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July, 2018:

The Trib looks at the AG race

There’s case that this is the second-most interesting statewide race on the ballot.

Justin Nelson

Three years ago almost to the day, a Collin County grand jury indicted Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for securities fraud. As the state’s top lawyer turned himself into a jail in his hometown of McKinney and smiled for his mug shot, Democrats couldn’t help but feel optimistic. The last time Texas elected a Democrat for attorney general was over two decades ago. Paxton’s legal troubles could potentially serve, they hoped, as the springboard to breaking that streak.

What perhaps no one could have foreseen back in 2015 was the dizzying array of twists and turns the legal case against Paxton would undergo. Three summers later, there is still no trial date in sight and one is unlikely to emerge before Election Day.

Yet despite avoiding a challenge from within his own party this year – arguably the biggest political threat for a statewide official in deep-red Texas – the political fallout from Paxton’s indictment remains to be seen. In November, he’ll face his first actual test of it at the ballot box: a challenge from Democrat Justin Nelson. The well-credentialed Austin lawyer is framing the race as a crystal-clear referendum on the charges that have dogged Paxton for the vast majority of his first term.

“The question that voters will have is who voters want to hire as a lawyer for Texas, for all Texans,” Nelson said in a recent interview. “Voters will be able to choose me, someone who has clerked for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court, who has taught at the University of Texas law school, Texas Super Lawyer, a partner at a successful law firm, versus my opponent, who it’s embarrassing that he’s indicted for fraud in one of the most heavily Republican counties in Texas.

“And I think that when voters see that contrast, it will be integrity versus indictment.”

[…]

In Nelson, Democrats have ample reason to be optimistic. He brings an impressive resume to the race as a clerk for former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and current partner at Houston-based litigation powerhouse Susman Godfrey. That network that comes with that — as well as Nelson’s own wealth — has allowed him to build a bigger war chest than any other Democratic statewide candidate beside U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, who is running a far more high-profile race to unseat U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. Still, Paxton maintains a wide cash-on-hand advantage.

In addition to Nelson’s fundraising, Democrats have been buoyed by a pair of public polls that suggested the race may be close. A recent University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll found Paxton leading Nelson among registered voters by just 1 percentage point, but 26 percent of voters had yet to pick a candidate.

“I feel really good about his race,” said state Sen. Sylvia Garcia, D-Houston, ranking Paxton and Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller as ripe targets for Democratic upsets in November. “[Nelson’s race] is particularly compelling because … I’ve seen people react when you talk about an indictment and an attorney general — I mean, this is our lawyer, and they can’t get their head around the idea that our own lawyer is under indictment. They’ll easily concede, ‘Yeah, he’s innocent until proven guilty’, but it’s the whole image — it’s the whole cloud over the work — it just doesn’t sit easy when you hear about that.”

To be sure, Nelson is not building his challenge entirely around the incumbent’s legal troubles. Nelson also is campaigning on issues like ending gerrymandering, which was the topic of a pub crawl he led last month in Austin that touched three congressional districts in a five-block radius. During an interview at the last stop — at Easy Tiger in downtown Austin — Nelson said he would use his platform as attorney general to fight partisan gerrymandering in particular through written opinions, through the litigation process and at the Legislative Redistricting Board, where the attorney general has a seat. Nelson and Paxton were already on opposite sides of the issue before their race began, having signed on to dueling amicus briefs in the Wisconsin gerrymandering case that the U.S. Supreme Court declined to decide on last month.

Nelson has raised (and loaned himself) a few bucks, he’s got the national Democratic Attorney General Association in his corner, and there’s that one-point poll result; another poll from the Texas Lyceum that includes the AG race will be out next week. And then there’s the wild card of the Paxton trial, and how much the publicity for that has eroded Paxton’s natural advantage as a Republican. Going in on redistricting as an issue is a good idea as well. The main questions as always are how much does the average voter already know about this stuff, how much do they care, and how effectively can Nelson get his message out? Justin Nelson is a very appealing candidate, but he has to overcome the tide. That’s what this boils down to.

Two views of the flood bond referendum

View One, from Joe B. Allen and Jim Blackburn: Vote for it because there’s no real alternative.

Proposition A — the proposal to allow Harris County to issue $2.5 billion in flood control bonds — will be on the ballot in Harris County on Aug. 25, the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Harvey. We agree that this bond issue is essential to the future of our community.

[…]

With the passage of $2.5 billion in bonds and an estimated $7.5 billion in matching federal funds, HCFCD would be able to spend $1 billion per year for the next 10 years on flood management. This will not solve all of our drainage problems, but it would represent a dramatic improvement.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has announced funding for four federally approved and permitted projects: Brays Bayou, Clear Creek, Hunting Bayou and White Oak Bayou. All four projects have a significant local match requirement. If the bonds are approved, these projects could start immediately.

[…]

There is no Plan B. Either this bond election passes or the current flooding conditions continue. The world watched as we came together to help one another in the aftermath of Harvey. Now is the time to come together to show the world that we are willing and able to solve major problems to ensure the long-term success of the place we proudly call home.

We plan to vote FOR Prop. A, and we urge you to do the same. Early voting begins Aug. 8.

Jim Blackburn is a well-respected and very outspoken authority on flooding and related environmental matters, so his endorsement of the referendum carries a lot of weight.

View Two, from Roger Gingell: More flood detention basins, please!

If voters approve Harris County’s proposed $2.5 billion flood control bonds, the County Flood Control District will have more than 41 times its annual budget to spend on flood mitigation. That’s great news if the money is used wisely.

A wise use of the bond money would include water detention basins in neighborhoods that flood, built on land already owned by the public.

Recently, myself and a few others had a private showing of the flood bond proposals for our older neighborhoods in Spring Branch. A friendly gentleman from Flood Control showed us a map with purple circles and green triangles representing projects. If you are lucky, your neighborhood is awarded a purple circle which represents a bigger project. A green triangle on the other hand could be just a tiny, micro-project like fixing some unspecified damage to a drain. None of the projects, however, are set in stone. That is how the bond is being sold — citizens can influence or even add projects.

During that hour intensely staring at a map of triangles and circles, it became clear that the biggest thing missing from the bond proposal was water detention basins actually being located inside the neighborhoods that have flooding problems. There wasn’t a single proposed water detention basin inside the neighborhoods surrounding Memorial City, which flood heavily.

[…]

Having a budget 41 times your existing yearly budget means that new responsibilities will follow. With a bond of this size, Flood Control can’t just be in charge of the bayou while a financially distressed city of Houston is in charge of drainage to the bayou. Thinking must be done outside the box. The institutional mindset of Flood Control must change and grow for the better.

To serve all tax payers who would potentially be paying for the $2.5 billion bond, county planners must take the innovative approach and look for publicly owned land inside neighborhoods that flood. These are the places that water detention basins must be built to save neighborhoods inside the city.

Gingell is the general counsel for Residents Against Flooding, a nonprofit that filed suit against the city in 2016 for approving commercial development in the Memorial City area without requiring adequate storm water mitigation. He doesn’t explicitly say he’s against the bond, but you can see he has reservations. I don’t have anything to add to these, I just wanted to flag them for those of you who still want to know more about this referendum. I’ll have a couple of interviews next week to add on.

Who wants to protect our voting systems from hackers?

You would hope the answer to that question would be “everyone”, but that’s not the world we currently live in.

A bipartisan group of 21 state attorneys general are demanding Congress’ assistance in protecting the 2018 election. Writing to Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee and Sen. Roy Blunt, Senate Rules and Administration Committee Chairman, the AGs ask for “assistance in shoring up our systems so that we may protect our elections from foreign attacks and interference.”

“As the latest investigations and indictments make clear,” they write “during the 2016 election, hackers within Russia’s military intelligence service not only targeted state and local election boards, but also successfully invaded a state election website to steal the sensitive information of approximately 500,000 American voters and infiltrated a company that supplies voting software across the United States.” Combatting that incursion and giving the electorate “confidence in our democratic voting process” is “imperative,” they write. “The integrity of the nation’s voting infrastructure is a bipartisan issue, and one that affects not only the national political landscape, but elections at the state, county, municipal, and local levels.”

Their direct demands: “Prioritizing and acting on election-security legislation” in the form of the Secure Elections Act (S.2261), a bipartisan bill that would provide additional grants and assistance to states to shore up systems; “Increasing funding for the Election Assistance Commission to support election security improvements at the state level and to protect the personal data of the voters of our states”; and, “Supporting the development of cybersecurity standards for voting systems to prevent potential future foreign attacks.”

You can see the very reasonable letter here. Seems simple and straightforward, no? You can also see that none of those AGs are Ken Paxton. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t want to debate – he doesn’t want to get asked pesky questions about that sort of thing.

Typhus in Galveston

An infectious disease update for you.

Typhus fever, a disease carried by fleas and once thought to be eradicated, is rearing its head in Galveston County, county health officials said on Monday.

The Galveston County Health District reported that 18 cases of typhus fever have been reported so far in 2018, up from 17 reported for all of 2017. The disease has rebounded in other parts of Texas in the last decade.

“I believe we are seeing an increase in reported cases because physicians now know what symptoms to look for,” said Randy Valcin, Galveston County Health District’s director of epidemiology and public health preparedness, in a written statement. “Typhus has been around for a number of years, but physicians are testing more and we’re seeing those results.”

Typhus symptoms, which include fever, headache, muscle pain, anorexia, rash, nausea and vomiting, are often confused with a number of viral ailments. People become infected when they come in contact with infected flea feces through open wounds, scratching and even breathing in the infected feces. Symptoms usually present about 7 to 14 days after exposure to the virus.

Murine typhus is a flea-borne illness, now believed to be carried mostly by opossums and other backyard mammals that spread them to cats and dogs, which then bring them indoors. Historically, typhus was carried by rats, before aggressive use of DDT, a pesticide, in the mid-1940s largely eliminated the problem in most U.S. areas. Before the use of DDT, typhus fever peaked in the United States with 5,400 reported cases. By 1956, there were less than 100 reported cases. The use of DDT has since been banned.

The disease is often mild, and treatable with antibiotics. But left untreated, severe illness can cause damage to one or more organs, including the liver, kidneys, heart, lungs and brain.

Over the last 15 years, typhus has been making a comeback in Texas. In 2017, the Chronicle reported the number of Texas cases rose from 30 in 2003 to 364 in 2016, and the number of Harris County cases from zero to 32. Eight Texas deaths have been attributed to the infection since 2003, with more than a quarter of cases reported to the state health department involve children from 6 to 15 years old.

