishments listed in the story.

The story does mention a couple of recent wins by OR-affiliated candidates, and that’s really where my observation about getting some input from a local applies. I mean, calling John Courage a “newcomer” is more than a little silly. Courage, who I interviewed in 2012 when he ran for State Senate, had previously run for Congress in 2006, and served on the Alamo Community College District Board of Trustees in the 1980s. I think highly of John Courage and am delighted that he won his race for San Antonio City Council, but he’s not a newcomer.

To be sure, there haven’t been that many opportunities for any group to exert influence in an election this year in Texas. The May elections were the main event – it would have been interesting to have seen what might have happened in a Houston election, but we won’t get that until 2019 – and there have been no legislative special elections as yet. The upcoming primaries will offer some opportunities. Kim Olson is unopposed in March, so that won’t tell us anything. The race to watch if you want to see what OR can do is in CD21, where OR has endorsed Derrick Crowe, who faces three opponents including one (Joseph Kopser) who has a lot of establishment support and has raised a bunch of money. I looked at the Our Revolution Texas Facebook page and didn’t see any other endorsement announcements – I don’t recall seeing any others while looking at all those Congressional candidate Facebook pages, either – but there’s still time and plenty of races to choose from. I will definitely be interested in that, and I expect there will be other players looking to leave their mark on the races in 2018 as well.

Anyway, read it and see what you think. Olson and Crowe were the only 2018 candidates mentioned by name, so I hope there will be more to be said about what OR is doing.

The Harvey effect on marine research

Dec 31st, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

It’s tough being on the coast sometimes.

Jagged splinters of wood stick out of the shoreline – all that’s left of a pier that once stretched 100 yards into the Gulf of Mexico.

White plastic tarps flap in the whipping December wind atop dozens of roofs that failed to withstand the brutal force of a hurricane. Small buildings nearby are caved in, while sturdier ones are stripped to the studs to prevent the spread of mold.

The 72-acre plot looks like an abandoned town from the 1970s.

Only it’s not an abandoned town. It’s the University of Texas at Austin’s once-thriving Marine Science Institute, the first of its kind on the Gulf. It’s been four months since Hurricane Harvey decimated the coastal town of Port Aransas – where the institute calls home – and officials still are months from bringing research efforts back online.

Faculty and students have been displaced, many to Texas A&M University’s Corpus Christi campus, millions of dollars of equipment has been destroyed and decades of research that cannot be replicated has been lost.

Institute leaders still are assessing the damage, which already has filled a 3,500-line spreadsheet, but the cost to rebuild will be in the “many tens of millions of dollars,” said Robert Dickey, institute director.

But they will rebuild, Dickey said. And they will be better prepared for the next hurricane.

“We want it done as quickly as possible, but it has to be done right,” Dickey said. “We’ll apply what we learned from this storm to our redesign.”

[…]

Dickey plans to use Harvey’s destruction on the institute as an opportunity to rebuild stronger and safer.

When all the damage is assessed and the insurance money rolls in, Dickey plans to “harden” the buildings against hurricanes by installing polycarbonate windows, bitumen roofs – rated against wind, fire and hail – and resistant materials for doors.

“We need to make everything more resilient,” he said.

The structures need to withstand a Category 4 storm. They need to fare as well as the Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium’s center on Summerland Key did during Hurricane Irma.

You can click over and read the rest. In the grand scheme of things, there are higher priority items than a marine research facility, and with UT’s fundraising muscle behind it the institute should be back and more prepared for big storms in the future. I post this mostly because there can’t be too many illustrations of the damage that Harvey caused or how high the stakes are as we try to prepare for when – not if – another storm like it strikes.

Saturday video break: Something So Right

Dec 30th, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Here’s Paul Simon performing one of his solo hits:

Simon was a top-notch songwriter for over 20 years, and if you look at the trajectory of most artists, that’s a long time. Here’s Annie Lennox, in a recording someone took from a performance she gave on morning TC show, doing her rendition of this song:

Her actual recording, on the Medusa album, is longer, but I was delighted to find even a low-quality version of her doing a live contemporaneous performance of this, so that’s what I went with. Paul Simon is a decent singer with a decent voice, but man is it a treat to see his work being done by someone with a truly amazing voice, and a lot more stage presence to boot.

Precinct analysis: Two facts about 2017 turnout

Dec 30th, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

As always after an election, I received an early copy of the canvass report, which tells me how the vote went in each individual precinct. Unlike other years, I didn’t have a clear direction for what to do with it, because there’s no obvious basis for comparisons. There are no partisan races, and no Mayoral contest, so it’s hard to say what questions to try to answer. So I sat on this for awhile, but with 2017 about to exit stage right, I figured I should finally do something with the data I had. Since turnout, or lack of it, is what everyone was talking about in this election, I thought I’d try to learn something about that. In general, we know what usually brings people to the polls in city elections – a contested Mayor’s race and contentious referenda. We had neither this time, so I thought I’d try to see if the bond issues we did have did more to draw people out than the HISD races did.

I don’t know that I have an answer, but I do have a couple of data points. First, in the precincts where there was an HISD race on the ballot, did more people vote in that HISD race than they did in the bond elections?


Dist  PropA    HISD
===================
I     9,490   8,900
III   3,365   3,114
V     8,583   7,656
VI    7,182   6,396
VII  11,848  11,471
IX    7,622   7,454

I used Prop A, the pension obligation bonds issue, as my proxy for all the city issues. It didn’t actually have the most votes, but their totals were all within about one percent of each other, so it’s good enough for our purposes. The totals for some districts, especially V and IX, are less than what you’ll find on the County Clerk’s page, because several of the precincts in those districts are outside city limits. Note also that I added up total votes cast in each, not ballots cast. That’s basically the whole point here – if someone voted in the HISD race but not for Prop A, I assume the HISD race is the main reason this person voted, and vice versa. In all cases, Prop A drew more votes.

The other way to look at this is to simply compare turnout in precincts that had an HISD race to precincts that didn’t. If you add up the total votes cast for Prop A in the precincts that had no HISD race, you get 48,630 votes cast out of 613,206 voters, for 7.93% turnout. The figures for the districts are as follows:

District 1 – 9,490 votes, 78,067 voters, 12.16% turnout
District 3 – 3,365 votes, 55,207 voters, 6.10% turnout
District 5 – 8,583 votes, 60,555 voters, 14.17% turnout
District 6 – 7,182 votes, 72,931 voters, 9.85% turnout
District 7 – 11,848 votes 88,949 voters, 13.32% turnout
District 9 – 7,622 votes, 74,716 voters, 10.20% turnout

Add it up and for all of HISD you get 48,090 votes, 430,425 voters, and 11.17% turnout. So yes, as one would expect, having an HISD race on the ballot in addition to the city bonds meant people were more likely to show up than just having the bonds. The difference, in this case, is a bit more than three percentage points.

So there you have it. There may have been other questions to investigate, but like most people, my attention turned to 2018 as soon as this was in the books. The next city election will be more like what we’re used to. We’ve got plenty to occupy ourselves with until then.

A better BARC

Dec 30th, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

This is good to see.

As recently as three years ago, Houston’s animal shelter put down half of the dogs and cats that came through its doors in a busy month.

Now, five times in the last year alone, the city’s Bureau of Animal Regulation and Care finished a month having euthanized fewer than 10 percent of the animals it took in, achieving, at least momentarily, the coveted “no-kill” label that animal rights activists have sought for years.

BARC is a rare bureaucratic success story, having evolved over the last decade from an embarrassment for city leaders and the cause of outright rage among animal activists to a broadly respected facility that has managed to get ever-increasing numbers of animals into the hands of rescue groups or new owners.

The shelter’s progress even led the City Council to increase its budget by $2.6 million a few years ago to help answer more of the 55,000 calls citizens place to BARC each year.

Now, shelter leaders and their nonprofit partners confront a once-unthinkable milestone: Could Houston’s pound achieve “no kill” status?

[…]

“Our rescue partners have played a major role in how far we’ve come thus far and will continue to play a role in continuing to increase those live release numbers,” [Ashtyn Rivet, the facility’s deputy assistant director] said.

Chief among those partners is Rescued Pets Movement, a local nonprofit that gets $75 in city money for every animal it takes from BARC and relocates, often out of state, to a foster group or a new home. The group has handled more than 22,000 animals for BARC during their roughly four-year partnership.

A key reason for BARC’s low kill rate in recent months, Rivet added, is a burgeoning partnership with Houston Pets Alive! and its more established cousin, Austin Pets Alive!, a group that was instrumental in helping that city achieve no-kill status several years ago.

That nonprofit has taken 975 animals from BARC since August, only 14 percent of which were in good health. Avoiding having to put down ill animals will be a key way to further boost BARC’s live release rate, Rivet said.

