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March 30th, 2011:

Hung jury for Eversole

Mar 30th, 2011
by Charles Kuffner.
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It’s the one outcome guaranteed to ensure that nobody is happy.

Federal prosecutors plan to retry their corruption case against Harris County Commissioner Jerry Eversole after a judge today declared a hung jury in the three-week trial on charges that he accepted bribes to steer millions of dollars in contracts to a developer.

[…]

John Pearson, the lead federal prosecutor, said he respected the jury’s decision, but confirmed that the U.S. Attorney’s office will retry the case.

Eversole was charged with one count of conspiracy, one count of accepting a bribe and two counts of filing false income tax returns in 2003 and 2004.

A look at the jury’s votes on the charges against Eversole show how close he came to be convicted on at least two of the crimes.

On the conspiracy charge, five jurors found him guilty; seven not guilty.

On the bribery charge, 10 found him guilty; two not guilty.

On one of the false tax return charges, 10 ruled guilty; two not guilty. On the second charge, seven found him guilty; five not guilty.

Today’s mistrial marks the second time the county commissioner has avoided a conviction on criminal charges lodged against him.

I’m not surprised the feds will take another crack at him – they did come pretty close. I wonder if Eversole will be as insistent on getting the trial done in a speedy manner as before. One way or the other, we’ll have him to kick around for awhile longer.

“Nobody likes a sore winner”

Mar 30th, 2011
by Charles Kuffner.
7 comments

Mayor Parker’s updated drainage fee proposal, which would allow for exemptions to schools and churches, was introduced to City Council amid a torrent of whining from the pro-exemption forces.

Church and school leaders testified at a special council meeting that it still was not good enough.

For one thing, critics said, the exemptions cover only existing buildings. Future schools and churches would have to pay the drainage fee on any increase in impervious cover — such as roofs, parking lots or playgrounds.

In addition, religious leaders criticized the proposal for not exempting church schools and other private campuses.

Councilman C.O. Bradford also said that public schools chartered by the state — independent but publicly funded campuses not affiliated with Houston Independent School District — also deserved exemptions.

For Councilwoman Melissa Noriega, who said she has not decided whether she will support any exemptions when the ordinance reaches the council agenda Wednesday, the criticism of the mayor’s compromise proposal was a little too much.

“Nobody likes a sore winner,” Noriega said, “If someone says, ‘Yes,’ take yes for an answer.”

CM Noriega speaks for me. You want to see what a sore winner looks like, read their statement. I’ll say again, I understand why the Mayor did what she did here, but from where I sit if you extend a hand and it gets slapped away, the logical thing to do is to un-extend it and go back to what you had originally wanted. If these guys want to fight, I say let’s fight. And while we’re at it, let’s clarify once and for all whether these guys agree that flooding and drainage is an issue in Houston, and if so just what exactly they think we should do about it. I hate to break it to them, but the Magic Drainage Fairy doesn’t actually exist. In the real world, solutions cost money.

Gambling interests tout job creation benefits

Mar 30th, 2011
by Charles Kuffner.
4 comments

From the inbox:

REPORT OUTLINES 77.5K JOBS BY REGION, SECTOR CREATED BY SLOTS BILL

Confirms Texans Continue To Spend Billions Gaming in Neighboring States

AUSTIN, Texas – Win For Texas released a new report today outlining the specific regions and sectors of the 77,500 new, permanent jobs that will be created when slots are allowed at Texas horse and greyhound tracks and recognized Indian reservations. TXP, a Texas economic policy consulting group, prepared the study.

The study also details the $2.7 billion dollars Texans spend on gaming in a seven state region every year. TXP estimates that $2.2 billion of this “leakage” could be kept here simply by allowing slot machines at existing racetracks and Indian reservations.

“TXP estimates that approximately $2.4 billion in gaming revenue (and $3.8 billion total) would appear in-state by the end of 2013,” said TXP President, Jon Hockenyos. “This in turn would create $8.5 billion in total economic activity, $2.6 billion in earnings, and about 77,500 permanent jobs.”