See here for some background. Like Zika, typhus is a tropical disease, and one reason we’re seeing it here now is because of climate change. Basically, the conditions under which these diseases, and the insects that carry them, now exist in a much broader and less-equatorial range. We can accept that as the new normal or we can try to maybe do something about that, I dunno. Just a thought.

July 2018 finance reports: Harris County candidates

Let’s take a look at where we stand with the candidates for county office. January report info is here. On we go:

County Judge

Ed Emmett
Lina Hidalgo

Commissioner, Precinct 2

Jack Morman
Adrian Garcia

Commissioner, Precinct 4

Jack Cagle
Penny Shaw

District Clerk

Chris Daniel
Marilyn Burgess

County Clerk

Stan Stanart
Diane Trautman

County Treasurer

Orlando Sanchez
Dylan Osborne

HCDE, Position 3 At Large

Marcus Cowart
Richard Cantu

HCDE, Position 4, Precinct 3

Josh Flynn
Andrea Duhon


Candidate       Office    Raised      Spent     Loan    On Hand
===============================================================
Emmett    County Judge   618,590    138,209        0    934,714
Hidalgo   County Judge   183,252     67,007        0    116,263  

Morman      Comm Pct 2   612,400    178,027   30,185  2,710,005
A Garcia    Comm Pct 2   342,182    141,745        0    154,693  

Cagle       Comm Pct 4   199,800    451,189        0    658,641
Shaw        Comm Pct 4     7,838     10,591        0      1,234

Daniel  District Clerk   106,675    113,813   45,000     59,920
Burgess District Clerk     5,527      1,504        0      9,476

Stanart   County Clerk     5,820      5,836   20,000     75,389
Trautman  County Clerk     8,705      4,236        0     23,749

Sanchez      Treasurer    86,185      4,801  200,000    281,383
Osborne      Treasurer     1,645      2,441        0        491

Cowart          HCDE 3         0          0        0          0
Cantu           HCDE 3       953      1,606        0        656

Flynn           HCDE 4       200      2,134        0          0
Duhon           HCDE 4     1,476      1,149        0        977

All things considered, that’s a pretty decent amount of money raised by Lina Hidalgo, especially as a first-time candidate running against a ten-year incumbent. She has the resources to run a professional campaign, and she’s done that. I don’t know what her mass communication strategy is, but she will need more to do that effectively. We’re a big county, there are a lot of voters here, and these things ain’t cheap. She was endorsed last week by Annie’s List, so that should be a big help in this department going forward.

Ed Emmett is clearly taking her seriously. He’s stepped up his fundraising after posting a modest report in January. Greg Abbott has already reserved a bunch of TV time with his bottomless campaign treasury, and I figure that will be as much to bolster local and legislative candidates as it will be for himself. Still, those who can support themselves are going to continue to do so.

Which brings us to Commissioners Court in Precinct 2, one of the top-tier races of any kind in the region. Adrian Garcia started from scratch after his Mayoral and Congressional campaigns, and he’s done well to get prepped for the fall. That’s a challenge when the guy you’re up against has as much as Jack Morman has, but at least Garcia starts out as someone the voters know and have by and large supported. I will be interested to see just what Morman has in mind to do with all that money, but until we see something tangible I have a dumb question: Why, if you have $2.7 million in the bank, would you not just go ahead and clear up that $30K loan? Is there some subtle financial reason for it, or is it just that no one cares about campaign loans being paid back? Anyone with some insight into these burning questions is encouraged to enlighten us in the comments.

Speaking of loans, that 200K bit of debt for Orlando Sanchez keeps on keeping on. Sanchez managed to get a few people to write him four-figure (and in one case, a five-figure) checks this period. I literally have no idea why anyone would do that, but here we are. It gives me something to write about, so we can all be thankful for that.

I’ve got more of these to come. Let me know what you think.

The STEM candidates

If there was ever a year for scientists to run for office, this was it.

Across the country, hundreds of candidates with academic or professional experience in science, technology, engineering and mathematics have left their businesses and laboratories to compete in state legislative contests, congressional elections and even governor’s races. These scientists-turned-politicians constitute the largest wave of such candidates in modern U.S. history, according to 314 Action, an advocacy group that works to elect STEM professionals to public office.

Like the similar surge of women running for office this year, many of these first-time candidates entered the political arena in response to Trump’s election, frustrated with the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris climate accord and energized by the inaugural Marches for Sciences held on Earth Day in April 2017.

“Attacks on science didn’t start with the Trump administration,” said Shaughnessy Naughton, a former congressional candidate who founded 314 Action — named for the first three digits of pi — in 2014. “But they’ve taken what felt like a war on science and turned it into a war on facts, and that has been a catalyst for getting scientists involved.”

Over the course of the election cycle, more than 150 candidates with STEM credentials announced campaigns for Congress across the country, according to VoteSTEM, another organization that advocates for scientists to run for office. Eleven of those candidates were in Texas.

Ultimately, only two of the congressional hopefuls in Texas, both of them Democrats, survived the primaries — Joseph Kopser, an engineer running in District 21, which covers a portion of Austin, and Rick Kennedy, a computer scientist competing in District 17 in Central Texas. But around the state, candidates like [Allison] Sawyer [in HD134] remain in contention for a range of local positions, including seats in the state Legislature and on the State Board of Education.

And although many of these candidates face long odds in November, the current political environment, in which officials invoke “alternative facts” to justify inaccurate claims, could prove favorable to politicians schooled in the scientific method, said Colin Strother, a longtime Democratic strategist in Texas.

Candidates who favor “making data-driven decisions based on evidence and facts” will have a good chance in the upcoming elections, Strother said. “That worldview is a winner.”

[…]

Other Texas candidates with STEM backgrounds express similar frustrations at the status of scientific discourse in national politics. Carla Morton, a neuropsychologist running for the State Board of Education as a Democrat, said she remembers feeling dismayed when Trump posited a connection between vaccines and autism, a dubious claim backed by little scientific evidence. And Michelle Beckley, a Democrat with a bachelor’s degree in biomedical sciences who is running for a state House seat in Carrollton, said she wishes politicians would act on data showing the prevalence of gun violence across the country.

Morton is running in SBOE11, where incumbent Pat Hardy went unopposed in 2012 (SBOE members have six-year terms), and which is a fairly red district. Beckley is running in HD65 against Rep. Ron Simmons; Donald Trump carried it with 48.1% of the vote in 2016, but it was more like a ten-point Republican district downballot. Kopser and Sawyer are more likely to win than either of them, but all four are underdogs. Still, they’re all worth watching, and to the extent they can make the debate about what is real versus what is some yahoo’s fever dreams, we’ll all be better off.

Beto mostly accepts Cruz’s debate terms

Looks like we’re on.

Rep. Beto O’Rourke

Beto O’Rourke, the Democratic nominee in Texas’ U.S. Senate race, is accepting Republican incumbent Ted Cruz’s proposal to debate five times over the next three months, though O’Rourke also is suggesting a few changes to the plan — including having a sixth debate in his hometown of El Paso.

“I look forward to debating Senator Cruz and am grateful for the schedule you have proposed,” O’Rourke wrote in a letter Friday to Cruz strategist Jeff Roe. “I would suggest only a few small changes.”

Roe quickly responded to O’Rourke, writing in a letter that the plan “isn’t an open negotiation” and largely not entertaining any of O’Rourke’s suggested changes. Roe, however, did express openness to having a debate in El Paso — not as a sixth meeting, but as a replacement for one of the five previously named cities.

[…]

“At each debate, our fellow Texans should be able to raise any issue and do so in an unscripted town hall format,” O’Rourke wrote. “Those issues should include ones you have already proposed and those you did not, including, but not limited to: serving our veterans, public education, money in politics, farming and ranching, the environment, civil rights and social security.”

In his response, Roe did not directly address O’Rourke’s ask for the town-hall format but said “most of the topics you suggested will already be included in the broad topics” the Cruz campaign initially outlined.

See here and here for the background. Sounds like the main points are agreed on, and while there may be some tweaking around the edges, what you see is more or less what you’re going to get. May others follow this example (they won’t).

Weekend link dump for July 29

The kids are all right, no matter what the haters say.

“For infertility advocates, the Arizona law is less a Solomonic decree than a portent of a borderline-dystopian future wherein the government can compel people to become parents long after they decide they don’t want to be.”

“For almost a decade the internet has quietly maintained an obscure Futurama joke”.

“The Russian hackers, in other words, are the modern equivalents of the Watergate burglars in 1972. The only difference is the technology.”

Meet Nicole Maines, who will be the first transgender superhero on next season’s Supergirl.

“Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh suggested several years ago that the unanimous high court ruling in 1974 that forced President Richard Nixon to turn over the Watergate tapes, leading to the end of his presidency, may have been wrongly decided.” I’m sure this has nothing at all to do with our current political situation.

“Victims of tragedies like the Sandy Hook shooting and their families, however, have been largely left out of the conversation. Ryan Graney, who leads a group of volunteers spearheading efforts to pull Sandy Hook conspiracy content, said there is no formal way for such families to reach a human being at Facebook.”

RIP, Don Sanders, longtime fixture on the Houston music scene. As I wrote on Facebook, my roommate and I moved into Sanders’ former house in Montrose after he and his wide sold it to their next-door neighbor after having a kid. He was a genuinely nice guy and very talented, and I’m happy to have known him and saddened by his death.

Here’s the story of an iconic television house that may not be long for this world.

Banishment is totally still a thing in some states. It’s probably unconstitutional at the federal level, being exiled from America probably violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. (Somebody PLEASE tell Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions that.) But there are a number of states that still have exile statutes on the books.”

Did you miss your chance to buy the Dick Cheney autographed waterboard kit?

“How Warner Brothers Resisted a Hollywood Ban on Anti-Nazi Films in the 1930s and Warned Americans of the Dangers of Fascism”.

“We stopped keeping statistics on the number of Native moms and babies that are lost in our region; it was just too upsetting.”

“Before we lose our minds entirely, let’s try to remember that approval among partisans used to be something no one took seriously. No one. Why? Because they’re your people. Of course, they approve of what you’re doing! Anyway, even when your people like you, that doesn’t help when faced with an election favoring the out-party. Seth Masket pointed out this morning that George W. Bush and Barack Obama were hella-popular among partisans in 2006 and 2010, and look how much good it did them.”

