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March, 2022:

What’s on the ballot for the May statewide special election

Yes, you will have a reason to vote this May. It’s a statewide special constitutional amendment election, thanks to the most recent special session. Here’s what’s on tap.

Voters will head to the polls starting April 25 to decide whether to cut property taxes for homeowners by an average $176 a year and provide additional tax savings for elderly and disabled Texans.

There are two proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot. Election Day is May 7.

Proposition 1 would approve the tax cuts for elderly and disabled homeowners beginning in 2023, while a second measure seeks to raise the state’s homestead exemption from $25,000 to $40,000, lowering school property taxes.

State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a Houston Republican who championed both amendments, has said the first proposal would offer relief for about 1.8 million seniors and 180,000 homeowners with disabilities, amounting to roughly $220 million in savings in 2024.

The increased homestead exemption for schools, meanwhile, would save homeowners about $176 annually starting this year, he said. Actual savings would vary depending upon local tax rates.

[…]

Current law freezes school property taxes for most homeowners when they turn 65, and those with disabilities receive the same benefit when purchasing a new property. The proposed change would lower their bills.

“Over-65 homeowners will see their freeze values actually decline, and lifetime savings from both bills in the many thousands,” Bettencourt said.

The second proposal was a compromise after state lawmakers tossed earlier plans to use federal COVID-19 funds to offer a one-time check to Texans who claimed homestead exemptions on their property.

A larger homestead exemption, which is Prop 2, is something I’ve advocated before in the past as a better and more equitable way to reduce property taxes. I’ll vote for that one. Prop 1 hinges on the state boosting its contribution to public education funding, which had been declining as a share of the overall pot of education monies. On the one hand, I’m always wary of this sort of thing because the tendency is just to move money from one budget item to another rather than try to grow revenue to meet growing need. On the other hand, if it’s public education that winds up with a bigger piece of the pie as a result, well, there are worse outcomes. I’ll wait and see on this one, which if you’re keeping score isn’t an outright No.

If all this sounds relatively simple, take comfort in knowing that the actual ballot language is epically ugly, requiring a PhD in Lege-speak to understand it.

For Prop 1, in the voting booth for the May 7 election you’ll be looking at 77 words of incoherency. Ready? I apologize ahead of time. Here it is:

“The constitutional amendment authorizing the legislature to provide for the reduction of the amount of a limitation on the total amount of ad valorem taxes that may be imposed for general elementary and secondary public school purposes on the residence homestead of a person who is elderly or disabled to reflect any statutory reduction from the preceding tax year in the maximum compressed rate of the maintenance and operations taxes imposed for those purposes on the homestead.”

Who wrote this monstrosity? Answer: The Texas Legislative Council, which helps lawmakers write their bills.

I called the TLC and talked briefly to general counsel Jon Heining. I asked him why all the gobbledygook?

“Oh, no,” he replied. “We would never explain why we did something. Absolutely not. All of the services we provide for the Texas Legislature are confidential. We don’t comment on the work we do.”

He said his group is publishing a guide to the text in the next few days.

That author asked Sen. Bettencourt about it as well, and got more or less the same response as above. Like I said, I’ll vote for Prop 2 and will wait for more feedback on Prop 1. You should look for more guidance on it as well.

Guess who’s paying for Ken Paxton’s defense against those state bar complaints?

You are, of course. What did you expect?

Best mugshot ever

Texas taxpayers are on the hook for $45,000 so far in legal defense for Attorney General Ken Paxton as he attempts to ward off multiple complaints to the State Bar over his failed lawsuit seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Paxton faces at least three professional misconduct complaints that have been filed against him since the December suit, which the high court swiftly dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. The election case involved disputed presidential election ballots in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Two complaints — one filed in June by a Democratic Party activist, consolidated with a few others, and another in July filed by the nonprofit Lawyers Defending American Democracy and 16 Texas lawyers, including four former presidents of the state Bar — alleged the Supreme Court suit was frivolous and that it included pleadings that Paxton knew to be false.

The Lawyers Defending American Democracy complaint is moving forward and will be heard by either a district court judge or an administrative panel, the complainants say.

“This is about his individual license, which is irrelevant to his position in office, so why shouldn’t he pay for it?” said Jim Harrington, one of the lawyers who filed a complaint against Paxton and a retired founder of the Texas Civil Rights Project, a nonprofit that advocates for voting rights. “He gets to do this game on Jan. 6, this unconstitutional Supreme Court action, and then turn around and have us pay twice for it? It’s outrageous.”

[…]

Attorneys with the Austin-based Gober Group and College Station-based West, Webb, Allbritton & Gentry billed more than 94 hours at various rates for work related to the bar complaints. Chris Gober, a GOP election lawyer known for his work defending the state’s political maps, had the highest rate at $525 an hour.

Some of the work described in the invoices included reviewing documents related to the complaints, discussing strategy and considering options, preparing for meetings with the Texas State Bar and reviewing and revising correspondence with the agency.

However, a response to the June batch of bar complaints against Paxton, which the office posted on its website, was signed by Deputy First Assistant Attorney General Grant Dorfman; none of the outside attorneys’ names appear on the filing. It’s unclear why both in-house and outside counsel appear to have been engaged in Paxton’s defense.

Because there’s free money to give to Paxton’s pals. This has been another edition of “Simple Answers to Simple Questions”.

See here for the most recent update. There is of course a hypocrisy angle in all of this, because of course there is.

Steve Fischer, elected State Bar director for the Western District of Texas and one of the attorneys who filed the 2015 complaint, said taxpayers shouldn’t have to bear the cost of Paxton’s defense.

“People elect an attorney general to do child support, whatever — not for that,” Fischer said. “To turn his office into his defense team, it just doesn’t sit right with me.”

According to a response to some of the latest complaints by the attorney general’s office in July, the State Bar Disciplinary Counsel received 81 grievances against Paxton and three against First Assistant Brent Webster related to the 2020 Supreme Court suit. All were dismissed upon initial review. Some were reinstated after appeals.

[…]

While the attorney general’s office’s role in fighting bar complaints may be a legal gray area, the agency is statutorily required to defend state officials and state agencies in court. Yet Paxton’s office has declined to represent those state agencies on several recent occasions, typically when it conflicts with his political inclinations.

In 2018, for example, his office refused to defend the Texas Ethics Commission as one of his largest political donors sues to dismantle the agency. Then again, in January 2020, the office abandoned the State Commission on Judicial Conduct when it was sued by a Waco judge whom the agency disciplined for refusing to perform same-sex marriages.

Paxton’s main complaint about the State Bar allowing this matter to proceed is that both the filing and the State Bar itself are motivated by partisan politics. Not him, though, of course. Never him.

You may think well, maybe we don’t want the government to pay for this government official’s defense because he’s so odious, but what happens when we elect a Democratic AG? Should Rochelle Garza or Joe Jaworski have to pay for their own defense against the avalanche of frivolous partisan complaints that will surely be filed against them? That would be bad, except that as the story notes the vast majority of the ones against Paxton got dismissed for lack of merit. I doubt it would be any different with a different AG. At least, it better not be. As long as it isn’t, and as long as the next AG has better ethical standards than Ken Paxton – an exceptionally low hurdle to clear – it shouldn’t be an issue.

Council adopts vape extension to smoking ban

Good.

The city outlawed vaping in public spaces Wednesday, amending Houston’s smoking ordinance to include electronic cigarettes.

City Council voted 16-0 to approve the amendment, proposed last year by the Houston Health Department in response to growing scientific consensus on the dangers of vaping.

The amendment adds all types of e-cigarette devices — including vape pens, electronic pipes and hookahs — to the smoking ban, which bars cigarettes from enclosed public places and seating areas and within 25 feet of any building. It does not affect hookah bars or other private areas where smoking is permitted.

“You can now go into bars and restaurants without fear that someone vaping nearby will be impacting your health,” said District I Councilmember Robert Gallegos, chair of the council’s Quality of Life Committee.

Gallegos cited the public health benefit of regulating e-cigarettes, which are filled with a liquid nicotine derived from tobacco that becomes an aerosol when the user inhales. Ultra-fine particles emitted by the vapor and toxins from the devices’ heating elements can increase a person’s risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer, federal studies suggest, even when nicotine-free vape liquid is used.

The council member offered few details on how the ban will be enforced, but said law enforcement would likely extend a “grace period” to vape users in the coming months.

See here for the background. As I recall, there were grace periods for each of the previous additions to the smoking ban. There was some fuss about enforcement with the previous amendments as well, though from today’s vantage point it hardly seems like it amounted to anything. My expectation is that places will update their signage, some people will need to be tapped on the shoulder and informed of the revised ordinance, and modulo an unhappy vaper or two that will likely be the extent of it. I suppose in a world where a non-trivial number of people were giant assholes about wearing masks during COVID that some vapers could make public displays of resistance that are designed to go viral. I’m not too worried about that, but I will note it because I can’t say it won’t happen. I don’t expect it to, but you never know.

Texas blog roundup for the week of March 28

The Texas Progressive Alliance stands with the people of Ukraine as it brings you this week’s roundup.

(more…)

More eating outdoors downtown

This is a good idea, and I’m glad it’s being continued.

DINING IN DOWNTOWN HOUSTON CAN be a hassle, what with the limited parking and COVD-19 restrictions affecting seating space at so many eateries. Fortunately, the city of Houston is helping to alleviate some of the restaurant seating issues by encouraging businesses to set up space outside on the street, through the program More Space: Main Street.

Downtown Houston lost about a dozen street-level bars and restaurants because of thinned-out crowds during the pandemic, according to the Downtown District. And the Texas Restaurant Association estimates that the state lost 9,000-10,000 restaurants since the start of the pandemic.

First announced in 2020, More Space: Main Street was created as a way to encourage social distancing. Now, the program has expanded another year, allowing restaurants to continue using makeshift patios that take up street space outside the restaurants. The program temporarily closes off select parts of a seven-block stretch of Main Street to automobile traffic to make it safe.

[…]

David Fields, chief transportation planner for the city, says the program has been a boon for Downtown businesses and city officials received positive feedback from the community. Closing off traffic to this vibrant section of Downtown, he says, has made “a more active and interesting Main Street.”

The program was slated to run until the end of this month, but after its latest evaluation by city officials 一 who found that the program’s participants saw an increase in revenue, and customer and employee retention 一 the Houston City Council voted for More Space: Main Street to be extended until 2023.

See here for the background, and here for the city’s More Space: Main Street page. As I said at the time, this makes a lot of sense to me. Houston is pretty amenable to outdoor dining most of the year, and with some added shade or portable heaters as needed it’s almost always viable. Why wouldn’t we want to take advantage of that? I’m at the point where I’d rather eat outside at most restaurants, and will likely continue to be that way well after COVID becomes part of the background. Kudos to the city for a little innovative thinking when it was really needed.