Just getting BARC to a point where it is fully functional was a big win. Getting it to full no-kill status would be amazing, and a very worthy goal for which to aim. Kudos to all for the major progress.

Friday random ten: Can’t even, part 1

Dec 29th, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

I just can’t, you know?

1. Can’t Buy Me Love – The Beatles
2. Can’t Even Get The Blues – Reba McEntire
3. Can’t Find My Keys – Mojo Nixon
4. Can’t Get There From Here – R.E.M.
5. Can’t Go Back There – The Bellyachers
6. Can’t Help Falling In Love – Elvis Presley
7. Can’t Keep It In – Cat Stevens
8. Can’t Let Go – Lucinda Williams
9. Can’t Run But – Paul Simon
10. Can’t Stand Losing You – The Police

Wise men say there will be a part 2 next week, which is also next year. See you on the flip side.

Another look at Congressional odds

Dec 29th, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

I was browsing around Facebook and came across a link to this 2018 midterm forecast from The Crosstab, whose proprietor also works at Decision Desk. As such, it is basically a December update to the November Decision Desk forecast, which is nice because it allows us to make direct comparisons. As before, it has a table containing numbers for each Congressional race, so as before let’s take a look at the relevant ones for Texas:


Dist  Dem 2016/14 %  Clinton %  Dem 2018 %  Dem W Prob  Nov Prob
================================================================
TX-02          37.3       45.1        49.9        49.6      45.8
TX-03          36.1       42.6        47.4        33.5      29.6
TX-06          40.1       43.6        48.5        40.0      15.0
TX-07          43.8       50.7        50.1        51.0      46.3
TX-10          40.1       45.2        46.1        22.4      18.6
TX-14          38.1       39.8        42.9         8.1       6.1
TX-17          36.7       40.8        42.7         7.7       5.7
TX-21          39.0       44.7        49.6        47.4      43.4
TX-22          40.5       45.9        46.6        25.2      20.9
TX-23          49.3       51.8        53.0        72.2      69.2
TX-24          41.2       46.7        47.2        29.3      24.9
TX-25          39.3       42.2        44.5        14.1      11.0
TX-27          38.3       37.8        42.8        11.5       4.5
TX-31          38.5       43.3        44.6        14.6      11.3
TX-32          36.4       51.0        47.0        27.5      23.1
TX-36          22.5       25.9        30.1         1.0       1.0

I added the “Nov Prob” column to compare the Democrats’ win probability as given in this December article to the win probability in November. In all cases, it has improved over the last month, mostly as the approval ratings for Donald Trump continue to sink and the generic Congressional preference polls favor Dems more strongly. The single biggest change is in CD06, thanks to the nude photo-fueled retirement of Smokey Joe Barton. The overall numbers may continue to move in a Democratic direction, they may plateau, they may fluctuate, it’s hard to say. But as long as these updates keep coming out, we can at least track them.

You may wonder why the percentage of the vote Hillary Clinton received in 2016 is greater than the projected Democratic percentage in 2018 in CDs 07 and 32. I’d say the main reason for that is that Clinton ran so far ahead of the baseline in those districts, picking up numerous Republican crossover votes. What those folks may do in 2018 is a bit of a mystery, and will likely be dependent to some extent on who the nominees are in those districts. Still, CD07 is now ever so slightly tilted towards the Democrats, with CD02 on the verge of following. The numbers look so good even I have a hard time really believing them. We’re still talking a coin flip, of course. It will be easy to begin to think that these races are in the bag – I already see people on Facebook posting as if Dems had all but already won in CD07. These races are and will be hard and expensive, and there are absolutely no guarantees. What we have is opportunity. What we do with it is up to us.

The year in beer

Dec 29th, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

It was pretty good overall for Texas craft brewers, especially in Houston.

Texas craft brewers will close the books on 2017 having made more beer, opened more breweries and garnered more national recognition for the state than ever.

Looking ahead to 2018, Houston appears positioned to keep the party going. Commercial real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield recently identified Harris County as second in the nation for number of breweries in planning.

Many of these newcomers are likely to be small, inviting people to walk or bicycle from nearby homes or workplaces. But at least two established local companies recently announced major expansions that should continue the trend of making breweries bona fide tourist destinations.

Such developments have craft industry leaders upbeat about the future, though they are still seething over a law change enacted last spring that they believe has hurt the value of breweries and penalizes those seeking to grow significantly.

The law now forces breweries that reach a certain size to sell and buy back their own beer before they can offer it in their taprooms, cutting into profit margins. Because the size restriction includes production totals of parent companies, brewers fear it could deter future acquisitions – not just by global giants but from other craft breweries as well.

Charles Vallhonrat, executive director of the Texas Craft Brewers Guild, this week called the measure “nonsensical” and pledged to continue efforts to “modernize” the alcoholic beverage code.

Regardless, for the most part and in spite of a historic flood that knocked much of the Texas Gulf Coast onto its heels, it was a year of rewards and resilience for local brewers.

The trend these days is for the breweries to focus on taproom sales aimed at neighborhood customers. I’ve had a hard time keeping up with all the new construction, but I know there are more options near where I live now, and more are coming. One of those expansions mentioned above will be pretty close to my home, more of a bike ride than a walk but exactly the sort of thing that would be appealing on a warm day. Saint Arnold is building a beer garden in the space next door to their facility, which ought to be awesome. Maybe one day we’ll get our Legislature to fix the idiot anti-consumer beer laws we have in this state, but until then it’s on us to support these vibrant job (and beer) creators.

More on the Pressler lawsuit

Dec 29th, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

The Chron adds some details to the lawsuit against former State Representative and Judge Paul Pressler, who has been accused by Duane Rollins of long-term sexual abuse.

Rollins worked in 2003 and 2004 as a personal assistant to Pressler and attended the same church as Pressler beginning as a teenager, according to court documents. Those documents include two letters ostensibly written by Pressler in 2000 and 2002 trying to gain Rollins’ release from prison.

The suit, a revised version of which was filed Dec. 14, seeks more than $1 million in damages.

Also named as defendants are Jared Woodfill, Pressler’s former law partner and former head of the Republican Party in Harris County; the First Baptist Church of Houston; the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth and its president, Paige Patterson; and Pressler’s wife, Nancy.

The suit claims the other defendants knew or should have known about the alleged assaults and could have stopped them.

Pressler has categorically denied all of the allegations in court filings, as did the other defendants, and his lawyer filed a motion Thursday afternoon asking that the case be thrown out of court.

[…]

It’s not the first time Rollins has sued Pressler – he filed suit in July 2004 with his mother, Margaret Duryea, but the suit was dismissed two months later after an apparent settlement was reached, according to records with the Dallas County District Clerk’s Office and Harris County courts.

The case file containing the 2004 lawsuit has since been destroyed by Dallas County, as allowed under state law. But Rollins’ attorney, Daniel Shea, who also represented him in Dallas, provided a copy of the 2004 lawsuit, which accuses Pressler of physically assaulting Rollins during a trip to Dallas in November 2003.

In August 2016, Rollins filed a notice of intent to file a lawsuit against Pressler in Harris County to force him to set aside funds to pay out the remaining balance of the 2004 settlement agreement through 2029. That’s when the payments are set to end, according to court documents.

Neither Woodfill, who represented Pressler in 2004, nor Shea would provide the Chronicle a copy of the settlement agreement. But the court documents filed in 2016 link the settlement directly to the 2004 lawsuit.

The notice seeks to question Pressler under oath about the settlement agreement.

[…]

Shea is perhaps best known for suing a Harris County judge who posted the Ten Commandments in a courtroom, and for attempting to sue the Pope in federal court in 2005 over sexual abuse of minors by priests.

Shea also represented some plaintiffs in Massachusetts when sexual abuse scandals plagued the Boston and Worcester Archdioceses in the early 2000s.

Shea has had a rocky history in Texas. His law license was suspended in 2013 for 18 months for professional misconduct and was reinstated in October 2014, though he remained on probation until March 2017, according to the State Bar of Texas website. A state bar disciplinary report published in the Texas Bar Journal said he entered into a contract with a client that was unfair and unreasonable, without the client’s written consent to the terms. He was ordered to pay more than $38,000 in restitution to the client.

See here for the background. The defense is arguing that the statute of limitations renders this action moot. There will be a hearing on January 17, and there is also a motion to transfer the case to Tarrant County. Assuming this doesn’t get kicked, it’s going to be quite fascinating to watch.

(On a side note, Paul Pressler gave $5000 to the anti-HERO campaign. Gotta beware of those predators, you know.)

Filing roundup: Other Congressional races, part 2

Dec 28th, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

See part 1 here, and the spreadsheet with all the Democratic Congressional filings here. These are the races that are objectively most likely to produce a flip, so there are fewer of them. Let’s dive right in.

