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August, 2015:

Interview with CM Jack Christie

Jack Christie

Jack Christie

We enter our final week of City Council interviews with a tour of the other contested At Large Council race, in At Large #5. CM Jack Christie is in his second term, having first been elected in a close-fought race against then-CM Jolanda Jones in 2011. A chiropractor, CM Christie serves on the Budget and Fiscal Affairs and Ethics, Elections and Council Governance Committees while also serving as Vice Chair of the Transportation, Technology and Infrastructure Committee. He has also served on the Texas State Board of Education and the Spring Branch ISD Board of Trustees. Here’s the interview:

(Note: This interview took place after the Supreme Court ruling that required a repeal or referendum on HERO.)

You can see all of my interviews as well as finance reports and other information on candidates on my 2015 Election page.

State asks for full Fifth Circuit review of voter ID ruling

As you’d expect them to do.

Still the only voter ID anyone should need

Still the only voter ID anyone should need

Continuing to protect a voter identification law that courts say discriminates against Hispanics and African Americans, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has asked a full federal appeals court to hear his arguments about why the state’s requirements at the polls do not violate the Voting Rights Act.

In a series of filings Friday, the Republican asked the full U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to hear the case, weeks after the court’s three-judge panel ruled that the four-year-old law has a “discriminatory effect” that violates the federal law prohibiting racial discrimination in voting.

“Plaintiffs point to no person, and certainly no named plaintiff, whose right to vote will be denied or even substantially burdened by maintaining the status quo” while the legal battle continues, Paxton argued.

Paxton also asked the court to keep the law intact for the next election, prolonging a long-winding legal battle that could end up in the U.S. Supreme Court.

[…]

Earlier this month, a 5th Circuit panel unanimously ruled that the law – Senate Bill 14 – discriminated against minorities and other voters less likely to have certain forms of identification (though it disagreed with a lower court, which had called the law an unconstitutional “poll tax”).

For now, the law is still on the books.

Plaintiffs, which include minority rights groups and the U.S. Department of Justice, want the case sent back to the lower court, to decide how Texas could fix its law for the next election.

In a filing last week, plaintiffs suggested adding voter registration certificates to the list of acceptable ID.

“The order could also direct that, consistent with current practice, county registrars should make replacement registration certificates freely and readily available to registered voters who seek them and whose registration certificates are lost or destroyed,” they wrote.

But on Friday, Paxton asked the court for the full 5th Circuit to hear the case, arguing that the panel erred in several respects. He also said that changing the law before the next election would “only generate more confusion.”

See here and here for the background. I can’t say what the full Fifth Circuit Court might do, but this was a unanimous opinion, so it seems likely to not be successful. The main question at this point is can we get a remedy in place for this year, and especially next year? We’ll need action on the former quickly if it’s going to happen. The Chron has more.

Three Metro updates

The Metro board has its first meeting post-system reimagining, and gets some feedback on the new routes.

HoustonMetro

At Metro’s first board meeting following the launch of the new network, officials heard about two hours of public comment from unhappy riders.

One of those riders was Jennifer Williams. She commutes from southwest Houston to her job in the Texas Medical Center. Williams says she can get back to her neighborhood okay, but it’s the last bus home that’s a problem.

“I either have to wait for the 63 to take me down the street and wait there 25 minutes nervously, not knowing who’s going to approach me,” says Williams. “Or I could walk in the dark, by myself, down the street to my apartment.”

Metro officials say they know it’s not a smooth transition for everyone, but they’re hoping the newly redesigned routes will encourage more ridership after years of declining numbers. Metro Chairman Gilbert Garcia says they fully expect to make some tweaks after the first of the year.

“We’re going to just frankly, compile our list, take a look to see if there are any adjustments we need to pivot to, whether we can solve them by a different vehicle, or solve them by a slight alteration on the route,” says Garcia.

Again, I don’t want to minimize anyone’s problems, but as I said before, if this is the extent of the problems, then this was a big success. I continue to not see other stories, so either there’s a lot of unreported bad news, or there’s not much to report. I lean towards the latter. I had my own first experience with the new system last week, and once I realized I’d been reading the map incorrectly (I’d mixed up the direction of the #30 route downtown), I made it home in fairly short order via the #85 (Washington Avenue) and the #56 (Montrose/Studemont). I had to wait only about five minutes for the second bus. Not bad at all. Anyone else have an experience to share?

Ultimately, this will be judged by how it affects ridership. On that score, the numbers from the first week were encouraging.

METRO’s first week of the New Bus Network brought in 24 percent more riders than the average August ridership.

Boardings on both bus and light-rail trains totaled 1.7 million, thanks to two factors: an improved, high-frequency system which integrates bus and rail in a seamless network and free rides which were offered all week from Aug. 16 to 22.

“This is good news as we work to create a system that promotes public transit and connects more people to more places,” said METRO Chairman Gilbert Garcia. “Our region continues to grow, and we need to maximize usage of our transit system, including local bus and rail.”

[…]

The biggest increase in METRO’s ridership last week came over the weekend, with boardings on local buses totaling 270,000 on Aug. 16 and Aug. 22. That compares to 191,500 average weekend boardings in August 2014.

“We anticipate consistent increases in ridership after two years of implementation. By then, we expect a 20 percent hike in ridership,” said President & CEO Tom Lambert.

Now of course this was a week with no fares, and even without that one week’s totals tell us little. The increase is weekend ridership is a big deal, and one that should persist, because a big part of the system reimagining was increasing weekend service – in many cases, implementing it in the first place. Let’s see what ridership looks like by the end of the year.

And speaking of ridership numbers.

A just-completed METRO ridership forecast for the Uptown Dedicated Bus Lane Project Mixed Flow option shows ridership in the year 2018 to be about 12,050 boardings per day, approximately 15 percent lower than the 14,100 boardings forecast when the project was first developed in 2013.

A second set of projections were developed should an elevated busway be constructed for the Uptown Management District. That calculation is roughly 20% fewer riders projected for the year 2018. Another set of figures, based on the year 2020, was requested by METRO recognizing that Elevated Bus Lanes will not be operational by 2018. In that year 14,850 daily boardings are projected.

METRO Board Chairman Gilbert Garcia, who requested the second study, said, ” It’s interesting to note while the ridership projections in the early years are lower in this new study the 2035 numbers for the mixed flow lane jump to about 18 percent higher than projected in the original 2013 study. Whether it’s the early years or later, the numbers overall justify the need for improved transit along this corridor.”

For the Elevated Busway option, the revised ridership forecast for 2035 is 30,900 boardings per day which is about 19 percent higher than the previous forecasts of 25,800 boardings per day developed in 2013.

The updated ridership forecast for the Uptown Dedicated Bus Lane Project uses revised assumptions developed by METRO in July 2015. The assumptions reflect changes occurring between the 2013 to 2015 timeframe and are more consistent with current operating and budget principles.

The original assumptions used in the 2013 analysis were based on Uptown’s project description and operating scenario. There have also been significant changes in both population and employment in the region as captured by the Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC) in their demographic forecast. H-GAC is the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for the Houston-Galveston region and manages the regional demographic forecasts. The new ridership forecast integrates the regionally adopted H-GAC demographic forecast.

See here for some background. I’ll be honest, I have no idea what the difference is between the Mixed Flow and Elevated Busway options, and I didn’t get to send an email and ask before the weekend, so don’t ask me for specifics. I’ll say again, I think people will use this if it’s a worthwhile service, and I don’t think there’s any better option for adding capacity to Uptown. I also think that Uptown will be an excellent place for future B-Cycle expansion, and a working Uptown line would make having a future high speed rail terminal at 290 and 610 feasible. Just a thought.

Does your JP still do marriages?

Some do and some don’t.

RedEquality

Last Wednesday, Judge Dale Gorczynski, a justice of the peace in Harris County, heard 19 eviction cases, sent 147 traffic and misdemeanor cases to trial and presided over five weddings: Three for same-sex couples and two for heterosexual couples.

It was the first time gay couples outnumbered straight ones in his north Houston office. The judge estimated that during the two peak wedding season months since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage about 10 to 20 percent of the couples he has married are gay or lesbian.

But that trend is not playing out with at least three of the county’s 16 justices of the peace who previously performed weddings but no longer do. Judges Laryssa Korduba, Russ Ridgway and Jeff Williams, all Republicans who officiated weddings prior to the decision, are taking down their shingles, although they have done so gradually. These judges, who operate in Humble, near Bellaire and Addicks, still adjudicate criminal, civil and traffic proceedings, but despite phone prompts and online links at their offices that indicate otherwise, marrying couples is no longer among services they offer, staff members confirmed last week.