Of course Ted Cruz supported sedition

None of this is surprising. And I’m certain there will be more, that this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Not Ted Cruz

Sen. Ted Cruz was dining near the Capitol on the evening of Dec. 8, 2020, when he received an urgent call from President Donald Trump. A lawsuit had just been filed at the Supreme Court designed to overturn the election Trump had lost, and the president wanted help from the Texas Republican.

“Would you be willing to argue the case?” Trump asked Cruz, as the senator later recalled it.

“Sure, I’d be happy to” if the court granted a hearing, Cruz said he responded.

The call was just one step in a collaboration that for two months turned the once-bitter political enemies into close allies in the effort to keep Trump in the White House based on the president’s false claims about a stolen election. By Cruz’s own account, he was “leading the charge” to prevent the certification of Joe Biden as president.

An examination by The Washington Post of Cruz’s actions between Election Day and Jan. 6, 2021, shows just how deeply he was involved, working directly with Trump to concoct a plan that came closer than widely realized to keeping him in power. As Cruz went to extraordinary lengths to court Trump’s base and lay the groundwork for his own potential 2024 presidential bid, he also alienated close allies and longtime friends who accused him of abandoning his principles.

Now, Cruz’s efforts are of interest to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, in particular whether Cruz was in contact with Trump lawyer John Eastman, a conservative attorney who has been his friend for decades and who wrote key legal memos aimed at denying Biden’s victory.

As Eastman outlined a scenario in which Vice President Mike Pence could deny certifying Biden’s election, Cruz crafted a complementary plan in the Senate. He proposed objecting to the results in six swing states and delaying accepting the Electoral College results on Jan. 6 in favor of a 10-day “audit” — thus potentially enabling GOP state legislatures to overturn the result. Ten other senators backed his proposal, which Cruz continued to advocate on the day rioters attacked the Capitol.

The committee’s interest in Cruz is notable as investigators zero in on how closely Trump’s allies coordinated with members of Congress in the attempt to block or delay certifying Biden’s victory. If Cruz’s plan worked, it could have created enough chaos for Trump to remain in power.

“It was a very dangerous proposal, and, you know, could very easily have put us into territory where we got to the inauguration and there was not a president,” Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), a Jan. 6 committee member, said earlier this year on the podcast “Honestly. And I think that Senator Cruz knew exactly what he was doing. I think that Senator Cruz is somebody who knows what the Constitution calls for, knows what his duties and obligations are, and was willing, frankly, to set that aside.”

It’s a long story, from the WaPo and reprinted in the Trib, and it just gets worse from there. I believe that Cruz knew exactly what he was doing and that he had no legal leg to stand on, and also that he didn’t care. Maybe he’d get lucky with the judges, who can say. It was all about winning and power anyway. Of course, it’s a fine line between that kind of blase nihilism and Ginni Thomas’ full-on Qanon ravings. For that, they both richly deserve an in depth investigation from the January 6 committee, and a criminal contempt citation if they refuse.

One more thing:

In the weeks that followed, as Trump allies lost a string of election cases, Cruz began suggesting he could lead a more effective legal strategy. He talked about his success in helping Bush’s legal team and how he had argued a total of nine cases before the Supreme Court, mostly as the Texas solicitor general. Two days later, he announced he had agreed to represent Pennsylvania Republicans in their effort to block certification of that state’s presidential results. The Supreme Court rejected that request, though, a near-fatal blow to efforts to overturn the election in the courts.

But the next day, Trump and Cruz focused on another avenue to put the matter before the Supreme Court: a case filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who argued his state had standing to ask the court to throw out election results in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

When Trump called on Dec. 8 as Cruz dined out, the president asked whether he was surprised about the loss of the Pennsylvania case, Cruz later recalled on his podcast, “Verdict with Ted Cruz.” Cruz said he was unhappy but “not shocked” that the federal court did not take a case about state law: “That was a challenging hurdle.”

When Cruz agreed to Trump’s request to argue the Texas case, it shocked some who knew him best. One adviser said he called Cruz to express dismay, telling the senator it went against the principles on which he built his political brand.

“If you’re a conservative federalist, the idea that one state can tell another state how to run their elections is outrageous, but he somehow contorted in his mind that it would be okay for him to argue that case,” said the adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tex.), who had served as Cruz’s chief of staff and was a former first assistant attorney general in Paxton’s office, tweeted that the case “represents a dangerous violation of federalism” that “will almost certainly fail.” He did not respond to a request for comment.

Cruz’s spokeswoman said that he agreed to Trump’s request because “he believed Texas deserved to have effective advocacy” but said that “he told President Trump at the time that he believed the Court was unlikely to take the Texas case.”

Just as a reminder, this ridiculous lawsuit was the basis for two State Bar of Texas complaints against Ken Paxton (and another against Sidney Powell) that in a just world will result in their disbarments. Surely a similar complaint against Cruz might be warranted. The Texas Signal has more.

Abortion funds accuse Briscoe Cain of defamation

This ought to be fun.

Earlier this month, Republican Texas House lawmaker Briscoe Cain sent Texas abortion funds cease-and-desist letters, threatening the funds, their donors and volunteers with criminal prosecution unless they stopped helping fund abortions in Texas.

Now, the Texas Equal Access Fund, a major abortion fund, has published a letter calling Cain’s statements false and defamatory, and threatening to “explore all legal options.”

“Your letters falsely accuse our clients of engaging in criminal acts by funding abortions in any situation in which the mother’s life is not in danger,” reads the response letter by attorneys with the Thompson Coburn law firm. “This accusation, which you have made public by publishing the letters on social media, is objectively false, and has been for almost 50 years.”

“Your unfounded criminal accusations are also defamatory,” the letter continues. “It is per se defamation to falsely accuse someone of criminal acts in Texas. You publicized these letters on social media and issued a press release in which you call our clients ‘criminal organizations.’ Therefore, the false and defamatory statements have been published to a potentially unlimited number of third parties. Your decision to publish these statements on social media demonstrates that the defamatory effect of your words is intentional. Therefore, it is imperative that you immediately retract and/or clarify your defamatory statements.”

“If you do not issue this retraction, our clients will have no choice but to explore all legal options,” the letter concludes, threatening to seek injunctive relief requiring a retraction or clarification of Cain’s statements, or damages to compensate the defamation, damages to clients, and legal fees.

The letter was sent on behalf of several abortion funds in Texas; The North Texas Equal Access Fund, Lilith Fund for Reproductive Equity, The Afiya Center, Frontera Fund, The West Fund, Clinic Access Support Network, and Fund Texas Choice.

You can see a self-incriminating tweet from Cain in the post, and the response letter is here. It also reminded him that the funds are represented by counsel and by state law you’re supposed to only communicate with them via their lawyers, which he did not do. They demanded that he confirm in writing whether he was acting in his role as a State Rep, as an attorney representing someone, or as a private citizen, by five PM yesterday. I suspect they might not have gotten an answer by then, so we’ll see what comes next.

The demand to retract his accusation of criminal activity is the biggie, though. When I blogged about that big WaPo article about the lawsuits filed by the abortion funds, there was a quote from Cain in which he explicitly called it a “crime” to pay for another person’s abortion in Texas and that anyone who donates to these funds will be prosecuted. That’s not only not true, if it were true it would defeat the whole evading-judicial-review aspect of SB8, since the district attorneys and probably Ken Paxton would be obvious defendants to be sued for an injunction. I’m honestly not sure if Cain is too dim to realize that or if he does know and just doesn’t care. Either way, there’s no shortage of evidence for when the inevitable lawsuit against him gets filed. The Trib has more.

City Council to consider adding vapes to smoking ordinance

Sounds reasonable. I’ll be interested to hear what the opponents have to say.

City Council on Wednesday will consider a proposal to bar the use of e-cigarettes and any kind of vaping in public spaces under Houston’s smoking ordinance.

The move would update the city’s rules for public smoking, which were written before electronic cigarettes existed, Health Department spokesman Porfirio Villarreal said Monday.

Houston currently bars tobacco smoking in enclosed public places and seating areas, and within 25 feet of any building. Smoking in covered bus stops and light rail stops also is prohibited.

The measure would add all forms of vaping — including electronic cigars, pipes and hookahs — to the smoking ban, enacted in 2007 to reduce public secondhand smoke exposure.

Health officials proposed the amendment in light of rising e-cigarette use among middle and high school students, Villarreal said. As many as one in 10 Houston middle school students vape, according to health department data.

[…]

While scientists do not have a full picture of the long-term health effects of using e-cigarettes, research suggests the ultra-fine particles within the vapor can increase a person’s risk for cardiovascular disease and cancer, said Ronald Peters, Jr., a retired professor at the University of Texas at Houston’s School of Public Health who studied teen vaping behaviors. Banning public e-cigarette use is a common-sense way to reduce the risk of exposing children and vulnerable people to those potentially harmful vapors, he said.

In addition to removing vaping aerosols from public settings, the ban would have the added benefit of reducing kids’ exposure to all forms of nicotine use, he said.

If you’ve been around this blog for awhile, you know I’ve closely followed the various efforts to restrict smoking in public places. I’m all in favor of such things, though to my surprise in searching for the origin of the city’s ban, which was first proposed in 2004 for restaurants, it turns out I was an incrementalist at first. Go figure. After nearly two decades of lived experience, I see no real problem with keeping all forms of smoke away from the general public. Vaping is less objectionable than tobacco, and I’m sympathetic to the argument that the availability of e-cigarettes has enabled some smokers to transition to something less damaging to them. But they have also served as an on-ramp to nicotine for kids, and if there’s a case to be made that limiting where vaping is allowed will help reduce its appeal to kids, I’m all for it.

I’ll be interested to see how this plays out at Council. There was a lot of opposition from some folks back in the day, mostly bars and musicians who worried about the effect on their livelihood, but all these years later I have a hard time imagining that kind of organized resistance to this. Still, it took several tries to get to where we are, with small steps taken each time, so it would not surprise me to see a somewhat watered down version of this pass at first, to be revisited at a later date. We’ll see if I get any press releases from a pro-vape/anti-ban constituency like I did with regular smoking back in the day.

UPDATE: A later version of the story contains this bit of interest:

Most restaurants support including e-cigarettes in the ban, said Melissa Stewart, executive director of the Great Houston Chapter of the Texas Restaurant Association. Health officials consulted the chapter on the proposed amendment in December, she said.

“Many restaurants have already been enforcing a no-vaping rule at their own discretion,” Stewart said Tuesday afternoon. “Overall, what we have seen is most restaurants have treated vaping like cigarettes. They have not allowed it.”

Definitely a difference from before, especially for restaurants that also had bars. No guarantees, but that will help the ordinance get passed.

Studying COVID in cats and dogs

Seems like a reasonable thing to look at.

Brushing a dog’s teeth is hard enough. The dog looks at you plaintively, eyes wide with betrayal, as you insert the toothbrush and perform a quick pantomime of a tooth cleaning in the seconds before it closes its jaws—and heart—to you.

