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September, 2021:

Quinnipiac: Everyone is under water

Sep 30th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
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Not a great poll for anyone.

As Governor Greg Abbott faces reelection in 2022, a slight majority of voters say 51 – 42 percent that he does not deserve to be reelected, according to a Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pea-ack) University poll of Texas registered voters released today. In June 2021, voters were split, as 48 percent said he did not deserve to be reelected and 46 percent said he did.

Today, Governor Abbott receives a divided 44 – 47 percent job approval rating, marking the first time Abbott’s score is underwater since Quinnipiac University began polling in Texas in April 2018. In today’s poll, Republicans approve 83 – 12 percent, independents are divided with 43 percent approving and 47 percent disapproving, and Democrats disapprove 89 – 6 percent.

Texas voters say 50 – 33 percent that they do not think Beto O’Rourke would make a good governor, while 17 percent did not offer an opinion. Voters say 49 – 25 percent that they do not think Matthew McConaughey would make a good governor, while 26 percent did not offer an opinion.

Voters were asked about Abbott’s handling of four separate issues, and he received one positive score out of the four.

  • Handling the economy: 53 percent approve, while 39 percent disapprove;
  • Handling the situation at the Mexican border: 43 percent approve, while 46 percent disapprove;
  • Handling the response to the coronavirus: 46 percent approve, while 50 percent disapprove;
  • Handling the issue of abortion: 37 percent approve, while 53 percent disapprove.

Voters are split on whether Abbott is taking Texas in the right or wrong direction, as 48 percent say that Abbott is taking Texas in the wrong direction and 45 percent say in the right direction.

Voters were also asked if they thought Greg Abbott would make a good president. Two-thirds (67 percent) said no, while 24 percent said yes.

Voters in Texas give President Joe Biden a negative 32 – 61 percent job approval rating. This marks a 24- point net change from June 2021, when 45 percent of Texas voters approved of the job he was doing and 50 percent disapproved.

On Biden’s handling of the response to the coronavirus, voters give him a slightly negative 44 – 49 percent approval rating. This is a substantial drop from June 2021 when they approved 58 – 37 percent.

On Biden’s handling of the situation at the Mexican border, voters give him a negative 20 – 71 percent approval rating, which is a drop compared to a negative 29 – 64 percent rating in June 2021.

All that is from the Quinnipiac press release, which contains poll data as well. Their June results are here.

The negative trend in Abbott’s approval numbers has been seen in every other recent poll, with the UT-Tyler/DMN poll being the most recent example. As with the other polls, this is the worst position Abbott has ever found himself in, in many cases the first time he’s had a negative rating. I have no idea if this will persist – all of the usual cliches about what constitutes a long time in politics apply here – but it’s been quite interesting to see. As I’ve noted before, this is mostly about Democrats shedding any positive feeling they ever had about Abbott, with independents largely being sour on him as well. Whatever crossover appeal Abbott once had – and past election results say he had it – it’s not showing up in these numbers.

As for Biden, we don’t have nearly as much recent approval data on him as we do for Abbott. That UTT/DMN poll showed a decline in his rating, as one would expect given the nation numbers, but it was not nearly as bad as this – they had him at 42/50, which I thought was pretty decent all things considered. The UT-Texas Policy Project had him at 40/51 in August, but that may be old enough as to be out of date. We’ll have to wait and see what other pollsters say. My feeling is that the Q-pac number is a bit of a negative outlier, but we’ll need to see the data to know.

As for Beto and McConaughey, the only numbers for them – really, for Beto – that I want to see are head-to-head numbers with Abbott. It continues to mystify me that a pollster like Quinnipiac would ask a fuzzy question like this one without also doing a straight up poll of the race. I do not understand the reasoning behind that.

One more thing, which stood out quite a bit for me in the crosstabs: There’s a huge gender gap, for Abbott and the Republicans in general. Look at these approval numbers:


Candidate  With men  With women
===============================
Abbott        49-39       39-54
The Lege      43-46       34-54
Cruz          54-38       40-55
Cornyn        42-35       30-46
Biden         26-68       38-55
Trump         48-42       39-53
Beto          25-61       41-39

On the abortion issue specifically, Abbott is at 44-45 for men, 31-60 for women, easily the most negative response he got on any of the individual issues they asked about. Biden and Beto (this was for the “would make a good Governor” question) do better with women, but the dichotomy with the Republicans (including the Lege) is just striking to me.

I should note that there were similar gaps in the June poll. Indeed, it was even more apparent in Abbott’s numbers then, mostly because men were more strongly in favor of Abbott then – he was at a very robust 58-35 with men in June, and at 39-56 with women, a tiny bit lower than in September. His “deserves re-election” numbers went from 54/40 for men and 39/56 for women in June to 49/43 and 36/57 in September. Maybe the men are catching up to the women, and maybe this is evidence that the dip is temporary. Either way, the numbers strongly suggest what a 2022 electoral strategy might look like. I’ll keep an eye on this as we start to get more numbers.