“Identity theft protection firm LifeLock — a company that’s built a name for itself based on the promise of helping consumers protect their identities online — may have actually exposed customers to additional attacks from ID thieves and phishers. The company just fixed a vulnerability on its site that allowed anyone with a Web browser to index email addresses associated with millions of customer accounts, or to unsubscribe users from all communications from the company.”

“Roseanne who?”

“We tend to think of American history as a slow unfolding of rights over time – with the imposition of Jim Crow in the 1880s and 1890s, a major step backwards, as a sort of historical anomaly. As we’ve discussed elsewhere, that’s simply not the case. But what I took from Down’s article is that in many ways voting restrictionism focused on immigrants is the most consistent through-line to the battle over the vote through our history. It predates the Civil War, which in some way interrupts it. It returns with a vengeance after the Civil War. And it both inspires and assists the disenfranchisement of Southern blacks after the withdrawal of federal troops from the South in the late 1870s.”

“On two separate but related matters that converge with this new allegation, the president and his team have been caught repeatedly lying. First, the White House in July 2017 offered false stories about the Trump Tower meeting, only to have to promptly admit they were incorrect. Second, the Trump team repeatedly insisted that the president was unaware of payments to Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels, two women who allege affairs with him. But a tape released by Cohen shows Trump was aware of the plan to buy McDougal’s story and suffocate it, while Trump acknowledged reimbursing Cohen after his payment to Daniels.”

Checking in on SD19

Election Day is Tuesday.

Carlos Uresti

Long before the seat opened up here in Texas Senate District 19, state Rep. Roland Gutierrez was traveling the massive district, making friends as far west as Big Bend National Park’s Brewster County in anticipation of the fate that would ultimately meet the embattled incumbent, Carlos Uresti.

Late Thursday morning, though, Gutierrez found himself much closer to home, knocking on doors in the heart of his House district on San Antonio’s southeast side, where he encountered a number of familiar faces. He reminded them he has represented them for 13 years — three as their City Council member, 10 as their state representative.

Gutierrez is going to need all the support he can get in the area Tuesday, when voters head to the polls in the eight-way race to replace Uresti, who resigned last month after being found guilty of 11 felonies including securities fraud and money laundering. Gutierrez’s toughest opponent is fellow Democrat Pete Gallego, who entered the abbreviated special election with loads of name recognition as a former congressman and longtime state lawmaker from West Texas.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt in anyone’s mind that we’re the underdog in this thing,” Gutierrez said in an interview, noting the millions of dollars that have been spent in Gallego’s congressional races building his name ID in the area. “At the end of the day, you need more than that. You need certainly all of the elements of character and integrity and desire, but you’ve got to put in the work.”

Complicating the dynamic between Gallego and Gutierrez is a growing Republican effort to unify behind a single candidate — Pete Flores, who ran against Uresti in 2016 — and send him to a runoff in the Democratic-leaning district. That movement became clearer than ever Thursday when Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick jumped into the fray, endorsing Flores over his two lesser-known GOP rivals.

“We feel like we’re likely in the range and we have a good chance to be in a runoff,” said Matt Mackowiak, a Republican strategist working for Flores. “We’re doing more this week than we’ve ever done.”

[…]

Gutierrez outspent Gallego more than 2 to 1 in the first 21 days of July — $251,000 to $97,000 — working to overcome his disadvantages, according to their latest filings with the Texas Ethics Commission. Part of Gutierrez’s spending went toward a TV buy attacking Gallego as a “career politician,” telling voters they “fired him from Congress, and now he wants to bring his tired ideas to our Texas state Senate.”

Gallego, for his part, is more than okay with being the known entity in the race, a steady presence after the stormy waters of the recent Uresti era. The former state senator was sentenced to 12 years in prison last month in the fraud case, which stemmed from his work with a now-defunct oil field services company that was found to have perpetrated a Ponzi scheme.

“The experience, the roots, the knowledge — all of those, I think, make me the best candidate,” Gallego said in an interview. “I think people want a familiar face. These are really difficult times.”

See here for some background. Carlos Uresti won re-election over Pete Flores in 2016 by a 55.9 to 40.4 margin, and Uresti was the best performer among Democrats. It’s entirely plausible to me that Flores will make it to the runoff, and honestly I’m a little surprised that Republicans hadn’t lined up behind him before now; Patrick’s endorsement came after the end of early voting. A Pete Gallego-Roland Gutierrez runoff is also possible – I’d very much prefer that – but as is always the case with special elections it depends on who shows up. As has been the case with the other two specials so far, this one has felt pretty quiet so far, but a D-versus-R runoff would change that. If you’re in the district, how has this race looked to you?

Census lawsuit proceeds

Good.

A federal judge in New York on Thursday allowed a lawsuit challenging the addition of a citizenship question to the Census to move forward. U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman’s decision rejected the Trump administration’s request to dismiss the lawsuit, which was brought by numerous states and localities.

The judge said that the court has jurisdiction to review Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’s decision to add the question, rejecting the administration’s arguments that Ross could be insulated from judicial review.

Furman said that while Ross indeed had the authority under the Constitution to add the question, the judge concluded that the exercise of that authority in this particular case may have violated the challengers’ constitutional rights.

At this stage of the proceedings, Furman is required to assume the challengers’ allegations are true, and he must draw any inference from those allegations in the challengers’ favor. In doing so on Thursday, Furman said that the challengers “plausibly allege that Secretary Ross’s decision to reinstate the citizenship question on the 2020 census was motivated by discriminatory animus and that its application will result in a discriminatory effect. ”

See here, here, and here for the background. Nothing really new here, just another chance for me to say that this absolutely was motivated by discrimination and that it would be very nice to have it halted by the time the counting actually begins. Daily Kos and NPR have more.

The Prairie View cricket complex

I love stories like this.

Growing up, Tanweer Ahmed’s mother, Kalsoom, always discouraged him from playing cricket. They were a poor family. His mother sold vegetables and milk from the few cows they had in his hometown of Sialkot in Punjab, Pakistan.

“Cricket doesn’t cost that much, but every penny matters when you don’t have anything,” Ahmed said.

Kalsoom put those pennies toward getting him and four siblings through the best school in the city. He had one school uniform, one pair of shoes, and one pair of clothes to wear at home.

“That’s all we could afford,” he said.

Today, Ahmed is owner of more than 150 franchise restaurants in four states, plus an energy company and half of a medical research venture. And he is busy pouring millions of his own dollars into building one of the nation’s largest cricket complexes. It will serve children and adults when it opens in early September, and later it could host professional international matches.

The project is rising from the plains of Prairie View, less than a 15-minute drive from the Grand Parkway on the outskirts of Houston, in prominent view of drivers on the newly refurbished U.S. 290.

Plans for 10 to 12 fields on 86 acres have raised eyebrows among some locals who question the viability of such a facility in the rural expanse around a college town of about 6,000. But this is no quixotic attempt to recapture some piece of a lost childhood far from home. Houston has been waiting for this, observers say. If he builds it, players will come.

“There’s certainly a large demand” in Houston, said Eric Parthen, U.S. project manager for the International Cricket Council, which is not involved in the project. “It will immediately be one of the larger facilities in the country, if not the largest.”

A recent study by the council, in concert with the market research firm Nielsen, found 200,000 people playing the game in the United States, and it counted millions of fans.

“It’s untapped potential in the youth market,” Parthen said. “The U.S. has the largest immigrant population in the world, a lot of those coming from South Asian cultures, and these are children growing up in families passionate about cricket.”

I would assume this venue will be of great interest to the nascent Houston Cricket League, as well as the US cricket team. It’s not hard to imagine Ahmed’s venture becoming not just the premier location for cricket in the US, but also a major attraction for the region. I wish him all the best with this project.

Paxton joins the wimp brigade

Seems fitting.

Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a TV interview that he would be “happy to debate anybody on the issues” as he seeks re-election this fall, but he is now backing off that offer by refusing to debate Democrat Justin Nelson as voters decide who to hire as the state’s top lawyer.

Paxton instead “will communicate directly with the voters,” his campaign spokesman, Matt Welch, wrote in an emailed statement Thursday in rejecting Nelson’s invitation to debate.

Welch did not respond when asked if Paxton’s previous offer to debate was sincere.

“I’m happy to debate anybody on the issues and I look forward to it,” Paxton said on C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” program in November.

See here and here for the background. No one should be surprised by this. All bark no bite, all hat no cattle, all hawk no spit – pick your cliche to to describe these yellow bellies. I doubt Paxton, along with Dan Patrick and Sid Miller and George P. Bush, can feel shame, but they can probably feel ridicule, and they deserve all the Bronx cheers they get. If they refuse to debate because they don’t want to give publicity to their opponents, then let’s make their refusal to debate a story. They should not be allowed to run away and hide.

Carranza’s parting shot

I’ve been sitting with this for a couple of days, and ultimately decided it was not worth much more than a shrug.

Former Houston ISD superintendent Richard Carranza did not mince words in an interview published this week about his disappointment in HISD’s failure to pass major reforms he championed during his 18-month tenure, suggesting the district lacked the appetite for changes that would boost outcomes for lower-income and minority students.

“As soon as I left, it seemed like people just didn’t have the stomach to take the fight,” Carranza, who left to become chancellor of New York City public schools in April, said in an article published by The Atlantic.

In a couple of parting shots four months after leaving from Houston, Carranza told the news magazine that HISD leaders have resisted changes that would benefit historically underserved students, creating inequitable access to quality education among students from all backgrounds. His comments cut to key questions about the district’s dedication to impoverished and minority students, while also raising the specter that Carranza’s abrupt departure contributed to the proposals stalling.

In The Atlantic article, which largely focused on his immediate reform efforts in New York City, the 51-year-old lamented HISD’s current campus funding model and the geographic layout of its magnet schools, which he said have favored students from more affluent and white backgrounds. In the months before his departure, Carranza proposed shifting toward a more centralized funding model that largely would benefit schools in lower-income and predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods.

[…]

“Carranza didn’t leave any definite plans on the table. Only ideals,” HISD Board President Rhonda Skillern-Jones said. “For me, there were conceptual changes that were never fully vetted or fleshed out by the administration.”

The district also was dealing with a large budget deficit and contentious plans to surrender control over 10 chronically low-performing schools, prompting a few trustees to question whether HISD was tackling too much at one time.

Interim Superintendent Grenita Lathan ultimately shelved the plan a month after Carranza announced his move to New York, pledging a committee to study the district’s resource allocation methods. That committee is scheduled to meet in private for the first time on Aug. 7, with recommendations provided to HISD administrators by December. Forty members have been invited, though not all have committed to date, HISD officials said.