Korduba performed her last ceremony Aug. 7, according to the county clerk’s data through Aug. 20. That data shows that Ridgway last officiated Aug. 11; and Williams held his last wedding Aug. 14. The county clerk, Stan Stanart, said Tuesday these JPs performed weddings after the Supreme Court ruling, but in a limited capacity. Stanart said Ridgway told him, “I had these commitments beforehand.” The others made similar comments: “That’s what Laryssa [Korduba] told me, too, and Jeff [Williams]. They had commitments. They booked them up beforehand. But there are no new bookings. That’s what I’ve been told at this time,” Stanart said.

[…]

To be clear, these JPs will not be breaking the law or shirking their duties by halting weddings, legal experts say. In fact, they are opting to forego thousands of dollars of personal income, based on the rates they charged in recent months. Justices of the peace may keep this income. They have complete discretion to set their rates. Costs range from $50 to $400 per ceremony.

Although the Ohio Supreme Court issued an opinion this month stating judges may not refuse to perform marriages altogether based on personal, moral or religious objections to same sex marriage, officiating weddings in Texas is a choice.

In other words, all JPs in Texas may marry same-sex couples, but the law does not oblige them to marry anyone, according to Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan.

As far as turning away same-sex couples, Ryan said, “As long as they are not doing any weddings they can make that choice. If they do any marriages, they have to do all the marriages.”

Rebecca L. Robertson, legal and policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, agreed: If you choose to opt out of marrying all couples, that is perfectly legal. If you marry anyone, you may not discriminate, she said.

“If they feel this strongly, at least they’re being fair about it,” said Lane Lewis, chairman of the Harris County Democratic Party, adding he thought, “They are on the wrong side of history.”

Daniel Williams, spokesman for the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender rights group Texas Wins, said he applauded judges who abstained from marrying anyone if their personal beliefs guided them to pick and chose who to marry.

“To the JP who says, ‘In order to follow the law, I need to set aside the optional power of my office to perform weddings,’ Kudos.”

I agree. I’m glad that at least around here none of the JPs have tried to be jerks in the way that some county clerks were, to their detriment. I think they’re missing out – my dad was a judge for 14 years in New York, and he always says that performing marriages was the best part of the job – but it’s their choice. I sincerely hope some of them come to the realization that they’re no better off this way and get themselves back in the game. Everyone would benefit if they do.

Weekend link dump for August 30

Scientists accidentally create an entirely new kind of glass. Of all the things they could have accidentally created, that doesn’t sound too bad.

Can DraftKings be sued or not?

Don’t get arrested on a reality TV show if you can possibly help it.

The Thames River is back to being a body of water that can sustain wildlife.

The Carlton dance was created when it said in the script: ‘Carlton dances.’ It was never even intended to be funny; it was just that he was dancing. The dance is ultimately Courteney Cox in the Bruce Springsteen video ‘Dancing in the Dark’; that’s the basis.”

For those of you who have followed the Hugo Awards saga, the end result was not a favorable one for the provocateurs. Also, what Scalzi says.

“Now, nobody needs a reason to hate Burning Man; it can just be a feeling you have, like the way you hate strawberries or The Wire. But, if you ever need to justify your loathing of the annual pilgrimage to Black Rock City, here’s a great reason: Burning Man is bad for the planet.”

What Rowan Blanchard says.

Born to Run just turned 40. In case you weren’t feeling old today.

RIP, Dr. “Red” Duke, iconic Houston surgeon and founder of the Life Flight helicopter ambulance system.

“Tom Cotton, in case anyone has forgotten, wrote a letter to Iranian officials in March, telling them not to trust U.S. officials, all in the hopes of sabotaging American foreign policy and derailing the international diplomatic talks.”

Josh Duggar jokes aside, who actually did the hacking of Ashley Madison?

RIP, Amelia Boynton Robinson, civil rights icon and first woman to run for Congress in Alabama.

RIP, Marcy Borders, known as the “Dust Lady” from 9/11.

The pro-Hillary case for Biden 2016.

“Because there is no getting away from it. This American way of accepting killing as a way of life. And I am sick to death of it.”

“But guess what? The most successful nerds have always been the ones who are also willing to figure out what makes people tick. And the most successful politicians have been the ones who are willing to marry themselves to policy solutions that fit their time and place.”

“So here’s my question: What does it say about the deep GOP bench that none of them have managed to outperform a guy who has no comparative political advantage except celebrity and a willingness to insult anyone who crosses his path?”

“When you look at the evidence, it’s hard to deny that the overwhelming majority of men using Ashley Madison weren’t having affairs. They were paying for a fantasy.”

RIP, Darryl Dawkins, backboard-breaking basketball legend and one of the most colorful characters ever to play pro sports. My favorite Dawkins line: “I’m six foot eleven. My birthday covers three days.” You will be missed, sir.

“Give Trump credit for one thing: exposing, in plain view, that much of the religious right is driven more by politics than by religion; that is, more by mythology than theology. The usual demands that candidates pledge their fealty to the Bible, to the Christian nation, to the idea that America is in decline because of secularism have been suspended for Trump. That’s befuddling many observers. But the Trump phenomenon exposes how the piety test is often a proxy for other, irreligious motives.”

Wilson denied by Supreme Court

Some good news that came in late Friday.

Dave Wilson

Dave Wilson

Anti-gay activist Dave Wilson’s attempt to amend City Charter and bar men “who perceive or express themselves as women” from entering women’s restrooms will likely not appear on the November ballot after the Texas Supreme Court on Friday denied his request for emergency action.

Instead, Wilson’s legal arguments will now play out in district court. With ballot measures due by the end of the month, there does not appear to be time for the city to count the signatures on Wilson’s petition and have it certified for the fall ballot.

Mayoral spokeswoman Janice Evans said the city had yet to receive a copy of the decision Friday.

“But we’re pleased that the court has ruled in the city’s favor,” Evans said. “We were confident in our argument.”

Wilson, a Houston Community College trustee, warned that he will continue to push the issue in district court.

“I’m not gonna give up,” Wilson said. “I’ll be back. I will get this on the next election.”

[…]

[In late July] a state district judge ruled that the city secretary had a “nondiscretionary ministerial duty” to count and certify the signatures.

The city appealed that decision and Wilson, meanwhile, sought intervention from the Texas Supreme Court to force City Secretary Anna Russell to immediately count the signatures.

Wilson said the city had engaged in a “series of illegal stall tactics,” adding that he was not satisfied that voters will already get a chance to repeal the city’s equal rights ordinance in November.

See here, here, and here for the background, and see here (second from the bottom) for the Supreme Court order. To be clear, this is not the end of the story – far from it. What it means is that the city can continue its appeal of the district court judge’s ruling without having to count the petitions and potentially put the issue on that ballot now. Those things still may happen if Wilson wins on appeal. All this means for now is that we won’t see it on the ballot this November. I continue to believe that Wilson’s argument about this not being a backdoor attempt to alter HERO is a load of hooey, but that doesn’t mean he can’t win in court. The responsibility for continuing that fight will fall on the shoulders of the next Mayor. Perhaps someone should ask them all how they feel about this.

Both Wilson and the city filed their petitions with the Supreme Court this week – the city’s was filed on Thursday – so the turnaround on this was quick, as you’d expect with a deadline coming up. From here it goes back to the normal speed of litigation, meaning it could be months before we have an appellate ruling, and years before we get final word from the Supreme Court. Who knows what can happen in the meantime.

Feds approve a preferred corridor for the high speed rail line

One more step in the process.

The Federal Railroad Administration announced this month that the general route preferred by the project developer of a high-speed rail line between Dallas and Houston is indeed the best choice.

Known as the “utility corridor,” it runs somewhat along high-voltage electrical transmission lines and capitalizes on relatively straight, existing easements.

“It’s of interest to us because it provides a source of power for our system, is straighter for a larger portion and therefore more suitable for the engineering,” said Tim Keith, chief executive of Texas Central Partners, the developer.

The utility easement runs only to about Palmer in Ellis County. Between Dallas’ Union Station and the Trinity River, the path follows a railroad corridor.

The federal report issued Aug. 10 does not outline a specific route but a broad path with many possible alignments. Corridor choices were wide swaths. Elements of each could still make it into the final plan.

“There’s not a whole lot of clarity even with the declaration of the corridor,” said Kyle Workman, president of Texans Against High Speed Rail.

But Texas Central Partners says it’s enough of a definition to host open houses in towns along the line.

“As we identify that final alignment, we will know which parcels are effective and which landowners we will engage with,” Keith said.

See here for the background. It’s a little hard to tell from the picture I have embedded above, even if you click on it for the larger image, but if you look at the picture in this Houston Business Journal story, it’s the gold-colored line, not the red one. as to what actually happened, the Press dug a little deeper:

Basically, what happened is that Texas Central agreed to fund the environmental impact study, but the FRA is the one actually conducting said study. The FRA had simply reviewed the four proposed corridors for the bullet train. Texas Central had concluded that three of the four corridors were not viable options for various reasons, but the fourth corridor, which will run along or nearby high-tension utility lines, met the company’s criteria.