A little sandbagging from the SOS on the fraudit

Sep 30th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
4 comments

Who’s running this show?

In the five days since the Texas secretary of state’s office announced it is auditing the 2020 general election in four counties, local officials indicated they were in the dark about what the reviews would entail.

Now, they’ve learned they cover some of the standard post-election procedures local officials are already required to undertake.

On Tuesday night, the state agency that oversees elections offered the first glimpse of what it has dubbed a “full forensic audit” of the election in Harris, Dallas, Tarrant and Collin counties, but it appears the scope of the effort may be more limited than what the term may suggest. The secretary of state’s documentation explaining the parameters of the reviews notes the first phase includes partial manual counts of ballots and security assessments, which all counties are already required to undergo.

The second phase, which is slated for “spring 2022,” will be an examination of election records “to ensure election administration procedures were properly followed.” That includes reviews of records of voting machine accuracy tests, rosters for early voting, forms detailing chain of custody for sealed ballot boxes and other election materials maintained by the counties.

But the secretary of state also indicates it will review records that counties already provide to the office, including the “reasonable impediment declarations” filled out by voters who indicate they lack one of the photo IDs the state requires voters to present to cast a ballot.

[…]

Officials in Harris County on Tuesday morning indicated they remained unaware of what the audits would cover despite comments by Abbott that the reviews “actually began months ago.” Now, it appears the governor was, at least in part, referring to processes counties are separately required by law to complete.

For example, the partial manual counts of ballots listed under the first phase of the reviews must be conducted within 72 hours of polls closing after every single election.

The reviews also provoked criticism that invoked the politically driven election review in Arizona that has been mired by ineptitude and described by the Arizona secretary of state as an exercise plagued by “problematic practices, changing policies, and security threats.” The report of the Arizona review, which confirmed President Joe Biden won the state, was compiled by Cyber Ninjas, a contractor that received $5.7 million from pro-Trump groups to fund the audit.

In releasing the details about the reviews, a spokesman for the secretary of state emphasized the office would not be “hiring or contracting with an outside firm to conduct these audits.”

See here and here for the background. I guess it’s good that we’re not throwing millions of dollars at a bunch of pro-Trump grifters who will come in and do a lot of damage, but the word for all this is still “pathetic”. If the purpose was to take these existing actions and package them as a true fraudit, so as to appease their god-king, it didn’t work.

Gov. Greg Abbott is failing to appease some inside his party — including former President Donald Trump — with the “forensic election audit” that the state announced Thursday.

Trump released a letter to Abbott on Thursday urging him to add audit legislation, which could allow a review of mail-in and in-person ballots across the state, to the agenda for the current special session agenda. Instead, the secretary of state’s office announced later that day that it was already starting to audit the 2020 election results in four of the state’s biggest counties.

In a new statement to The Texas Tribune on Wednesday, Trump said it is “a big mistake for Texas” not to pass the audit legislation, House Bill 16 by Rep. Steve Toth, R-The Woodlands.

“By allowing the Democrats to do what they do, it will make it much harder for the Governor and other Republicans to win election in 2022 and into the future,” Trump said. “Texas is a much redder state than anyone knows, but this is the way to make sure it turns blue.”

Trump assumes, with quite a bit of justification, that he can get Abbott to roll over and supplicate himself further. There’s only one reasonable response to this.

A resolution from Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo denouncing the election audits for 2020 election results in four large Texas counties passed Tuesday night 3 to 2, with Democrats in favor and Republicans against.

Hidalgo has called the audit, which centers on Harris, Dallas, Tarrant and Collin counties, a “sham” and a political maneuver to fuel conspiracy theorists who keep pushing the false narrative that Donald Trump won the 2020 election.

[…]

Harris County Commissioner Tom Ramsey was one of the two Republicans who voted against the resolution Tuesday night, arguing “transparency is not a bad thing.”

A few days prior to the resolution, Hidalgo warned continuing the conversation around election results “lends some credence” to conspiracy theories that fraud exists.

“These are the kinds of folks that stormed the capital. They are not going to be persuaded that their conspiracy theories are false,” Hidalgo said in a Sunday Twitter video. “It can’t be that the strategy of one party is to burn it all to the ground when their candidate doesn’t win. That’s how you tear down a country, that’s how you tear down a democracy.”

Lina Hidalgo is a strong and competent leader. Greg Abbott is not. And Tom Ramsey is as much a disgrace as Abbott is. Draw him out of his undeserved position, y’all.

Matthew Dowd has entered the Dem primary for Lite Guv

Sep 30th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

We have another contested primary for Dems.

Matthew Dowd

Matthew Dowd, the chief strategist for George W. Bush’s presidential reelection campaign who later split with the former president publicly, is running for lieutenant governor as a Democrat.