HISD trustees largely have agreed the district’s magnet school system needs reform, but they have been unable to agree on the extent of needed changes. Various community factions also have been divided on whether to tweak the system, including a vocal grass-roots group that lobbied against Carranza’s proposal this year.

Carranza’s proposals, which as Skillern-Jones rightly notes were more big picture ideals than detailed plans, did run into resistance, but then all big changes do. You need to put in a lot of effort and resources to show what will happen and why it will be better and what the short-term costs will be and just generally educate, engage, and get buy-in from an array of stakeholders who will be directly affected and may have concerns about things you hadn’t thought of. It’s certainly possible that the resistance will be too fierce to fully overcome and that what ends up getting implemented is a series of patches and compromises and watered-down versions of your original vision, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. I’d be more inclined to take Carranza’s complaints seriously if he’d been in town longer than five minutes and had done some of the real work that was and still is going to be needed to make such big changes.

Houston to get 5G service

Nice.

Verizon will soon launch 5G technology in Houston, though its initial focus won’t be on improving the performance of mobile devices.

Rather, the wireless provider is positioning itself to compete with Comcast and AT&T for streaming television, playing video games or telling Alexa to turn on the lights.

Verizon officials said Tuesday that they will introduce residential 5G broadband starting in the second half of this year, using radio signals, rather than copper or fiber cables, to provide internet and phone services to the home. Houston is the third city announced as part of a four-market plan that also includes Sacramento and Los Angeles, Calif.

“It really comes down to not wanting to be left out of the loop, and 5G is what allows them to not get cut off,” Moor Insights & Strategy analyst Anshel Sag said.

People spend much of their days on their smartphones, but once they get home they connect to Wi-Fi rather than use their data plan. The new 5G technology provides a cheaper opportunity for wireless providers to enter that broadband market.

Theoretically, 5G will be able to achieve speeds of tens of gigabits per second, though most companies talk initially about 1 Gbps to 2 Gbps speeds. While variables from weather to terrain to buildings can affect 5G performance, the new technology is still expected to be much faster than current cell service — LTE speeds are typically in the 10-to-150 megabits per second range — and could potentially outstrip even the fastest home broadband currently available.

Dwight Silverman goes into more detail about what this means for end users, the tl;dr version of which is more options for home broadband beyond AT&T and Comcast. Potentially, anyway, and starting sometime in 2019, as this is all still more or less vaporware. But it’s coming, it’s better than what we’ve got now, and it should give you more choices in the marketplace.

Republicans and Independents

Something to ponder.

The good news for President Trump in the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll — half of which was conducted before and the day of the Helsinki presser with Putin, half of which was conducted afterward — is that his standing with the GOP base is stronger than ever.

Eighty-eight percent of Republican voters in the poll approve of Trump’s job — the highest of his presidency — and 29 percent of all voters strongly approve of his performance, which is another high for him. “The more Trump gets criticized by the media, the more his base seems to rally behind him,” says Democratic pollster Fred Yang, who co-conducted the NBC/WSJ poll with the Republican team from Public Opinion Strategies.

Trump’s approval rating in the poll is 45 percent among all registered voters (up 1 point from June), while 52 percent disapprove, including 44 percent who do so strongly.

The bad news for the president is that his standing — plus the GOP’s — is now worse with independents than it was a month ago. Just 36 percent of independents approve of Trump’s job (down 7 points from June). What’s more, independents prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress by more than 20 points, 48 percent to 26 percent. In June, the Dem lead among indies was just 7 points, 39 percent to 32 percent.

As you know, I’ve been looking for signs of Republican disapproval with Trump as a potential catalyst for lower turnout among GOPers this year. That does not appear to be happening, though voter enthusiasm (as noted in this poll as well) continues to tilt towards Dems. However, there is a potential alternate explanation for the durability of Trump’s support among the Rs:

Voters have to identify themselves with a political party, and that identification isn’t stable; it ebbs and flows with events and circumstances. Trump might win high marks from most Republicans, but the pool of Republican voters might be smaller than in the past. Far from standing tall over the entire GOP, Trump’s base may have eroded significantly from where it was at the beginning of his administration.

According to the Pew Research Center, Republican Party identification fell 3 points, to 26 percent, from 2016 to the end of 2017. The number of self-identified independents increased at the same time, from 34 percent to 37 percent, while the number of Democrats remained steady. Gallup shows a similar change: From November 2016 to November 2017, there was a 5-point drop in the number of people who called themselves Republicans, from 42 percent to 37 percent. Democratic self-identification remained unchanged at 44 percent.

The sheer size of the United States makes it easy to find vocal support for anyone and anything, and Donald Trump has his vocal supporters. But their staunch commitment overshadows the reality: a shrinking base for a president who won by the skin of his teeth, reliant on a small group of voters in just a handful of states. His scandals and outrages—controversies and improprieties—have had an effect. Even rank-and-file GOP reactions to Helsinki are revealing; according to CBS, 21 percent of Republican voters disapproved of the president, a striking number given typical partisan loyalty.

Charles Franklin had a Twitter thread about this, for which the short version is that this isn’t really a sign of long-term decline in the number of Republicans compared to Democrats. But the data is volatile, so when there is a dip in the cycle it could have an effect on Texas. I return now to that Gardner Selby piece about the Civiqs polling data:

O’Rourke’s camp didn’t offer a comment about the poll’s claim. But Chris Wilson, who conducts polls for Cruz’s campaign, drew on a Moulitsas-tweeted illustration breaking out the demographics of the results to suggest by phone that Republican respondents to the poll outnumbered Democrats by insufficient percentage points. [director of Civiqs Drew] Linzer separately told us the results imply that 31 percent of respondents identified as Democrats, 36 percent as Republicans and 33 percent as independents.

Wilson said that considering Republicans’ prevalence in statewide races since 1994, any poll projecting fall results should query more Republicans — perhaps making the sample 40 percent Republican, 30 percent Democratic and 20 percent independent.

Linzer said that the poll reflected the partisan mix of Texas registered voters.

I don’t know how good anyone’s state-levevl data is, but it is the case that some of the poll variance we’ve seen is rooted partially in the partisan mix the pollster used. Beyond that is another question I bring up a lot. How much do the national trends affect Texas? It sure seems like the answer is “in a proportionate fashion”, as we saw in the Dem direction in 2006 and 2008 and in a Republican direction in 2010 and 2014, but every year is its own universe. If there is a trend towards fewer self-identified Republicans, to what extent is that the case here? Or is it the case that the Texas GOP has some level of insulation from these slings and arrows? Obviously, the answers to those questions affect not only the assumptions one makes when polling, but ultimately the final result. I just want to make sure we’re thinking about that.

Council discusses firefighter pay parity proposal

It will cost some money if it passes.

Houston Fire Chief Sam Peña said Thursday that his firefighters deserve raises, but he would be hard-pressed to maintain his department budget without reducing his ranks if voters approve a measure granting firefighters “pay parity” with police.

“This is not a scare tactic,” Peña told a city council committee. “They’re simple numbers. In order to deliver the expected service this community wants we’re going to have to do restructuring. Even at that, I won’t be able to meet the entire gap.”

Peña’s comments were in response to questions during a city council committee meeting Thursday in regard to a proposed “pay parity” measure the Houston firefighters union wants to appear on the November ballot.

Others, including city officials, business leaders and police union members, told the committee that passage of the parity measure would force the city to cut services and lay off workers and could risk a credit downgrade for City Hall.

[…]

The firefighters union wants the referendum on the November ballot, but Turner said he will let the council choose the election date at its Aug. 8 meeting. The deadline for getting something on the November ballot is Aug. 20.

Turner this week said the committee hearing was intended to be informational.

“When you’re talking to your constituents and they ask you approximately how much this will cost, I’d like to think you’ll want to have an answer,” he told the council Wednesday.

See here for some background, and here for an earlier story about the Council meeting, which was not the very special meeting that failed to reach a quorum. The firefighters are correct that Council has a duty to out the measure on the ballot, and to do it any later than this November would justifiably be seen as another stall for time. Their complaints about Council discussing the price tag rings hollow to me, given 1) the lack of clarity of how a pay parity proposal would be implemented; 2) the experience of other cities that have done this; 3) the potential impact on pension costs; and 4) the city’s overall financial picture. You know how I feel about this, and let me note again the certainty that someone will file suit over the ballot language no matter how the vote goes. I agree with Campos that the fight over this issue will be contentious, with the police department and the Greater Houston Partnership siding with the city against the firefighters. It’s not great to contemplate, but it’s pretty much baked in at this point. We’ll see what Council does on August 8.

Don’t expect any other debates

Cowardice + lack of incentive = avoiding engagement.

Land Commissioner George P. Bush (son of Jeb and nephew to George W.) has no plans to go one-on-one with his challenger, Miguel Suazo — at least, not as of Tuesday, July 24.

“At this point, we’re not planning to do a debate, but we always assess things as we go forward,” Bush campaign spokesman Lee Spieckerman told The Dallas Morning News. And why not? “Voters are very aware of Commissioner Bush’s record, which is the main thing. … His performance speaks for itself.”

But perhaps it’s the spokesman for Sid Miller, the perpetually be-Stetson-ed commissioner of agriculture, who said it best. Miller’s got 719,000 followers on Facebook, after all, where he’s shared his thoughts on refugee “rattlers,” drag queens and Whoopi Goldberg. Why give his challenger a slice of that “free publicity?”

“It’ll be a cold day in Texas before we give our opponent the opportunity to have free name recognition by having a debate,” Todd M. Smith told The News on Tuesday. “As the lieutenant governor said, there’s not anybody in Texas who doesn’t know where Sid Miller stands on the issues.”

[…]

Kim Olson, who is seen as both forceful and folksy, accused Miller of running scared.

“Candidates should earn their votes, and the only way to do that is to present yourself,” Olson, a retired Air Force colonel, told The News. “It is suspect when an incumbent will not defend his record or present a vision of the future.”

Collier accused Patrick of ensconcing himself away “in his bunker, sending out audio snippets to the few supporters that remain, that are chock full of spin and nonsense,” to which Blakemore shot back with a long list of Patrick’s campaign events over the last two days, including a meeting with the Dallas Police Association, folks from UT Southwestern and a group of conservative women in Tomball.