Researchers at the lab of Texas A&M veterinary epidemiologist Sarah A. Hamer have a more difficult task: they must get pets to submit to a nasal swab, something which even many humans have to be cajoled into doing. Their aim is to better understand how COVID-19 spreads from humans to their pets, and how a pet’s behavior, such as whether it shares an owner’s bed or whether it is a prolific face licker, affects that transmission.

The testing has involved more than six hundred animals—mostly in Central Texas—who live in households where at least one human has COVID. Only about a quarter of the pets from which Hamer’s team has taken samples since June 2020 have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, and just one quarter of those infected pets were symptomatic. Some suffered sneezing, diarrhea, runny noses, and irritated eyes, but the most common symptom owners reported was lethargy: their dogs and cats simply seemed lazier than usual.

“It was all very mild illness, and it all sort of resolved without veterinary interventions,” Hamer said. “From our study, we have no evidence that the virus is killing pets.” (She noted, however, that there have been reports of animals with comorbidities experiencing more severe illness, just as humans might.)

Despite this relatively low threat to cats and dogs, the lab’s work is crucial for surveilling, and understanding, the coronavirus—especially because the pandemic is thought to have originated from an animal-to-human transmission event. (Hamer’s team identified the first known UK variant of the coronavirus in an animal, in March 2021.) Casey Barton Behravesh, an A&M grad who’s now an expert on zoonotic diseases with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, explained that when viruses jump from species to species, there is an increased risk of mutations creating new variants. The CDC has consequently funded much of Hamer’s research, providing about $225,000.

“It’s important to look at both people and animals, tracking mutations and the possible formation of variants, so we can keep a close eye on what might be happening,” Barton Behravesh said. “We don’t want to see a strain emerge that becomes more serious in terms of illness in people or animals. We don’t want a strain to emerge that can’t be detected by the diagnostic tests that we have available, or that might impact the therapeutics that are becoming available, or impact the vaccine.”

Read the rest, it’s good stuff. We know that deer can carry COVID, and since most of us will come in much closer contact with pets than with deer, it’s good to know what the risks may be. The good news is that they seem to be low, but best to stay on top of it.

January 2022 campaign finance reports: HISD

Previously: City of Houston

HISD campaign finance reports are almost always less sexy than city of Houston reports, but we just had some expensive races last year, so let’s see where all the current Trustees are with their finances.

Elizabeth Santos – Dist I
Kathy Blueford-Daniels – Dist II
Dani Hernandez – Dist III
Patricia Allen – Dist IV
Sue Deigaard – Dist V
Kendall Baker – Dist VI
Bridget Wade – Dist VII
Judith Cruz – Dist VIII
Myrna Guidry – Dist IX


Dist  Candidate     Raised      Spent     Loan     On Hand
==========================================================
I     Santos        23,404     10,202        0         192
II    B-Daniels          0         59    2,000         132
III   Hernandez          0          0        0       2,192
IV    Allen              0          0        0           0
V     Deigaard       2,712     59,870        0      12,189
VI    Baker          2,100      2,000      208           0
VII   Wade           6,192     10,818    7,000       3,130
VIII  Cruz               0        460        0         686
IX    Guidry         6,805      9,046    5,500       2,256

Here are the July 2021 reports, and the 8 day reports from the general election. I didn’t post reports from the runoffs. For candidates not on the November 2021 ballot (Kathy Blueford-Daniels, Dani Hernandez, Patricia Allen, and Judith Cruz, these reports cover the last six months of 2021. It’s not surprising that they weren’t raising money during this time. For Myrna Guidry, who won in November without a runoff, this report should cover the period from the 8-day report in late October through the end of the year, but looking at it I can see that it includes contributions from August through October. It also lists a $2K in kind contribution of “polling expenses” from Rep. Alma Allen, but on her Subtotals page she has both that amount and the $6,805 that she has as her overall total listed as just cash contributions. Someone needed to review this report before it was submitted. For the other four, it covers the period from the 8-day runoff report in December through the end of the year.

Santos’ report obviously stands out here, but the vast majority of the amount raised was actually in-kind contributions, mostly in the form of mail and GOTV efforts on her behalf, and mostly from the Texas AFL-CIO and Sylvia Garcia campaigns. Just under $2K of that total were cash donations. Kendall Baker gave $1K to himself and also received $1K from the campaign fund of County Commissioner Tom Ramsey. Bridget Wade was also a recipient of Commissioner Ramsey’s generosity, to the tune of $2,500.

Sue Deigaard spent her money on mailers (about $24K), phonebanking ($10K), digital ads ($7,500), a newspaper ad ($2K) and texting ($1,500). There were also multiple expenditures ranging from $80 to $950 attributed to “blockwalking” that I didn’t bother adding up. I’m now moderately curious about what the unsuccessful candidates reported on their final form, but the houstonisd.org’s 2021 Election page appears to have been archived, so I’m not able to find the reports for non-incumbents now. Not a huge deal, I was just wondering, but it is a little annoying to not see that data now.

Not much else to report here. I’ll take a look at the HCC reports next, which will be equally not very exciting, and we’ll be caught up for now.

Judge rules against Prairie View students in 2018 voting rights case

There was a lot of legal activity last week, so it took me a minute to get to this story.

A federal judge ruled Thursday that Waller County did not discriminate against student voters at Prairie View A&M University during the 2018 general election when it granted them fewer days and hours for early voting, the latest chapter in a history of voting rights struggles in the southeast Texas county.

In a 128-page ruling and summary of the case, U.S. District Judge Charles R. Eskridge said there wasn’t evidence to “establish a concern” over the lack of any early voting location on campus or in the city of Prairie View during the first week of early voting that year. The county commissioners court, Eskridge found, allocated early voting locations and hours on an “objective and reasonable basis” that did not run afoul of the federal Voting Rights Act or the U.S. Constitution.

The case dates to 2018, when a group of Prairie View A&M students sued the county, alleging it set up an unlawful lopsided schedule that offered students — most of them Black — fewer opportunities to vote early than the county’s white residents. But the fight over student voting rights on the historically Black campus, built on a former plantation, stretches across decades and generations of students.

[…]

The legal fight emerged in the fall of 2018 when students realized the county’s early voting schedule left Prairie View residents with far fewer days and hours for voting than other population centers in the county, and zero opportunity to vote in the city during the first half of the early voting period.

Prairie View, where the vast majority of residents are Black, had five days of early voting. In two of the three other towns that serve as population hubs in Waller County, with many more white residents than Prairie View, early voting would run during all 12 days of the early voting period. In the third town, early voting would be available for 11 days.

The students pressed for better access at a commissioners court meeting five days before the start of early voting in 2018, at which Waller County Judge Trey Duhon noted there was “an inequity” in the number of overall hours among commissioners’ precincts. But the court ultimately voted to make no changes.

Students sued days later, asking a federal judge to order the county to set up an early voting site on campus that would offer weekend hours. This prompted an emergency meeting in which the commissioners court instead voted to extend hours on the three days an on-campus location was previously scheduled to host voting during the second week of early voting. And in a city without public transportation and where many students don’t have cars, the court added five hours of weekend voting at Prairie View City Hall — a two-and-a-half-mile walk one way from some student housing.

At a roughly two-week trial in 2020, Duhon cast the commissioners court’s 2018 decisions as a balancing act to provide early voting access to everyone in the county “to the best of our ability.” He reasoned that because the on-campus voting location was in a student center frequented by students — some passing through multiple times a day — hosting early voting there for two or three days “affords them multiple opportunities” to cast their ballots.

But the county also argued students were seeking preferential access over the community, including residents who have to travel longer distances to vote.

[…]

In listing the various reasons for why he sided with the county, Eskridge noted that Prairie View had more voting hours than smaller population centers and that the two precincts in Waller County with the most allocated hours were majority-Black districts.

He also wrote that the initial early voting plan was adopted following normal procedures, including a joint agreement by the local party chairs. The county previously explained that the local chair of the Democratic Party had asked to push early voting at Prairie View to the second week of the early voting period, noting concerns that voting would conflict with homecoming events.

And students were offered a “convenience of hours” at an on-campus location they frequented that others in the county did not have, he wrote.

“At best, Plaintiffs establish a mere inconvenience imposed on PVAMU students with respect to the early voting schedule for the 2018 general election,” Eskridge said. “In reality, it’s rather doubtful that the early voting locations and hours provided by Waller County to PVAMU students can be understood as creating any incremental inconvenience at all.”

See here and here for some background. A copy of the opinion, which I have not read, is here. It seems like Waller County did try to make some accommodations, which the judge accepted as sufficient, though why the PVA&M locations couldn’t have been there for the duration of early voting remains a question to me. I’m sure Waller County would say they were just doing the best they could with the resources they had, and since the judge bought it, there had to be some merit to that. I would say this is an argument for the state to put up more money for counties to provide more voting locations, as well as an argument for making it easier to vote by mail and allowing more people to vote by mail, instead of the ridiculous system we have now. That would be a very cost-effective way to accommodate people who would otherwise have a difficult time getting to a voting location. For obvious reasons, we’re not getting any of that with the state government we have now.

Paxton “investigating” pharmaceuticals over puberty blockers

Also from last week, I don’t know if this is something to worry about or just blowing smoke.

Best mugshot ever

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is investigating two pharmaceutical companies — Endo Pharmaceuticals and AbbVie Inc. — for allegedly advertising puberty blockers to children and their parents to treat gender dysphoria rather than the other medical conditions they are approved to treat.

Paxton opened the investigation in December and filed civil investigative demands with the two companies on Thursday.

This is the latest move in an ongoing effort by Paxton and Gov. Greg Abbott to limit access to gender-affirming medical care for transgender teens in Texas.

[…]

In December, Paxton announced investigations under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act into Endo Pharmaceuticals and AbbVie Inc., the two companies that sell puberty blockers. He claimed in a press release that the drugs are approved to treat precocious puberty and forms of prostate cancer but were being marketed and prescribed off-label to treat gender dysphoria.

“These drugs were approved for very different purposes and can have detrimental and even irreversible side effects,” Paxton said. “I will not allow pharmaceutical companies to take advantage of Texas children.”

On Thursday, Paxton issued letters to the companies, demanding certain documents related to the sale and advertisement of the drugs.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Endo said the company does not promote its medications for off-label uses and is cooperating with the investigation. AbbVie did not immediately respond to comment.

On the one hand, Paxton has a documented history of lying about what he does and what the courts do in response to what he does for the purpose of puffing himself up in front of the rubes. It is entirely plausible that this is little more than a letter and a press release and that it will have no followup or further effect. On the other hand, as we have also seen, threats and bullying tactics by the likes of Ken Paxton and Greg Abbott have been sufficient to achieve political goals where medical care for transgender kids are concerned, even when the law is not on their side. So I think it’s fair to be skeptical but not dismissive, and keep an eye on this.

Judicial Q&A: Beverly Armstrong

(Note: As I have done in past elections, I am running a series of Q&As for judicial candidates in contested Democratic primaries. This was intended to help introduce the candidates and their experiences to those who plan to vote in March, and I have extended it for the May runoffs. I am running these responses in the order that I receive them from the candidates. Much more information about Democratic primary candidates, including links to the interviews and judicial Q&As, can be found on Erik Manning’s spreadsheet.