So yeah, two weeks ago the FRA posted a report stating that it had checked Texas Central’s information and reported that it was accurate and that Texas Central’s preferred line was the one option of four submitted that fit various criteria. But that doesn’t exactly mean the FRA approved anything. Now the FRA will simply continue with its environmental impact study of Texas Central’s proposed route. Agency reviewers are set to look at alignments, meaning they’ll consider the specific route instead of a broad swath of land — such as scouting specific locations and property near nearby the proposed line, along with tackling right-of-way issues. When you get to the alignments stage you have to know exactly where things will be in a fairly precise way, according to the FRA staffer. Texas Central is responsible for doing the proposals and approaching landowners and the FRA is responsible for reviewing these options and figuring out the best options and alternatives.

Once the alignment study is done, the FRA will finish up its environmental impact study – there’s months of work to do so it won’t be completed until next year at the earliest. Then there will be meetings and feedback and the FRA will issue it’s findings.

So, to sum it all up: The FRA didn’t so much approve the utility route as a corridor as it agreed that based on Texas Central’s work, and information reviewed by the FRA, that they would take Texas Central’s word that the utility corridor was the most viable option. Also, this happened two weeks ago. Also, Texas Central reps don’t seem to know when it actually happened.

Got all that? The utility corridor is preferred because the freight rail corridor has too many curves to accommodate the speed of the bullet train, and because there were issues in sharing tracks. Some of that will still need to be done under this alignment, as the utility corridor doesn’t run all the way to Dallas, but this will minimize that. Either way, the Houston end of the corridor is currently northwest of downtown, near 610 and 290. Whether the train continues into downtown or the terminal is built there – assuming all of the political opposition is overcome, of course – remains an open question, one that I hope the Mayoral candidates have given at least a passing thought to. Be that as it may, the next step in the process is the draft environmental impact statement. According to the Chron story, that’s about halfway done, though as noted above it’s still months away. That’s the point at which things start to get real.

Three views of traffic in Texas

It’s getting worse.

Houston-area leaders love to trumpet the region’s affordable cost of living and low taxes, but the costs of sitting in traffic are taking a record share of workers’ incomes, according to a comprehensive annual study.

The average peak-period commuter in Houston pays $1,490 annually in lost time and wasted fuel because freeways are not flowing, according to the Urban Mobility Scorecard. The scorecard, developed by the Texas A&M University Transportation Institute, assesses congestion in America’s 471 urban areas. It is considered a reliable barometer of whether traffic conditions are worsening or improving.

Congestion delays more than 2.4 million commuters daily along the Houston region’s 90,000 lane-miles of streets and highways, the study found. Though nearly the same number of workers traveled in the area daily in 2012 and 2014, last year motorists collectively sat in traffic for more than 200 million hours for the first time. This means every worker in the Houston area who travels at peak times wastes on average 61 hours annually because traffic doesn’t move as intended.

[…]

Despite having a lower cost of living than many other congested urban areas, Houston ranks fourth nationally when the cost of congestion is calculated. The area’s total wasted time and fuel value is $4.9 billion annually; an estimated 94.3 million gallons of fuel are lost to stop-and-go traffic.

Freight movement also suffers. Congestion adds $1.1 billion annually to the price of delivering and shipping goods via truck, according to the scorecard. Only New York, Los Angeles and Chicago shippers lose more money to congestion.

Even adjusting to the value of $1 in 2014, the money lost to commuting is at an all-time high in Houston. With a more diverse economy and growth seemingly inevitable, experts do not expect the cost of congestion to decline.

“If Houston grows by a million people, just keeping that at $1,500 is going to be hard,” [scorecard co-author Tim] Lomax said.

Here’s the scorecard and press release, with additional commentary from The Highwayman. I’m sure all of this will sound familiar.

What may not be so familiar is this critique of the study:

The trouble with TTI’s work is that, to put it bluntly, it’s simply wrong. For one, their core measure of congestion costs — the “travel time index” — only looks at how fast people can travel, and completely ignores how far they have to go. As a result, it makes sprawling cities with fast roads between far-flung destinations look good, while penalizing more compact cities where people actually spend less time — and money — traveling from place to place. These and other problems, discussed below, mean that the TTI report is not a useful guide to policy.

Moreover, its authors have been consistently indifferent in responding to expert criticism, and the report has not been subjected to peer review. The authors continue to report data for 1982 through 2007, even though TTI’s model for those years doesn’t actually measure congestion: it simply assumes that increased vehicle volumes automatically produce slower speeds, which is not necessarily accurate. The report’s data from 2007 and earlier isn’t comparable the data that comes afterwards, and can’t legitimately be used to make claims about whether traffic is better or worse than in earlier periods. And for decades, TTI used a fuel consumption model to estimate gas savings that was calibrated based on 1970s-era cars, and which assumed that fuel economy improved with higher speeds — forever.

At City Observatory, we’ve spent a lot of time digging through TTI’s work and similar congestion cost reports. A summary of our work is in the City Subjects card deck “Questioning Congestion Costs.”

Click over to see the summary of what City Observatory learned. More along these lines comes from Transportation for America:

The report focuses only on drivers — not commuters as a whole. The millions of people using growing modes like transit, walking or biking or skipping the trip entirely by telecommuting at peak aren’t included in the analysis. So when the report says “person” or “commuter,” what they’re really saying is “car commuter.” The nearly 1 million trips taken per day in Washington, DC —#1 on the “list of gridlock-plagued cities — on metro (bus and rail) and therefore not in a car? Not included in this analysis.

Trips not taken can be crucial, yet they’re ignored here. In February 2009, Inrix, the company partnering with Texas A&M on this release, reported that just a 3.7 percent drop in vehicle miles traveled in 2008 resulted in a 30 percent drop in congestion in the 100 most congested metro areas. We don’t need everyone to shift their trip, take transit, move closer to work, or telecommute — among many possible options. But smart investments and incentives that lead to very small reductions in trips taken can have huge benefits in reduced congestion. And they’re often far cheaper than massive projects proposed to shave a few seconds off of average commutes.

Live close to where you work? Oops. Your short commute can come out looking worse than someone else’s much longer commute. TTI completely ignores the actual time and distance of commutes. If you have a 20-minute commute home but move at a lower speed, your commute scores worse than the person driving 80 minutes at a higher speed. Yet who has the better experience each day?

[…]

Ranking congestion is fine, but what should we do about it? How can we manage congestion in the most cost-effective way possible given limited transportation dollars?

Doing more of the same certainly won’t solve the problem. Regions that have been aggressively investing in additional travel options, eliminating trips, reducing trip length, creating more places to live close to jobs or more effectively managing demand have seen their congestion numbers get better, according to this landmark CEOs for Cities report from a few years ago.

That’s why it’s so critically important that the rule for the congestion performance measure being developed by USDOT measure success (or failure) in ways beyond just this limited and flawed TTI measure. We do need a better measure of congestion if we want to avoid making the same decisions that got us into this mess.

How far do most people have to travel for work? How long does it take them? What is most effective at reducing the amount of time it takes to get places? How many people are exposed to the congestion? Congestion may be bad, but people telecommuting, in a vanpool or on a bike might not experience it. Credit should be given to areas that allow people to opt-out of the traffic. Those are the kinds of metrics we need to use in order to find real solutions.

I’d fall into that third group above – whether we take I-45 or Houston Avenue, we move pretty slowly going into downtown most days, but we don’t have far to go, and it almost never takes more than 10 minutes total. Tiffany used to take a vanpool to The Woodlands for her job. She moved a lot faster, but was on the road a lot longer. Which would you rather do?

Just a little food for thought while you’re sitting there in traffic. I’ve said before and I’ll say again, we are reaching the end point of accommodating single-passenger-vehicle drivers. We don’t have the room to build more highway lanes in our cities, and in the places where we have done so recently, they’ve just filled right back up again. Just as we can’t economically meet our state’s water and energy needs without conservation, we can’t economically meet the needs of single passenger vehicles at the current pace. The focus has to be on reducing the number of cars on the road – more carpools, more transit, more biking and walking, more telecommuting – which is to say, on conserving road capacity. We’re too cheap to pay for anything else anyway, so we may as well embrace the option that we’re forcing ourselves into. Street Smart has more.

Revisiting the Texas-Amazon sales tax deal

The Statesman looks back and concludes it was a pretty good deal all around.

Amazon

In 2012, the state rolled the dice on a controversial deal with e-commerce giant Amazon.com.

To end a two-year battle, Texas said it would drop a $269 million sales tax bill due from the Seattle-based company in exchange for an incentive deal, among other agreements.

Amazon said it would begin collecting sales taxes within 60 days and create 2,500 jobs in Texas and invest $200 million in the state by 2014.

Now, as the company says it’s exceeded those benchmarks, state officials and economists say the agreement was the right call for Texas.