Jana Lynne Sanchez

CD06

So long, Smokey Joe. Hope to see a whole lot less of you from here on out. There are, I kid you not, eleven Republican candidates vying for this seat, and it could have been thirteen but two hopefuls had their applications rejected. Lord only knows what will happen on that side. I have mentioned the five Democratic candidates before, back when we were first learning about Smokey Joe’s peccadilloes. Decision Desk had this as only a 15% chance of a pickup in November, but that was pre-scandal and retirement. Those odds are better now.

Jana Lynne Sanchez
Ruby Faye Woolridge
Levii Shocklee
Justin Snider
John Duncan

Jana Lynne Sanchez has been a political consultant and fundraiser, and worked as a journalist after that. She’s a Rice graduate and an aspiring country singer. If she makes it to Congress, maybe she can collaborate with Sen. Orrin Hatch. Ruby Faye Woolridge is a retired educator who has run for office several times, including for CD06 in 2016. Levii Shocklee is a Navy veteran who doesn’t tell us much else about his biography. Justin Snider is a locksmith and served as a national delegate for the Bernie Sanders campaign in 2016. John Duncan works for the largest local non-profit HIV/AIDS service organization in North Texas.

Joseph Kopser

CD21

Boy, you only think there’s a cattle call for the Republican nomination in CD06. There are eighteen – EIGHTEEN! – Republicans that have filed to fill Lamar Smith’s pollution-loving immigrant-hating shoes. They include Chip Roy, former Chief of Staff to Ted Cruz; Jason Isaac, the State Rep. in HD25; Quico Canseco, who lucked into a term as Congressman in CD23 in the 2010 wave; Susan Narvaiz, a three-time loser to Rep. Lloyd Doggett in CD35, and fourteen more. One way to look at this is that is the vote were to be split evenly among all the contenders, they’d each get about 5.6%. Fifteen percent may well be enough to make it to the runoff. There’s a non-zero chance that the nominee could be some random nobody. Which makes it all the more important that the Democratic candidate is someone who has an A game to bring in a district pegged at a 43.4% win chance and 49.0% performance.

Joseph Kopser
Derrick Crowe
Elliott McFadden
Mary Wilson

This race is interesting and worth watching on just about every level, and that begins with the primary. Joseph Kopser is an Army veteran and businessman who made news for out-fundraising Lamar Smith back in Q2. He’s also racking up endorsements – Garry Mauro, House Democratic Whip Rep. Steny Hoyer, Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff, as well as nonprofit STEM organization 314 Action – and can fairly be characterized as the establishment candidate. Derrick Crowe, who has been a senior staffer on Capitol Hill and now works in the nonprofit sector, also has an impressive array of endorsements including Our Revolution, Democracy for America, and the UT University Democrats. He was the first Democrat I heard of in this race, citing Smith’s terrible environmental record as his inspiration to run. And then there’s Elliott McFadden, the Executive Director of Austin B-Cycle and past Executive Director of the Travis County Democratic Party, who has his own set of endorsements, and Mary Wilson, a math teacher and minister. They all look like terrific candidates, so my main hope at this point is that the primary doesn’t get too nasty.

Gina Ortiz Jones

CD23

Here’s a list of Congressmen from CD23 since 2002:

Henry Bonilla (R)
Ciro Rodriguez (D, elected in 2006)
Quico Canseco (R, elected in 2010)
Pete Gallego (D, elected in 2012)
Will Hurd (R, elected in 2014)

And there’s a 69.2% chance (according to Decision Desk as of November) that we’ll have another person in there next year. After that who knows – this district was ruled illegal by the federal district court and could be redrawn for 2020, and regardless of that it will be redrawn again for 2022. You know what they say about change being the only constant? This district is the poster child for that.

Angela Villescaz
Gina Ortiz Jones
Jay Hulings
Judy Canales
Rick Trevino

Gina Ortiz Jones served in Iraq as an Air Force intelligence officer, and continues to work in national security, intelligence, and defense. She’s one of several female veterans running for Congress as Democrats this cycle – note that article doesn’t appear to count MJ Hegar, so it is necessarily incomplete – and has racked up an impressive array of endorsements, from Emily’s List and Vote Vets to the Asian American Action Fund and the Victory Fund. Jay Hulings is a former federal prosecutor and has served in the House as Counsel to the House Intelligence Committee and Legislative Director to former Rep. Jane Harman. Judy Canales was appointed by President Obama in 2013 to be the Texas State Executive Director for the USDA Farm Service Agency. Rick Trevino is a teacher and Secretary of the Bexar County Democratic Party who served as a national delegate for Bernie Sanders in 2016.

I’ve covered other Congressional races in the Harris County and surrounding county writeups, and of course there’s great interest in CD16 to succeed Beto O’Rourke, but that race will be decided when the primary winner emerges. I’m busy doing interviews in CDs 07 and 02, and we’ll see how much more I wind up doing. Again, it is important for all of us to know who our candidates are and to pick the best one to represent us, on the ballot and hopefully in Washington. I hope this has been useful for you.

Chron profile of Justin Nelson

Dec 28th, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Hope he earns a lot of coverage in 2018, it sure would help.

Justin Nelson

Justin Nelson stood with his wife around the island in their kitchen and had one final gut check about campaigning to become Texas’ next attorney general: Were they really ready to give up a year of their lives so he could run as an underdog for the state’s third-highest political office?

Democrats have lost every race for statewide office for more than 20 years. Political analysts say even if a so called “blue wave” of Democratic voters flood polling places in next year’s election out of frustration with the Trump administration, Democrats like Nelson are still unlikely to break into statewide office.

But Nelson, an Austin-based trial lawyer counting on support from generous Democratic donors, contends 2018 can be different in a race running against Ken Paxton.

“I don’t think most people know (Paxton) is under indictment,” Nelson said recently from a table at Julio’s, his favorite Austin neighborhood restaurant. “I really believe to my core we need actual choices to run for office and I see an indicted, corrupted, extreme attorney general that looks like he’s going to get a pass from his own party, and I feel that we can do better.”

Nelson is political newcomer who specializes in high-stakes civil litigation including fraud, patents and constitutional issues for Susman Godfrey LLP, which is active in Democratic political circles, and his accolades include being named as among the “World’s Leading Patent Practitioners” by Intellectual Asset Management magazine and chaired the Economics of the Profession Committee in the American Bar Association’s Intellectual Property Division. He has also practiced and taught constitutional law and is an adjunct professor at The University of Texas School of Law.

He said he wants to sell voters on his qualifications and remind them that their state’s top lawyer has his own legal troubles.

Nelson’s polling in the race suggests people are not universally aware of Ken Paxton’s legal problems, and I have no reason to doubt that. I suspect that may change once the trial begins, as that ought to be big news, quite likely national news. We need to admit to ourselves that there’s risk in this strategy, because there is a non-zero chance Paxton gets acquitted, and if that happens he’s going to have one hell of a persecution/redemption story to tell. Beyond that, Nelson needs to raise enough money to get hs message about himself out, and of course it would be nice if turnout patterns we’ve seen this past year repeat themselves in Texas. Nelson’s a rare statewide Dem with no primary opponent, but he may get more attention than anyone outside the Governor’s race if things go his way.

Texas blog roundup for the week of December 25

Dec 28th, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

The Texas Progressive Alliance wishes a Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it as we bring you this weeks’s roundup.

(more…)

Filing roundup: Other Congressional races, part 1

Dec 27th, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

We already knew this, but just a reminder there’s at least one Democratic candidate in all 36 Congressional districts in Texas.

In deep-red Texas, Republicans will have to fight for every congressional seat in next year’s midterm elections. For the first time in 25 years, Democrats are running in all of Texas’ 36 congressional districts, according to documents filed with the Texas Secretary of State’s office.

Mark Jones, political science fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute, says those filings set a record for the number of Democratic challengers in an era of Republican dominance, and are a departure from 2016 – when eight Republican-held congressional seats went uncontested by Democrats.

“We are seeing a groundswell of unusually high support and mobilization among progressive Democrats who are really angered by the Trump administration,” Jones said.

[…]

“Outside of CD 23, held by Will Hurd, all of the Republican-held districts today, more likely than not, will stay Republican-held districts,” Jones said. “But they are not locks, and certainly we can’t consider them to be sure-things.”

Jones says it will take a perfect storm for Texas Democrats to make significant gains in Congress. He says Trump’s approval ratings will have to continue to decline, Democrats will have to continue to out-fundraise their Republican opponents, and Republican candidates will have to make a lot of mistakes.

We can and will discuss the prospects for winning various races as we go. For now, let’s talk about who the Democratic contenders are. I’ve put together another spreadsheet based on the SOS filings page for convenient reference. Some of these folks I’ve talked about a lot, others are new to me. I’m going to concentrate on the districts where Dems have a non-trivial chance of winning, on the races I haven’t previously covered in another filing roundup. Turns out there’s a lot of these candidates, so I’m splitting this into two posts, one for the top tier races and one for the ones a notch or two below that. We’ll begin with the latter group.

