Dispatches from Dallas, October 6 edition

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

This week, in news from Dallas-Fort Worth, we have a giant grab bag of questions. Will a Texas Republican end up as Speaker of the House? Is Jonathan Mitchell going to get your name if you donated to a Texas abortion fund? Can Eric Johnson do electoral math? Can the city of Dallas actually follow new state laws? Is every vote at the Tarrant County Commissioners Court 3-2 along partisan lines? Can a young gun make a dent in John Wiley Price? Can a MAGAT bring down Matt Shaheen in the primary? And who at the State Fair can’t tell the difference between YOUR and YOU’RE? Answers to these questions and more in today’s post.

In addition to the usual shenanigans, I’d like to remind you all that there’s an election coming up. The notoriously socialist League of Women Voters recommended some resources that I’m passing along. Check out Vote 411 to find out what will be on your ballot; celebrate Vote Early Day on October 26, and vote if you haven’t already; and research the constitutional amendments on the ballot with this LWV playlist of videos. And check your registration, friends: the last day to register is October 10, next Tuesday.

This week’s post was brought to you by the music of Janelle Monáe, whom I will be seeing in concert on Monday.

• Let’s start out with national news and how the Star-Telegram is reporting it. First, there’s this speculation that Roger Williams could end up Speaker of the House next week based on a mention by one of the Freedom Caucus bomb-throwers. I don’t know why they’d want that for Williams after it ended Kevin McCarthy’s career. Related, there’s a(nother, this is normal for the author) laughable editorial from one of the Star-Telegram’s regular editorial columnists about how Ted Cruz is not a villain for voting against the continuing resolution. I will agree with her that no, his vote on the continuing resolution is not why he’s a cartoon villain.
• Meanwhile, on the subject of the near-shutdown, enjoy Dallas-area Representative Jasmine Crockett tearing some strips off her Republican colleagues at the snipe-hunt impeachment hearings in a video that’s gone viral.
• Two Texas cases featured in the first week of the new Supreme Court term. First, the lawsuit against the CFPB filed by payday lenders was originally filed in Texas. They were probably hoping for exactly the kind of reactionary ruling they got from the Fifth Circuit that’s now before the Court. Fortunately for consumers, the Justices aren’t compelled by the lenders’ arguments about the agency’s funding (see Chris Geidner and Talking Points Memo for more). Second, in some very bad news, the Court denied Robert Roberson’s request for a new trial. He was convicted in 2002 of shaking his baby daughter to death based on junk science. With the Supreme Court’s denial, all that stands between Roberson and the death chamber is the possibility of clemency from Greg Abbott.
• Jonathan Mitchell, the author of SB8, would like to know who all donated to abortion funds as part of a federal suit filed to prevent enforcement of the law. The Guardian and Jezebel have the details for you. The short version is that Mitchell is asking for this information to scare the funds and donors (I’m one!) and to possibly provide information for private enforcement suits for counties who pass the “abortion trafficking” laws that are the next stage in stripping women’s rights in Texas. I went to grad school and wrote my thesis on medieval legal history, and I find the private bounty laws like SB8 bizarre and appalling. The whole point of centralizing law enforcement in the state apparatus is to prevent private bounties and grudges. Of course, the party that has loudly told us that government is the problem for forty years doesn’t care about undermining its basic functions, as we’ve seen in the House this week.
• Here’s an nasty little case out of Collin County that involves one of our state representatives. When Rep. Frederick Frazier ran in 2002, he was a Dallas cop and allegedly impersonated a (different) public official to get his primary opponent’s signs removed from various places. He’s been using legislative continuances to put off his trial for more than a year after trying and failing to get the trial pushed back to next March, just before the primary. It will surprise regular readers not at all to know Frazier is a MAGA candidate.
• Speaking of our friends at the statehouse, you may remember that they accidentally included Dallas in a “get all your food trucks permitted at the county level” law. Although Dallas County was supposed to be in charge of food truck permits as of October 1, the city of Dallas is still requiring city permits.
• Another law that’s not getting followed properly is, of course, HB3. One of its many provisions is that there have to be armed peace officers at every school. Turns out a lot of schools in north Texas can’t find officers to hire and can’t pay the officers enough even with state help if they can find them.
• A law that may have had its genesis in events in Dallas is now hamstringing West Dallas activists who’ve been trying to get a shingle factory out of their neighborhood for years. The law is HB 929 and until the city can modify its code to comply with HB 929, they won’t accept a case for what’s called “amortization” from the activists. D Magazine has an explainer that clarifies the situation and how it’s tied to earlier events in the city. The Observer has more details about the code change, specifically the part where the city thinks it’s too easy for residents to file to get a property declared nonconforming. The sausage-making is worth reading, but if you just want to skip to the outcome, the shingle factory says they’re leaving in 2029. With the changes to the city code, the neighbors may not be able to get rid of them any earlier.
• Sort of related: Forth Worth neighbors have established the Fort Worth Environmental Coalition of Communities to combat environmental racism on that side of the Metroplex.
• It’s unsurprising but dismaying to note that the Anti-Defamation League has issued a report on rising white supremacist and antisemitic hate here in Texas and that a lot of it is in the Metroplex. I see reports of flyers, graffiti, and other low-level harassment in the news here regularly and I worry about my friends in marginalized communities.