Dowd also has worked for Bob Bullock, who in 1994 was the last Democrat elected as Texas lieutenant governor, and faces an uphill battle to unseat Republican Dan Patrick, the state’s second-highest-ranking official who has steered Texas politics into the far-right fringes of the GOP.

In a two-and-a-half minute campaign announcement video, Dowd said GOP politicians have failed the state, zeroing in on Patrick, who he called “cruel and craven” and denounced as a divisive figure who puts his political ambitions over the needs of everyday Texans.

“Enough is enough. We need more officials who tell the truth, who believe in public services, in common sense with common decency for the common good. … We need to expect more from our politicians,” Dowd says in the ad. “Dan Patrick believes in none of those and that is why I am running for the powerful office of lieutenant governor of this great state.”

In an interview with The Texas Tribune, Dowd said he started seriously considering running for office after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump who were trying to stop the certification of last year’s presidential election. But it wasn’t until after the state’s legislative session that Dowd really focused on Patrick as his target.

“Watching the legislative session and how horrendous it was — not only what the lieutenant governor didn’t do, but also what he did do,” Dowd said. “This summer, I started thinking maybe I should run and remove this guy so I don’t have to be embarrassed about our own state.”

[…]

Dowd said he doesn’t think he’ll match Patrick in the fundraising race, but he expects to have enough to run a competitive race.

Before he can get to Patrick in November, he’ll have to face other Democratic candidates in a March primary. So far, Mike Collier, the Democrat who came within 400,000 votes of unseating Patrick in 2018, has formed an exploratory committee and has been barnstorming across the state. One of his main issues is “fixing the damn grid” and he is expected to formally announce his campaign soon.

In a statement following Dowd’s announcement, Collier’s deputy campaign manager blasted Dowd for his previous work for Republicans.

“We welcome Matthew Dowd back to the Democratic Party,” Ali S. Zaidi said in a statement. “Mr. Dowd — you may notice things have changed a lot since you were working for Republicans. Democratic voters will be interested to hear how selling a false war, ensuring the deciding Supreme Court vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, and leading the charge to pass numerous anti-marriage equality ballot measures have shaped your current views.”

Dowd said he knew Collier was exploring a run but it did not factor in to his decision to jump into the race.

He said he would not attack Collier or any other Democrat that gets in the race. Instead, he’ll focus on showing Texans why Patrick is out of touch with their values.

“From Day One, I’m gonna take this to Dan Patrick and that’s gonna continue for 405 days,” he said, referring to the number of days until next year’s general elections. “I’m gonna be unrelenting in telling the truth in showing how Dan Patrick has hurt Texans and hurt this state.”

Dowd has talked about this race before, so now he has followed through. I guess it’s a little premature to say we have a contested primary as Mike Collier is not yet official, but he’s been at least as an active a campaign presence as anyone out there, so I will be surprised if he doesn’t join in. At a high level, the two are pretty similar, though Dowd does indeed have his Bushian past to deal with. What I want at this point is for their race to generate some news and interest, to remind people of all the ways in which Dan Patrick is terrible, because on that point the two of them are very much in agreement. The Chron has more.

Texas blog roundup for the week of September 27

Sep 30th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

The Texas Progressive Alliance did not consult with Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s friend in the making of this week’s roundup.

(more…)

How the “heartbeat” lawsuits may proceed

Sep 30th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
3 comments

The recent “Amicus” podcast from Slate had a bonus segment on the many lawsuits that have been filed in relation to and challenge to SB8, the so-called “heartbeat” bill. For all the normal people out there who don’t follow this sort of thing obsessively, here’s their guide to keeping track of them all.

Dahlia Lithwick: I think the question you and I have probably received the most in the last two weeks is: “How do I even watch SB 8 unfold?” I think there was a collective sigh when Dr. Alan Braid admitted in the pages of the Washington Post that he had in fact performed an illegal—under SB 8—termination of a pregnancy, inviting litigation. Two helpful litigants, both out of state, came forward to sue him.

I think there are a lot of lanes here and folks are confused about timing. So let’s walk through it:

-We’ve still got the ongoing challenge by the providers that the Supreme Court refused to enjoin. That’s going to be heard in December at the Fifth Circuit.

-We have the Biden Administration—the Justice Department has brought a suit that has not resulted in immediate injunction. That is to be heard next week.

-We have a new suit, filed Thursday night by the same group of providers who filed the Fifth Circuit case, saying they’re seeking this extraordinary relief, a petition for cert before judgment.

-We have these two civil suits against Dr. Braid.

-And then after all, we have Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

Mark, can you please draw a map of the world of SB8 and what is going to happen first, if you can, and what, if anything, is going to happen before Dobbs?

Mark Joseph Stern: Sure. So let’s start with the state lawsuits. Two different out-of-state lawyers have filed suits in Texas state court against Dr. Alan Braid, who wrote a piece in the Washington Post acknowledging that he performed an abortion after six weeks in Texas in violation of SB8. Those cases are now going to be litigated in Texas state courts, and the doctor is going to raise as a defense, among other things, the fact that Roe v. Wade is still the law of the land. And so it is just not constitutionally permissible for him to be punished for performing an abortion that is legal under binding Supreme Court precedent.