Lorie Burch

CD03

This district is in Collin County, and it is being vacated by longtime Rep. Sam Johnson. State Sen. Van Taylor is a leading contender for the Republican nomination. Decision Desk in November gave Democrats a 30% chance of taking it, with an expected performance of 46.9%.

Adam Bell
Lorie Burch
Medrick Yhap
Sam Johnson

Yes, there is a Democratic candidate named Sam Johnson who is running to succeed the retiring Republican Congressman Sam Johnson. He’s not afraid to make the obvious jokes about it, for which he has my respect. This Sam Johnson is an attorney and UT graduate who lives in Plano. Adam Bell was the candidate against the incumbent Sam Johnson in 2016. He doesn’t have much in the way of biographical information on his webpage, but he identifies himself as a small business owner. Lorie Burch is also an attorney in Plano, and I’m pleased to note a fellow graduate of my alma mater, Trinity University (we did not overlap and as far as I know I’ve never met her). She recently served on the Lambda Legal Leadership Committee, and as her bio notes, in her senior year at Trinity she interned for Judge Orlando Garcia, who issued the ruling that threw out Texas’ anti-same sex marriage law. Medrick Yhap doesn’t have a campaign Facebook page that I can find, and the only biographical information I discovered was that he works for a software company.

CD17

This is the district that former Rep. Chet Edwards once served. He hung on after the DeLay re-redistricting in 2004, then won two more terms before being wiped out in 2010. The district is more rural than anything else, so unlike the others on this list it hasn’t really trended blue. It’s on the far outer edges of competitiveness, and if it really is in play next fall then the question is not “will Dems take the House” but “how large will the Dem majority be”.

Rick Kennedy
Dale Mantey

Rick Kennedy is a software developer. Dale Mantey is working on a doctorate at the UT School of Public Health. Decision Desk put the odds in November at 5.7% for a pickup. I wish them both well.

Todd Allen

CD24

Former State Rep. Kenny Marchant has held this district since it was drawn, apparently with him in mind, in the 2003 DeLay re-redistricting. Longtime Democrat Martin Frost had been the incumbent here, but he chose to run in CD32 against Pete Sessions in 2004, coming up short in that race. The closest race Marchant has had was a 17-point win in 2016, as CD24 was one of several districts to see its Democratic performance increase from 2012 to 2016. Decision Desk projected 46.7% Democratic performance and a 24.9% chance of flipping in November.

Todd Allen
Jan McDowell
John Biggan
Josh Imhoff

Todd Allen is a high school government teacher and former football coach who like Lorie Burch is a Trinity University graduate. My cup runneth over here. Jan McDowell is a CPA with a degree in journalism; she was the Democratic candidate for CD24 in 2016. John Biggan is an Eagle Scout and slef-described “brain scientist”, with a doctorate from UT-Arlington. I could not find any web presence for Josh Imhoff’s campaign.

Chris Perri

CD25

CD25 is the district Rep. Lloyd Doggett moved into in 2004 post-DeLay; he had previously been in CD10. He then moved again to CD35 in 2012 as the Republicans tried and failed again to draw him out of a district he could win. Car salesman and former Secretary of State Roger Williams, who has Rick Perry-class hair, became the incumbent in this district that year. He has won by at least 20 points each time, with Decision Desk pegging the district at a 43.9% Democratic level and an 11.0% chance of turning over. I blogged about three of the five Democratic candidates in October.

Chetan Panda
Chris Perri
Julie Oliver
Kathi Thomas
West Hansen

Chetan Panda is a first generation American who grew up in Austin. He has a degree from the London School of Economics and was working as a retirement fund manager at a mutual fund before stepping down to run for Congress. Chris Perri is a defense attorney who serves as supervising attorney for UT Law’s pro bono Texas Expunction Project, which helps people clear wrongful arrests from their backgrounds. Julie Oliver describes herself as a healthcare advocate, tax policy expert, and community volunteer who serves on the board of Central Health in Austin. Kathi Thomas was the Democratic candidate for CD25 in 2016, and also ran for State Senate in 2006. She’s a small businesswoman, an education activist, a Democratic precinct chair, and a band geek, which is also something I respect. West Hansen is a psychologist whose great-grandparents settled in Texas in the 1800s.

CD27

Bye-bye, Blake. Smokey Joe Barton had a more sudden demise, but outgoing incumbent (*) Blake Farenthold had a pretty spectacular – and well-deserved – fall. Alas, unlike Smokey Joe’s departure in CD06, the odds of a Democratic takeover here are not improved much, and weren’t that good to begin with. Decision Desk puts the odds of flipping at 4.5%, the lowest of all the districts I’m looking at. But we’re thinking positive, right?

Eric Holguin
Raul “Roy” Barrera
Ronnie McDonald

Eric Holguin cites a family history of service and past experience with the New York City Comptroller and in an unnamed Congresswoman’s office, but I couldn’t tell what he was doing at the time of his candidacy. Roy Barrera was the Democratic candidate against Farenthold in 2016 – that’s his 2016 campaign Facebook page above, I couldn’t find a current version. Ronnie McDonald served as Bastrop County Judge for 14 years, and more recently worked with the directors of the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service and the Texas A&M Forest Service. He ran for CD27 in 2012 but did not win the primary.

MJ Hegar

CD31

Hey, a race where we have a specific poll result. A six-point lead by Rep. John Carter over one of his opponents isn’t much, though it is better than the situation some of his colleagues are in. This one has 11.3% odds of changing sides, with 44.0% Dem performance. It’s another mostly-suburban battleground, with most of the district in Williamson County. If there really is something to the well-educated suburbs getting turned off by Trump and Trumpish followers, this like several other districts listed here is the kind of place where we should see evidence of it.

Christine Eady Mann
Kent Lester
Mary Jennings “MJ” Hegar
Mike Clark

All four of these candidates have been running since at least July, so it’s a pretty stable field. Christine Eady Mann is a family practice physician who has had some experience in local politics, including a successful campaign to pass an indoor smoking ban in Round Rock and serving as the volunteer coordinator for a Georgetown City Council member’s re-election. Kent Lester is a West Point graduate and 20-year Army veteran who has also been an educator. MJ Hegar is an Air Force officer and Purple Heart recipient who led a 2012 lawsuit against the Defense Department over its now-repealed policy excluding women from ground combat positions and wrote a book about her experiences in the military that is being made into a movie. Mike Clark has Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees with a background in Geology and Geospatial technology and is currently employed in the technology sector.

So that’s a lot of districts and a lot of candidates, and we haven’t covered some of the most competitive November races, which I’ll get to next week. I strongly encourage everyone to get to know who is running to represent them in Congress and make an informed choice in March. I’ll have more tomorrow.

The state of play in the suburbs

Dec 27th, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

3 comments

This NYT article about Congressional districts being targeted by Democrats in 2018 is about pickup opportunities in the suburbs, and they lead with a familiar example.

Rep. John Culberson

As she sat with a glass of sauvignon blanc waiting for a women-focused Democratic fund-raiser to begin, Nancy Sharp let loose in a Texas-seasoned drawl why she and so many other onetime supporters of the Bush family were abandoning the Republicans.

“Have you ever heard of a stupider and trashier man than the president of the United States?” asked Ms. Sharp, an interior designer who lives not far from the elegant condominium where about 75 women gathered this month to help the House candidate Lizzie Pannill Fletcher. “Calling a U.S. senator ‘Pocahontas’ in front of God and everyone!”

If Democrats are to claim the House majority next year, their path back to power will go through places like the Huntingdon, a 34-floor high-rise in the River Oaks section of Houston that was once home to Enron’s Kenneth L. Lay, has no fewer than five valets on a busy night and sits in the district of Representative John Culberson, a veteran Republican who may be in for the race of his life.

The mounting backlash to President Trump that is threatening his party’s control of Congress is no longer confined just to swing districts on either coast. Officials in both parties believe that Republican control of the House is now in grave jeopardy because a group of districts that are historically Republican or had been trending that way before the 2016 election are slipping away.

Much attention has been paid to the handful of seats in New York, New Jersey and California that are represented by Republicans but voted for Hillary Clinton last year. But even with district lines drawn to favor Republicans in many states, the swelling antipathy toward Mr. Trump threatens to breach the party’s defenses and stretch the congressional battlefield beyond the dimensions Republicans and Democrats anticipated a year ago.

“There’s no illusion about the storm that’s coming,” said Representative Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma, invoking last month’s governor’s races and last week’s Senate special election. “If you had any doubts, they were wiped away after New Jersey, Virginia and Alabama.”