Beverly Armstrong

1. Who are you and what are you running for?

I am Beverly Armstrong. I am running for Judge of the 208th Criminal District Court. I have been a resident of Harris County for more than 30 years. I moved here after graduating from Prairie View A&M University with a BS degree in Civil Engineering. I attended the part time program at South Texas College of Law in downtown Houston while working full time. When I’m not serving as a public servant, I serve on the communion steward and finance committees at my church, Jones United Methodist Church. My husband and I started our family here and have raised two children who attended schools in Harris County.

2. What kind of cases does this court hear?

The 208th Criminal District Court hears all levels of felony cases. This includes State Jail Felonies, 1st through 3rd degree felonies and capital felony cases.

3. Why are you running for this particular bench?

I’m running for this bench because too many habitual, violent offenders were being released on low (lowered) bonds by this court And because this court was not holding trials to bring justice to the accused and for the accuser.

4. What are your qualifications for this job?

I have been a licensed attorney for 25 years. I’ve been a prosecutor for 15 years. I started my prosecution career in Polk County. I spent 3 years in the Galveston County District Attorneys Office where I served as Court Chief in the 212th and 10th Criminal District Courts and Chief of the Child Abuse Division. I was asked to return to Polk County to serve as the First Assistant Criminal District Attorney, where I currently serve. Over the course of my criminal law career, I have handled more than 2000 cases from misdemeanor thefts to murder. I have been the led attorney handling cases from grand jury to trial for numerous felony cases including aggravated robbery, child sexual assault and murders. I supervise a staff of secretaries, investigators and prosecutors. I’ve prepared numerous appellate briefs and I have successfully argued before the 9th court of appeals. Additionally, I served as a faculty advisor at the Prosecutor Trials Skills Course held by the Texas District and County Attorneys Association.

5. Why is this race important?

This court handles the most serious criminal cases in the county. It’s imperative that the most qualified candidate is seated for this court. Additionally, the judge of this court needs a proven track record of implementing tools to help promote fairness and justice for all parties in the courtroom.

6. Why should people vote for you in May?

People should vote for me because experience matters. I am the most experienced candidate in this race. I am ready to handle any types of case that is on the docket on day one. I am the only candidate that has handled every type of case this court hears. I have a proven record of fighting against the release of repeat violent offenders while demonstrating compassion for non violent offenders who need a second chance. I have worked with agencies to find mental health programs, parenting skills programs and drug rehabilitation programs to give offenders the tools needed to become successful members of our community as opposed to repeat offenders. I will show up ready to work. I will respect the attorneys time and the time of the community before my court. I will bring fairness, integrity and experience to the courtroom. I am committed to the protection of the community in the courtroom and outside of the courtroom.

SCOTUS unanimously rejects Dave Wilson

Poor baby.

Dave Wilson

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday ruled against former Houston Community College trustee Dave Wilson, finding that he didn’t have an actionable First Amendment claim after suing his colleagues for verbally censuring him in 2018.

In a 9-0 vote, the justices firmly sided with the community college system, whose board members reprimanded their colleague after he allegedly violated board bylaws for months and incurred thousands of dollars in legal costs for the college. The then-District II trustee — known in Houston at the time for being an anti-gay rights activist — was usually the board’s lone no-vote and frequently bit back at the administration.

Wilson continued to speak critically after his censure, making it difficult to prove that the action chilled his speech, the court ruled. And the board’s decision fell under the trustees’ own First Amendment rights.

“The First Amendment surely promises an elected representative like Mr. Wilson the right to speak freely on questions of government policy,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the opinion. “But just as surely, it cannot be used as a weapon to silence other representatives seeking to do the same.”

Wilson on Thursday claimed the justices did not adequately respond to what he said was his main argument — that he faced penalties beyond a verbal denouncement. After the censure, trustees decided that Wilson was not eligible for travel-related expense reimbursements and would need board approval when requesting funding for community affairs programs for the 2017-2018 college year. They also determined he could not be elected for a board officer position in 2018, all of which Wilson said violated his rights, according to court documents.

“It was poorly reasoned. The court didn’t take on any of the arguments that we made in our briefs,” he said. “The court made up facts to decide the case that it wanted to see rather than the facts that were presented.”

[…]

Hours after reading the document for the first time, Wilson conceded that he understood why the court didn’t take up the issue of nonverbal punishments. And he said he felt the loss at least affirmed his First Amendment rights in speaking out on the college’s “underhanded dealings.”

See here and here for the background. A link to the opinion plus a brief excerpt can be found here. All I can say is what a loser. Dave Wilson has been a stain on our politics for a long time. I hope he spent a lot of his own money on this ridiculous pursuit.

City Council redistricting is on the dock

Here’s a schedule of events related to redistricting for Houston City Council. Some of this has already happened. Last week, unless it got tagged in which case it will come up again at the next Council meeting, Council should have adopted a “Resolution containing Redistricting Criteria for establishing single-member Council districts and Redistricting Guidelines for proposed plans from the public”. As we know, Council districts need to be approximately the same size, with a bit of wiggle room on either end, and as of the 2020 Census there are some significant differences that will need to be ironed out.

Normally, and unlike ten years ago when two new districts needed to be added as a result of a lawsuit settlement from years before, this is no big deal. Move a few precincts around to get everyone within constitutionally acceptable ranges, and move on. There are some other items that will surely come up, including the elimination of At Large seats and the separation of Clear Lake and Kingwood into their own districts. Those are optional, and much less likely to happen, though there will be voices calling for them. There will be community input town halls in April and May, a draft plan produced in June, public hearings in July, a revised plan based on feedback from those town halls in August, and if all goes well, an adopted plan in September. I’m sure there will be plenty to talk about at each step of the way.

Weekend link dump for March 27

This oral history of Galaxy Quest is from 2014, but it’s also the best thing I read this week, so here you go.

Dowsing for the dead is not exactly endorsed by scientists or forensic experts. But it is a highlight for some students attending the National Forensic Academy, a 10-week training program sponsored by the University of Tennessee.”

Meet Ukraine First Lady Olena Zelenska, who is doing a pretty damn good job under monstrous circumstances.

“Canadian law enforcement seized an unspecified amount of crypto donated to the Freedom Convoy that terrorized the city for weeks last month. The crackdown highlighted how digital currency’s security bona fides stand up to real world tests. It’s definitely not everything boosters have promised.” This story has more details.

A great discourse on Proto-Indo-European, the ancestor of our language and many other languages, and its likely origins in what is now Ukraine.

“Autocrats such as Putin eventually succumb to what may be called the “dictator trap.” The strategies they use to stay in power tend to trigger their eventual downfall. Rather than being long-term planners, many make catastrophic short-term errors—the kinds of errors that would likely have been avoided in democratic systems. They hear only from sycophants, and get bad advice. They misunderstand their population. They don’t see threats coming until it’s too late. And unlike elected leaders who leave office to riches, book tours, and the glitzy lifestyle of a statesman, many dictators who miscalculate leave office in a casket, a possibility that makes them even more likely to double down.”

This was easily my favorite highlight from the first weekend of March Madness.

“These are the kinds of billionaires now spending $100 million to fund a re-branding campaign for Jesus.” (You’ve probably seen, and wondered about, their ads on TV during March Madness.)

The Price Is Right is going on tour to celebrate 50 years on the air.

“It’s amazing what you can do with a half-inflated netball.”

“When Guillermo del Toro’s Blade II hit theaters 20 years ago this month, it was a much-needed critical and commercial hit for the filmmaker, chalking up $155 million worldwide and better-than-average reviews. This is not the story of that movie. It is the story of one of these reviews—quite possibly the worst movie review ever published, at least in an outlet of note.”

“What is with the right when it comes to promoting Russian talking points?”

“FDA asks people not to drink Covid test solution or use as eye drops”.

RIP, Madeleine Albright, first female Secretary of State in US history.

RIP, Scoey Mitchell, actor and comedian best known for his co-starring role in a groundbreaking comedy series adaptation of Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park. Or, if you’re me, for his participation in the classic game show Match Game.

RIP, Taylor Hawkins, drummer for The Foo Fighters.

You’re fired. Good riddance.

Lock her up. And recuse yourself.

Lock them up.

Rep. Filemon Vela to step down

Another special election, though this one is already a little chaotic.

Rep. Filemon Vela

U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela confirmed Thursday he will resign from Congress in the coming weeks, a decision that comes after he announced last year he would retire from the House.

The South Texas Democrat will leave before the end of his term to work for Akin Gump, a prominent law and lobbying firm.

The Washington-based publication Punchbowl first reported the news Thursday morning, and the Brownsville Democrat confirmed it to The Texas Tribune.

That development will set off a unique special election to replace him. His 34th District is based in Brownsville.

Rep. Vela had previously announced he was not running for re-election. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, the incumbent in CD15, switched to CD34 after redistricting made his district redder, and won the primary for that. My initial thought was that this was going to be a November special election, since it’s too late for May, and with Rep. Gonzalez not running there’s a good chance we’d get ourselves a two-month Congressperson, who would have a mighty tough act to follow in that department.

But that was too simplistic, and didn’t take a couple of things into account. This followup Trib story goes into more detail. I don’t have the energy to do a deep dive, so let me sum up. First, in regard to when the election might be:

The main factor here is that Rep. Vela hasn’t resigned yet. No special election can be set until he actually leaves Congress. The longer he waits, the less likely we’ll get an election before November. I don’t know how long he’d have to wait to make anything but a November election practicable, but if held on until like July 4, there would probably be little reason to bother with anything before November.

Why does this matter? Well, that’s the other thing. The special election in CD34 will be in the current CD34, which was only a 51-47 Biden district in 2020. The new CD34 is 57-42 for Biden, though as we’ve often seen downballot Dems did better. While Mayra Flores, the Republican running in November in the new CD34, has announced she will run in a special election in the old CD34, Dems don’t have an obvious candidate. Remember, Vicente Gonzalez is still representing CD15, and would have to resign there to run in a CD34 special. That’s a big advantage for the Republicans, since who would even be open to being recruited to run as a placeholder in a tough race? But not running anyone, or just letting the usual flotsam that signs up for random races be the standard-bearers, isn’t a great option either.

You would think that Filemon Vela, who is among other things a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, would be sensitive to those concerns. And maybe he is, I don’t know. What I do know is that if he leaves his position in Congress for the obviously plush and lucrative position as a hired gun for Akin Gump he’s putting his fellow Democrats in a tough spot. All he needs to do to avoid this is not resign until, like, August or so. (July might be good enough, but why take a chance?) We’re talking four more months in Congress. That’s not much to ask. If you’re a constituent of Rep. Vela, I’d recommend you call his office and urge him to stay put for the time being. This is an easily avoidable mess, but it’s all on him whether it needs to be cleaned up or not.

Divorce granted in common-law same-sex marriage case

Good result.