Let’s assume that both of these state courts are on the level and are going to acknowledge Roe as binding precedent. In that case, they will presumably throw out the lawsuits, but that doesn’t mean that SB 8 is over or that it’s enjoined. Because the way this law is written, it’s essentially impossible for any Texas state court to block it across the state. It has to be litigated in each individual case. And so no matter the outcome of these particular Texas lawsuits, SB 8 will still be in effect.

This particular doctor may be off the hook because he’ll raise the constitutional right to an abortion as a defense, but everybody else in Texas will still be under the thumb of SB8. It will continue to work its way through the Texas court system, probably very slowly.

Then we have the Justice Department lawsuit. The Justice Department lawsuit, I think, is one of the stronger suits we’ve seen, because the Justice Department representing the United States can sue Texas directly. It can say “We are filing suit against the state of Texas, including all of its agents,” which would presumably encompass anyone who sued under SB8. That’s something a private plaintiff can’t do. Only the United States gets to sue an individual state because the Supreme Court has said sovereign immunity is not a problem in this context. And so that case is currently sitting before a federal judge in Texas, and that judge will soon hold a hearing on whether or not to issue a preliminary injunction blocking SB 8 throughout the entire state of Texas by issuing a decision directly against Texas. But we have to sit on our hands and wait for that because the federal judge is not rushing it. The Justice Department asked him to rush it, but he said, ‘No, I’m going to take my time on this.” And so we’re all waiting for early October, when that case will move forward.

Then we have the petition before the Supreme Court, which is really part of the same case that we all freaked out about in early September. This is the same lawsuit that was filed against state court judges and clerks in Texas. That was the first bite at the apple, the first effort by abortion providers to block SB8. As you recall, they went to a federal judge, the same judge who’s hearing the DOJ suit, and they said, “Please block this law.” The Fifth Circuit swooped in before the judge could do anything and prevented him from doing anything. The providers went to the Supreme Court and by a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court threw up its hands and said, “We can’t do anything later.” A couple weeks later, the Fifth Circuit issued a decision saying, “Well, we really think you sued the wrong people. We don’t think that you can sue state judges and state court clerks. And so we are going to hold onto this case and will decide this question formally in a couple of months.”

So now, the providers have gone back up to the Supreme Court and said, “Look, we get that you ruled against us last time and we’re not asking for ruling on the merits. We’re not asking you to issue a shadow docket decision just saying up-or-down vote, whether SB8 can be blocked and should be blocked. All we’re saying, all we’re asking is for you to say that we sued the right people, that some of the folks we sued can be sued, and thus bring this case back down to the original federal judge who was hearing it in the first place and clear away all of these obstacles so that he can decide on the merits, whether to issue an injunction.”

That’s the lay of the land for SB8 and all the while, we’ve got Dobbs in the background, which is a completely different case, not directly related to the Texas case at all. That’s a challenge to Mississippi’s 15 week abortion ban. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in that case on Dec. 1 and probably issue a decision in June of 2022.

Couple of things. In re: the courts that will hear the two lawsuits against Dr. Braid, both lawsuits were filed in Bexar County. One is known to have been assigned to a Democratic judge, the other filing didn’t have a court assigned to it at the time of my posting. I don’t feel like checking the partisan label on every Bexar County civil district court judge, but I can say confidently that the odds are that judge is also a Democrat. They still have to follow the law, of course, but if Dr. Braid’s defense is “this law is unconstitutional and cannot be enforced” as we expect, they can make that ruling. They may be limited in how much of SB8 can be struck down, however, based on the way the law was written and a related case currently before SCOTx, as noted in the comments to that post. Someone more versed in civil procedure than I will have to explain what happens from there if that is the result in at least one of these cases. As a reminder, both of the plaintiffs have expressed some level of opposition to SB8.

There are also the various state court lawsuits against specific parties, in which groups like Planned Parenthood have sought (and so far gotten) temporary restraining orders preventing those parties from filing SB8 lawsuits. These actions are very limited in scope and will not affect the long-term future of SB8, they will just potentially create some obstacles to the lawsuits against the people that SB8 targets.

As noted later, the Fifth Circuit will get another chance to stick its nose in once Judge Pitman makes a ruling in the Justice Department lawsuit. I think we can all take a guess as to why they might do. That’s down the line, and we have plenty to occupy ourselves with until then. Hope this clarifies things. You can listen to that episode of “Amicus” at the link above, but you need to be a Slate Plus member to hear this segment.