From Texas to Illinois, Kansas to Kentucky, there are Republican districts filled with college-educated, affluent voters who appear to be abandoning their usually conservative leanings and newly invigorated Democrats, some of them nonwhite, who are eager to use the midterms to take out their anger on Mr. Trump.

“If you look at the patterns of where gains are being made and who is creating the foundation for those gains, it’s the same: An energized Democratic base is linking arms with disaffected suburban voters,” said Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago, who as a member of Congress in 2006 helped Democrats win back the House. “The president’s conduct has basically given voters this permission slip to go against the Republicans.”

The main thesis of the article is about how suburban counties are trending Democratic post-Trump. CD07 isn’t really a canonical example of this, since it covers a fair amount of Houston’s urban core, but on demographics CD07 is a good fit. It’s also the go-to district for all kinds of stories about the political climate and the peril Republican incumbents are in. The fact that CD07 is now considered a tossup means we’re likely continue seeing it featured in the media.

A third PPP Congressional poll in Texas

Dec 26th, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

4 comments

Here’s a Public Policy Polling Twitter thread of interest. I’ve highlighted the specific relevant tweets.

The generic ballot polling certainly looks great for Democrats, but how is that playing out at the district level? We've polled 36 GOP held Congressional districts since October. Here's what we've found…

— PublicPolicyPolling (@ppppolls) December 20, 2017

Last year in TX-7 John Culberson won 56-44. He trails a generic Democrat 49-39 on a poll we did for Patriot Majority November 8-10

— PublicPolicyPolling (@ppppolls) December 20, 2017

Last year in TX-32 Pete Sessions didn't even have a Democratic opponent. He trails a generic Democrat 48-43 on a poll we did for Patriot Majority November 8-9

— PublicPolicyPolling (@ppppolls) December 20, 2017

Last year in TX-31 John Carter won 58-37. He leads Democratic foe MJ Hegar only 46-40 on a poll we did for her campaign November 28-29

— PublicPolicyPolling (@ppppolls) December 20, 2017

The Culberson and Sessions results we knew about. The CD31 poll between Carter and MJ Hegar is news to me. Let me expand a bit on the numbers from 2016 that PPP cites:


2012

Carter      61.3%
Wyman       35.0%

Romney      59.4%
Obama       38.1%

Keller      57.8%
Hampton     36.8%


2014

Carter      64.0%
Minor       32.0%

Abbott      61.5%
Davis       36.0%

Richardson  61.3%
Granberg    33.6%


2016

Carter      58.4%
Clark       36.5%

Trump       52.6%
Clinton     40.1%

Keasler     56.8%
Burns       37.3%

So forty percent is basically the high water mark for a Dem in CD31 this decade. (Barack Obama got 42.5% there in 2008.) That’s good, and it does tend to show a higher level of Dem engagement, especially compared to 2014, but we’re still a ways off. The 46% for Carter is more interesting, as it is a big dropoff from every non-Trump Republican. The question is whether this represents a bunch of undecided respondents who will come home next November, or it’s a genuine indicator of low enthusiasm. Also, the HD31 poll involves a specific opponent to Carter, one who will have to win a primary first, rather than a “generic Democrat” as in the CD07 and CD32 surveys. It’s possible the 40% level for MJ Hegar is lower than a “generic Dem” level might have been. As with any other poll, file it away for later when we have more data.

The Harvey effect on the Waugh Street Bridge bat colony

Dec 26th, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

It was bad, but we hope they will recover.

Tens of thousands of bats perished or were displaced from their home at the Waugh Bat Colony when Hurricane Harvey swept through the city this summer, according to bat experts.

“Pre-Harvey, we had at least 300,000 bats in the bridge,” said Diana Foss, a wildlife biologist with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, and coordinator of the Houston area bat team.

“But watching the emergence at Waugh right now is kind of depressingly lower than that,” she continued, describing the daily flood of bats from beneath the bridge at Allen Parkway and Waugh Drive, during which bats emerge en masse at twilight to hunt for food. “What I’m seeing is, about half the bats are emerging.”

When the hurricane dropped more than 50 inches of rain on the city, the bayou’s water downtown surged to record levels. For the first time since the bats took up residence in the cracks beneath the Waugh overpass, the elevated highway was submerged. Bats lacked the 15 feet of clearance they need to drop down from their roosts and take to the sky. Their plight didn’t go unnoticed. Residents tried to save the bats, hanging off the bridge and scooping them from the water as they rushed by. But it wasn’t a perfect science.

[…]

In the days and weeks after the storm, residents noticed a new pattern in the sky during the bats’ evening emergence: In addition to a swarm of winged mammals flying out from beneath the bridge, smaller populations exit from nearby buildings. They join up with the bats from the bridge during their hunt, then return to their new homes for the night, before repeating the same cycle the next day.

Whether these displaced bats will return to their former home under the bridge isn’t yet known, said Cullen Geiselman, a member of the local bat team, who earned her doctorate studying bats.

“I guess they could have moved on,” she said. “We’ve played with some ideas and haven’t gotten very far.”

Houstonia wrote about this in the immediate aftermath. As noted, some number of bats managed to move to other dens, and some others have returned to Waugh. The overall population is definitely smaller, and bats don’t have high reproduction rates, but the hope is that over time the colony under the bridge will get back to its previous side. I’m rooting for them.

And so I offer you this Mel Torme Christmas story

Dec 25th, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

Every year on Christmas Day, I link to my favorite Christmas story, which stars Mel Torme. This has been a rough year in many ways, but reading that story always makes me happy, and I hope it will do the same for you. Merry Christmas!

Weekend link dump for December 24

Dec 24th, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Some rules and observations for Christmas music, which I endorse.

“While Republicans in the political class will no doubt cite [Roy] Moore’s loss as proof that their party needs to nominate stronger, more mainstream candidates next year, it’s far from certain that primary voters on the ground will heed such pleas from the swamp.”

The science of Star Wars, or why you’re probably not getting a light saber for Christmas.

“Why Anakin Skywalker should’ve been removed from the Jedi Order for sexual harassment”.

“But what those critics don’t recognize is that the nationalistic, race-baiting, fear-mongering form of politics enthusiastically practiced by Mr. Trump and Roy Moore in Alabama is central to a new strain of American evangelicalism.”

How’s that War on Christmas going?

“In hindsight, the Climategate hack, clearly timed to disrupt the Copenhagen negotiations, looks like a precursor to the hack that helped shape the outcome of the 2016 election.”

Meet Kirsten Karbach, the only female baseball play-by-play person working for a professional affiliated club. For now, at least.

“So a bitcoin is just a share of this system. It’s like stock in a newer-and-not-improved PayPal. Although that might be selling it a bit short. It’s more like a time machine that exclusively takes you back to 1999, the peak of the dot-com mania.”

“So I think some of the white evangelical celebration following Trump’s Jerusalem is a sense of relief and of renewed hope that Rapture Christianity might stage a comeback. Rapture Christians have now been given a pretext for resetting the clock and restarting their perpetual countdown. Never mind 1948. The clock starts now — with God’s chosen people (America) officially recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Trump just gave them a fresh set of downs — another 40 years in which to revive their message of an urgently imminent Rapture.”

RIP, Mamie “Peanut” Johnson, one of three women to play baseball in the old Negro League.

The Disney “Hall of Presidents” attraction will never be the same.

“The Trump presidency is a huge political fact. Donald Trump may not be the leader of American conservatism, but he is its most spectacular and vulnerable asset. The project of defending him against his coming political travails—or at least of assailing those who doubt and oppose him—is already changing what it means to be a conservative. The word conservative will of course continue in use. But its meaning is being rewritten each day by the actions of those who lay claim to the word. It is their commitment to Trump that etches Trumpism into them. And while Trump may indeed pass, that self-etching will not soon be effaced.”

“So stand up. Speak out. Our country needs all of us to raise our collective voices in support of our democratic ideals and institutions. That is what we stand for. That is who we are. And with a shared commitment to our founding principles, that is who we will remain.”

RIP, Heather North, longtime voice of Daphne in Scooby Doo cartoons.

“Young children believe aging is directly tied to celebration, and it is the act of attending your birthday party that makes you age another year. Without the cake and candles, according to a number of the study’s subjects, a kid could stay 3 forever.”

$1.5 trillion could buy a lot of truly useful things instead of lining the pockets of rich people.

RIP, Dick Enberg, Hall of Fame sportscaster.

RIP, Clifford Irving, author of the infamous hoax biography of Howard Hughes.

RIP, Bruce McCandless, first astronaut to float untethered in space.

Diana Davila sues over ballot rejection

Dec 24th, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

11 comments

There’s one of these every cycle.

Diana Davila

Diana Davila said in a lawsuit filed Wednesday in state district court that her application to run for justice of the peace Precinct 6, Place 2 in the March primary election was inappropriately rejected by the Democratic Party.