The new report breaks down the specific economic and job creation into five regions: Austin Area, DFW, Houston and the Rest of Texas.

“The economic benefits of implementing slots are well-distributed across the state, as Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston each stand to gain close to 20,000 permanent jobs, Austin and San Antonio will realize approximately 10,000, and the balance is distributed across the rest of Texas,” said Hockenyos.

The legislation that would bring this proposal to Texas voters to decide is HJR 111/ SJR 33. The enabling legislation that details the implementation and oversight are HB 2111/ SB 1118.

The study was commissioned by Win For Texas and is attached in its entirety. For more information about this proposal or Win For Texas, please visit www.winfortexas.com.

Please see the report for your region’s specific benefits. The TXP report is attached and may also be downloaded here: http://www.winfortexas.com/TXP_Regional_Impact_Slots_Tracks_Spring_2011.pdf

I will simply note that TXP issued a similar report in 2009, which I blogged about here. I’ll leave it to you do compare the two and see what differences there are. Hey, we’ll need something for all those soon to be unemployed people to do.

As for the ubiquitous question of gambling’s prospects in the Lege, it doesn’t look any clearer now than it did before the session. The good news for gambling interests is that a consensus bill may emerge from the House.

A Texas House committee will listen to several gambling proposals at a hearing today , and in the coming days, the chairman of the committee will take all the proposals and roll them into one measure.

The forthcoming piece of all-encompassing legislation by Rep. Mike “Tuffy” Hamilton, R-Mauriceville, could lead to seven new Las Vegas-style casinos, slot machines at 13 horse and dog tracks across the state, slots at a few Indian reservations and slots at bingo halls across Texas, he said.

“Something for everybody,” Hamilton said. “We’ll put them all together.”

But there are competing gambling interests in Texas, and getting them to work with one another could prove difficult; casino proponents and the group wanting slots at tracks have not been able to work together this session or in sessions past.

There are also pro-gambling groups representing bingo halls and Indian reservations.

Hamilton, though, said he can get them all together.

Asked how he’d reach a consensus among the competing groups, Hamilton said, “Because I’m the chairman, and there will be just one bill passed out of committee.”

Whether that’s a bill that makes the casino interests, the racetrack interests, and the Indian tribes happy or one that makes some or all of them feel disgruntled remains to be seen. It’s also not clear that this consensus bill, or any other gambling bill, will get a hearing in the Senate.

While a new statewide poll shows that 86 percent of Texans believe the public should vote on whether to legalize casinos, an influential state Senate chairman with jurisdiction over gambling said Monday he has no intention of advancing the necessary legislation.

“There is no support in my committee,” said state Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock. “I just don’t think there are the votes in the Senate. I don’t see any chance of passage.”

Duncan’s opposition signals almost insurmountable odds for the expansion of gambling in Texas, despite the industry’s hopes that lawmakers would look favorably upon casinos this year as a solution to the state’s fiscal crisis.

So far, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst has referred all gambling resolutions and bills filed in the Texas Senate to the State Affairs Committee, which Duncan chairs.

His spokesman, Mike Walz, said Dewhurst also likely would refer all “stand-alone” gambling bills passed by the House to Duncan’s committee. He noted that the issue could be attached to other significant legislation that traditionally is heard by other committees.

So the door isn’t completely closed, but it’s far from wide open. I thought gambling’s odds may have improved somewhat after the terribly austere Pitts and Ogden budgets first surfaced, but this doesn’t lend support to that thesis.

As for the poll mentioned in the story, there’s no details or references to the poll data, and I’m not interested in seeking them out. We’ve seen plenty of polling data that suggests Texans support the idea, so this is no revelation. I still think the fundamental issue is a lack of legislators that support it. If Hamilton’s “consensus” bill never makes it to the House floor, that will tell you all you need to know. The Trib, Texas Politics, and Postcards have more.

Texting while lawmaking

Mar 30th, 2011
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

This is a fascinating issue.

A bill by Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi , would make an addition to the Texas Open Meetings Act. And it would apply to any public meeting, whether it’s a House committee or a small-town city council meeting.