• As you may remember, Mayor Johnson switched parties recently. The DMN editorial board would like you to know that it doesn’t matter which party Johnson belongs to as long as he’s a good mayor. Separately, the DMN dings Johnson for lying about his vote percentage in the last election: he says he got 99% of the votes and they think he only got 93%. (Here’s D Magazine on the same topic back in June.) Johnson was the only candidate on the ballot for mayor; the only official write-in candidate got 1%, and 6% of us voted for Mickey Mouse and other folks who weren’t running. Johnson apparently thinks those votes don’t count. I’m pretty sure the count everybody is working from doesn’t include undervotes. As an undervoter myself, I hoped he’d understand mine as a rebuke. I guess not! Also, the Observer has some analysis of Johnson’s switch that concludes (as I did) that he’s going to have a hard time selling himself to right-wing Republicans in a primary. The SMU professor they interviewed noted that Johnson isn’t a stirring campaigner (understatement), and that he’s probably looking for an appointed office rather than an elected position. Or maybe he’s just delusional.
• As annoyed as local Democrats are at Johnson, at least he hasn’t been leaving them out of meetings. Compare Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare, who left three of the eight JPs out of a policy meeting last week. The kicker: they’re not just the Democrats, they’re also the Black JPs. While the particular issues in this case are probably resolved to the detriment of the black JPs, look for more trouble if O’Hare continues to exclude Democrats, especially Black Democrats, from policy discussions.
• Let’s talk about next year’s elections in the Dallas area. Who’s gunning for who? Derek Anthony, a Dallas businessman, is aiming at “our man downtown”, south Dallas Commissioner John Wiley Price. Price has been on Commissioner’s Court for almost 40 years, and I personally think that seat is welded to his butt. If the young guns are coming after Price, the big guns are coming after Dade Phelan and his friends in the House. This DMN story about the GOP moves against Phelan has some details about measures in Collin County. Speaking of which, a Collin County MAGA activist named Wayne Richard is going to primary Rep. Matt Shaheen of Plano, he of book-banning fame, on the grounds that he’s not conservative enough. By the way, Shaheen just asked the Dallas City Council to investigate the recent Texas Latinx Pride event, because there were some drag performers.
• This week Tarrant County decided not to give any of their state grant money to the local branch of Girls, Inc., as they had every year since 2007, because of the national organization’s “ideology”. The DMN story about the 3-2 partisan vote sheds more light, mentioning that one of the activists speaking against Girls, Inc. was the Chief Communications Officer of Patriot Mobile, and that another commenter complained that Girls, Inc. indoctrinated children into believing in systemic racism and Black Lives Matter, which she described as child abuse. After the county decided to put the $115,000 they had planned to give to the agency elsewhere, a local teacher put up a GoFundMe to replace that funding.
• NBC is putting out a new podcast about Grapevine-Colleyville ISD and its struggles around queer and trans students, or, as the Dallas Observer puts it, “the Nonexistent Line Between Church, Schools and State in North Texas”. This follows up a successful previous podcast by the same team about Southlake schools and racism. In related news, a Southlake senior would like to start an anti-racism group but can’t get a faculty sponsor.
• The Guardian tells me that there’s a Banned Books Tour travelling around the country in the wake of Banned Books Week. It’ll be in Texas in the last week of the month: Dallas on the 25th; Austin on the 26th; and Houston on the 28th.
• DFW airport is building a sixth terminal, Terminal F. They’ve put up a video rendering of the new terminal on Facebook for interested parties.
• The city of Dallas has to review its charter every ten years. D Magazine has an explainer. One key point is we’ll be voting on the changes in 2024, so that’s going to be a very long ballot.
• Tarrant County is still sending inmates to a private prison in Garza County near Lubbock and has increased the number of beds until 2024. The county would like to renovate a local facility as well as repair the downtown jail so they won’t need the extra capacity. The Star-Telegram notes that as of August 1, the jail was short 235 detention officers and that the vote to extend the contract was 3-2 along partisan lines. Bonus: the money for the extended contract comes out of pandemic relief money meant for childcare and affordable housing.
• You may recall that back in June, the city of Dallas formulated short-term rental rules that were going to keep party houses out of single-family residential zones. As expected, a group of STR owners is suing the city claiming the ordinance was unconstitutional. The Dallas Observer focuses on the party house problem; an unfortunately timed incident probably affected the vote. I’m a NIMBY on this one, in part because in Austin I did have them in my backyard, but I expect the Lege to render this case moot either in a special session or in 2025 when AirBnB or VRBO pays off enough of our legislators to keep cities from banning STRs.
• In environmental news, Reunion Tower is going completely dark for most of the night in October to protect migratory birds. About two billion birds will be flying through Texas this month as part of the Central Migratory Flyway, and light at night causes potential fatal problems for them. Dallas and Houston are two of the three biggest bird-killer cities on the route because of light pollution. Dallasites can find our how they can help at Lights Out, DFW! and more about the migration at the BirdCast dashboard for Dallas County. If you’d like local migration alerts for your area, BirdCast also offers those and not just for Dallas. Forecasting ends in mid-November, when the bird migration should be over.
• Not a Dallas story, but about one of my favorite little gems in Austin: The Texas Memorial Museum on the UT Campus has reopened. They’ve renamed it to the Texas Science and Natural History Museum, which reflects its exhibits better. One of my friends used to work for the museum; while it’s small, it’s worth your time. I’m so glad it’s back!
• I previously mentioned the Bissel Pet Foundation’s Empty the Shelters National Adoption Event that’s running at Dallas Animal Services through the 15th with free adoption. I’m sad to say that right now the animal shelter is overwhelmed with animals coming in, particularly large dogs. They’re currently at about 170% capacity and really looking for folks to foster and adopt so they don’t have to resort to euthanasia. If you know someone looking for a pet in the DFW area, please send them to Animal Services.
• Last, but not least, one more State Fair story: The State Fair’s welcome sign had a your/you’re grammatical error and it was all over the internet. Fortunately they came back with a funny video of their own, throwing human-sized mascot Little Tex under the bus. The sign has now been corrected.

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