The lawsuit states that Davila had submitted a petition containing 310 signatures that would qualify her to be on the ballot, but had omitted printing the name of the person circulating the petition on one line in the petition.

The name appeared elsewhere on the page and the petition was signed and notarized.

“The only thing that’s important is that this person signed their name before a notary,” said Davila’s attorney Keith Gross.

The lawsuit states that despite that omission, Davila should be allowed to run in the primary. She would face one challenger in the primary election, Angela Rodriguez.

In a statement, the Harris County Democratic Party stated that Rodriguez filed a complaint with the party about Davila’s paperwork. The party then followed up on the complaint and rejected Davila’s application because “the challenge appeared to be well founded.”

I don’t have a dog in this fight. The reason for the rejection may seem persnickety, but ballot applications have been rejected for reasons like this before. That doesn’t mean Davila won’t prevail in her lawsuit, just that the HCDP – which consulted with the Secretary of State’s office before making their decision – had a valid reason for rejecting her filing. We’ll see what the court makes of it.

The Republican primary for Ag Commissioner is now about barbecue

Dec 24th, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Because of course it is.

Sid Miller

“Barbecue might be America’s most political food,” wrote the New Yorker earlier this year. The claim certainly applies to the 2018 race for Texas Agriculture Commissioner. Instead of farming or ranching issues, it’s Sid Miller’s recent history on barbecue that his Republican primary opponent, Trey Blocker, is using against him.

For some brief background, the Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA) launched a program called Operation Maverick in 2015 to enforce, among other things, the requirement that barbecue joint scales be certified and registered, a rule that hadn’t been enforced in the past. Backlash from small business owners resulted in House Bill 2029, aka the “Barbecue Bill,” during this year’s legislative session. The bill, which exempted barbecue joints (and yogurt shops) from the regulation, easily passed the Legislature and was signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott in June. The TDA then revised the wording of the bill—which had exempted “food sold for immediate consumption”—by adding “on the premises” in the rewritten regulation. Those three new words meant that any barbecue joint selling food to-go was no longer exempt. The Texas Restaurant Association cried foul, and the TDA asked Attorney General Ken Paxton for a ruling that is forthcoming. This has all become fuel in a food fight between the candidates.

The first shot came a few weeks ago from Miller, who mocked Blocker for holding a fundraiser at a restaurant that served Nutella crepes. Miller acted as if he didn’t know what Nutella was, despite only seeing the “tella” portion of the word on the blackboard sign behind Blocker in a photo from the event (which, for the record, was held at the Old German Bakery & Restaurant in Fredericksburg).

Blocker fired back with a fundraising email that described Miller’s stance as a “war on Texas BBQ.” Now, calling a Texan anti-barbecue is about on par with calling them un-Texan, but Blocker didn’t stop there. Over the weekend, he followed up with two campaign videos focused squarely on barbecue.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I don’t see anything wrong with what Miller did. I get why the TRA didn’t care for it, but I’m all for consumer protections, and that’s how I see this. All that said, this primary is already making us all stupider. Just vote for Kim Olson in November and all of this can be naught but a bad memory. The Chron and Texas Public Radio have more.

Saturday video break: The night before the night before Christmas

Dec 23rd, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

A day early, but what the heck:

Not to mix metaphors, but may your days be merry and all that.

Pension bond sales proceed

Dec 23rd, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

But it was close, which both boggles my mind and annoys the ever-loving crap out of me.

The City of Houston can move forward with its plan to sell $1 billion in bonds on Friday as part of Mayor Sylvester Turner’s landmark pension reform passed by the Texas Legislature earlier this year, a judge ruled.

State District Judge Mark Morefield on Thursday denied a request by former city housing department director James Noteware for a temporary restraining order to delay the issuance of the bonds.

The request for the restraining order was part of a lawsuit filed last Friday by Noteware, who alleges the city misled voters into approving the bonds so it could sidestep a voter-approved limit on how much property tax revenue Houston can collect. Noteware claims the ballot language was “materially misleading” and did not include wording to indicate the taxes levied to pay off the bonds would be exempted from the 13-year-old revenue cap.

City officials say the language cited by Noteware is boilerplate included to assure bondholders that the city would meet its obligations.

[…]

Morefield said there were “substantial” concerns regarding the legality of the ballot measure, but that he ultimately agreed with the city’s argument that delaying the issuance would significantly damage Houston’s standing among creditors and bondholders.

“I think we’re just too far down the road at this point in time to stop this train,” Morefield said. “The mayor and City Council are heavily invested in this. And this thing is going to go forward.

“They may have to pay a heavy consequence for it going forward,” he added.

See here for the background. The sale has been completed, so at least that’s one rabbit hole we won’t go down. Let me see if I can sum up all the reasons I am gobsmacked by this.

1. As a reminder, the city was only obligated to put the bond sale to a vote because that was a provision in the Senate bill that required it. Mayor Bill White sold pension obligation bonds for five years without anyone demanding a vote. The reason we voted is because Paul Bettencourt insisted on it. What does he have to say about this?

2. Proposition A passed with 77% of the vote. There was essentially no opposition to it – conservative groups like the C Club endorsed it, while the Harris County Republican Party declined to take a position. Nobody raised any objections to the ballot language, which was approved by Council in August, and nobody made this case about the stupid revenue cap before the election.

3. Specifically, James Noteware appears to have taken no action regarding Prop A before the election. Go ahead and do a Google News search on him – there’s nothing relevant to this before he filed his lawsuit. He couldn’t be bothered to put out a press release, or throw up a webpage, to outline his objections before the vote. Yet here he comes afterwards to overturn a valid election that no one had any problems with because he didn’t like the pension deal?

4. I mean, there are issues with the whole referendum system, but look: Mayor Turner won an election in 2015 on a promise to get the Legislature to pass a bill to reform the city’s pension system. Our elected legislators passed such a bill. Our elected Council members ratified that agreement, then voted to put the required bond measure on the ballot, which the voters then overwhelmingly approved. What the actual hell are we doing here? Why does none of this matter?

deep breath Anyway. I hope we get a future story that includes some quotes from legal experts who can analyze the merits of the lawsuit and its likelihood of success going forward. I can rant all I want but it’s in the hands of the judges now. Lord help us all. The Mayor’s press release has more.

SCOTUS to consider Texas redistricting case in January

Dec 23rd, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Batten down the hatches.

The U.S. Supreme Court will meet Jan. 5 to consider whether to take up a case on how Texas draws its congressional and statehouse maps.

In a 5-4 decision split along ideological lines in September, the justices blocked two rulings by a three-judge federal panel in San Antonio. The panel had ordered lawmakers to redraw Texas’ congressional and statehouse maps, which the judges said discriminated against minorities in violation of the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act.

The Supreme Court’s involvement is the latest twist in a six-year legal battle that could have a major impact on Texas’ political landscape, including the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

[…]

The plaintiffs wanted the districts redrawn in time for the 2018 midterm elections. But Attorney General Ken Paxton appealed the decision to the Supreme Court and was granted a stay by Justice Samuel Alito, which torpedoed the plaintiffs’ efforts to expedite new maps.

Since then, both sides have started to prepare for the possibility of a showdown at the Supreme Court. The Mexican American Legislative Caucus, one of the lead plaintiffs in the statehouse suit, hired voting rights expert Pamela Karlan to present their case. Karlan is the co-director of the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic at Stanford Law School.

See here, here, and here for the background. You know the stakes, and how long this godforsaken case has taken to even approach some kind of resolution. There are several other big redistricting and gerrymandering cases coming to SCOTUS soon as well, so we could be in for a world of changes, or a world where basically nothing changes. As the man once said, hold onto your butts.

Friday random ten: California dreaming

Dec 22nd, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

I had no idea I had this many California songs.

1. California – The Aislers Set
2. California – Delta Spirit
3. California – Joni Mitchell
4. California (There Is No End To Love) – U2
5. California Christmas – Brooke White
6. California Girls – The Beach Boys
7. California Gurls – Katy Perry Feat. Snoop Dogg
8. California Here I Come – Shorty Long
9. California Sun – The Rivieras
10. California Wasted – Toad the Wet Sprocket

Don’t worry, I have plenty of “Texas” songs, too. And please note that I generate these lists by the first word in the song title, so “Hotel California” isn’t in consideration here. I’ll need to go back and re-listen to the first three songs on this list to remind myself if they’re all different or if there’s a cover or two in there. Maybe over the holiday. Hope you have all your Christmas shopping done, if that’s a thing you need to worry about.

Microbrewery legal setback

Dec 22nd, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Kind of a lousy Christmas present.

Three Texas brewers are going back to battle with the state after an appeals court reversed a decision that would have allowed them to sell their distribution rights for monetary compensation.