Interview with Dwight Jefferson

Sep 29th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

Dwight Jefferson

Back again to District VII and a visit with Dwight Jefferson, whom we met in 2015 when he ran for Houston City Controller. Jefferson is a graduate of UT Law School after having been co-captain of the football team as an undergrad. He’s a former District Court judge and Metro trustee, he has served on the HISD H.E.A.R Committee and as Chair of the American Diabetes Association, Houston Chapter, and lobbied the Legislature on behalf of HISD during the 2019 session. We had a lot to talk about.

PREVIOUSLY:

Sue Deigaard, District V
Anne Sung, District VII
Elizabeth Santos, District I
Janette Garza Lindner, District I
Matias Kopinsky, District I
Bridget Wade, District VII
Maria Benzon, District V

Initial Senate and SBOE maps approved by committee

Sep 29th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

Still a lot of changes likely to come.

A panel of lawmakers on Tuesday advanced draft maps of the Texas Senate and State Board of Education, sending both to the full upper chamber for further debate.

The maps, both authored by state Sen. Joan Huffman, a Houston Republican who leads the Senate Special Redistricting Committee, will likely see further changes before the Legislature sends them to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk for the signature. The initial drafts of both maps have so far attempted to strengthen Republican majorities by protecting incumbents and creating more GOP-friendly districts.

Senate Bill 4, the draft of the Senate’s 31 district map, was tweaked by lawmakers before the chamber’s redistricting committee approved it along a 12-2 vote.

One of the more notable changes, offered in amendments by Huffman, involved Senate District 10, which is represented by state Sen. Beverly Powell, D-Burleson. In the latest draft, the district — which is currently contained in Tarrant County and voted for President Joe Biden during the 2020 general election — was redrawn to include parts of the more conservative Parker and Johnson counties as well as other GOP-leaning surrounding areas in the state. The Senate’s first draft would have included parts of Tarrant County along with Parker and Johnson counties.

After that first draft was released, Powell argued that the proposed map would be “a direct assault on the voting rights of minority citizens in Senate District 10 and, if adopted, it would be an act of intentional discrimination.” At the time, Powell said the latest census data showed that her district’s population was already “nearly ideal” — but on Tuesday, Huffman said that neighboring districts had to also be accounted for before emphasizing that her proposals had been “drafted blind to racial data.”

Another change before Tuesday’s vote involved Senate Districts 22 and 23, which are represented by state Sens. Brian Birdwell, R-Granbury, and Royce West, D-Dallas, respectively. The amendment, authored by West but laid out by state Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, would swap several precincts between the two districts, including some in Tarrant County from Senate District 22 to 23. Zaffirini said the move would keep both districts within the acceptable population deviation.

See here for the background on the Senate maps. You can see the initial map here and the committee substitute map that was approved here, with more data on the plan here. SD10, which as noted goes from having some of Tarrant plus all of Parker and Johnson to having some of Tarrant, some of Parker, all of Johnson and all of a few smaller counties west of there, is the main difference. As noted, the House still gets to have input – by tradition, each chamber gets first crack at its own map – so expect further changes.

In addition, there may be some complaints from unexpected places.

Montgomery County commissioners urged the Texas Legislature to reconsider the proposed redrawing of state congressional maps that would dilute the county’s conservative representation by adding a third senate district.

County Judge Mark Keough said he traveled to Austin last week to express the county’s “disapproval” of the redistricting plan.

[…]

Currently, Keough explained, Montgomery County has two senate districts. However, the proposed changes would add a third district that would divide Magnolia and extend Harris County districts into Montgomery County.

“We are deeply concerned about this as we move forward,” Keough said.

The story keeps talking about the Congressional map while these MoCo folks are whining about the Senate map; it’s annoying and confusing. The current Senate map has SDs 03 and 04 in Montgomery, while the new maps move SD03 out and move pieces of SDs 07 and 17 in, to bolster those incumbents from the ravages of a bluer Harris County. Their complaints had no effect on the committee, but there’s still time for them to make a case to the rest of the Lege.

Back to the Trib story:

The committee unanimously approved the draft of the State Board of Education map on Tuesday, without amendments. The board is a 15-member, majority Republican body that determines what millions of public school students in the state are taught in classrooms. Nine Republicans and six Democrats currently sit on the board.

The current version of that map did not make any changes to the racial breakdown of the board’s 15 districts — based on eligible voters, Hispanic residents make up a majority in three of those districts, 10 districts with white majorities and two have no majority.

See here for the background on the SBOE map, whose demographic breakdown makes no sense to me, but here we are. Maybe this time it will be part of the inevitable litigation.

More on the fraudit

Sep 29th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

My God, Greg Abbott is a wimp.

Donald Trump’s letter to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott demanding he pursue an “audit” of the 2020 election set off a “mad dash” in the governor’s office as aides sought to figure out just how serious the former president was, according to two sources familiar with the situation.

In the letter, Trump called on Abbott to hold a “Forensic Audit of the 2020 Election” and pass HB 16, a bill recently filed in the Third Special Session of the Texas legislature, which would allow for an Arizona-style “audit” of the presidential election.