“I believe Texas benefited from the deal with Amazon. The agreement meant Amazon began collecting and remitting taxes to the state, which the comptroller’s office felt were legally due,” Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar told the American-Statesman. “The agreement also allowed Amazon to start building warehouses and to greatly expand their physical presence in the state, which was largely beneficial to the economy.”

This summer, the Internet retailer told state officials it reached more than 3,500 employees in Texas and made more than $300 million in capital investment in Texas by the end of 2014, according to documents filed with the comptroller’s office.

Amazon also paid an undisclosed amount to settle the matter in 2012.

With the deal, Texas ended a two-year fight seeking the company’s uncollected sales taxes, and Amazon began collecting on July 1, 2012 — potentially adding millions of dollars in new revenue to state coffers in coming years. Now, current figures seem to prove that out.

An American-Statesman analysis of data from the comptroller’s office shows the state’s sales tax collections have risen by hundreds of millions of dollars since Amazon.com began issuing the levy on Texas residents.

Since July 2012, sales tax revenue in Amazon’s sector has gone up more than $325 million, comptroller data shows. While state law prohibits the comptroller’s office from releasing sales tax collections by individual companies, it’s clear a significant portion of that increase is a result of Amazon’s Texas sales.

Although Hegar wasn’t the comptroller at the time of the 2012 deal, he says the state has benefited from Amazon’s presence.

“We welcome and appreciate Amazon like we do all the retailers in our state,” Hegar said in weighing the company’s role in Texas today. “We encourage and benefit from the economic activity generated by both their physical activities in the state through capital investment and job creation, and also greatly appreciate their following the law by collecting and remitting taxes from our citizens when selling taxable items.”

See here, here, and here for some background. I supported this deal back then, and I’m glad to see it has basically worked as intended. The rationale from two decades ago for making online sales tax-free has long since been rendered irrelevant, and the effect of that policy has become increasingly expensive for state and local governments. It just made sense for Amazon and other online retailers to start charging sales taxes. A few years later, this isn’t even controversial any more. Like I said, a good outcome and I’m glad to see it.

Saturday video break: Heart of Gold

Neil Young sings what was then his new song, once he finds the right harmonica.

That was from 1971. I’m getting old, too. Now here’s Johnny Cash and his cover version:

I so wish he were still around to do more of these. Rest in peace, Johnny.

Hegar punts LBB veto issue to Paxton

Duck!

NO

Describing the debate as one that “goes to the heart of separation of powers within Texas government,” Comptroller Glenn Hegar announced Wednesday that he will not authorize more than $200 million in funds approved by the Texas Legislature but vetoed by Gov. Greg Abbott as the comptroller waits for the attorney general to settle the issue.

“There are complex questions related to the governor’s vetoes, so I am seeking clarity and requesting guidance from the attorney general’s Office,” Hegar said in a statement.

[…]

For several weeks, the issue was awaiting a decision by Hegar, the state’s chief financial officer. The governor’s office strongly disagreed with the budget board, sending a 29-page memo to Hegar decrying the Legislature’s attempt to use “magic words” to block the governor’s authority.

On Wednesday, Hegar said he would not dole out the funds at issue for the time being.

“I am lapsing the funds for all items objected to by the Governor and will treat the items in question as vetoed,” Hegar said. “However, if advised otherwise, those appropriations can be made available immediately.”

[…]

Hegar’s decision comes less than a week before the start of the fiscal year on Sept 1, when the budget approved by lawmakers this year goes into effect. His 15-page request to Paxton demonstrates the complexity of the dispute. Because Abbott’s vetoes targeted budget riders rather than appropriations, Hegar seeks clarity on not only the validity of the vetoes but also what to do about the impacted agencies’ budgets if the vetoes are upheld. Should Hegar reduce each agency’s budget by the vetoed amount? And if those agencies can still get the funding, can those agencies then choose to spend some of their budgets on the projects Abbott vetoed anyway?

“This is a constitutional issue that goes to the heart of separation of powers within Texas government,” Hegar said. “I have a fiduciary duty to Texas taxpayers to ensure their hard earned dollars are spent in a manner that is consistent with the constitution of the state of Texas.”

See here and here for the background, and here for the AG opinion request. Putting aside my lack of confidence in Ken Paxton, I kind of think this one needs to be settled by the Supreme Court. The Lege can then take a crack at clarifying what the Constitution says if it wants. We’ll see how it goes.

Special election set in HD118

I wonder what the record for special elections in a county in a single year is.

Rep. Joe Farias

Gov. Greg Abbott has scheduled Nov. 3 as the date for a special election to fill former state Rep. Jose Farias’ seat in the Texas House.

Abbott signed a proclamation this week to have the latest San Antonio special election take place on the same date already scheduled for elections across the state.

[…]

Democrats vying to fill the spot include Farias’ son, West San Antonio Chamber of Commerce President Gabe Farias, and Tomas Uresti, the brother of state Sen. Carlos Uresti and Bexar County Tax Assessor-Collector Albert Uresti.

Two Republicans also are jumping into the race.

John Lujan, a 53-year-old retired firefighter who serves as the vice-president of an information-technology consulting business, ran for the House District 118 seat in 2006 but finished third in the Republican primary.

Robert Casias, a Somerset-based former Marine and member of the Army National Guard who lost to Joe Farias in 2012, is also running for the House seat as a Republican.

See here for the background. The filing deadline is September 2, so there may be a straggler or two jumping in while they can. This is just to fill out the remainder of Rep. Farias’ term; the winner of this race would still have to win his or her party’s primary in March and then the general election next November to actually serve in the Legislature. As such, it’s entirely possible that the winner of this race won’t even be on the ballot a year later. And of course, a runoff is a near certainty, so you folks in HD118, be prepared to do this again in December.

A brewpub comes back to Houston

In my ‘hood, no less.

beer

A new brewpub will open in the Heights with an accomplished veteran of the Texas craft-beer scene at the helm.

Delicious Concepts Restaurant Group, which owns Lola, Shepherd Park Draught House, Witchcraft Tavern and seven Pinks Pizza locations, announced Monday it has closed its Tex-Mex spot El Cantina Superior near the White Oak dining and entertainment area and will reopen in the same building as a restaurant that makes and sells its own beer on site.

The as-yet-unnamed “American kitchen”-style restaurant will have a pizzeria and butcher shop in-house. But the rotating lineup of lagers, India pale ales and Belgian-style and other beers – including guest beers and beers made in collaboration with other local breweries – will distinguish it from most Houston eateries.

Brewmaster Erik Ogershok, an industry veteran who helped develop the award-winning portfolio of beers at the Hill Country-based Real Ale Brewing Co., joins Delicious Concepts as a partner for this and any future brewing projects.

“This particular part of the project is just the beginning,” he said, declining to elaborate on other plans.

El Cantina Superior, 602 Studewood, had a rocky history after it launched last summer. The restaurant struggled, and Delicious Concepts brought in the management team from F.E.E.D. Texas, including the well-regarded chef Lance Fegen, to retool the menu and supervise kitchen and service.

The ambitious restaurant with colorful, quirky decor earned a positive review from Chronicle critic Alison Cook. But in May, the two restaurant groups suddenly parted ways.

Ken Sheppard, Delicious Concepts’ marketing chief, on Monday acknowledged the problems. He said the restaurant likely opened too quickly and was probably too different and too much larger physically from the others in the group. He said he was proud of El Cantina Superior’s recent work but admitted it was tough to overcome the early travails.

Plus, he said the group has wanted to open a brewpub for “a long time.”

I can attest to the El Cantina’s rocky history. It generated a ton of scathing reviews on Nextdoor Heights when it first opened, then a bunch of “no, wait, it’s really good now” emails after F.E.E.D. took over, and then back to the bad after they left. Our personal experience with the place matches that pattern. It’s a shame as far as that goes, because when it was good it was really good, and there wasn’t anything quite like it nearby. Oh, well. This will be Houston’s first brewpub since 2010 when Two Rows in the Rice Village closed down. There are a lot of good options for both food and beer within walking distance of this location, so they’re going to have to do well on both counts to survive. Not clear when the new place will be up and running, but I look forward to it.

Ballot order drawn

vote-button

Here is the official ballot order for City of Houston candidates this November, via Chron reporter Mike Morris on Twitter. You’re all familiar with my rant about ballot order by now – we have electronic voting machines, they should simply randomize the ballot order for each voter – so I’ll just skip it and move on. Whether anyone’s ballot position ultimately makes a difference or not – I sure hope it doesn’t, but I wouldn’t bet on it – we’ll have to wait and see. All I know is that in any field with more than four candidates, I’d rather be first or last than anywhere in between.

This would be a short entry if this were all I had to say, so in the interest of filling out a proper length, here are two announcements about candidate forums. On Monday, Mental Health America of Greater Houston is hosting a Mayoral forum on behavioral health, a topic I’m willing to bet you haven’t heard much about in this election. The Houston Police Department has one of the only Mental Health Divisions in the entire country, so this is an issue that needs some public discussion. MHA of Greater Houston, NAMI of Greater Houston, the Council on Recovery, and the Houston Recovery Initiative are partnered for this event. That’s this Monday, August 31, at 6:30 PM at the University of St. Thomas, Jones Hall, 3910 Yoakum – see here for details.