On March 24, a San Antonio jury returned a verdict in favor of Christopher Hoffman, a gay man who sought to prove a common law marriage existed since 1996 with his former partner, Moises Ortiz. The decision clears the way for Hoffman to legally divorce Ortiz and thus be eligible for alimony and other benefits .

Various judges have ruled a same-sex marriage existed before Obergefell vs. Hodges, the 2015 Supreme Court decision that legalized same sex marriage. However, this is the first time a jury in Texas has made such a finding within the confines of a divorce action.

[…]

The four-day trial was held in the 285th District Court of Bexar County, with Judge Aaron Haas presiding, The twelve-person jury voted 10 to 2 in favor of Hoffman. They found the couple was married on February 14, 1996, and that grounds existed for the court to grant a divorce.

In an email to Out In SA, Hoffman’s attorney, Justin P. Nichols, wrote, “To have a jury validate that the couple’s relationship constituted a marriage meant a tremendous amount to Hoffman, who has been fighting for almost three years to have his marriage recognized. This case can have broad implications for thousands of gay couples throughout Texas.”

See here for the background. It is good news, and it should have a positive effect for other same sex couples. I doubt this would be appealed, so the precedent is now there. Given the continued opposition to same-sex marriage among Republicans, though, I would not be surprised to see a bill introduced in the next legislative session to try to overturn this. I hope I’m wrong, but don’t be shocked if it happens.

Yeah, ivermectin is useless against COVID

Hardly a surprise.

Antiparasitic drug Ivermectin became a partisan battleground during the Covid-19 pandemic, as anti-vaccine influencers and Republican politicians hawked it as a miracle cure, to the widespread skepticism of infectious disease experts.

A peer-reviewed study recently presented by Dr. Edward Mills, a professor of health sciences at McMaster University in Canada, offered significant new evidence that ivermectin was coronavirus snake oil all along.

In the largest trial yet analyzing the effectiveness of ivermectin on treating the coronavirus, Mills and his fellow researchers found that Covid-19 patients at risk of severe illness who received ivermectin did no better than those prescribed a placebo, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

“This is the first large, prospective study that should really help put to rest ivermectin and not give any credibility to the use of it for Covid-19,” Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, told the Journal.

Of the 1,358 patients, researchers prescribed half a three-day course of ivermectin pills, and the other half with a placebo. They then tracked how many patients were hospitalized over the course of four weeks, how quickly the patients rid the virus from their bodies, and death rates, among other variables. The researchers parsed the data in a variety of different ways and found no instances where ivermectin impacted patient outcomes.

There’s another study of ivermectin going on in Texas, which I expect will yield similar results. What it might take to convince those who have been humping ivermectin as a cure-all to see reality, I have no idea. For those of us who want to maximize our chances of surviving this pandemic, get vaxxed and boosted, keep wearing masks where it makes sense to do so, and get a real treatment regimen if you need one. It’s pretty simple, honestly.

First “Trump Train” lawsuit to proceed

Good news.

Today, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas ruled in favor of plaintiffs in Cervini v. Cisneros, the “Texas Trump Train” lawsuit filed against individuals in a convoy of Trump supporters who conspired to mount a coordinated vehicular assault against a Biden-Harris campaign bus on October 30, 2020. The court denied the defendants’ motions to dismiss the case and allowed it to go forward on allegations that these individuals engaged in political violence that violated the federal Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 and Texas state law.

The Texas Civil Rights Project, Protect Democracy, and Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP filed the suit last year on behalf of four plaintiffs—bus driver Tim Holloway, politician Wendy Davis, historian Eric Cervini, and former Biden campaign staffer David Gins. Holloway, Davis, and Gins were on the Biden-Harris campaign bus, and Cervini was in an accompanying vehicle, when the bus was ambushed on I-35 between San Antonio and Austin on the last day of early voting in Texas.

For more than an hour, dozens of trucks and cars encircled the campaign bus, having coordinated to threaten, harass, and intimidate those aboard. They live-streamed their attempts to run the bus off the road, and one of their vehicles ultimately collided with a campaign vehicle. With today’s decision, the case against participants in this caravan who conspired to ambush the bus and its passengers will continue with discovery, and the plaintiffs will have a chance to prove their case at trial.

“Today the court reaffirmed that political violence has no place in our democracy,” said Tim Holloway, who was driving the Biden-Harris bus during the incident. “And though the threats and intimidation we experienced are haunting, at least there is hope that our harassers will be held accountable.”

“While we were peacefully exercising our right to campaign, we were ambushed by individuals engaged in a conspiracy to threaten us with violence,” added Eric Cervini. “With this ruling, the court recognizes that what we experienced that day was exactly the sort of political intimidation the Ku Klux Klan Act was designed to address.”

With today’s decision, plaintiffs can continue to seek a jury verdict declaring the incident a violation of the Ku Klux Klan Act. Congress passed the Reconstruction statute to protect free and fair federal elections from widespread Klan violence against Black and Republican voters by making it illegal for individuals to join together to intimidate and injure Americans participating peacefully in the political process.

“Today’s ruling reaffirms that violations of the Klan Act need not invoke racial or other class-based animus, or state action,” said John Paredes, counsel at Protect Democracy. “Anyone who conspires to intimidate or attack a political campaign in a federal election — regardless of their motivations — is guilty of a Klan Act violation.”

“Free and fair elections depend on voters — no matter their color, party, or zip code — being protected from the threat of violence. The attack on our clients on the Biden-Harris campaign bus is part of a troubling pattern of increasing political violence in the U.S. in recent years — culminating in the insurrection at Congress on January 6, 2021,” added Emma Hilbert, senior attorney at the Texas Civil Rights Project. “Today’s decision serves to reaffirm the freedom of political expression, and serves as a warning that justice awaits those who may conspire to terrorize or menace voters.”

More information about this case is available here and here.

See here and here for the background, and here for the court order. There were two lawsuits filed over this debacle, one against individual drivers of the “Trump Train”, and one against the San Marcos police department, which was quite the hot mess. The ruling here is for the first lawsuit, though it seems likely to me that it would apply for the second as well. I don’t know at this time when the trial is going to happen, but of course I’ll be keeping an eye on it. KVUE has more.

Metro approves I-10 Inner Katy BRT route

Big step forward.

Metro officials Thursday settled on the route for a busway along Interstate 10 that they predict will improve transit for urban and suburban travelers, whether they hop on board or not.

The elevated busway planned along the southern side of I-10 between Uptown and downtown will allow park and ride buses and bus rapid transit to avoid freeway traffic between the Northwest Transit Center near Loop 610 and I-10 and Houston’s central business district. Metropolitan Transit Authority board members approved the route Thursday, keeping the $400 million-plus project on pace for construction starting late next year and buses speeding along it by 2027.

“It takes us a long way in my judgment to having a rapid transportation system that Houston can depend on as it grows in the 21st century,” Metro board member Jim Robinson said.

As part of Metro’s long-range plan, approved by voters in 2019, the agency expects to build 75 miles of of bus rapid transit — large buses that operate similar to rail, using a separated lane to bypass traffic and stop at stations. Though a major component of the region’s transit plan, the first BRT line in Houston, the Silver Line along Post Oak through Uptown, so far has struggled to attract riders as park and ride service to Uptown and office occupancy in Uptown have been affected by the COVID pandemic.

By 2045, officials expect about 30,000 commuter bus riders and 12,000 rapid transit riders to use the busway daily. A trip from the Northwest Transit Center to downtown would take 19 minutes — less than many peak-time commutes by car or truck take now.

[…]

In addition to setting the route, the plan approved Thursday calls for three new stations along I-10 at Memorial Park, Shepherd-Durham and Studemont. Those stations line up with anticipated demand from nearby neighborhoods and expected improvements to major bus routes as part of the agency’s long-range transit plan, said Amma Cobbinah, a Metro senior transit planner overseeing the project.

Within the central business district, the BRT vehicles will use the existing light rail platforms along Capitol and Rusk. Two other stations, at St. Emmanuel and Franklin at Bagby, will be built for the buses.

Metro spokesman Jerome Gray said officials have not decided if the BRT along I-10 will be an extension of Silver Line service, or a separate line.

Still unresolved, however, is how buses will transition from the elevated busway along I-10 to Franklin and Bagby. Metro’s preference is to use the existing high occupancy toll lane connector into downtown, but the future of that link is in jeopardy because of the Texas Department of Transportation’s plan to rebuild Interstate 45 near and around downtown.

There are some more details in the preview story, which ran on Thursday morning before the Metro board meeting, including the “recommended alignment” document and an embed of this video, which shows the proposed route; there is one option in there, which depends on the existing HOT lanes that may be taken out by the I-45 project.

I’ve discussed this project, which was part of the 2019 Metro Next plan, a couple of times. The idea of a Memorial Park stop has come up before, and I think having it in this project makes a lot of sense. And though the Chron story doesn’t mention it, this Inner Katy route has been an implicit part of the plan to have the Texas Central terminal at or near the Northwest Transit Terminal.

As someone who lives about a mile from the future Studewood station, I very much approve of this plan. I will note that to really make this effective, some work will need to be done on the sidewalks on Studemont/Studewood, both north from I-10 into the Heights and south towards Washington Avenue. There are a couple of large residential properties being built on the west side of Studemont, plus whatever is to come on the old Party Boy site, and this station will be close to an entry point to the White Oak bike trail, for further connectivity and easy access to the Sawyer Heights developments, which includes another large new apartment building. The potential is very much there for a lot of people to use this, if it’s easy and safe to walk or bike to it. I’ll never drive to the Galleria again if they do this right. Construction is set to start later this year, and I’ll be looking forward to seeing it all take shape.

Justice Department sues over Galveston County Commissioners Court map

Good, but remember how the federal courts are these days before getting too optimistic.

Commissioner Stephen Holmes

The Department of Justice on Thursday sued Galveston County over its new redistricting map, accusing Republican county officials of violating the Voting Rights Act last year when they carved up their Commissioners Court precincts into four majority-white districts.

The redrawn map dismantles the precinct represented by Commissioner Stephen Holmes, the only Democrat and minority member of the court, all but ensuring his defeat in 2024 if the map remains intact.

Under the new layout, Republicans are poised to gain a 5-0 majority on the governing body for Galveston County, where 38 percent of voters cast their ballots for Democrat Joe Biden.

In a 25-page complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Justice Department officials alleged that Galveston County’s freshly drawn boundaries dilute the voting strength of Black and Hispanic voters, denying them “an equal opportunity to participate in the political process.” The lawsuit accuses the county of violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which broadly bars racially discriminatory voting practices, including those that minimize the voting strength of racial minority groups.

In asking the court to toss the precincts for “any future elections” — and order the county to redraw a map “that complies with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act” — the Justice Department also cited Galveston County’s history of drawing federal scrutiny over redistricting. In 2012, federal officials struck down the county’s commissioner, constable and justice-of-the-peace maps, finding that they ran afoul of the Voting Rights Act by diminishing the power of minority voters.