“Despite my big win in Texas, I hear Texans want an election audit!” Trump wrote in a public letter addressed to Abbott on Thursday. “Texas needs you to act now. Your Third Special Session is the perfect, and maybe last, opportunity to pass this audit bill. Time is running out.”

Just hours after Trump released the letter, a statement was put out by Sam Taylor, assistant secretary of state for communications, who said the office had “already begun the process” of reviewing 2020 votes in the state’s two largest Democrat and two largest Republican counties: Dallas, Harris, Tarrant and Collin. Trump only won Collin County, and Biden won Dallas, Harris and Tarrant counties in 2020.

During an interview with “Fox News Sunday,” Abbott said that the audits “began months ago”— a statement that echoed the claim made by the office of the secretary of state.

“State audits conducted by the Texas Secretary of State’s office have already been underway for months,” Renae Eze, press secretary for the governor, said in a statement. “Under federal law, county election officials only have to keep these materials for 22 months, and it is imperative that all aspects of elections conducted in 2020 are examined before the counties clear out these materials in September 2022.”

But in reports from both the Texas Tribune and CNN, local officials in counties targeted by the “audit” said they had not learned of the review until Thursday’s statement from the secretary of state’s office.

And behind the scenes, the Texas governor’s office was caught off guard by Trump, whose letter made no mention of “audits” already underway. There had not been contact between Trump and Abbott ahead of the release, and Abbott’s office was uncertain if they could meet Trump’s demands to pass HB16 without complicating the legislative agenda. One Texas political aide familiar with how the process played out said, “The secretary of state‘s decision to call for audits in the four largest counties in Texas was predicated on Trump’s statement mentioning Gov. Abbott.”

“There was a mad dash to determine if Trump was actually being serious with his statement and it was decided this was the best route to take without blowing up the special session,” the aide said.

The scramble among Abbott’s team to placate the president illustrated the degree to which Trump and his election conspiracies continue to set the rules of engagement for virtually all other GOP elected officials.

See here for the background. I wish I had something thoughtful to say, but I don’t. This isn’t really a situation that calls for calm analysis. It requires calling a thing what it is, and that is to say that this is a disgrace and an embarrassment. Greg Abbott is a sniveling coward.

In the meantime, someone owes us some answers about this crap.

The top civil lawyer for Texas’s most populous county issued a records demand seeking information on the origins of Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) so-called “forensic audit” plans, including any communications between the secretary of state’s office and surrogates for former President Donald Trump.

“Governor Abbott and the Secretary of State are telling the public that this ‘audit’ has been going on for months, but this is the first time the County’s heard anything about it,” Harris County Attorney Christian D. Menefee wrote in a statement. “They’re on the news and issuing press releases about this ‘audit’, talking to everyone about it but us.”

“The administration has told us nothing about the purpose of or legal basis for this audit, what they’re requesting, or what the process will be,” Menefee added. “It’s my job to advise the County and the Elections Administrator on how to respond. I can’t do that without this basic information that neither the Governor nor the SOS has shared.”

In his two-page letter, Menefee addresses his records demand to the office of Texas’s Secretary of State, which is currently vacant. Menefee addressed the letter to the general mailbox for that office’s general counsel, requesting 14 categories of information.

Two of those categories relate to the governor’s office: One seeks “[a]ll communications between the SOS office and the Office of the Texas Governor or the Office of the Lieutenant Governor related to a complaint, allegation of fraud or misconduct, request for investigation or review, or question received by the SOS office regarding the November 2020 General Election in Harris County.”

The other demands “[a]ll communications between the SOS office and the Office of the Texas Governor or the Office of the Lieutenant Governor related to the ‘forensic audit’ of the November 2020 General Election in Harris County announced by the SOS on September 23, 2021 (as the SOS office’s announcement explicitly states the department ‘has already begun the process,’ this request also seeks communications dated prior to September 23, 2021).”

You can see the full letter embedded in the story. I fully expect this request to be stonewalled, and for Ken Paxton to slime his way in to defend not turning anything over. But it’s vital that we get as much information about this travesty and the ways in which our government has conspired to try to placate Donald Trump. This is what we elected Christian Menefee for. I have faith he is up to the task.

UPDATE: Hilarious and pathetic at the same time:

Someone who was his own person would be able to articulate what was happening in an accurate way. Someone who is a sock puppet, well. You know.

Trans kids are still fighting for their right to not be dehumanized

Sep 29th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
4 comments

The toll being taken on them, it’s inhumane.

Karen Krajcer and Linzy Foster are two friends familiar with the hallways of the Texas Capitol.

During this year’s regular legislative session and two subsequent special sessions that followed, the two mothers have shown up with a handful of other parents to advocate for their children who have been caught in the crosshairs of a slew of bills that target young transgender Texans.