Want a forum for candidates other than Mayoral candidates? On Thursday, September 3, you can attend a forum on environmental issues for At Large Council candidates, brought to you by the Citizens’ Environmental Coalition, League of Women Voters of Houston, and over 20 cosponsors representing environmental organizations in the Houston region, including Hermann Park Conservancy. The event is at 6 PM at the Cherie Flores Pavilion in Hermann Park, and it will be moderated by yours truly. It’s free and open to the public – see here for details. Don’t leave me hanging, come on out and hear what the candidates have to say.

Friday random ten: Revisiting the Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Songs list, part 10

Here’s their list.

1. Rocket Man – Kate Bush (orig. Elton John, #245)
2. Stand! – Sly and the Family Stone (#244)
3. I Fall To Pieces – Patsy Cline (#241)
4. I Got A Woman – Ray Charles (#239)
5. Moondance – Van Morrison (#231)
6. Mannish Boy – Muddy Waters (#230)
7. Fire And Rain – James Taylor (#227; also a cover by Blood, Sweat & Tears)
8. Walk Away Renee – Southside Johnny & The Jukes (orig. The Left Banke, #222)
9. Boom Boom – John Lee Hooker (#220)
10. Do You Believe In Magic? – The Lovin’ Spoonful (#218)

Song I don’t have but should, part 1: “Only the Lonely”, Roy Orbison (#234). Not really sure why I don’t have it, but that was one of the reasons for doing this, to build a Need To Buy list.
Songs that could be the start of an awesome sexytimes playlist: “Moondance”, “Mannish Boy”, “Sexual Healing” (Marvin Gaye, #233). Big Jim Slade is standing by, just in case.
Song I don’t have but should, part 2: “Should I Stay Or Should I Go?”, The Clash (#228). Somewhere, Kay Bailey Hutchison is pouring herself a drink.
Song I don’t have but should, part 3: “Oh, Pretty Woman”, Roy Orbison (#224). I do have “Oh! You Pretty Woman”, by Asleep At The Wheel and Willie Nelson, for what it’s worth.
Song I don’t have but should, part 4: “Walk On The Wild Side’, Lou Reed (#223). Quite the Need To Buy list I’ve got going here.

Paxton’s first day in court

It was a little weird.

Best mugshot ever

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Thursday pleaded not guilty to violating state securities laws, while also telling the judge presiding over his felony case that he currently does not have an attorney.

Joe Kendall, Paxton’s lead counsel until Thursday morning, appeared in the Tarrant County courtroom with the first-term attorney general, but told the judge about halfway through the proceeding that he would be stepping down. He did not elaborate, saying only that there were issues in the matter that spurred him to do so.

His filed request to the judge to be removed from the case, however, cites unspecified “differences” between Paxton and Kendall’s law firm

“During the course of this representation, differences have arisen that adversely affect the attorney client relationship making further representation untenable,” the request reads.

Paxton told the judge he currently did not have legal representation, and that Dallas lawyer Pete Schulte, who had said he formally had joined the legal team, had not been hired as co-counsel.

“Yes, I’ll be having other counsel,” Paxton told Judge George Gallagher. “I do not right now… I don’t know who exactly will be on the team.”

Brian Wice and Kent Schaffer, two Houston criminal defense attorneys appointed to prosecute the case, said they did not know why Kendall, a former judge, was leaving Paxton’s legal team. In court, they told the judge they had amassed 14,000 pages of evidentiary documents in electronic form and were converting another seven to eight thousand.

Judge Gallagher set a Sept. 30 deadline for Paxton to file a motion to quash or take issue with his three felony indictments, issued by a Collin County grand jury last month. The state will have until Oct. 15 to respond and then the judge will rule. If he sides with Paxton, the prosecutors will be able to re-present their case to the same grand jury that indicted Paxton.

The Trib adds on.

During the hearing, Kendall indicated Paxton had retained Dallas-based lawyer Pete Schulte as counsel, appearing to contradict what the attorney general said about not having a lawyer. Gallagher also confirmed that Schulte had told him that he should be included on communications about the case.

Asked about the discrepancy, Paxton said he meant that he had not yet formally brought Schulte into the case as a lead attorney.

Later that morning, Schulte tweeted that “clarification will be forthcoming today” about who would be representing Paxton. “It’s unfortunate that Joe Kendall created this confusion in court as he was leaving the team,” Schulte said.

Special prosecutors Brian Wice and Kent Schaffer greeted the defense’s changing counsel with skepticism.

Telling the judge they would not raise a formal objection “this time,” Wice pointed out that Paxton was on his “third lawyer in as many months.” He said that he hoped the pattern did not become a stalling tactic.

Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Wice said he had not known Kendall planned to step down. But he added: “Nothing surprises me.”

I will admit, Paxton’s sudden change of attorney surprises and intrigues me. I suppose it’s most likely the case that there’s nothing to it – maybe their personalities didn’t mesh, maybe they couldn’t agree on a strategy, who knows – but it’s impossible to not speculate about more lurid scenarios. All foolishness aside, I’ll be interested to see what his new attorney has to say about the indictments. He’s going to have to do a lot of reading real fast to be able to prepare any motions by that September 30 deadline. Trail Blazers and the DMN Crime Blog have more.

Katrina, ten years after

Hurricane Katrina made landfall ten years ago this weekend. The Chron looks at the role Houston played in the aftermath, and the changes that resulted.

Before and after Katrina’s Aug. 29 landfall as a strong Category 3 storm, more than 1 million people fled Louisiana and coastal Mississippi. As many as 250,000 landed in Houston – more than 27,000 of the most traumatized arriving at the Astrodome and other Houston shelters in a 500-bus caravan from the drowned Big Easy. By October 2005, approximately 100,000 evacuees temporarily had made Houston their home.

Today, perhaps heeding the oft-tendered advice of Katrina-era Mayor Bill White to “look forward, not backward,” as many as 40,000, by some estimates, permanently have settled in the Houston metro area.

“We no longer think of them as evacuees,” said Mayor Annise Parker. “They are Houstonians in every sense of the word and we are happy to have them.”

In the excruciating days after Katrina’s onslaught, Houston responded with open arms. As many 60,000 residents volunteered to help. From a downtown command center, White, assisted by then-Harris County Judge Robert Eckels and business, civic and faith leaders, oversaw a multi-million dollar campaign to house, feed, train and provide health care for the newcomers.

“Houston,” said White, “showed how to combine competence and compassion, and that was done at a time when public officials at the federal and other levels fumbled the ball.”

For his leadership, White later received the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum’s Profile in Courage Award.

But throughout the city there were largely unremarked instances of kindness.

Within weeks of arriving in Houston, the Rev. Gary Mack, a pastor at New Orleans’ Franklin Avenue Baptist Church, was contacted by Houston First Baptist Church with an offer of assistance. Mack was offered use of a chapel to preach to his displaced congregation and a salary. Food and furniture were collected for church members in need.

“Coming from New Orleans, we had pretty much been living in our own communities,” Mack said. “Seldom have African-American churches and Caucasian churches gotten together in this way. Katrina tore down those walls. It was a totally new perspective of worship and God’s goodness.”

Still, for thousands of the displaced, overcoming Katrina’s hardship was daunting.

The storm flooded 80 percent of New Orleans, killed more than 1,800 people in five states and caused more than $135 billion in damage. Federal and private insurance companies paid more than $57 billion in claims, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency pumped more than $131 billion into stricken states for public works and other recovery efforts.

By July 2006, New Orleans’ 2000 population had dropped by more than half. And while the city’s population has rebounded to 80 percent of its pre-storm total, vast tracts of low-lying inner city neighborhoods remain derelict and virtually unpeopled.

Full coverage from the Chron is here. I don’t have any wisdom to offer here. I’ve been spending the week reading what other folks have been saying about this disaster that was as much political as it was natural. See Jamelle Bouie and this three part series from D.R. Tucker for some of the stronger examples. I also recommend this Urban Edge story debunking the myth that there was a crime wave in Houston following the arrival of Katrina evacuees. I fear we still haven’t learned what this tragedy should have taught us. Texas Leftist, Vice, and TPM have more.

HERO ballot language set

Here we go.

HoustonUnites

City Council on Wednesday approved the language that will appear on the November ballot for voters to decide the fate of Houston’s equal rights ordinance, one week after the Texas Supreme Court ruled that the original wording was incorrect.

Earlier this month, City Council signed off on a ballot item that would have asked voters whether they wanted to repeal the ordinance. Conservative critics sued the city over the wording, saying it was intended to confuse voters that would naturally vote “no” on any item pertaining to the law – a vote that would have instead affirmed the ordinance.