“Over the course of the past three decades, Galveston County has sought to eliminate electoral opportunities for the County’s Black and Hispanic voters,” the lawsuit reads. “The County has a long history of adopting discriminatory redistricting plans.”

[…]

Commissioners Court approved the latest boundaries in November, uprooting Holmes’ Precinct 3 from parts of the county he had represented since being appointed to the court in 1999. While the district had previously cut through the middle of Galveston County, covering an area where the majority of eligible voters were Black and Hispanic, it is now consolidated in the largely white and Republican northwest corner of the county, taking in Friendswood and League City.

Holmes has said he expects to be replaced by a white candidate, given that only about a quarter of the eligible voters in his new precinct are minorities.

“Even though Galveston County is 45 percent minority, every single member of the Galveston County Commissioners Court, under the new map, is going to be Anglo,” Holmes said in an interview last November. “Minorities would not be represented by, or have the opportunity to elect, the candidate of their choice.”

See here for the background, and here for a copy of the complaint. The story notes the 2012 redistricting in Galveston that was blocked for being discriminatory, and also notes that that happened back when we still had preclearance. We don’t have that, and we do have a Supreme Court that is increasingly aggressive in allowing all kinds of radical Republican redistricting maps to stand, so like I said, I’m not optimistic. But what else are you gonna do? Reform Austin has more.

Oklahoma preps to ban abortion

This was just a matter of time.

Oklahoma’s state House on Tuesday voted 78-19 to pass a near complete ban on abortions, legislation that far surpasses Texas’ six-week ban. The bill is now headed to the Senate and, if passed, will be the strictest anti-abortion bill in the country.

The legislation — known as House Bill 4327 — bars a physician from performing or inducing an abortion at any point in the pregnancy unless it is “to save the life” of the pregnant person. Similar to Texas’ six-week abortion ban, the new legislation would allow private citizens to pursue civil actions of up to $10,000 against anyone who performs or “aids and abets in the provision of such an abortion.” An “emergency clause” adopted means that, if the bill is signed into law, it would take effect immediately.

“Abortion rights activists have been warning of this nightmare for months: These bounty hunter laws will have a domino effect across the country, as more and more states ban abortion entirely while Roe v. Wade is still the law of the land,” Elisabeth Smith, director of state policy and advocacy for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement.

[…]

Oklahoma’s lawmakers relied heavily on Texas as an example for their bill, with the Republican sponsor of HB 4327, Rep. Wendi Stearman, repeatedly citing the leading role that Jonathan Mitchell, a former Texas solicitor general, played in drafting Oklahoma’s legislation.

Abortion restrictions in states like Oklahoma, which has become a critical access point, would cause a ripple effect across the region. Oklahoma was one of several surrounding states that reported a massive influx of people crossing state lines after Texas’ law went into effect last September.

According to Planned Parenthood data collected between September and December, health centers in Oklahoma, New Mexico, Kansas, Colorado and Missouri saw a nearly 800 percent increase in abortion patients from Texas when compared to the same period one year prior. Some providers in Oklahoma have even reported a 2,500-percent increase in the last six months, and more than half of the total number of abortion patients had a Texas ZIP code.

Lots of people had been travelling to Oklahoma from Texas for abortion care, but it was obvious that was not going to last for long. We’ll have to see if this has the effect of reducing the number of abortions, or if it causes an equivalent increase in demand for abortion pills. Oh, and while I doubt anyone from Texas or anywhere else had been going to Idaho for an abortion, they just passed their version of SB8. It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets any better. Daily Kos has more.

Paxton appeals to SCOTx to re-allow investigations of trans kids’ families

Of course he did.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has asked the state Supreme Court to intervene to allow child abuse investigations into parents of transgender children. His request comes just days after a Texas appeals court reinstated a temporary injunction blocking the state’s child welfare agency from investigating parents solely because they provide gender-affirming care to their children.

The Texas 3rd Court of Appeals issued the order as part of a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal on behalf of the parents of a transgender teenager who were being investigated by child welfare workers.

“Having reviewed the record, we conclude that reinstating the temporary injunction is necessary to maintain the status quo and preserve the rights of all parties,” three appellate justices wrote.

Paxton has asked the state Supreme Court to overturn that injunction, claiming in a petition filed Monday that the injunction “prevents the State from fulfilling its duty to protect Texas children.”

In a statement, the ACLU of Texas and Lambda Legal said that while Paxton’s petition is “not surprising, it is disappointing and dangerous.”

[…]

Until the Texas Supreme Court weighs in, the injunction will continue to block the ongoing — and any new — investigations into Texans accused of child abuse based only on the allegation that they provided gender-affirming medical care.

See here, here, and here for the background. Not much to add, the main thing to know is what’s in that last paragraph – the injunction remains in place until and unless SCOTx takes it away. They can take all the time they want.

More on the abortion funds’ lawsuits

Good overview in the WaPo.

The Texas law has so far withstood multiple court challenges by employing a highly controversial legal strategy: empowering private citizens to sue anyone who helps facilitate an abortion after the legal limit. Abortion rights advocates have tried to sue a long list of people in federal court in hopes of overturning S.B. 8, including Texas law clerks, judges and medical board officials — but, in each case, courts found that they were going after the wrong people.

After a month of fielding threats from these antiabortion groups on social media, the abortion funds argued in several lawsuits filed last week that the groups targeting them have identified themselves as the ones enforcing the law — and, therefore, the ones for abortion rights advocates to hold to account in federal court.

In these cases, the Lilith Fund and the North Texas Equal Access Fund are suing the America First Legal Foundation and the Thomas More Society, two antiabortion legal groups, in federal court, as well as two private citizens in Texas state court. Abortion funds, which raise money to help low-income patients seeking abortion care, have been instrumental in helping patients reach abortion clinics in other states since the Texas ban took effect.

The Thomas More Society’s “invocation of, and intent to enforce, S.B. 8 poses imminent and existential threats to the fundamental and constitutional rights of Plaintiffs, their staff, their volunteers, and their donors,” the abortion funds wrote in their court filing on Wednesday.

The Lilith Fund and the North Texas Equal Access Fund are filing these lawsuits to “protect themselves, their staff, their volunteers and their donors from the coordinated efforts by people and organizations across the country that have made it clear they intend to enforce S.B. 8 by filing lawsuits against abortion funds,” said Elizabeth Myers, one of the lawyers representing the abortion rights groups.

[…]

Some legal scholars think the new lawsuits by the abortion funds could pose a threat to S.B. 8 now that various people and organizations have made their intentions clear, said Steve Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law, who specializes in the federal courts and has closely followed the Texas abortion ban.

“This case is not hypothetical because these particular defendants are in the process of pursuing various kinds of enforcement actions,” said Vladeck. After six months of trying to block the Texas law, abortion funds are probably thinking: “Now we finally have someone. Get out of our way, let’s go,” Vladeck said.

David Cohen, a law professor at Drexel Kline School of Law who specializes in gender and constitutional law, called the latest lawsuit a “brilliant move.” The abortion funds have built a legal case that “avoids many of the challenging legal problems of the previous lawsuits,” he added.

Even if a federal court judge does block the law, Vladeck said, the injunction will probably only apply to the particular defendants listed in the case. While those specific people and organizations would no longer be able to sue under S.B. 8, any other private citizen could still file a lawsuit.

At that point, Vladeck said, Texas abortion providers will have to decide whether they are comfortable resuming abortion care after six weeks of pregnancy. Abortion clinics and funds could still face other lawsuits, Vladeck said, but a favorable ruling in this case would make them more confident that they would win.

With these cases, Vladeck added, abortion rights groups are “building the defensive position.”

“They’re going to court to obtain a judgment that won’t be completely effective, but will make it easier to defend the lawsuits they will still face.”

See here and here for some background. I found that story on Tuesday, and on Thursday, the Trib had this to add.

“We are hopeful that any judge who looks at this will recognize the civil enforcement mechanism for what it is … and say these cases aren’t really about abortion,” said Elizabeth Myers, an attorney representing the abortion funds.

Instead, she said, their legal challenge is about stopping the “millions of bounty hunters who can sue in a very rigged one-sided court system” under the law’s private enforcement mechanism.

Aspects of this argument have already succeeded in state court, where a Texas judge found the law to be unconstitutional but declined to block it from being enforced. Now, the same lawyers are taking the case to federal court, where challenges to the law have faltered before.

But this attempt will have an advantage that those did not: The federal suits are filed in Chicago and Washington, D.C., rather than Texas, which allows the plaintiffs to avoid the extremely conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The other two suits are filed in state court and have been added to ongoing multidistrict litigation, where all legal proceedings are stayed while the case is appealed.

South Texas College of Law Houston professor Rocky Rhodes said there are potential obstacles to this approach in federal court, but it’s the “best bet” to block the law that he’s seen yet.

“This is a better procedural mechanism to get the case before the [U.S.] Supreme Court … and it addresses many of the issues from the previous challenges,” he said. “And then, of course, a Supreme Court ruling is binding on all state and federal courts.”

[…]

When the Lilith Fund tweeted a request for donations, the Thomas More Society responded by saying “donors could get sued under SB8” and linking to the press release about its efforts to depose the funds’ leaders.

This makes it clear that the anti-abortion groups intend to bring lawsuits under the Texas abortion law, the new filings argue, and thus the groups can be sued proactively to stop them from doing so.

Neither the Thomas More Society or the America First Legal Foundation responded to requests for comment.

Rhodes has argued in several papers that this is a strong angle to challenge the law.

“This mechanism of ‘wait until you know someone is going to sue you, and then sue them in federal court first,’ is one of the best ways to get an offensive challenge teed up to [the law],” he said.

The filings argue that the abortion law violates advocates’ right to free speech by limiting how they talk to clients, advocate for abortion access and spend their donations, which could be considered political speech. In addition, they argue it is so vague that plaintiffs may not know what conduct is allowed or prohibited; it creates special rules that only apply to these lawsuits, which violates plaintiffs’ rights to equal protection under the law; and allows lawsuits to be brought by people who do not have standing because they have not been directly injured.

If a federal judge agrees with some aspects of these arguments, they could grant an injunction, stopping the Thomas More Society and the America First Legal Foundation from bringing lawsuits against the two abortion funds. The lawsuit also seeks a declaration that the law is “unconstitutional, void, of no effect and therefore not usable” — by anyone.

That wouldn’t stop anyone besides these two groups from bringing lawsuits, but it would create federal court precedent that could be cited in future litigation, Rhodes said.

[…]

Unlike previous legal challenges to the abortion law, these lawsuits deliberately sidestep the most highly politicized aspects of the law.

“This [case] is not really about abortion,” said Myers. “We’re not challenging the six-week ban.”

Myers said that’s not because they believe the six-week ban is constitutional, but rather because the courts may be more open to hearing arguments as to why other aspects of the law are also unconstitutional.

You gotta do what you gotta do, and if this can lead to taking the bounty hunting out of the picture, it will be a lot better. Indeed, that would allow abortions to continue in Texas, at least until SCOTUS can do more violence to Roe v Wade. But that day hasn’t happened yet, and with other states adopting similar bounty hunter laws, we have to deal with the immediate threat. Let’s hope for the best.