The measure, House Bill 2977, says an official would be committing an offense if he or she transmits an electronic message — including an email, text message, instant message or Internet posting — during a public meeting.

No penalty has been included in the bill. But Hunter said he’s still considering how to deal with violators.

Hunter, who chairs the powerful House Calendars Committee, said he had a few reasons for filing the bill.

“For one, it’s discourteous if you’re conducting business on a cellular phone or BlackBerry when somebody’s coming in to testify. You need to be focused on those people,” Hunter said.

But perhaps more to the point, Hunter is seeking to take the state’s open records and open meetings laws into the digital age.

The state has to modernize the law, Hunter said.

“I also don’t think you should be communicating in a public setting with private interests, telling you how to vote, telling you how to think, telling you how to speak without that being open access to the public,” he said. He added that state legislators would still be allowed to text from the House and Senate chambers.

But rudeness and modernization are not the only reasons for filing the measure. There is a legal basis for his bill, too, Hunter said: If lawmakers don’t address the issue, it could end up the subject of a court challenge.

Here’s HB2977. The subject came up last year in a Senate State Affairs Committee hearing. I think Rep. Hunter is correct that if the Lege doesn’t take action to clarify existing laws relating to open meetings, the courts eventually will, and I think there’s a lot of merit to what he’s saying. I’m not sure about drawing a line between public meetings and just being in the House or Senate chambers, since surely those same private interests are there as well, but the subject is worth debating. I personally think that applying the same guidelines for email to other forms of messaging on mobile devices would go a long way towards addressing these issues, though that brings up the matter of retention intervals. Like I said, there’s a lot to discuss here, and whatever gets passed initially will surely need to be revisited in the future, probably multiple times. It’s going to take awhile to figure this all out and come up with something workable.

From the “Things that are not considered legislative emergencies” department

Mar 30th, 2011
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

That list would include removing Texas’ unconstitutional anti-sodomy law from the books.

Although Texas’ so-called sodomy law cannot be enforced legally, civil rights advocates say it should be removed from the books because it creates a climate favorable to bullying, gay-bashing and hate crimes.

“By leaving it on the books, you create the potential for abuse,” said Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project , which is representing two gay men who were kicked out of an El Paso restaurant in 2009 for kissing in public.

In 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Texas could not stop people of the same sex from engaging in sexual activity. Today, the Texas Penal Code still states that it is a Class C misdemeanor to engage in “deviate sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex” — just after a line explaining that the law is unconstitutional.

El Paso police cited the “homosexual conduct” wording when the two men were kicked out of a Chico’s Tacos restaurant. The men refused to leave and called the police, assuming the restaurant staff was out of line with a city ordinance banning discrimination based on sexual orientation. Instead, an officer told the men it was illegal for two men to kiss in public and said they could be cited for “homosexual conduct.”

At the time, El Paso Police Department spokesman Javier Sambrano described the officers involved as “relatively inexperienced.”

Harrington said even though the men were not cited, the Chico’s Tacos incident is about harassment.

That’s why Texas needs to strip the language from the books, said State Rep. Jessica Farrar, D-Houston, who has sponsored legislation to do so.

“There is archaic language in our code that is used against our citizens today,” said Farrar, whose colleague, Rep. Garnet Coleman, also a Houston Democrat, has filed an identical bill.

Farrar’s bill is HB604; Coleman’s is HB2156. Neither is likely to get a hearing in committee, much less voted out of committee; if by some miracle that were to happen, it would never be approved by the full House or signed by Governor Perry. The attitude of Rep. Wayne Christian, president of the Texas Conservative Coalition, tells you all you need to know:

Christian said he had not looked at the bills in detail, but that the time it would take them to go through committee probably would not be worth the outcome — especially in a session where lawmakers are wrestling with major issues like redistricting and filling a multi-billion-dollar budget hole.

“In this particular session, I’d be hesitant to do any changing,” Christian said, adding that the law probably “better reflects the views of a lot of citizens” as it is.

Priorities, you know? The Dallas Voice has more.