And Suazo, the energy lawyer who wants to run the Alamo and manage the state’s mineral rights as land commissioner, said Bush should live up to his name: “Every other candidate named George Bush has debated, except this one. That’s because his record is indefensible and he knows that I’ll beat him.”

Attorney General Ken Paxton’s spokesman did not return calls and emails requesting comment. In a November television appearance, Paxton (who was indicted in July 2015 and is awaiting trial on fraud charges) said he would “be happy to debate anybody on the issues and look forward to it.

It was unclear if he meant an election opponent. Paxton refused to meet his challenger in 2014. His opponent this time around is Justin Nelson, a Houston attorney. On Wednesday, the Nelson campaign released a video featuring a clip of Paxton’s November appearance where he says he’d be “happy to debate anybody.”

“Sounds good, Ken,” the ad says. “Ready when you are.”

See here for the background, and here for the comparison to Ted Cruz. I love how Patrick sends his spokesperson out to fight his verbal battles for him. The Warner Brothers cartoon image of a small yappy dog hiding behind his bulldog friend while barking at a cat really comes to mind. And while one has to give Sid Miller some props for being honest about why he doesn’t want to debate anyone, especially not an icky girl like Kim Olson who surely has cooties, it’s hilarious and entirely in character that he cites Dan Patrick’s reasoning, as he lacks the originality to come up with his own. If it’s not a Facebook meme, it’s too complicated for Miller. Again, I get the rationale for not wanting to give publicity to an underfunded opponent, but the lack of confidence in their own abilities is startling. What a bunch of chickens.

What’s the deal with that Civiqs poll?

Last week, Markos at Daily Kos posted this:

I didn’t want to believe Politico’s, “Beto-mania sweeps Texas.” But a look at our Civiqs Texas data (which we poll for our own use, not for any client), and holy shit, it’s real!

Yup. That’s the odious and treason-enabling Ted Cruz leading by just TWO POINTS.

For context, our numbers in the Texas governor’s race look more as you’d expect, with Republican incumbent Gov. Greg Abbott leading Democratic challenger Lupe Valdez 51-41. So where is Cruz struggling?

There’s the typical 2018-style gender gap, with Cruz leading among men 54-41, and losing women 43-51. Cruz is winning white people 59-36, while losing Latinos 70-24, and black voters 79-14. O’Rourke is winning 18-34 voters 55-37, while losing the 65+ set 58-38. The future looks bright, but we can’t afford to wait for the future! A lot will be riding on O’Rourke’s ability to get out the young vote. Do-or-die, pretty much.

In the end, with both candidates solidifying the support of their base, everything will turn on O’Rourke’s ability to squeeze out the most votes from self-styled independents.

There’s another graph showing Beto leading Cruz 49-44 among indies, but that’s not the point I’m working on here. The point is that Civiqs has Cruz up only two on O’Rourke, which is the closest the race has been shown to be, and it’s got Republicans – perhaps sincerely, perhaps performatively – freaked out, as a recent fundraising email shows.

You’d think a poll like this would set the world on fire, but other than the GOP email there hasn’t been much out there. This is probably because Civiqs uses some non-standard methodology. Here’s Gardner Selby doing an explainer/fact check thing on it:

To our inquiry, the director of Civiqs, Drew Linzer, told us the poll showing O’Rourke just behind Cruz, available to Civiqs subscribers, was accurately portrayed by Moulitsas.

By email, Linzer further said the poll, not commissioned or sponsored by a client, relied on responses since February 2017 from respondents engaged over the web as volunteers for Civiqs survey panels who self-identified as Texas residents and registered voters.

Civiqs says in the methodology section of its website that it maintains a growing list of Americans who have agreed to take polls at civiqs.com. Panelists reside in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., and match the contours of the United States along key geographic, demographic and ideological lines,” Civiqs says.

We asked Linzer, a former political scientist at Emory University, to talk about relying on responses collected over more than 17 months. “The lengthy timeframe,’Linzer replied, “enables Civiqs to perform long-term daily tracking in a sustainable, methodologically rigorous manner.” Civiqs, he said, applies “specialized trendline fitting statistical models” to ensure the results match current public opinion.

Linzer said by phone that for the Texas poll, Civiqs emailed 40 to 50 respondents a day, asking each one about their Texas residence and registered voter status and stance on the Senate candidates, with those results over time feeding the trend line.

As of July 4, the latest date shown on the trend line posted by Moulitsas, “the most recent day’s worth of data has the greatest impact on the result,” Linzer said, though responses from previous days mattered a lot, too, he said. Linzer said responses gathered in 2017 also contributed to the result, but only “infinitesimally so.”

“It’s complicated. It is a little different from what a traditional pollster does” in reaching one set of respondents over a few consecutive days, Linzer said.

Make of that what you will, basically. FiveThirtyEight doesn’t include Civiqs in its pollster rankings, perhaps (I’m hypothesizing) because Civiqs’ methodology is such that they don’t meet the 538 definition of a “pollster”. Whatever the case, I’m glad Selby wrote about this because I had no idea what to make of this. I still don’t, but at least I feel like I understand the dimensions of the question better. Also, I’m going to get a second post out of this, which is always a good thing from my perspective. You’ll have to wait till tomorrow on that one.

Cruz proposes five debates

All on Fridays, but at least he’s offering something.

Rep. Beto O’Rourke

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has challenged Democratic opponent Beto O’Rourke to five topical debates before Election Day, about three months after O’Rourke challenged Cruz to six.

Cruz strategist Jeff Roe sent a letter Wednesday to O’Rourke, an El Paso congressman, proposing the following debate schedule:

  • Aug. 31 in Dallas on “Jobs/Taxes/Federal Regulations/National Economy”
  • Sept. 14 in McAllen on “Immigration/Border Security/Criminal Justice/Supreme Court”
  • Sept. 21 in San Antonio on “Foreign Policy/National Security”
  • Oct. 5 in Houston on “Energy/Trade/Texas Economy”
  • Oct. 12 in Lubbock on “Healthcare/Obamacare”

Roe said the debates would all take place on Friday evenings “because the Senate is expected to be in session during that time.” The debates would each be an hour long and vary in format — some would be town hall-style, while others would feature the two candidates seated or standing at podiums.

“As Senator Cruz has long believed, our democratic process is best served by presenting a clear and substantive contrast of competing policy ideas, and these five debates will be an excellent way for both you and the Senator to share your respective visions with Texas voters in the weeks leading up to the November election,” Roe wrote to O’Rourke.

See here for some background, and compare Cruz’s response to Dan Patrick’s sniveling wimpery. Maybe someone should email that last paragraph to Allen Blakemore and ask him what Danno thinks of that. Obviously, Cruz can’t hide behind the “unknown and underfunded opponent” dodge, but does anyone seriously believe that people are less familiar with where he stands versus where Dan Patrick stands? Ted Cruz is many lousy things, but on this one issue he’s at least not a chicken. The DMN has more.

If we actually wanted to increase voter participation

Here’s what we’d do, courtesy of the Center for American Progress:

This report examines the problem of low voter participation in America, which includes structural barriers that keep Americans from having their voices heard as well as widespread disillusionment with the political process. As this report shows, obstacles to voting and distrust in government have repercussions for representational democracy, leading to participation gaps across demographics as well as elected bodies that are unrepresentative of the broader population of American citizens.

To increase voter participation and expand voting opportunities for eligible voters, states have a number of tools available, including those detailed in this report. Taken together, the policies and practices explored in the sections below are proven to increase voter participation and make voting more convenient. The success of these programs depends largely on states’ commitment—as well as that of campaigns and grassroots organizations—to inform eligible voters of their availability, how to use them, and why exercising their power as voters can make a difference in their lives. In addition to analyzing the contributing factors to low voter turnout and the effectiveness of pro-voter policies in increasing participation, this report examines the impact of civics education and voter engagement work.

This report also outlines the following recommendations to drive voter participation and make the process of voting more convenient for eligible Americans:

  1. Streamline voter registration with automatic voter registration, same-day voter registration (SDR),11 preregistration of 16- and 17-year-olds, and online voter registration
  2. Make voting more convenient with in-person early voting, no-excuse absentee voting, and vote-at-home with vote centers
  3. Provide sufficient resources in elections and ensure voting is accessible
  4. Restore rights for formerly incarcerated people
  5. Strengthen civics education in schools
  6. Invest in integrated voter engagement (IVE) and outreach

This report also highlights the success of these policies based on existing literature. Where possible, gains in voter participation were projected using current impact data. Of course, demographics and voting cultures differ across states and even by jurisdiction, so these projections are not exact. However, they do provide an idea of how many of America’s missing voters could be engaged through these policies. There were some policies for which the authors were unable to project gains because key data points were unavailable. For these policies, more research must be done to determine their potential impact on voter participation in future elections.

There’s a lot more, so go read the rest. For obvious reasons, none of the things that we don’t already have in Texas (namely, in-person early voting) are going to happen here while we are governed by the regime that is now in charge. We can sure start a push for them at the federal level, though, and all of these items should be on the agenda in the states where they are doable. You know how Greg Abbott likes to bloviate about calling a constitutional convention? Well, my fantasy do-over Constitution contains an affirmative right to vote that jackasses like Greg Abbott can’t arbitrarily screw with. All the resisting we’re doing is great, but if we’re not also thinking about the things we want to accomplish after we win, we’re doing it wrong. The Current has more.

Texas blog roundup for the week of July 23

The Texas Progressive Alliance has never seen a more pathetic and cowardly performance by a President as it brings you this week’s roundup.

(more…)

On campaigning for the flood bond

This is good, but I don’t know if it will be enough.

The Harris County Flood Control District’s summer barnstorming tour of county watersheds to seek public input on its $2.5 billion flood bond proposal is getting officials exactly what they want: an earful.

Flood-weary residents throughout the county have mostly packed auditoriums and community centers to offer their thoughts, desires and frustrations to flood control engineers and county officials. They also have brought ideas.

To date, the flood control district has added 16 projects to its list of repairs, remediation and prevention strategies to be covered by the proposed bond that goes before voters on Aug. 25. Each of those 16 projects came out of the meetings with residents, district officials said.

Along the way, the county has gotten something else: an audience receptive to its pitch to undertake what would be the largest local investment in flood infrastructure after Hurricane Harvey swamped the region 11 months ago.

Of the more than 25 residents who spoke with the Chronicle at four meetings, few said they oppose the bond. Most said they understand Harris County badly needs to invest in better flood protection, even if that means an increase in property taxes.