Now, with the Legislature’s third special session underway, the two friends are enduring another round of visits and demonstrations as legislators again debate a top Republican legislative priority: restricting transgender youth from playing on sports teams that are consistent with their gender identity.

“It just keeps on happening, it’s ridiculous,” Krajcer, a mother to a 9-year-old, said about the amount of bills filed during sessions that have targeted LGBTQ Texans. “This is the fourth round this year. … Why are we still having to do this?”

So far, the Texas Senate has passed a bill limiting transgender participation in youth sports four separate times. The first three times, the bills stalled out and failed. Last week, Senate Bill 3, authored by Lubbock Republican state Sen. Charles Perry, was approved by a 19-12 Senate vote, with all but one Democrat voting no.

It has now moved to the House and on Monday was referred to the House Public Education Committee, where last time state Rep. Harold Dutton, D-Houston, blocked similar legislation from reaching the House floor. During an interview at The Texas Tribune Festival on Friday, House Speaker Dade Phelan said the House would have the votes to pass the legislation should it head to the House floor.

The bill would require student athletes at K-12 public schools to play on sports teams that correspond with the assigned sex listed on their birth certificate as it was issued at or near the time of their birth. The University Interscholastic League, which governs school athletics in Texas, already uses students’ birth certificates to confirm their gender, and also accepts modified birth certificates a student may have had changed to align with their gender identity. SB3 would end that acceptance.

Although the sports bill and other bills targeting transgender youth, such as those that would limit gender-affirming care, have not become law in Texas, LGBTQ advocates and the transgender community have expressed that the simple possibility has already exacted a mental toll on transgender youth. And with a third special session now underway, parents of transgender children have only seen the frustration — and exhaustion — grow among their families.

I find it exhausting – and infuriating – just to write about this stuff. I can’t begin to imagine how hard it must be on these parents and children, who have done nothing to deserve such a sustained assault. I don’t know what happens from here, if we’ll get the good version of Harold Dutton who plays gatekeeper, or if he’s having another fit of pique and lets it get to the floor. Even if it doesn’t get approved this time, there will surely need to be at least one more session to finish off redistricting, and that means one more chance for the likes of Charles Perry and Dan Patrick to use trans kids as punching bags. There’s only one way to make this stop, and we all know what that is.

Interview with Maria Benzon

Sep 28th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

Maria Benzon

We move over to District V today for a conversation with Dr. Maria Benzon. Benzon is a graduate of Booker T. Washington High School who got bachelors and masters degrees at UT and a PhD in Educational Psychology at UH. She has been a math teacher and department chair in HISD and an assistant principal at the Southwest Schools, and has been an education researcher and teacher to teachers at UH and elsewhere. Our interview is below.

(Note: There’s a third candidate in this race, Caroline Walter, who has no online presence that I could see and is an anti-masker, as this report from a recent candidate forum makes clear. I did not try to find her for an interview.)

PREVIOUSLY:

Sue Deigaard, District V
Anne Sung, District VII
Elizabeth Santos, District I
Janette Garza Lindner, District I
Matias Kopinsky, District I
Bridget Wade, District VII

First proposed Congressional map is out

Sep 28th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
9 comments

It’s a thing.

Texas lawmakers on Monday released their first draft of a new congressional map for the next decade that includes two new districts in Austin and Houston — metropolitan areas with diverse populations tht fueled much of the state’s population growth over the past 10 years.

Republicans constructed this map with incumbent protection in mind — a strategy that focused on bolstering Republican seats that Democrats targeted over the last two election cycles rather than aggressively adding new seats that could flip from blue to red. However, the map does in fact strengthen Republican positioning overall, going from 22 to 25 districts that voted for Donald Trump in 2020. The number of districts that voted for Joe Biden would shrink by one, from 14 to 13.

Texas members of the House GOP delegation were closely involved in the drawing process and approved the map last week, according to two sources close to the Texas delegation.

While many incumbents appear safe in these maps, others were drawn into districts that overlap with one another — for example the proposed map pits Houston Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw against Democrat Rep. Sylvia Garcia. It also pits two Houston Democrats — Reps. Al Green and Sheila Jackson Lee — against each other.

The maps were proposed by state Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, who leads the chamber’s redistricting committee.

[…]

Huffman’s first 38-district proposal would widen the gap between the parties, creating 25 districts that voted for Trump in 2020 and 13 that voted for Biden.

The racial makeup of the congressional maps is also expected to change as Texas added two new congressional seats based on last decade’s population growth, which was mostly driven by people of color. Based on eligible voters, the current map includes 22 districts with white majorities, eight with Hispanic majorities, one with a Black majority and five that have no majority. The newly proposed map includes 23 districts with white majorities, seven with Hispanic majorities, none with a Black majority and eight that have no majority.

Available data can be found here. Patrick Svitek has some numbers, which I’ll summarize briefly:

– Of the 14 districts carried by Biden in 2020, 12 were carried by him under this map. The exceptions are Republican-held CD24, which goes from Biden +5 to Trump +12, and Democratic-held CD15, which goes from Biden +2 to Trump +3. That may make CD15 the new CD23, which went from Trump +1 to Trump +7.