After the supreme court’s ruling that the city had erred, Mayor Annise Parker’s administration came back with new language that instead asks voters if they favor the law. It’s a technical issue, but one that both campaigns needed clarity on to craft their messaging and start running ads.

City Council on Wednesday went even further into the weeds on the ballot language when at-large councilman C.O. Bradford offered an amendment that would have removed from the ballot language enumerating the groups protected under the law, such as pregnant women and veterans. Bradford eventually withdrew the amendment, and City Council unanimously approved the administration’s version, but not before touching off some debate.

Bradford said that naming the protected classes “simply serves as a verbiage that’s going to be provocative, that’s going to simply arouse passion” on both sides of the issue.

[…]

Parker, who has been vocal about her frustration with the court ruling, said Wednesday’s discussion was “civil.”

“The question was do you try to be generic and say ‘certain characteristics’ or ‘special characteristics’ or do you list out the characteristics that are protected in the interest of transparency,” Parker said. “Clearly City Council finally came down on just listing everything out.”

All due respect, but CM Bradford is just wrong here. It’s the very existence of HERO that has aroused the “passion” of its zealous opponents, and it’s the indignity of having their civil rights put up for a vote that has aroused the “passion” of the people who worked so hard to get HERO passed in the first place. What exactly is the problem with spelling out what HERO does? The Supreme Court, you may recall, explicitly said that was okay. The opposition campaign against HERO is based entirely on lies. If there’s one place where it ought to be unambiguously clear what HERO is and what HERO does, it’s the ballot language. Texas Leftist has more.

Texas blog roundup for the week of August 24

The Texas Progressive Alliance liked it better when politicians wanted to kiss babies and not deport them as it brings you this week’s roundup.

(more…)

Interview with Matt Murphy

Matt Murphy

Matt Murphy

We conclude our tour of the At Large #4 candidates who seek to follow term-limited Council Member C. O. Bradford with Matt Murphy. A Navy veteran and former professional golfer, Murphy is now a certified fire protection engineering designer. He and his wife, in partnership with Texas Children’s Hospital, started the Shawn’s Anomaly awareness campaign, providing education, hope & help to families affected by birth defects, in honor of their son, who survived a rare birth defect. Murphy is also the producer of a short film documentary, Last Seat at the Dome, done to help the Dome preservation effort; he contacted me about this last year while working on the film. Here’s the interview:

(Note: This interview took place after the Supreme Court ruling that required a repeal or referendum on HERO.)

You can see all of my interviews as well as finance reports and other information on candidates on my 2015 Election page.

The latest skeevy Ken Paxton story

This guy. I swear.

Best mugshot ever

Tanner Hunt, son of Dallas oil billionaire Ray Hunt, texted the mother of his two young daughters in the fall of 2011 for a picture of the girls in their Halloween costumes. The next day, he took a Glock pistol into bed, pressed it to his chest and fired a single shot, according to an Austin police report.

He was only 31 and left behind a $200,000 estate and no will, probate court records show.

His daughters stood to inherit not only that estate but had potential inheritance claims on a $2 million trust that had been established for their father and possibly other trusts created by their great-grandfather, the legendary wildcatter Haroldson Lafayette “H.L.” Hunt, who created multiple family trusts before his death in 1974.

But the following year, a veteran state lawmaker named Ken Paxton, was appointed attorney ad litem in Tanner Hunt’s probate case, and Paxton later put forth a settlement that called for Tanner Hunt’s daughters to receive just $750,000, which Paxton would invest for them, if they relinquished any claim on any further inheritances from the Hunt family.

That proposed settlement was rejected by the girls’ mother, Crystal VanAusdal and ultimately replaced by a more generous confidential settlement after their mother filed a motion asking the judge to recuse himself. She filed the recusal motion after learning that an attorney whose firm had ties to the Hunt family had called the judge and Paxton prior to filing Tanner Hunt’s probate case – contact her attorneys described as improper ex parte communications. Those calls gave the mother “great concern” that the attorney and others with ties to the Hunt family “may have hand-picked the Court, the judge and the attorney ad litem” in order to disinherit her daughters, her attorneys wrote in June 2014.

The judge immediately recused himself.

[…]

Two experts, Robert Schuwerk, a retired law professor and author of the Handbook of Texas Lawyer and Judicial Ethics, and Judge Kathleen Stone, a senior district and former probate judge with 25 years’ experience, said Paxton’s actions in the Hunt probate case raised significant questions about his ethical conduct as the daughters’ court-appointed attorney ad litem – a role in which he was required to protect their interests as if he were their hired lawyer under both Texas case law and ethics rules. Both reviewed documents in the case at the request of the Houston Chronicle.

The settlement Paxton negotiated on the two small girls’ behalf was in their view clearly not in the girls’ best interest and ran counter to his legal and ethical obligations, Schuwerk and Stone said.

“I don’t think a competent lawyer for the child could do that, especially without looking into both the asserted legal basis for proposing to award the girls less than the entirety of the decedent’s estate (and trust) and without examining the underlying Hunt family trusts … in order to assess the strength of any claim they might have to those other assets,” Schuwerk said.

It’s a long story with a lot of details that I can’t accurately capture in an excerpt of any reasonable length, so just go read the whole thing. None of this was reported during last year’s campaign, not that it would have mattered. Some people may actually pay attention to it now, what with the indictments and general air of stink that has been following Paxton around. The pattern of behavior is clear. The question is when it will catch up to Ken Paxton. Trail Blazers has more.

Tweaking the Houston rideshare ordinance

From KUHF:

Uber

A task force looking into improvements to the city of Houston’s ordinance regulating vehicles for hire, including Uber and other ride-share companies, made recommendations to a city council committee Tuesday.

A key proposal is to adjust the requirement that 3 percent of a transportation company’s fleet provide wheelchair access.

Toby Cole, who chaired the Transportation Accessibility Task Force, said that number should apply to companies with 20 or more vehicles.

“For fleet with two to 19 vehicles, during the 2017 year, they would be required to have one WAV vehicle – which would be a wheelchair accessible vehicle,” Cole said. “And single operators after 2018, when they brought their next car on service, would be required to have one WAV vehicle.”

Alternatively, companies could opt to contract with drivers of wheelchair accessible vehicles.

Council will debate these potential changes in September. Access for disabled riders was a major point of contention during the Uber/Lyft debate, and Uber initiated a new service a year ago to address that. There have been two lawsuits filed locally against Uber over compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act; I don’t at this time know where either of them stand. Whether this change would address or resolve any of the issues in those complaints is unclear to me. I hope there will be some more coverage of this when Council debates the proposal.

Divorce granted to same sex couple in Tarrant County

At some point, stories like this will cease to be news.

Divorce

It took two Tarrant County women nearly two years to legally end their failed marriage because of the tangle of state and federal law.

But on Thursday, Brooke Powell and Cori Jo Long were finally divorced after a five-minute hearing before state District Judge William Harris.

Court officials said they believe it is the first same-sex divorce in Tarrant County and one of the few in Texas.

“It’s been a roller coaster,” Long said after her courtroom appearance. “Honestly, I didn’t think it would happen.”

The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling June 26 that the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage is what prodded Tarrant County judges to grant the divorce.

But don’t expect the first divorce to open the floodgates, legal experts say. Although the Supreme Court’s decision led to a rush of same-sex weddings, that won’t happen with divorces. They are not as simple as reprinting the marriage license form.

Powell and Long married in New Hampshire in 2010. Four years later, one woman filed for divorce while the other asked Texas to act as though the marriage never took place.

But Harris closed off both options, and the women appealed their case to the 2nd Court of Appeals in Fort Worth.

“It was a feeling, initially, of being invisible,” Powell said. “There was no resolution. But I always had faith in the legal system that this day would come.”

Citing the Supreme Court ruling, the appeals court sent the case back to Harris. This time, he granted a divorce.

There was also a Texas Supreme Court ruling, which preceded the SCOTUS ruling, in a case about a same-sex couple in Travis County. As such, this case was pretty clear cut. However, as the story notes, there was no property to divide, and there were no children in the marriage so no custody issues to settle. Will the courts be able to apply existing law in an equitable manner for future same-sex divorce cases, or will it become clear that the Legislature will need to address this? I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a whole lot of faith in the latter, so we’ll have to see how it goes when such a case does appear. The simple dissolution of a marriage, at least, is something that can be done.

Interview with Laurie Robinson

Laurie Robinson

Laurie Robinson

Next up in my series of interviews with candidates seeking to succeed the term-limited Council Member C. O. Bradford in At Large #4 is Laurie Robinson. Robinson is the only repeat candidate in this group, having run for At Large #5 in 2011. An MBA with an extensive background in compliance, audit, government affairs, and more, Robinson has worked for several large firms as well as at the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services. She has managed disaster rebuild funds for UTMB-Galveston following Hurricane Ike, and worked with the city of Houston to get reimbursements for the city following Ike and Katrina. Robinson has served on numerous committees, including the Houston chapter of the NAACP and with the Greater Houston Partnership. Here’s what we talked about:

(Note: This interview took place after the Supreme Court ruling that required a repeal or referendum on HERO. I mean like less than an hour after the news hit. We were both still trying to process what it meant as we did the interview.)