[…]

To date, the flood control district has held 15 public meetings, with nine more scheduled through Aug. 1, one for each of the county’s 24 watersheds. The number of attendees has ranged from several dozen to more than 700. Instead of a lecture format, the flood control district opted to take an open house approach: Engineers manned charts and tables spread across the space, and residents also could examine projects on a bank of computers.

As a reminder, there’s an interactive map here and a full list of projects here. If you want to know what’s in this bond issue, the information is there, and you can attend one of the meetings if you have questions. All this is good and necessary, and anecdotally it appears to be working for the county, but let’s be honest: The number of people that will go to these meetings in total is probably measured in the hundreds, maybe a thousand or so if you’re lucky. There are over two million registered voters in Harris County, and even for an oddball election date you have to figure at least 100K show up to vote. Face to face interaction can only get you so far. Traditional voter outreach – advertising, direct mail, etc – is going to be needed as well. We’re a month out from election day, and two weeks or so away from the start of early voting. The clock is very much ticking.

And now we’re going to fight about when elections can be

I have thoughts about this.

School districts and other local governments are intentionally holding elections at odd times this summer to drive down turnout in hopes it will help them win voter approval for tax increases and bond issues, state lawmakers say.

Local government leaders say they don’t set elections on odd days in hopes of a more favorable outcome at the ballot box, but the issue is fast becoming a new tension point in the sometimes adversarial relationship between local government agencies and the Republican-led Texas Legislature.

“There will be a response from the Legislature,” pledged State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a Houston Republican.

Just last month the Klein Independent School District in Harris County held a tax increase election on June 16 — a Saturday. That was three weeks after Texas voters took to the polls for statewide runoff elections on May 22. And three weeks before that, the city of Houston held a special election on May 5 to fill a city council vacancy.

Next up: South San Antonio Independent School District is holding an election on Aug. 14 in an attempt to raise the district’s property tax rate by 13 cents per $100 of taxable value, which would increase school taxes by $130 a year for the owner of a $100,000 home.

And on August 25, Harris County will ask voters to approve a $2.5 billion bond issue to cover the cost of flood control projects. That same day, voters in Floresville ISD, just outside of San Antonio, are being asked to approve a tax increase.

“It is preposterously bad public policy to spend taxpayer money to hold special elections in the dog days of summer that almost always have a low voter turnout,” Bettencourt said.

Harris County Judge Ed Emmett shot back. “People who live in Senator Bettencourt’s senate district were affected by the flooding. He should be doing more to help them instead of worrying about election dates,” he said.

[…]

Klein ISD superintendent Bret Champion said the district wasn’t playing games with the June election. The district was looking for the earliest possible date in order to have time to prepare for the next school year budget, whether the measure passed or failed.

If the district had waited until November, he said, the election would have been two months into the budget year and its failure would have forced adjustments with the school year already well underway.

“It was a budgetary reason, not a political one,” Champion said.

As a matter of principle, I too would rather see elections generally held in November and May, when people expect them to be. It’s what I wanted for the flood bond referendum, as you may recall. It’s not just a matter of being more democratic, it’s also that I believe higher turnout is generally better for issues and candidates I care about. Not all the time, of course (Exhibit A: the year 2010), but more often than not. There’s a reason I care about things like registering voters and making it easier and more convenient to vote. I’ll admit it can be a tossup for things like the Klein ISD tax ratification election, where only the most interested will participate and it’s not obvious who those people will be, but give me a choice and I’ll take the higher turnout scenario.

That said, I have some sympathy for school districts that are only holding these dumb elections because legislators like Paul Bettencourt forced them to as a way to impose a low-tax low-revenue orthodoxy on them, and I can understand the rationale for the August flood bond election date even if I disagree with it. It’s especially rich to hear Bettencourt sing the praises of higher turnout, given his long career in the Harris County Tax Assessor’s office of purging the voter rolls as a tool of voter suppression, not to mention his party’s enthusiastic embrace of voter ID. Tell you what, Paul I’ll support your push for May and November-only elections if you’ll support online and same-day voter registration. You want to encourage higher turnout in elections, put your money where your mouth is.

Dan Patrick is a wimp

Yes, you’re such a big tough meanie, Danno.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick does not intend to debate his Democratic challenger, Mike Collier, before Election Day, according to Patrick’s campaign.

“It’s no secret Lt. Governor Patrick relishes debates, but since his opponent shows no sign of grasping even the most basic rudiments of state government, our campaign has no plans to debate him,” Patrick strategist Allen Blakemore said in a statement to the Tribune. “There isn’t anyone in the Lone Star State who isn’t absolutely clear about where Dan Patrick stands on the issues. He told us what he was going to do, then he did it. That’s why Dan Patrick has the overwhelming support of the conservative majority in Texas.”

Collier has not formally challenged Patrick to any debates but has needled him on Twitter over the topic, suggesting the incumbent will not spar with him because he does not want to discuss his record.

“The Lt. Governor is rejecting debates before invitations are even sent out by media,” Collier said in a statement. “As I assumed he would, he’s dodging and refusing to answer for his record.”

“If the Lt. Governor ‘relishes debates’ then I see no reason why we shouldn’t hold several all across the great state of Texas,” Collier added.

Patrick did the same thing to Scott Milder in the primary. Seriously, he’s like a character from an old Warner Brothers cartoon: “I could totally beat you up! If I wanted to. Which I don’t, cause I’m so tough. Good thing for you I’m at a safe distance away from you, or I’d whip you. With one hand tied behind my back, even. Boy, you’re lucky I’m not there to tan your hide. Oooh, I’m so tough.”

You get the idea. I mean look, I get that the frontrunner, especially someone with a big monetary edge, has no incentive to provide some free publicity to the lesser-known and underfunded challenger. But don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining. Dan Patrick doesn’t want to debate because it’s not in his interest to do so. There’s no upside for him. Be honest about that or be quiet, because you’re not fooling anybody.

Sen. Garcia announces her resignation

Not quite what I was expecting, but it will do.

Here’s the Trib story:

Sen. Sylvia Garcia

State Sen. Sylvia Garcia, a Houston Democrat likely on her way to Congress in the fall, has announced formal plans to resign after months of speculation about the timing of her decision.

When Garcia won a crowded congressional primary election in March, all but guaranteeing her election to represent a Democratic-leaning district in November, she immediately set off speculation about when she would resign her seat in the Texas Senate. The timing of the special election to replace her will have important implications for the upper chamber’s Democratic caucus, given that a seat usually held by the minority is up for grabs.

Several candidates have already lined up for Garcia’s seat, including two local Democrats currently serving in the Texas House: state Reps. Ana Hernandez and Carol Alvarado. Hernandez announced hopes to fill the “potential vacancy” just 12 hours after Garcia’s primary win, and shortly after, Alvarado posted a carefully crafted three-minute campaign video.

[…]

Though Garcia said her resignation won’t be effective until January, the Texas Election Code states that, for the purposes of calling a special election, a vacancy occurs on the date the resignation is accepted by the appropriate authority or on the eighth day after the date of its receipt by the authority” — in this case, Abbott, according to the secretary of state’s office.

I’ve been calling for this for months now, so as long as we get the election on or before November 6 (it would be one of three such elections), I’m happy. Barring anything unforeseen, the special will be a contest between Reps. Alvarado and Hernandez; refer to the 2013 SD06 special election for a reminder of how the partisan vote split previously. This will add to my to-do list for November interviews, but otherwise I get to be on the outside looking in, as I was redistricted into SD15 in 2011. I’ll keep my eyes open for Abbott’s response. In the meantime, I join legions of people in thanking Sen. Garcia for her service, and for her consideration in ensuring continuity of representation in SD06. The Chron has more.

Business groups file brief opposing Paxton’s anti-DACA lawsuit

This is good.

A federal lawsuit by Texas officials earlier this year seeking to order the end of the federal immigration program called the Deferred Act for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, will have “immediate, irreparable injury” to Texas businesses and cost the state’s economy billions of dollars, according to a coalition of pro-business organizations.

Seven Texas-based chambers of commerce, two pro-business consortiums and four prominent companies – including Southwest Airlines – filed an unprecedented court brief late Saturday asking a federal judge in Houston to reject Attorney General Ken Paxton’s argument that the DACA program be ended and dismantled.

Lawyers for Vinson & Elkins, which represents the business coalition that includes the Texas Association of Business, argue that Paxton’s case – if successful – would significantly damage their operations, deprive them of much needed work expertise and cost the state of Texas tens of thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues.

[…]

The business organizations point out that DACA was initiated by the Obama Administration in 2012, but the fact that Texas and the six other states suing waited until 2018 to challenge the program is a major legal argument in favor of keeping the status quo.

“The States waited almost six years after the announcement of the DACA guidelines before challenging them in Court, despite challenging similar initiatives implemented after DACA in 2015,” V&E lawyers argue. “Since an injunction is an equitable remedy, it may be denied on the basis of laches if an unreasonable delay by the party seeking injunctive relief works to the disadvantage or prejudice of another party.

“The States’ delay has substantially impacted businesses in Texas, who have, as described above, come to rely upon Dreamers as valued employees, customers, and fellow members of the business community and now stand to incur significant costs if DACA is enjoined,” the brief states. “The States’ delay also undercuts any claim they have to immediate, irreparable injury, since they have been living with the status quo for six years.”

See here, here, and here for the background. I’ll be honest, when I first saw the story headline, I assumed this was another one of those meaningless tut-tut gestures from the Texas Association of Business towards their vassals in the state GOP. They were the masters of the mild statement of disapproval that was never accompanied by any tangible action but always got them some cheap publicity long before Jeff Flake ever complained about Donald Trump on Twitter. This at least has the chance to do something tangible, so kudos to them for that. Having said that, let’s be clear that this is very much a political problem as well as a legal one. If you’re not working towards a Democratic Congress and the election of Justin Nelson as Texas AG, you’re not really trying to solve it. Anyway, there will be a hearing in Houston on August 8, so we’ll see if this has any effect. The Chron has more.

The Schlitterbahn story

Texas Monthly does its thing on Schlitterbahn co-owner Jeff Henry and the criminal charges that stemmed from the death of an 11-year-old boy on the biggest ride at the park in Kansas City.

Investigators and detectives from the Kansas City Police Department, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, and the Kansas attorney general’s office also arrived at Schlitterbahn. A detective interviewed 29-year-old Tyler Miles, who had been working at the park since 2013 and had advanced from construction worker to lifeguard to director of operations, responsible for all aspects of the park’s day-to-day ride operations. “Have you been aware of any complaints regarding Verrückt the ride in the last season?” the detective asked.