In 2014, Peticolas Brewing Co. (Dallas), Revolver Brewing (Granbury) and Live Oak Brewing Co. (Austin) sued the Texas Alcohol and Beverage Commission, saying a newly passed law related to who could sell a brewery’s distribution rights was unconstitutional. The mandate, which passed in 2013 with a bundle of other beer regulation reforms, said breweries may not accept payment for contracting with a distributor, but that a distributor could get a payout if it sold those same territorial rights to another distribution company.

Last year, a judge served victory to the breweries. But on Dec. 15, the Texas Third Court of Appeals reversed that decision. It stated, in part, the law does not prevent the brewers from successfully operating their businesses and that it also upholds the industry’s three-tier system, which aims to avoid conflicts of interest between alcohol manufacturers, distributors and retailers.

The decision will be appealed to the Texas Supreme Court, according to a statement from Institute for Justice, which is representing the breweries.

“It is well established that the Texas Constitution protects economic liberties, and these rights do not cease to exist when the government begins licensing and regulating individuals and businesses,” said Arif Panju, managing attorney for Institute for Justice’s Texas office, in a statement. “Every business in Texas should be concerned with the court’s ruling in this case. It is dangerous and we will ask the Texas Supreme Court to reverse.”

See here, here, and here for the background. You know how I feel about this. The three-tier system is an anachronism and a travesty, a glaring counterexample to any politician’s paeans to how Texas has a great business environment. Yet it persists, a lasting tribute to the lobbying efforts of the beer distributors and the big breweries that support them. As with so many things in this state, the ultimate solution is going to have to be a political one. Nothing will change until we elect enough people who want it to change. Austin360 has more.

More on Mark Phariss

Dec 22nd, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

I figured it was just a matter of time before someone wrote a feature story about Mark Phariss’ candidacy for State Senate.

Mark Phariss

The man who sued Texas to overturn the state’s ban on gay marriage will run for Senate as a Democrat, vying for the seat that represents much of Collin County.

Mark Phariss told The Dallas Morning News he decided to run after seeing Democrats win in other Republican strongholds, like Virginia and Alabama.

“When I was accepting the fact that I was gay, there were two things I kind of thought I had to give up: One, getting married, and two, running for political office,” Phariss said Tuesday. “I need to quit assuming what people will think. I need to allow them the choice.”

Phariss, a business attorney based in Plano, and longtime partner Victor Holmes, an Air Force veteran, were two of four plaintiffs who sued Texas in 2013 over its ban on same-sex marriage. Their case was in progress when the U.S. Supreme Court extended the right to marry to all same-sex couples in June 2015.

Phariss and Holmes wed just months later. Between the day the two met and the day they could legally call each other “husband,” 18 years had passed.

Phariss will first face Plano resident and engineer Brian Chaput in the Democratic primary on March 6. Whoever wins that race will proceed to the November general election against either Angela Paxton or Phillip Huffines, who are duking it out for the GOP nomination.

Paxton is the wife of Attorney General Ken Paxton, an outspoken opponent of same-sex marriage, and Huffines is the twin brother of Don Huffines, a Republican senator who represents Dallas. If Phariss advances to the general election and wins, he’d be Texas’ first openly gay state senator.

Well, not exactly. That’s because Fran Watson is also running for State Senate, in SD17, and as that is a more purple district than SD08, she arguably has the better chance of earning that distinction. But hey, who knows, maybe both of them will be elected. In that case, they can toss a coin or use the random draw for seniority, which is used for office-selection purposes, to determine who the true “first openly gay state senator” is. I’m sure neither of them would mind having that debate.

The most dangerous places for pedestrians in Texas

Dec 22nd, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

There are a lot of them.

Pedestrian safety is a priority driver safety issue in Texas – where non-motorist fatalities have steadily increased every year since 2012.

At the Hill Law Firm, we wanted to be a part of the solution. Pedestrians of any age are amongst the most vulnerable road users. Even at low speeds, a motor vehicle collision with a pedestrian can lead to catastrophic injuries. So, in order to help prevent pedestrian collisions from ever occurring, we first had to find out where exactly pedestrians are at high-risk of being struck, injured or killed by vehicles on Texas roads. We enlisted the help of data visualization firm 1Point21 Interactive and analyzed the four latest available years of crash data (2012 – 2015) from the Texas Department of Transportation.

Our study examines the issue, maps out every location where a pedestrian collision occurred and identifies and highlights high danger areas across the state.

Through geospatial analysis, we identified 73 high-risk zones in the state of Texas, where 10 or more pedestrian collisions occurred during the study period. Within these zones, there were a total of 1088 pedestrian crashes, 1044 injuries, and 41 fatalities – all disproportionately high totals.

Click over for more. There are five Houston intersections listed in their top 25, with Wheeler & Main being the most hazardous. The danger zones in most cities are concentrated in a couple of locations, but in Houston the trouble spots are more spread out. If you’ve ever had to cross one of our many multi-lane thoroughfares, where people often drive like they’re on the freeway, you know what it’s like. Unfortunately, I don’t expect that to change any time soon.

Farenthold gets off the ballot

Dec 21st, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

It started with this.

Rep. Blake Farenthold

The Republican Party of Texas managed to clear a path Tuesday in federal court for its chairman, James Dickey, to remove U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold’s name from primary ballots.
But as of press time, a party spokesman said Dickey still had not reached a decision on the fate of the congressman’s name on the ballot.

The drama late Tuesday came after a remarkable half-hour hearing hours earlier in Austin’s federal courthouse, where lawyers for the state said that, while state law requires the inclusion of Farenthold’s name because he withdrew from the race after the filing deadline, the secretary of state had no power to enforce that law.

In response, attorneys for the state party told U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew Austin they would drop a lawsuit that sought to leave Farenthold off the ballot.

“It was not Blake Farenthold’s intent to game the system, to choose the successor or to even get out of the race at the time when the ballot period closed,” said Chris Gober, one of the attorneys representing the state GOP.

Instead, he said, Farenthold was driven out of the race by the media coverage of sexual harassment allegations and how he treated his employees.

[…]

Under state law, political parties are required to submit a list of candidates who have filed to run in the primary elections to the secretary of state’s office, which transmits them to county officials in charge of printing ballots and running elections.

While the law requires the parties to include the names of all the candidates who have filed, no enforcement mechanism gives the secretary of state’s office the authority to ensure the lists provided by the political parties are complete, or to penalize party leaders if they leave a name off, a lawyer for the state argued.

According to the state’s brief, officially allowing Farenthold to withdraw his name from the ballot would trigger a new extension of the filing period, complicating efforts to get ballots prepared in time for the March 6 primary.

“Such an extended filing period, if triggered now, would exceed the Dec. 19, 2017, deadline to submit a list of candidates to the secretary of state and the Dec. 21 deadline to draw names on the ballot,” state lawyers argued. “It would also impede the already short period local election officials have to complete ballots before the Jan. 20, 2018, deadline to mail primary ballots to overseas military members.”

See here for the background. By ten AM, a press release from the Republican Party of Texas had hit my mailbox announcing Dickey’s decision to pull Farenthold out of there. (Yes, I get press releases from the RPT, and also from the Harris County GOP. I’m pretty sure I can trace it to having corresponded with Alan Blakemore’s office to arrange some candidate interviews. The things I do for you people.) Following that, the Texas Democratic Party filed a lawsuit to prevent Dickey from issuing this decree, but they then dropped it after failing to get an injunction.

The Democratic Party’s short-lived lawsuit sought to test the Texas GOP’s claim that it does not have to associate with Farenthold at this point. If that is valid, the Democratic Party says, it should have the same opportunity to exclude primary candidates. If it is not valid, Farenthold’s name should remain on the ballot, the Democrats argue.

“Texas Democrats will not stand idle while Republicans rig the ballot,” Gilberto Hinojosa, chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, said in a statement. “Only voters have the power to choose who leads our state and nation, not politicians and party officers in backroom decisions. Last we checked, this was Texas not Russia.”

[…]

Yet there could still be legal trouble ahead for the party due to its decision to omit a candidate who filed and did not withdraw by the deadline. That’s against the law, Soto said in court, even as he made clear the secretary of state is powerless to stop it. Both sides acknowledged the party’s decision could still draw legal scrutiny, perhaps from a candidate or voter in Texas’ 27th Congressional District.

“It’s certainly a possibility,” Gober told reporters, “but those are legal proceedings that would play out in time with presumably a plaintiff, a defendant and people with the ability to enforce that, whereas the secretary of state’s office has made the assertion they do not.”