You can see all of my interviews as well as finance reports and other information on candidates on my 2015 Election page.

First anti-HERO radio ad airs

Here it comes.

HoustonUnites

In the ad, a young woman talks about the perceived threat to public safety the ordinance presents. Critics have long asserted that the broad non-discrimination law, which includes protections for gay and transgender residents, would allow male sexual predators dressed in drag to enter women’s restrooms.

A heated legal battle between opponents seeking to place the law on the ballot and the city ended with a Texas Supreme Court decision in late July ordering City Council to either repeal the law or vote to affirm it and place on the November ballot. After a 12-5 vote, City Council opted for the latter.

The two-week, $100,000 buy will air on several radio stations, including Mix 96.5, Sunny 99.1, KNTH AM 1070 and the conservative KSEV Radio.

In the ad, an unidentified woman says that she would like to give birth to a child in Houston but is concerned about the equal rights law.

“There are already federal and state laws that prohibit discrimination against pregnant women, but this ordinance will allow men to freely go into women’s bathrooms, locker rooms and showers. That is filthy, that is disgusting and that is unsafe,” the ad states.

The Houston Unites campaign, supporters of the ordinance, responded to the ad in a written statement Monday dismissing the message. The campaign has yet to make any media buys, but manager Richard Carlbom has said the group will hit the airwaves and TV in the coming months.

“The ad is vulgar and grossly misleading. Nothing in the equal rights ordinance changes the fact that it is – and always will be – illegal to enter a restroom to harm or harass other people. And the ad leaves out the fact that the law protects tens of thousands of Houstonians from job discrimination based on their race, age, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability,” the statement said.

It’s all of those things and more, but that doesn’t mean the ad won’t be effective. This is exactly what I expected from the HERO haters, and it’s why I was hoping the pro-HERO forces would have something out first. It’s hard to dislodge that kind of fear once it takes hold; facts just don’t get you very far. If any of these radio stations are ones you listen to, by all means feel free to contact them and tell them that you don’t approve of this dishonest and hurtful ad. If the ad really makes you mad, get in touch with Houston Unites and find something you can do to help protect HERO in November. PDiddie has more.

UPDATE: The Press and Lisa Falkenberg add on.

Paxton asks to be excused from contempt hearing

He promises he’s been a good boy, so can he please come out of time out now?

Best mugshot ever

Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office says he shouldn’t face a contempt hearing for failing to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage ruling, and no longer needs judicial supervision to ensure he’s doing so.

In an advisory submitted on Monday’s deadline, the AG’s office assured U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia that state officials have implemented new policies for issuing birth and death certificates to same-sex couples, and are processing all pending applications.

[…]

In Monday’s filing, assistant solicitor general Michael Murphy argued the hearing is no longer necessary, and objected to “the unprecedented threat of contempt” in the first place. Quoting Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, Murphy suggested officials simply needed time to adapt after the high court “unsettled … a ‘millennia’-old definition of marriage.”

“Because the state is in full compliance with Obergefell and this court’s injunction and has granted the relief the intervenor sought, the State Defendants believe there is no need for the Court’s scheduled Sept. 10, 2015 contempt hearing or any continued Court supervision of the Department,” Murphy wrote.

Representatives from the AG’s office couldn’t immediately be reached for further comment.

Ken Upton Jr., senior counsel for the LGBT civil rights group Lambda Legal, said Tuesday he feels the threat of contempt was “a proportionate response to the unprecedented level of arrogance, impudence and non-compliance” with the marriage ruling on the part of state officials.

Upton added that while officials were adapting, the gay widower who sought an accurate death certificate, John Stone-Hoskins, was dying himself, and hundreds of same-sex couples were forced to go without accurate birth certificates.

“What they needed was the threat of going to jail and a good civics lesson in how our system works,” Upton said.

See here and here for the background. I don’t think there’s anything I can add to what Ken Upton said. I agree with him 100% – if Paxton hadn’t dragged his feet and just generally done everything he could to deny the reality of Obergfell, then maybe you could argue that a contempt hearing was a bit much. In this case, it was completely fitting and deserved, and it had the desired effect. Next time do your job without having to be coerced and you won’t have these problems.

Paxton will not be able to avoid a different court hearing, however.

Ken Paxton will have to appear in court this week, after the judge handling his securities fraud case denied the attorney general’s request to skip the hearing and send his lawyer instead.

Presiding Judge George Gallagher of Tarrant County on Monday denied Paxton’s request to forgo his Thursday arraignment. According to court filings, Paxton will plead not guilty that day to two first-degree felony charges and one third-degree felony charge of violating state securities laws.

“This is the judge’s decision. Attorney General Paxton has no problem with it and neither do I,” Paxton’s attorney Joe Kendall told the Chronicle on Monday.

OK then. Let’s get this show on the road.

91.7 FM will be sold again

The radio station formerly known as KTRU will have another new home soon.

Houston Public Media, which operates the University of Houston’s broadcasting properties, says it will sell the frequency and transmitter for KUHA (91.7 FM) while retaining the station’s classical music format via online streaming and an HD Radio subchannel of KUHF (88.7 FM).

The university paid $9.5 million in 2010 to purchase 91.7 FM from Rice University, which operated the station as KTRU. It was relaunched as UH’s third broadcasting property along with KUHF, its news and National Public Radio outlet, and KUHT (Channel 8).

Lisa Shumate, general manager of Houston Public Media, said the decision to sell, which was approved by UH regents Thursday, reflected the organization’s need to focus on “the best piece of technology and the best use of donor funds.”

“We are already in HD and are streaming (with the classical music format),” Shumate said.

“Why would you pay for another transmitter and tower when if you take the time you can tell the public how they can get better sound using (HD Radio) at 88.7?”

See here for the KTRU story. I’m not going to relitigate any of that, but I suppose one could argue that if the frequency and transmitter no longer count as “the best piece of technology” out there because of HD radio, then Rice sold at the right time and probably got a pretty good price. That doesn’t address how the sale went down or any of the other issues around it, so I doubt that will make any KTRU backer any happier, but it’s something. KUHF, which had the story first, has more.

Interview with Amanda Edwards

Amanda Edwards

Amanda Edwards

We continue in At Large #4, where multiple candidates compete to succeed the term-limited Council Member C. O. Bradford. Today’s interview is with Amanda Edwards, a native Houstonian and Eisenhower High graduate now practicing law with Bracewell & Giuliani. Edwards worked in community development corporations as a Community Building and Social Change Fellow and in the Georgia State Legislature while at Emory University, and served as a Criminal Justice Institute student attorney at Harvard Law School. She relocated to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and served as a law clerk for a federal district court judge, and more recently returned to Houston where she serves on numerous boards and committees. As you can imagine, we had a lot to talk about:

(Note: This interview took place before the Supreme Court ruling that required a repeal or referendum on HERO.)

You can see all of my interviews as well as finance reports and other information on candidates on my 2015 Election page.

Your official slate of candidates

Yesterday was the filing deadline. Here’s the official list of candidates, modulo any challenges or subsequently invalidated applications. The highlights:

– There are thirteen candidates for Mayor. The City Secretary might consider starting the ballot order draw now, this may take awhile.

– Dwight Boykins in D, Dave Martin in E, and Larry Green in K are the only incumbents not to draw opponents. No new contenders emerged in G or H.

– Kendall Baker became the third candidate in District F. Here’s a reminder about who he is.

– Former HCC Trustee Herlinda Garcia filed against CM Robert Gallegos in I. She was appointed to the HCC board in 2013 to fill Mary Ann Perez’s seat after having served before, and was supported in the 2013 runoff by Dave Wilson.

– Frequent commenter Manuel Barrera filed in District J, joining Jim Bigham and some other dude against CM Mike Laster. You can search for his name in the archives here. I think we have our 2015 vintage “straight slate”.

– Former District A candidate Mike Knox is in for At Large #1, and performance artist Eric Dick has graced us with his presence in At Large #2. Again, “straight slate”.

– I am disappointed but not terribly surprised to see that Durrel Douglas did not file in At Large #5. He hadn’t filed a July finance report, and as far as I could tell had not screened for endorsements. I know he’s been spending a lot of time in Waller County and working with the Houston Justice Coalition on the Sandra Bland case. Sometimes the time isn’t right.

– Former District F Council Member and 2009 Controller candidate MJ Khan filed for Controller. Not sure what’s up with that, but I’m guessing Bill Frazer isn’t thrilled by it.

– Here’s the Chron story, which includes the HISD candidates. The main point of interest there is former Trustee Diana Davila running for her old seat in District 8, against Trustee Juliet Stipeche.