Miles answered, “I have not, sir,” according to the detective. His lawyers would later say he was so confident in the ride’s safety that on the very day that Caleb was killed, he had brought his wife to the park to ride Verrückt.

Investigators later learned, however, that Schlitterbahn employees were required to submit regular “ops reports” about the rides they monitored and, according to reports that the investigators read, Verrückt had problems that were never revealed to the public. For instance, eleven Schlitterbahn customers said they had been injured on Verrückt between August 31, 2014, and August 5, 2016 (two days before Caleb’s death). In five of the incidents, riders claimed they were injured while their rafts were still in the chute. (One rider reported that her head had slammed into the headrest and she sustained a concussion when her raft entered the runout pool at a high speed.) In five other incidents, riders claimed their rafts went airborne over the crest of the second hill and that they suffered head, neck, and back injuries when their rafts slammed back down onto the chute. And a man named Norris “J. J.’’ Groves reported that when his raft went airborne, his face and forehead struck the netting and a metal hoop, causing his right eye to swell shut for the rest of the day.

An investigator spoke to a seventeen-year-old lifeguard who said that Miles had ordered him to write a report that downplayed the severity of the Groves incident. Meanwhile, sifting through Verrückt’s maintenance reports, other investigators concluded that Miles had avoided or delayed making repairs that would have taken the ride out of commission. According to investigators, Miles hadn’t even ordered repairs when a Schlitterbahn manager informed him, on July 15, 2016 (three weeks before Caleb’s death), that maintenance work on Verrückt’s brake system was a priority.

What’s more, according to court documents, the investigators learned that on July 3, 2014, one week before the ride’s grand opening, an engineering firm hired by Jeff and Schooley to perform accelerometer tests on Verrückt’s rafts had issued a report suggesting that if the combined weight of the three passengers in a raft was between 400 and 550 pounds—the weight Jeff and Schooley had agreed was appropriate—there was a chance the raft would go airborne on the second hill. The ride opened anyway, with the weight range unchanged.

By 2017, attorneys for Schlitterbahn were meeting with the Schwab family’s attorneys. They eventually agreed that the water park and various companies associated with the design and construction of Verrückt would pay Caleb’s family a $20 million settlement, an astonishing sum. The two sisters who had ridden behind Caleb, both of whom suffered facial injuries, also received a settlement, of an undisclosed amount.

Still, neither Jeff nor his siblings offered any public explanation for what had happened. Had there been a problem with the distribution of the three passengers’ weight that caused the raft to lift off into the air? Had something gone wrong with the cannon nozzle that shot the raft up the second hill? Was the wind a factor? No one seemed to know, not even Jeff.

He said he wanted to return to Verrückt, which closed immediately after Caleb’s death but still loomed over the Kansas City landscape like some grisly monument, so he could find out what had gone wrong. His hope, he said, was to reconstruct the fatal ride exactly as it took place, assisted by a team of independent experts. But prosecutors for the Kansas attorney general’s office persuaded a judge to lock down the ride. They believed it was a valuable piece of evidence that should not be touched. Schlitterbahn was perhaps not the scene of a freak horrific accident, the prosecutors were saying, but the scene of a crime.

See here for the background and be sure to read the whole thing, as any story by Skip Hollandsworth is worth reading. Verrückt has since been torn down, and if there is a criminal trial it will happen next year. I’m still struggling with how I feel about this, and I hope that enough facts come out during the trial to help me sort it out. Read the story and see what you think.

Fundraising: 2018 vs the rest of the decade

When I posted about the Q2 Congressional finance reports, I said I would try to put the totals in some more context at a later time. This is where I do that. Take a look at this table:


Dist       2012       2014       2016       Total        2018
=============================================================
CD02     50,168          0     14,217      64,385     843,045
CD03          0          0          0           0     153,559
CD06    145,117     13,027     27,339     185,483     358,960
CD07     76,900     74,005     68,159     219,064   2,321,869
CD08     14,935          0          0      14,935      25,044
CD10     51,855      9,994      6,120      67,969     171,955
CD12     10,785     80,216        525      91,526     106,715
CD14  1,187,774     35,302     21,586   1,244,662     105,067
CD17          0          0     39,642      39,642      67,000
CD21     57,058          0     70,714     127,772   1,594,724
CD22     40,303          0     24,584      64,887     405,169
CD23  1,802,829  2,671,926  2,198,475   6,673,230   2,256,366
CD24      6,252     10,001     21,914      39,167      61,324
CD25     12,235     32,801     55,579     100,615     199,047
CD26     11,273          0          0      11,273      94,235
CD27    399,641    301,255     23,558     724,454      93,570
CD31          0     67,742     28,317      96,059   1,618,359
CD32     79,696     10,215          0      89,911   1,916,601
CD36      2,597     25,213          0      27,810     516,859

Total 3,927,360  3,251,481  2,600,204   9,780,045  12,909,468

The first three columns are the total amounts raised by the November candidate in the given district for the given year. Some years there were no candidates, and some years the candidate reported raising no money. The fourth column is the sum of the first three. Note that with the exception of CD23 in 2014, these are all totals raised by challengers to Republican incumbents.

The numbers speak for themselves. With five months still go so, Democratic Congressional challengers have raised more so far this cycle than the challengers in the previous three cycles combined. The combined amount raised this year is three times what was raised in 2012, four times what was raised in 2014, and five times what was raised in 2016. Candidates this year outraised the three-year total in their districts everywhere except CDs 14 (due to Nick Lampson’s candidacy in 2012), 27 (due to two cycles’ worth of decent funding), and 23, the one true swing district where the big money is always raised.

It’s been said many times and I’ll say it again: We’ve never seen anything like this before. The reasons for it are well-explored, and the conditions that have given rise to it are (I fervently hope) singular, but it all happened. Is this a unicorn that we’ll never see again, or will it be the first step towards something different, more like this year even if not quite as much? I’d say that depends to some extent on how successful this year ends up being, and how committed everyone is to making this be more than a one-time thing. It’s a good start, but there is a whole lot more that can still be done.

Killing Obamacare softly

With cuts to the budget for state outreach programs. Which doesn’t scan well lyrically, and I doubt any of the people on the pointy end of this will care about how it came to be, but here we are.

It’s constitutional – deal with it

The Trump administration recently announced big cuts to a program that helps people sign up for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

Ahead of open enrollment, which starts later this year, the money Texas gets to hire navigators – people who help residents find insurance plans – is getting slashed 86 percent. For the enrollment period ending in January, Texas groups will be able to apply for only up to $1.25 million in federal funds.

“That’s a drop in the bucket,” says Stacey Pogue, a senior policy analyst with the Center for Public Policy Priorities. “That is a tiny amount. It would not go very far when you’re talking about more than 4 million uninsured Texans.”

Pogue says it’s also a small number compared to how much the state has been given in years prior. According to data compiled by the Kaiser Family Foundation, Texas was allotted $9.2 million in navigator grants during the 2016-17 enrollment period.

[…]

Pogue says these cuts are part of the Trump administration’s larger effort to weaken the health care law.

She says this particular cut, though, hurts people who are vulnerable and live in hard-to-reach areas. Cities like Austin, which have groups like Foundation Communities, won’t feel the cuts as much as rural parts of the state.

In other words, people in the parts of the state that voted the most heavily for Trump. It’s like tariffs for sick people. I mean look, this is and has been the playbook from the beginning. The only way forward is to get back to electing candidates who want people to be able to access health care. Until then, I feel like we need a video, to clear the palate a bit:

I feel better now.

Kinder Institute profiles Lisa Seger

Not sure what prompted them to pay attention to this particular race, but Lisa Seger is a good subject for such a profile.

Lisa Seger

In November, Seger will become the first Democratic candidate to challenge Republican Cecil Bell of Magnolia for his seat as the District 3 Representative in the Texas Legislature since the boundaries were redrawn in 2010. The only other challenger the three-term incumbent has faced was B. Larry Parr, a Libertarian who lost 91 percent of the vote to Bell in 2014.

Seger knows her run is a long shot, but she felt she didn’t have a choice.

Women like Seger have never known equal representation, at the state or national level. Texas has sent just seven women to the House of Representatives, where 19.3 percent of lawmakers are women. Only one woman in Texas’ history has represented the state in the Senate, where 23 percent of lawmakers are women. As a state, Texas is reflective of these trends. Women currently hold 37 seats, or 20.4 percent, in the state Legislature.

Seger joins the fray amid a wave of female candidates running for office across the country. Of the 344 women running nationwide for a seat as a Democrat or Republican in Congress, 20 are from Texas. Meanwhile, 79 women, including Seger, are running as a Democrat or Republican for a seat in the Texas State Legislature.

Even if all of those women are elected, there are still not enough female candidates to correct the gender imbalance in Congress. Still, this election cycle could result in an unprecedented number of women in office.

For Seger, the decision to run was simple. “I didn’t have anyone to vote for. There were no people running that stood for the things I stood for,” she explains.

Running on what she describes as a civil rights campaign, the farmer is driven by the same sense of duty that motivated her to make organic dairy products.“I’m one of those people that if nobody is doing it and I think it needs to be done, I’m just going to do it. That was about sustainably and ethically raising protein” says Seger, but also about running for office.

[…]

Seger’s policy priorities make her a blue needle in a red haystack. The likelihood that the right-leaning constituency of HD-3 share Seger’s liberal views is slim, and her chances of winning the election reflect that.

“It’s impossible for a Democrat to win HD-3,” says Mark Jones, leader of the Texas Politics Program at the Baker Institute and a Kinder Fellow. “It’s like playing football where the other team starts with five touchdowns.”

But the run isn’t for nothing. “This is exactly what the Democratic Party needs if it’s going to return to the majority status,”says Jones. A Democratic candidate gives voters an alternative and political analysts say that’s better than leaving a race uncontested.

Of the 150 state House races in Texas, 18 are without a Democratic challenger, according to filing reports from the Secretary of State’s Office. Seger’s name may be a drop in the well, but it’s more advantageous for the party than leaving voters to write in their favorite liberal cartoon. “You have to start somewhere,” says Jones.

Most Democrats will struggle in Texas, but their name on the ballot can shore up votes in the closely watched race for U.S. Senate. Jones explains: “If [Seger] is able to convince 5 percent more of HD-3 residents to vote Democratic, that’s not going to lead her to defeat Cecil Bell but that’s going to help Beto O’Rourke close the gap with Ted Cruz.”