Fifth Circuit asks SCOTx for help on some SB1 issues

The Twitter summary:

To recap the history here, back in September a group of plaintiffs including Isabel Longoria filed one of many lawsuits against SB1, the voter suppression law from the special sessions. In December, a motion was filed to get a temporary injunction against the provision of that law that makes it a crime for election officials and election workers to encourage voters to vote by mail, whether or not those voters are eligible under Texas law to do so. A federal district judge granted the motion, which would have applied to the primaries, and I’m willing to bet would have helped ease the confusion that led to all of those rejected mail ballots, but the Fifth Circuit, as is their wont, put a hold on the injunction.

It’s not clear to me where things are procedurally with this litigation – and remember, there are a bunch of other cases as well – but in this matter the Fifth Circuit wanted to get some clarity on state law before doing whatever it has on its docket to do. Let me just show you what that second linked file says:

The case underlying these certified questions is a pre-enforcement challenge to two recently enacted provisions of the Texas Election Code: section 276.016(a) (the anti-solicitation provision) and section 31.129 (the civil-liability provision) as applied to the anti-solicitation provision. The anti-solicitation provision makes it unlawful for a “public official or election official” while “acting in an official capacity” to “knowingly . . . solicit[] the submission of an application to vote by mail from a person who did not request an application.” The civil-liability provision creates a civil penalty for an election official who is employed by or an office of the state and who violates a provision of the election code.

Isabel Longoria, the Harris County Elections Administrator, and Cathy Morgan, a Volunteer Deputy Registrar serving in Williams and Travis counties, sued the Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, to enjoin enforcement of the civil liability provision, as applied to the anti-solicitation provision. And in response to the recent Court of Criminal Appeals case holding that the Texas Attorney General has no independent authority to prosecute criminal offenses created in the Election Code, they also sued the Harris, Travis, and Williamson County district attorneys to challenge the criminal penalties imposed by the anti-solicitation provision. The plaintiffs argue that the provisions violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments because the risk of criminal and civil liability chills speech that “encourage[s] voters to lawfully vote by mail.

After an evidentiary hearing, the district court granted the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction, enjoining the defendants from enforcing and prosecuting under the provisions. Paxton and one of the district attorneys (Shawn Dick of Williamson County) appealed. Because the Harris and Travis County district attorneys did not appeal, only Longoria’s challenge to the civil penalty permitted by the civil-liability provision and the Volunteer Deputy Registrar’s challenge to the criminal liability imposed under the anti-solicitation provision were at issue in the appeal.

On its own motion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has certified the following questions to the Court:

(1) Whether Volunteer Deputy Registrars are “public officials” under the Texas Election Code;

(2) Whether the speech Plaintiffs allege that they intend to engage in constitutes “solicitation” within the context of Texas Election Code § 276.016(a)(1). For example, is the definition narrowly limited to seeking application for violative mail-in ballots? Is it limited to demanding submission of an application for mail-in ballots (whether or not the applicant qualifies) or does it broadly cover the kinds of comments Plaintiffs stated that they wish to make: telling those who are elderly or disabled, for example, that they have the opportunity to apply for mail-in ballots?; and

(3) Whether the Texas Attorney General is a proper official to enforce Texas Election Code § 31.129.

The Court accepted the certified questions and set oral argument for May 11, 2022.

You now know everything I know. Let’s see what happens in May.

Houston to get federal freeze recovery funds

Good.

Houston is slated to get about $30 million in disaster recovery money to help address lasting needs from the February 2021 winter storm — the largest such grant in Texas, federal officials announced Tuesday.

Marcia L. Fudge, secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for the Biden administration, announced about $3 billion in new recovery allocations for disasters in 2020 and 2021 across the country at a virtual press conference Tuesday afternoon.

Included are Houston’s $30.3 million grant, $26.4 million for the state of Texas, $24.4 million for Dallas, and $16.6 million for Fort Worth, all relating to the February 2021 freeze that nearly brought down Texas’ electric grid. The storm left more than 240 people across the state dead, cities scrambling to deliver water to customers, and millions of dollars in damages from burst pipes and water mains.

“Today’s HUD announcement ensures that Houston and our vulnerable communities have not been forgotten following the historic 2021 winter freeze,” Mayor Sylvester Turner said. “After the devastating freeze, we estimated 50,000 homes and 400 apartment complexes had busted water pipes. Several people died from hypothermia or carbon monoxide poisoning. Local governments are on the frontlines of disaster response and recovery.”

[…]

In allocating the grants directly to the city, the feds are allowing Houston officials to bypass the approval of state leaders, with whom they often have clashed about recovery money. HUD has done direct allocations in the past with smaller disasters. Typically, the money flows through the state General Land Office.

“Houston is getting, out of this announcement today, the city itself is getting more than $30 million,” Fudge said.

Turner said the direct grant will “speed recovery” by avoiding state delays.

I’m sure you can guess how I feel about that last bit. This isn’t a huge amount of money, and the city still has to develop and get public comment on an action plan to submit to HUD before the funds arrive. But at least they won’t get reallocated to some tiny town in a rural area for no good reason.

Amanda Edwards to run for Mayor

The field is now at three.

Amanda Edwards

Amanda Edwards, a former at-large member of Houston City Council and candidate for U.S. Senate, announced Wednesday she is running for mayor of Houston in 2023.

Edwards’ return to politics comes two years after her fifth-place finish in the 2020 Democratic Senate primary. She previously had served a single term as one of Houston’s five citywide council members, before passing up a second term to run for Senate.

With Edwards’ announcement, there now are three major candidates vying next year to succeed Mayor Sylvester Turner, who cannot run again due to term limits. Edwards, who would be the first Black woman to lead Houston city government, said her experience at City Hall sets her apart from the other two candidates, former Harris County clerk Chris Hollins and state Sen. John Whitmire, both of whom, like Edwards, are Democrats and attorneys.

“There are complicated issues that are facing the next mayor. The easy stuff, that was done many years ago,” Edwards said. “It’s the hard stuff that’s left, and you’ve got to have somebody at the helm on Day One that is ready to lead and knows how to navigate the city and all of its challenges and opportunities that may be in front of us.”

During her four-year tenure on Houston City Council, Edwards served as vice chair of the council’s Budget and Fiscal Affairs Committee and helped direct a task force focused on boosting the city’s tech and startup economy.

She proposed amendments to the annual city budget — one of the few levers of power for council members under Houston’s strong-mayor form of government — that sought to speed up the permitting process, expand internet access for low-income communities and improve conditions for women- and minority-owned businesses.

As mayor, Edwards said she would focus on “cultivating opportunity for everyone,” including businesses owned by women and minorities, who she said face “great disparities when they’re trying to access traditional forms of capital” to grow their businesses.

I thought Edwards would be an obvious contender for Mayor back when she was a Council member, for a variety of reasons – she was young and had a strong showing in her first election, did well raising money, would be term-limited at the same time as Mayor Turner, had plenty of opportunity to make things happen on Council, and so on. She chose a different path, declining to run for re-election before entering the Democratic primary for US Senate in 2020, where she raised a respectable but not impressive amount of money and finished a disappointing fifth place in that large field. Even when she was a candidate for Senate I still thought she might wind up running for Mayor. And so here we are. (You can also see what a genius I was at predicting the future.)

Whatever route she took to get here, she’s here now. As I’ve said many times, we’ll have a better handle on how her candidacy, or anyone’s, is doing when we see the first batch of campaign finance reports. Money isn’t everything, but at least early on it’s a decent proxy for how much interest there is in a particular contender, and where that interest is coming from. Right now we have three candidates with varied backgrounds and experiences, and they’re out there introducing themselves to the wider audience that they’ll need to appeal to. It’s likely that field will grow, so making a good impression now while there’s less competition is of great value. There’s a lot happening right now, and we should all rank the 2022 election ahead of the 2023 one, but do keep an eye on these people, as one of them could be our next Mayor. Edwards’ intro video is here. I wish her luck. The Trib and the Texas Signal have more.

SCOTx hearing on state redistricting lawsuits

The state lawsuits over the “county line rule” in Cameron County and the Eckhardt/Gutierrez “decennial redistricting only in a regular session” contention had a hearing before the State Supreme Court over whether these suits can be heard in state district court.

Attorneys representing a group of Democratic state lawmakers faced off Wednesday with the state attorney general’s office in the latest partisan battle over redrawn political maps passed by the Texas Legislature in 2021.

The arguments before the Texas Supreme Court were part of a case filed against Gov. Greg Abbott by the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, or MALC, that allege Texas Republicans violated the Texas Constitution when they redrew political boundaries after the 2020 U.S. Census.

Attorneys for MALC and what are collectively called the Gutierrez plaintiffs — state Sens. Roland Gutierrez and Sarah Eckhardt, House District 37 candidate Ruben Cortez, and the Tejano Democrats — alleged in state court that the Texas Legislature violated what is known as the “county line rule” when political maps were redrawn in 2021. That rule requires counties with sufficient populations to be kept whole during the process.

They argue the Legislature violated that rule when it passed House Bill 1, the lower chamber’s redistricting bill, because it split the Cameron County line twice when maps were redrawn. It did so by including districts that went in two different directions into two counties to create part of separate House districts, according to a court filing.

The arguments Wednesday centered on whether the courts are a proper venue for the debate, something the state argued against. In December, a three-judge panel denied a request by the attorney general’s office to dismiss the case based on that argument.

“This court has repeatedly recognized that redistricting is a uniquely legislative task,” said Lanora Pettit, an attorney with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office. Pettit said that a previous ruling by the court stated it could only intervene in “exigent circumstances” but the current lawsuit didn’t qualify.

“This is not such a circumstance,” she said. “Plaintiffs who lack standing seek an order that is a function of the [Texas] Constitution.”

Justice Jeff Boyd said the broad argument seemed “hard to swallow.”

“Challenging new maps on these grounds raises a very important constitutional issue and I hear the state arguing ‘Yeah. Well, so sorry. There is nobody that gets to raise that,” he said.

Later attorney Wallace Jefferson, a former Republican state supreme court chief justice, said that if the plaintiffs did not have standing to sue the state on the issue of redistricting, it would essentially mean that nobody could challenge perceived violations of the Texas Constitution.

“If these voters and these candidates lack standing, no one could ever sue to enforce mandatory provisions of the Texas Constitution,” he said.

See here and here for the background. I had thought at one point that these lawsuits might have affected the primaries this year, but that was not to be. If the plaintiffs prevail, the first election in which we’d see the effects would be 2024, or possibly later depending on how the appeals go. I am of course rooting for the plaintiffs here, but the state’s argument here really does seem very broad. Doesn’t mean they won’t win anyway, but it would be a significant matter if they did, at least on this point. I hope that SCOTx decides to let the issue play out in court before they have to step in, but you never know.