That’s all I know for now. I’ll be updating the 2015 Election page over the next couple of days to get all the changes in. We’ll see if anything else shakes out. What are your impressions of the candidate list?

Poll suggests Republicans don’t support Paxton

That’s gotta sting.

Best mugshot ever

A poll of likely Republican voters in Texas found that 62 percent believe Attorney General Ken Paxton should resign in the wake of his indictment on alleged securities-law violations, the group that commissioned it said.

The poll of 976 likely Republican voters was conducted on Aug. 15 by Florida-based Gravis Marketing for the Texas Bipartisan Justice Committee.

The East Texas-based group supports candidates it deems conservative for appellate judicial races, some district court races, governor and attorney general, with its picks generally being Republican.

Its treasurer is John Coppedge of Longview, who backed Dan Branch over Paxton in last year’s race for attorney general and voiced concern then over the securities-law issue.

In the poll, 78 percent of Republicans were aware of Paxton’s recent felony indictment, and 62 percent said he should resign.

Brutal, but only one poll. The pollster in question is the same one that proclaimed Donald Trump was leading the GOP pack in Texas; this is from that same sample, as far as I can tell. I don’t know what their overall track record is, but it’s still just one poll, so let’s not get too excited about it. I continue to believe that as long as Paxton has his sugar daddy in his corner, he isn’t going anywhere until he’s either carted off in handcuffs or sent home by the voters. Hell, the Republican establishment is still standing with him. I have no idea why anyone thinks he’s going anywhere. We’ll have him to kick around for the foreseeable future. BurkaBlog and Trail Blazers have more.

Idiots protest at school

Jeez.

The kindergarten and pre-K students experienced an early civics lesson Monday morning when they entered Houston Independent School District’s new Arabic Immersion Magnet School for the first day of class.

At least a dozen protestors, some wearing red, white and blue, stood along the fenced perimeter of the campus, just north of the Heights neighborhood, and waved American and Israeli flags. They alleged the public school – one of the first of its kind in the United States, where students will learn in Arabic and English – was promoting radical Islam and rejecting assimilation into American culture.

The demonstration rattled parents on what was already a nerve-wracking day, but with four police officers monitoring the campus, the protestors dwindled after about two hours without incident. HISD leaders continued their inaugural festivities as planned.

“Houston is the energy capital of the world,” Superintendent Terry Grier said during a media tour of the newly renovated campus at 28th St. and Shepherd.

“We need to have graduates who can communicate with people all over the world.”

Grier, who made his first public appearance since having knee surgery three weeks ago, has pushed an expansion of dual-language programs in the nation’s seventh-largest school district. HISD opened a Mandarin immersion school in 2012 without controversy, and now has more than 50 Spanish dual-language campuses. Grier has said he wants to open a Hindi school, and discussions about a French program have taken place.

No citizens protested at the HISD board meeting in November when trustees unanimously approved the Arabic school, but about a dozen critics addressed the board in May and have taken to the Internet to complain.

I got nothing. Go read Jef Rouner, he speaks for me. And if you have the inclination and read this in time, there will be a “demonstration of love and welcome at the school this morning. See that link for what it’s about, and here for more.

Interview with Jonathan Hansen

Jonathan Hansen

Jonathan Hansen

We move on to At Large #4, the other open At Large seat on the ballot this year, currently held by Council Member C. O. Bradford. I have four candidate interviews for this race, and we begin with Jonathan Hansen. Hansen grew up in the newspaper industry, as his family owned three small rural newspapers, eventually selling them off to a larger company. He went from there to teaching economics, having earned a BBA in finance from UT-Austin. Hansen is also a coach and participating athlete with US Masters Swimming. Here’s what we talked about:

(Note: This interview took place before the Supreme Court ruling that required a repeal or referendum on HERO.)

You can see all of my interviews as well as finance reports and other information on candidates on my 2015 Election page.

Chron Mayoral profile: Chris Bell

It’s “the first in a series of profiles on the top candidates running for mayor in Houston”.

Chris Bell

Chris Bell

Friends and colleagues said it’s [Chris] Bell’s belief in good government and that streak of political ambition, even in the face of sometimes daunting odds, that have fueled his 10 runs for various local, state and Congressional offices. And so, despite a seven-year break from the political circuit, it came as little surprise when Bell was the first candidate to publicly announce his campaign for mayor, an office he ran for in 2001 but lost to Lee Brown, who bested Republican Orlando Sanchez in the runoff.

In this year’s crowded race for term-limited Annise Parker’s seat, Bell’s first campaign finance report this summer put him behind other major mayoral contenders, which political scientists said didn’t rule him out but would make his path to City Hall tougher. Bell and his team said they aren’t concerned, pointing to his name ID in Houston and a record of showing well at forums and debates thanks to his ease with public speaking.

Bell’s campaign is centered around a promise to “modernize” Houston. He’s focused on mobility issues, pledging to synchronize traffic lights and build 200 miles of sidewalks in his first term as well as education, proposing to work with school districts and use library space for classrooms. Bell has also billed his experience at the local and national level as a boon to the city, dismissing suggestions that his recent campaign losses will be a vulnerability – he’s lost three races in a row.

Bell, 55, has been ambitious in picking races, often seeking election in districts that skew Republican or, as a young lawyer, running as a relative unknown. Bell has also drawn some criticism from colleagues for being quick to go on the offensive and deploying a sharp wit that doesn’t always translate well with constituents.

At his campaign launch on a blustery January day at Sam Houston Park, Bell was careful to fend off perceived attacks from opponents about his election record; “if it’s necessary, I’ll talk about the races they’ve run and lost” he said.

Brett Shipp, a friend of Bell’s since high school in Dallas’ swanky Highland Park neighborhood, said Bell has been running for office ever since there was an office to run for, “a perpetual candidate for student council.”

“He was like this Bruce Springsteen – born to run,” said Shipp, now a broadcast reporter in Dallas. “I think it’s this innate leadership quality that he knows is part of his DNA. And he’s always been kind of a political junkie, a political savant, and he loves politics, and it really kind of fuels his fire.”

Bell grew up in what he said was a middle-class household. His high school was attended almost exclusively by white students, something that became more jarring to Bell when he left for the University of Texas in Austin. It’s there that Bell, who headed the Interfraternity Council and pushed to form a student government, began to truly shift across the political spectrum away from his conservative upbringing.

“I’ve talked about this campaign more than I really probably ever have because I think I’ve sort of reached a comfort level,” Bell said. “When you grow up in a middle-class home in one of the wealthiest areas in the entire state it’s obviously going to have an impact on you. I think it gives you sort of a sense of unfairness in certain instances and kind of more of a desire to stand up for folks who may not be as well connected or as powerful.”

Read the whole thing, it’s a good profile. I’ve known Bell for ten years, and known of him for ten more before that, so there’s not really anything new here for me, but if you don’t know Bel that well, this is a good introduction. I look forward to seeing the other six articles (I’m assuming they’re including Marty McVey in the “top candidates” list) in the series. I hope there will be an equivalent series of articles that go into as much depth about what the candidates would do as Mayor as well.

DOJ asks to get voter ID remedy ASAP

I concur.

Still the only voter ID anyone should need

Still the only voter ID anyone should need

The Obama administration and several civil rights groups are urging a federal appeals court to fast track the process of temporarily fixing Texas’ voter ID law in time for the upcoming Nov. 3 elections.

In court filings Thursday, the Justice Department and civil rights groups asked the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to allow a lower court to start getting to work immediately on an interim remedy to the law passed in 2011 by the state’s Republican-led Legislature.

[…]

The 5th Circuit bounced a portion of the case back to a federal court in Corpus Christi and instructed it to correct the law ahead of the upcoming election while the rest of the case works through the courts. The 5th Circuit noted the lower court should craft a remedy that would “avoid election eve uncertainties and emergencies.”

However, the 5th Circuit is set to retain jurisdiction of the case until Sept. 28.

DOJ and the civil rights groups argue that timeline might not allow for an interim solution to be put in place across the state for early voting, which starts on Oct. 19. They’ve asked the 5th Circuit to allow the federal court in Corpus Christi to come up with a fix earlier.

“The timely entry of interim relief mitigates SB14’s discriminatory result while also minimizing any voter confusion or disruption to upcoming election-day preparations, including poll-worker training and the issuance of election-related information, materials, and notices,” DOJ wrote, referring to the voter ID law by the bill number it was assigned in the 2011 Legislature, Senate Bill 14.

See here for the background. The AG’s office, of course, opposes this, and they have until August 28 to file a response. One possible remedy, at least for now, is to allow voter registration cards to be used as voter ID cards, as was done before this stupid law was passed. The plaintiffs say they are open to that as one option from the menu, though they would like to consider a broader range of choices as well. It sure would be nice to have something in place to address this for this year, especially since we were denied that by the same Fifth Circuit last year.