We’ve discussed this before, and I agree with Mark Jones’ analysis. Having decent candidates up and down the ballot is surely better than not having them. There is a counter-argument to running candidates in districts that are not particularly competitive, and that’s that it makes the other guys run real campaigns instead of coasting, which can drive up their turnout in a way that’s a net negative for your side. In that scenario, and to continue the Jones argument, having Lisa Seger on the ballot just serves to bring out more Ted Cruz voters. I don’t buy it, but even if there is some short-term cost, the fact remains that people need reasons to vote, and having candidates they can meet and make connections with is a good way to give them a reason. You can’t beat something with nothing, but if you start with some good somethings like Lisa Seger, you can at least compete.

Weekend link dump for July 22

“Here’s a clever new twist on an old email scam that could serve to make the con far more believable. The message purports to have been sent from a hacker who’s compromised your computer and used your webcam to record a video of you while you were watching porn. The missive threatens to release the video to all your contacts unless you pay a Bitcoin ransom. The new twist? The email now references a real password previously tied to the recipient’s email address.”

The Westworld producers say they know how the show will eventually end. Fingers crossed.

“The final Blockbuster storefront standing is located in Bend, Oregon.”

Spiders use the earth’s electromagnetic field to travel via the air.

“In the case of Brexit, we have (a) an explicitly nonbinding referendum (b) that passed by a hair (c) with the help of a foreign adversary, (d) and is causing tremendous problems. May would be well within her rights to call for a second referendum, perhaps with different options, in order to give British voters a second chance at something that’s going to have a heavy influence on their lives.”

“As anyone who has dealt with an addicted loved one knows, you cannot help them until they hit rock bottom and sincerely ask for help. Until that happens, any aid you give simply enables their addiction. The GOP must also hit rock bottom before decent people should lend a hand.”

“The two ways Russia may have helped Trump steal the election aren’t what you think”.

“Every single one of these actions on Trump’s part are weighted against our allies and in favor of Russia. This cannot be an accident.”

“Two Koch-affiliated groups account for more than one-quarter of the House and Senate advertising from groups that don’t disclose their donors, according to a tally of broadcast ads tracked by Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group.”

“No prior president has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant.”

RIP, Anne Baker Cravens, longtime Houstonian and survivor of a German U-boat attack in 1939.

Sports make the world a sadder place. Seriously. We’ve got data.”

“It’s always been obvious that Trump does not hold Russia’s hacking of the 2016 election, which he publicly encouraged and gleefully benefited from, against Putin. None of us yet know the exact contours of Trump’s relationship with Russia, whether Putin is his handler, his co-conspirator or just his hero. But it’s clear that Trump is willing to sell out American democracy for personal gain.”

“Really, any member of Trump’s national security team who doesn’t resign immediately—or perhaps better, offer to testify about any incriminating information they might possess—is from this point on doing a disservice to the United States.”

“After Trump and Putin met in Helsinki, many pundits and politicians struggled to understand what it is they saw, to rationalize it, to explain it away, to speculate on what kinds of kompromat the Russians could have on Trump, when the answer—like infidelity or death—was staring them, us, in the face. Yes, Putin has something on Trump: He helped him win. That’s the kompromat.”

“We all had good reason to suspect in real time that Russia was interfering, and Trump relished it, and even encouraged it, as it happened. Now that Mueller’s indictments have started fleshing out the fuller dimensions of this sabotage and its now-confirmed goal of electing Trump, this can no longer be about guarding appearances of legitimacy, because his current conduct makes that more suspect. The only conceivable explanation is that he was both perfectly happy to benefit from Russian interference and wants to obstruct/or and delegitimize the ferreting out of the truth.”

“Google says it’s not reading your Gmail, except when it does“.

“Text-message reminders are a cheap and effective way to reduce pretrial detention”.

“The discovery was made in Jordan’s Black Desert, where researchers uncovered 24 flatbreads near two ancient fireplaces at a site known as Shubayqa 1. The flatbreads appear to have been made from domesticated cereal grains (wild einkorn) and club-rush tubers. Somewhere, a Paleo-diet enthusiast just fainted.”

“Wyden told Motherboard that installing remote-access software and modems on election equipment ‘is the worst decision for security short of leaving ballot boxes on a Moscow street corner.'”

RIP, Ann Hopkins, plaintiff in landmark gender stereotyping case.

In which the descendants of Colonel Sanders heap scorn on Papa John.

RIP, Constance Adams, pioneer of space architecture.

RIP, Adrian Cronauer, disc jockey whose story inspired the movie Good Morning, Vietnam.

“This is why it’s so important to assume that everything Trump says is a lie. If he says the sky is blue, check it. If he says he had oatmeal for breakfast, check it.”

“Fetal remains” trial ends

Now we wait for a ruling.

State and reproductive rights attorneys wrapped up a five-day trial in federal court on Friday that will determine whether a Texas law requiring health providers to cremate or bury fetal remains can go into effect.

U.S. District Judge David Alan Ezra told attorneys on Friday that he has “not made up my mind on how I’m going to rule on this case” and is awaiting written closing arguments due on Aug. 3.

He’s expected to rule around the end of August.

The law at the center of the case is Senate Bill 8, passed in 2017, which requires the burial or cremation of fetal remains. Legislators passed the bill following a ruling that year by U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks that struck down a similar rule implemented by the Texas Department of State Health Services. Sparks said that rule was vague, caused undue burden on women and had high potential for irreparable harm.

Throughout the five-day trial, a wave of patients, health providers, state agency officials, bioethicists, cemetery directors and religious leaders flowed through the witness stand.

Before dismissing attorneys Friday morning, Ezra rattled off a list of questions and concerns he wanted both sides to answer in his closing arguments, including: What authority does Texas have to pass laws around giving dignity to the unborn? What would happen to women’s access to care — for abortions and miscarriages — if health providers did not have a facility to handle fetal remains? And how many facilities — secular or otherwise — have committed to helping with burials and cremation?

Ezra noted that the case is unique because state attorneys waived the argument that SB 8 protects the health or safety of patients and plaintiff’s attorneys waived arguments about costs to patients and providers.

The dynamics involved “makes this case extremely unique in many ways and makes finding precedent all the more difficult because those issues are generally not only present in these kind of abortion-related cases — they’re often paramount in those cases,” Ezra said.

See here for the background. The judge’s questions, which the Observer examined in more detail, are the key to the case. During the trial, there was testimony by Blake Howard Norton, the daughter of State Rep. Donna Howard, about how she felt coerced by the Catholic hospital where she was going through a miscarriage into making a decision about disposing of the fetus, and there was more useless testimony from paid state witnesses who lacked any expertise in the subject matter and the law. I feel like the judge is skeptical of the law, but we’ll see what he has to say about it. The Chron has more.

Final Four returns to Houston

Mark your calendars.

The NCAA announced Monday that Houston and NRG Stadium will host the 2023 men’s Final Four. College basketball’s marquee event will be held April 1 and 3.

It will mark the fourth time the event will be held in Houston, joining 1971 in the Astrodome and 2011 and 2016 at NRG Stadium.

[…]

The NCAA also announced Phoenix/Glendale (2024), San Antonio (2025) and Indianapolis (2026) will host Final Fours.

The latest announcement joins a growing list of major sporting events that will be held in the city over the next several years. Houston will host a 2020 NCAA Tournament men’s basketball regional, the College Football Playoff national championship game in 2024 and is among 17 cities vying to host as part of the winning North American bid for the 2026 World Cup.

“Houston’s on a roll,” said Janis Burke, chief executive officer for the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority. “We keep getting bigger, better and stronger when you look at our footprint.”

I’m always happy for Houston to get these events. I think by now it’s very well established that we have good facilities and we do a good job with them. It’s a little hard to believe now, but Houston was a total no-go zone for 15 years for big sporting events. Between the 1989 NBA All-Star Game at the Astrodome and Super Bowl XXXVIII in 2004, as far as I can tell from googling around there was bupkis. New stadium construction and downtown revitalization have turned that around completely. That may change again – Houston did host several events in the 1980s, so perhaps there is another dry spell in our future. I kind of doubt it, though. Good for us.

Algae farms

Food for the future.

Inside a high-tech lab in a modular building in the West Texas desert here, a young scientist peered through a microscope at a slide of live and multiplying algae. She was on the prowl for “grazers,” a sort of cellular-level locust that could wreak havoc on the multimillion-dollar crop proliferating in thick green ponds outside.

It’s the equivalent of a cotton farmer walking rows in search of disease-carrying bolls, explained Rebecca White, the 38-year-old microbiologist who runs one of the world’s few commercially viable algae farms.

The harvest? For now, kilos upon kilos of biomass that is a plant-based source of omega-3 fatty acids, which in recent years have become all the rage for lowering cholesterol, promoting healthier skin and promising other health benefits. Common practice has been to consume them via a hunk of salmon or supplements derived from fish or krill. But since fish and krill actually get their omega-3 from algae, White and her team have figured out how to cut out the “middle fish” and capitalize on cultivating the source.

In a sign of how commonplace the practice has become, White, whose family has for generations raised cotton and cattle in the Texas Panhandle, says her grandfather has begrudgingly acknowledged that domesticating aquatic microorganisms counts as real farming.

The farm in Imperial is owned by Houston-based Qualitas Health, which partnered with H-E-B for the alGeepa line of supplements and is now expanding into the $33 billion omega-3 market with iWi. The latter line rolled out at Amazon.com, the Vitamin Shoppe and Sprouts Farmers Market in June.

[…]

The United Nations in 1974 called algae “the most ideal food for mankind,” and the Food and Agriculture Organization declared it “the best food for tomorrow.” But so far not even NASA’s been able to get people to want to eat it. At least, not the average American.

With more people eschewing certain foods and a world population expected to approach 10 billion by 2050, however, a new generation of scientists says the mainstreaming of algae is inevitable.

“Most people’s experiences with algae are a contamination event of some sort,” White said. “Your pool, the dog bowl, the Great Lakes, your swimming hole — that’s all negative. But algae has been doing so many positive things for so many years that they don’t talk about in a way that gets people’s attention. … Our goal is to make people think about algae as food.”

If you can package it as a meat substitute the way soy is, you’re probably most of the way there. That won’t be for everyone, of course, but I’d bet the market will be pretty substantial over time. It’s a long story, so read it and see what you think.