Here’s a Twitter thread from MALC, one of the plaintiffs, about the arguments. A brief interview with MALC attorney Joaquin Gonzalez is in the Texas Signal, and you can find relevant case documents at Democracy Docket. KVUE has more on this part of the case.

As for the Eckhardt/Gutierrez challenge, it’s a bit confusing.

Texas lawmakers are bound by state law to open a fresh round of redistricting in 2023, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office asserted Tuesday in a Texas Supreme Court hearing.

The assertion came from an appellate attorney with Paxton’s office during a hearing related to multiple lawsuits challenging district maps approved during a special session last year.

Lanora Pettit, Texas’ principal deputy solicitor general, argued that the lawsuits were moot, as plaintiffs including Democratic state Sens. Sarah Eckhardt and Roland Gutierrez as well as the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, are asking for the court to order the Legislature to take up redistricting next year.

“The state takes the position that the Legislature is required to redistrict again in January of 2023 and as a result, because (the plaintiffs) are not seeking to change the outcome — the map — for this election cycle, then whatever this court would be to order would not have an effect on a real world election,” Pettit said.

Democrats are also arguing that the Legislature needs to take up redistricting again in 2023, but believe that a court needs to order it or else Republicans, who led the effort and created a highly favorable map for their party, would not do it otherwise.

The main claims Democrats have in this case revolve around two provisions in state law.

The suit from Eckhardt and Gutierrez points to a provision in the Texas Constitution that requires redistricting to occur during the first regular session of the Legislature following the release of the once-a-decade census.

Because of COVID-19 delays, census redistricting numbers were not released until after 2021′s regular legislative session was adjourned. The process instead took place during a special session.

I guess it comes down to whether the Lege has to redistrict, which would presumably be on terms more favorable to at least some Democrats, or it gets to redistrict, in which case the Republicans get to choose. I’d rather not find out what that looks like. If the suits survive the effort to dismiss them, they will go back before that three-judge panel that first heard arguments in December.

Bexar County looks for ways to reduce future mail ballot rejections

Good luck. I hope if they learn anything useful they share it with the rest of us.

Bexar County Commissioners on Tuesday directed local officials to come up with a plan to reduce the number of rejected mail-in ballots in upcoming elections after the county — and Texas — saw record high rejection rates in the March primary.

As many as 22% of mail-in ballots were rejected in Bexar County. Before the new election law took effect, the rejection rate was 2-3%, Bexar County Elections Administrator Jacquelyn Callanen has said.

A statewide analysis by the Associated Press showed about 13% of mail ballots sent to election offices across Texas were thrown out for various errors, many tied to the new, stricter voting rules backed by Republican lawmakers.

“We want to get some feedback from our lawyers in terms of what we can and can’t do in terms of a public outreach campaign,” said Commissioner Justin Rodriguez (Pct. 2), who initiated the process that was approved by the court Tuesday. “The important thing is we want … their votes to count, we want it to be safe and secure.”

The county will have to walk a fine legal line in any awareness campaign, as public officials are now not allowed to promote voting by mail.

“We want to be within the confines of the law, but I think a thorough legal analysis will be helpful,” Rodriguez said.

The Bexar County Elections and District Attorney’s offices will make recommendations ahead of the November election, he said. That may involve hiring more election staff, a coordinated awareness campaign or other mechanisms that may require funding.

See here for the previous entry. Bexar County hopes to have something in place for the May elections, which makes sense. It is of course ridiculous that they have to consult their lawyers before they can attempt to pursue a voter education message – “easier to vote and harder to cheat”, my ass – but that’s where we are. As a reminder, private entities like the Bexar and Harris County Democratic Party can do this as well, without the bizarre legal restraints. I do believe that a concentrated wave of voter education can make a difference, but it needs to be all hands on deck and it needs to start now. Harris County, I hope you’re paying attention.

Texas blog roundup for the week of March 21

The Texas Progressive Alliance stands with the people of Ukraine as it brings you this week’s roundup.

(more…)

Iconic Heights church for sale

Some neighborhood news that has us all a little worried.

Photo by Djmaschek, Creative Commons license

Heights Christian Church, a community gathering place for more than a century, is selling its historic property and merging with another congregation.

Rev. Amber Mattingly, the pastor at the church at 1703 Heights Blvd., said Tuesday that dwindling membership and financial resources prompted church leaders to vote in early February to merge with First Christian Church, which operates across from Rice University at 1601 Sunset Blvd. Mattingly said the decision also was made to move out of the property on Heights Boulevard, which includes educational buildings as well as Lambert Hall, a 95-year-old performing arts venue that is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The 42,600-square foot property, which covers the block between 17th and 18th streets on the west side of Heights Boulevard, was listed for sale about two weeks ago, according to Mattingly, who said the church brought in a grief counselor to help its 14 members cope with the development.

“Even though it was a good decision, there’s a lot to be mourned,” she said.

Leonard Wilkin, the board chair for Heights Christian Church, did not immediately respond to a Tuesday voicemail seeking comment. Mattingly said the leadership at the church, founded in 1912, intends to find a buyer that will continue to use the property in service to the community.

As for the fate of the tenants of the property, including a Spanish-speaking congregation, an art studio, a ballet studio and a nonprofit opera company, that remains unclear. Mattingly said the organizations that rent space at Heights Christian Church have been asked to vacate by the end of July.

Opera in the Heights, which has conducted performances at Lambert Hall since 1996, said in a statement released Friday that it is in “ongoing conversations with several venue operators in Houston to explore our options for next season.” The nonprofit opera company said it also is considering organizing a town hall meeting among its supporters, either in person or virtually, to discuss its next steps.

Lambert Hall is one of those places that makes the Heights what it is. We’re not regular opera-goers, but we’ve seen several Opera in the Height performances there. Both of our girls attended the Art on the Boulevard after school program with the delightful Miss Naomi for years – quite a few of the works they produced are still on display in our house. I don’t know what’s in store for this location, and I totally understand why the church, which suffered greatly during the pandemic, felt the need to do what it’s doing, but it’s hard to see this news and not feel a bit anxious about what comes next. I wish everyone involved all the best, and I hope that whoever buys this property has an appropriate amount of respect for it.

Yes, the statewide injunction against investigations into the families of trans kids is in effect

Good.

A Texas appeals court on Monday reinstated a temporary injunction blocking Texas from investigating parents for child abuse if they allow their transgender children to receive gender-affirming care.

The Texas 3rd Court of Appeals issued the order as part of a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal on behalf of the parents of a transgender teenager who were being investigated by child welfare workers.

“Having reviewed the record, we conclude that reinstating the temporary injunction is necessary to maintain the status quo and preserve the rights of all parties,” three appellate justices wrote.

[…]

District Judge Amy Clark Meachum issued the temporary injunction March 11 after the ACLU and Lambda Legal sued.

The same night Meachum’s injunction was issued, Paxton filed an appeal and claimed he froze the injunction, allowing the state to continue investigations. However, experts said the appeal fell into a complicated legal area, and lawyers had challenged such automatic stays before, claiming the state should not be able to overturn an injunction simply by filing an appeal.

With Monday’s order, the injunction for now will continue to block the ongoing — and any new — investigations into Texans accused of child abuse based only on the allegation that they provided gender-affirming medical care.

See here and here for the background, and here for a copy of the Third Court’s order. Note that none of this is about the merits, just that as is usually the case the district court judge and now the court of appeals has ordered that the original status quo be maintained while the legal question is being answered. As noted when the original injunction was handed down, there will be a hearing in district court on July 11 for a permanent injunction, which is when the merits of the case will be decided.

According to the Chron, this decision will likely be appealed to the Supreme Court, though as of this writing that has not been announced yet. I don’t know if the same “automatic suspension of the injunction” policy that Paxton claimed for the first appeal would be in play in that situation or not, but I am sure that if it’s even a theoretical possibility, Ken Paxton will assert it. We’ll know soon enough.

Beto responds to oligarch’s lawsuit

Game on.

Democrat Beto O’Rourke is blasting a pipeline company executive and top donor to Greg Abbott’s re-election campaign for filing a defamation lawsuit against him as he tries to unseat the two-term Republican governor.

O’Rourke’s attorney filed a legal response to the suit in San Saba County on Monday saying it lacked any factual or legal grounds and that O’Rourke denies all the allegations made by Kelcy Warren, a major Abbott donor.

O’Rourke is also asking for a trial by jury. He calls Warren’s lawsuit an attempt to stop him from talking about the role pipeline companies like Warren’s played in causing power outages during the February 2021 freeze that killed over 200 Texans, by the state’s count.

“But no matter how much money they have, or how hard they try to silence me in the courts, I will never back down from standing up for the people of Texas,” O’Rourke said.

[…]

Since 2019, Warren has given Abbott $1.25 million, making him one of Abbott’s top four financial backers for his re-election campaign.

Warren, from Dallas, is chairman of the board at the gas pipeline company Energy Transfer Partners and its former CEO. Abbott over the years has appointed Warren to high-profile boards and commissions — Warren is a member of the University of Texas Board of Regents and was previously a member of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission.

Warren’s lawsuit alleges that O’Rourke is trying to “publicly humiliate Warren and discourage others from contributing to Gov. Abbott’s campaign.”

“What Mr. Warren is interested in stopping are the irresponsible, defamatory and highly offensive statements by Mr. O’Rourke related to his donation to Gov. Abbott’s campaign,” says a statement from Energy Transfer Partners.

See here for the background, and look deep in your heart for all the sympathy you can muster for this poor, maligned, misunderstood billionaire who only wanted to get an exorbitant return on his investment. Is that so much to ask?

Some details, for the lawyers:

From that first document:

The Plaintiff sued O’Rourke for defamation, and claims venue is proper (indeed, mandatory) in San Saba County because he resided here when the allegedly defamatory statements were made. Original Petition, ¶ 10 (citing Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code §15.017).

This claim is untrue. Although the Plaintiff does effectively control some real property in San Saba County, most of it is: (1) undeveloped; and (2) held in the name of an entity that the Plaintiff controls, not the name of the Plaintiff. The evidence shows the Plaintiff in fact lives in Dallas County, Texas, where his homestead is located, where he is registered to vote and where he actually, physically resides. Because the Plaintiff has Filed suit in a county other than a county of mandatory venue, the Court must grant this Motion to Transfer Venue and order the suit to be transferred to El Paso County, Texas, the county of O’Rourke’s residence.

And from the second:

Without waiving the right to plead further, Defendant specially excepts to the remainder of Plaintiff’s claims because Plaintiff has failed to assert factual and legal grounds for recovery against the Defendant under Texas law, or any other applicable law, for the remainder of his purported causes of action. The Defendant requests that Plaintiff be ordered to replead to state a legally actionable cause of action within a specified reasonable time and, upon Plaintiff’s failure to do so, that Plaintiff’s claims against the Defendant be dismissed.

I Am Not A Lawyer, but I’m pretty sure that’s fancy lawyer-speak for “This whole thing is bullshit”. You love to see it. I hope this is giving Greg Abbott indigestion. The Daily Beast has more.