For sure, this smacks of the bad old days, when all the action in elections was in the Democratic primary and all kinds of shenanigans were pulled to ensure that the “right” candidate won. I’d like to know what a response would be to the TDP’s assertion that if this stands then nothing would stop them from throwing out candidates they didn’t like (and Lord knows, as we continue to be beseiged by phonies and LaRouchies, this has more than a small amount of appeal to me). I think it is likely that someone else will file a lawsuit, and it will be interesting to see how the SOS testimony that this withdrawal is against the law will be addressed. In the meantime, I’ll make a donation to the first legislator who files a bill to close this dumb loophole for the 2019 session. Stay tuned.

CCA to review Paxton prosecutors pay case

Dec 21st, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Good.

Best mugshot ever

The state’s highest criminal court agreed Wednesday to take a closer look at prosecutors’ long-running fight to get paid for their handling of the securities fraud case against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

The move by the state’s Court of Criminal Appeals could have a major impact on the separate case against Paxton. The prosecutors have suggested they will bail if they cannot get paid, likely imperiling the more than two-year case against the state’s top lawyer.

“We are gratified but not surprised by the Court of Criminal Appeals’ decision to formally hear this landmark proceeding, one that impacts trial judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys across Texas,” the prosecutors said in a statement Wednesday.

Prosecutors asked the Court of Criminal Appeals in September to reverse a ruling from a lower court that voided a six-figure invoice for work that goes back to January 2016. The prosecutors said the decision by the Dallas-based 5th Court of Appeals — spurred by a legal challenge to the invoice by Collin County commissioners — was a “clear abuse of discretion.”

Days after the prosecutors appealed to the Court of Criminal Appeals in September, it put the lower-court ruling on hold. But the court waited until Wednesday — nearly two months later — to announce its decision to review the ruling.

See here and here for the background. All of this jousting over paying for the prosecutors has pushed the trial back into 2018, with the next court date awaiting the disposal of this case. You know how I feel about this, so let’s hope for once that the CCA’s infamous pro-prosecutor tendencies will be a force for good for once. The Chron has more.

The possible Houston high speed rail stations

Dec 21st, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

From Swamplot:

ONE OF THESE 3 spots revealed in a report from the Federal Railroad Administration will be the planned site for the Houston-Dallas high-speed rail line’s Houston terminal. All 3 are near the intersection of the 610 Loop and the BNSF rail tracks that run parallel to Hempstead Rd. just south of 290.

In the map at top, the station takes the land directly north of the Northwest Transit Center, where an industrial complex home to Icon Electric, Engineering Consulting Services, and others exists now. Hempstead Rd. is shown fronting Northwest Mall at the top of the plan.

Another proposal puts the station in the spot where the mall is now.

See here for the background, and click over to see the locations. We’ve known for some time that the station would be near the 610/290 junction, so now it’s just a matter of picking the precise spot. All three should be proximate to the Uptown line when it finally gets built, and of course there have been discussions with the Gulf Coast Rail District about connecting the line to downtown. So even after the final decision is made, there will still be a lot more to do.

Texas blog roundup for the week of December 18

Dec 21st, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

The Texas Progressive Alliance congratulates Sen.-elect Doug Jones as it brings you this week’s roundup.

(more…)

Filing roundup: Outside Harris County

Dec 20th, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

A look at who filed for what on the Democratic side in the counties around Harris. These are all predominantly Republican counties, some more than others, so the Democrats are almost all challengers. On the flip side, there are many opportunities for gains.

Lisa Seger

Montgomery County

CD08 – Steven David

HD03 – Lisa Seger
HD15 – Lorena Perez McGill
HD16 – Mike Midler

County Judge – Jay Stittleburg
District Clerk – John-Brandon Pierre
County Treasurer – Mandy Sunderland

First, kudos to Montgomery County, hardly a Democratic bastion, for having so many candidates. They’re a County Clerk candidate away from having a full slate. I’m not tracking judicial candidates, County Commissioners, or Constables, but the MCDP has those, too. Steven David is a business and efficiency expert for the City of Houston. He’s running against Kevin “Cut all the taxes for the rich people!” Brady. Lisa Seger, whose district also covers Waller County, is a fulltime farmer in Field Store Community who has helped feed first responders during the fires of 2011 and is also involved in animal rescue. Her opponent is Cecil Bell, who was possibly the most fanatical pusher of anti-LGBT bills in the State House. She’s also a Facebook friend of my wife, who knows a lot of local farmers through her past work with Central City Co-Op. Jay Stittleburg is a Navy veteran and Project Management Professional who has worked in oil and gas. John-Brandon Pierre is a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq. A very solid group.

Fort Bend County

CD22 – Letitia Plummer
CD22 – Margarita Ruiz Johnson
CD22 – Mark Gibson
CD22 – Sri Preston Kulkarni
CD22 – Steve Brown

SD17 – Fran Watson
SD17 – Rita Lucido
SD17 – Ahmad Hassan

HD26 – Sarah DeMerchant
HD27 – Rep. Ron Reynolds
HD27 – Wilvin Carter
HD28 – Meghan Scoggins
HD85 – Jennifer Cantu

County Judge – KP George
District Clerk – Beverly McGrew Walker

Gotta say, I’m kind of disappointed in Fort Bend. They had a full slate for county offices in 2014, but this year there wasn’t anyone to run for County Clerk or County Treasurer? I don’t understand how that happens. Mark Gibson and Steve Brown list Fort Bend addresses, while Letitia Plummer and Margarita Johnson are from Pearland and Sri Kulkarni is from Houston. The Senate candidates we’ve already discussed. For the State House, Sarah DeMerchant ran in 2016, while Wilvin Carter is the latest to try to take out Rep. Ron Reynolds, who is the only incumbent among all the candidates I’m listing in this post and whose story you know well. Meghan Scoggins has a background in aerospace but works now in the nonprofit sector, while Jennifer Cantu is an Early Childhood Intervention therapist for a Texas nonprofit. KP George is a Fort Bend ISD Trustee and past candidate for CD22.

Brazoria County

CD14 – Adrienne Bell
CD14 – Levy Barnes

SBOE7 – Elizabeth Markowitz

HD29 – Dylan Wilde Forbis
HD29 – James Pressley

County Judge – Robert Pruett
County Clerk – Rose MacAskie

CD22 and SD17 also contain Brazoria County. HD25, held by Dennis Bonnen, is in Brazoria but it is one of the few districts that drew no Democratic candidates. I haven’t focused much on the SBOE races, but as we know longtime Republican member David Bradley is retiring, so that seat is open. It’s not exactly a swing district, but maybe 2018 will be better than we think. Adrienne Bell has been in the CD14 race the longest; she’s a Houston native and educator who was on both the Obama 2012 and Wendy Davis 2014 campaigns. Levy Barnes is an ordained bishop with a bachelor’s in biology, and you’ll need to read his biography for yourself because there’s too much to encapsulate. Dylan Wilde Forbis is one of at least three transgender candidates for State House out there – Jenifer Pool in HD138 and Finnigan Jones in HD94 are the others I am aware of. The only useful bit of information I could find about the other candidates is the Robert Pruett had run for County Judge in 2014, too.

Galveston County

HD23 – Amanda Jamrok
HD24 – John Phelps

CD14 and SBOE7 are also in Galveston. Remember when Galveston was a Democratic county? Those were the days. I don’t have any further information about these candidates.

Hope these posts have been useful. There are more I hope to do, but they’re pretty labor intensive so I’ll get to them as best I can.

New Dallas County Sheriff chosen

Dec 20th, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Meet Lupe Valdez’s designated successor.

Marian Brown

Chief Deputy Marian Brown, former Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez’s third in command, will serve as interim sheriff until voters elect a new one in November. Valdez is stepping down to run for governor. Brown, a 29-year law enforcement veteran in her fourth year with the sheriff’s office, is running as a Democrat to replace Valdez.

The Dallas County Commissioners Court voted 5-0 to select Brown for the post. Valdez told reporters Tuesday that Brown has the right attributes to finish out the term and to be elected sheriff next year.

“She’s accountable. She’s responsible. She’s professional. She’s diplomatic,” Valdez said.

Brown, a Dallas native, joined the Duncanville Police Department in 1988. She was the first black woman hired by the department. She served the department for 26 years, focusing on community policing and relations, and was named assistant chief of police in 2007. In 2014, she resigned from Duncanville and joined the sheriff’s office as a chief deputy.

[…]

Brown is one of two Democrats running to replace Valdez. The other is Dallas County Precinct 4 Constable Roy Williams Jr. Two Republicans, Aaron Meek and Chad Prda are running for their party’s nomination in the upcoming March 6 primary.

Congratulations to new Sheriff Brown. I don’t know anything about her or the other candidates running for her job, but I do know that if she is elected to a full term next November, she would become the second African-American woman to be elected Sheriff in Texas, joining Sheriff Zena Stephens of Jefferson County, who was elected last year. Sheriff Brown is also the first African-American to become Sheriff of Dallas. Now you know.

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