– Of the two new districts, CD37 in Travis County is deep, dark blue (Biden +53), while CD38 in Harris County is Trump +18. Let’s just say I don’t think it will remain that red over time.

– Regardless of what the story says, it seems clear to me that Reps. Crenshaw, Green, Jackson Lee, and Garcia would run in and win the same-numbered districts as they have now.

– Reps. Colin Allred and Lizzie Fletcher get much bluer districts. Maybe that makes them vulnerable to primary challenges, I don’t know. Rep. Henry Cuellar in CD28 gets a district that is less favorable for his 2020 primary challenger, Jessica Cisneros.

– Overall I think I agree with Michael Li:

This map uses the same strategy as the Senate and SBOE maps in that it shores up a Harris County incumbent (in this case Crenshaw) by extending his district into Montgomery County, and shores up some other incumbents (see in particular Reps. Williams in CD25 and Carter in CD31) by making their districts more rural. As the meme says, it’s a bold strategy, we’ll see how it works for them.

The Chron focuses on the Harris County piece of this, with the following observation:

A spokesman for Wesley Hunt, a Republican who ran against Fletcher in 2020, said the former Army helicopter pilot would run for the new District 38 seat if lawmakers were to adopt the initial map proposal.

Hunt had previously announced he was running in 2022 but had yet to settle on a district while awaiting the proposed map.

That sound you hear is me rolling my eyes, and yes I am rolling them hard enough for it to be audible. The Texas Signal has more.

I regret to inform you that Dave Wilson will be back on the HCC Board of Trustees

Sep 28th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
14 comments

From Campos:

Commentary was scrolling through the November 2 ballot for races in Harris County. I got to the HCC Trustee races and bam, I saw a Dave Wilson running in District 6. Running unopposed. The district is on the westside. Surely it had to be another Dave Wilson.

I texted my friend, HCC Trustee Adrianna Tamez and she confirmed it was the same Dave Wilson. How does this happen?

Adrianna also said there was a write-in candidate also in that race. It really doesn’t matter.

How does this happen?

You can see the candidates list here. None of the non-incumbents had filed a finance report for July, so they were below the radar. District 6 is currently held by John Hansen, who did not file for re-election. The write-in candidate is Jim Noteware, last seen as the losing plaintiff in a lawsuit over ballot language for the 2017 pension bond referendum. As I understand it, he didn’t fill out his candidate application correctly, and apparently there wasn’t time for him to fix it. You’ve heard me rant about that before, so just assume I did it again.

Noteware did manage to file for status as a write-in candidate, which just simply means that any write-in votes cast for him will be officially counted, as opposed to a write-in vote for “Mickey Mouse” or “Shelley Sekula-Gibbs”. The odds that he can win as a write-in, even against a sack of pestilence like Dave Wilson, are not good. Yes, I know, incumbent Trustee Eva Loredo won as a write-in back in 2009. The difference is that there were no other candidates in the race, so all she needed was literally one vote. (She got 532 votes, including one from me, out of nearly 11K ballots cast in the district.) Wilson will get a bunch of votes for being the only listed candidate. It’s possible that Noteware could beat him, but it would take a massive campaign to inform voters of why not to vote for Wilson as well as why and how to vote for Noteware. That ain’t happening, and so we will be stuck with the repulsive menace that is Dave Wilson for another six years. I’m sorry to have to ruin your Monday like this, but here we are.

PS – Yes, I know, this is a different district than the one Wilson won back in 2013. It’s also different than the one he ran for in 2019, having resigned from the office he held so he could establish residency in the other district. Our residency laws are meaningless, and Wilson doesn’t represent anyone but himself, so what does it matter what district he runs for? One warehouse is as good as the next. It’s all the same to him.

Interview with Bridget Wade

Sep 27th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

Bridget Wade

I ran interviews two weeks ago with incumbent HISD trustees Sue Deigaard and Anne Sung. This week I will be running interviews with three of the candidates who are running against them – my schedule for publishing interviews is necessarily dependent on my ability to get them scheduled. Today we visit the District VII race with Bridget Wade, who came onto my radar in a big way back in July when I noticed her monster fundraising haul. Wade is a native Houstonian and graduate of Briargrove Elementary and Paul Revere Middle Schools. She is a past President of the Briargrove PTO and Episcopal High School trustee, and has served on numerous other boards and committees. Here’s our interview:

PREVIOUSLY:

Sue Deigaard, District V
Anne Sung, District VII
Elizabeth Santos, District I
Janette Garza Lindner, District I
Matias Kopinsky, District I

Abbott and Patrick whine about State Bar complaint against Paxton

Sep 27th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

Poor, poor babies.

Best mugshot ever

The state’s top officials came to the defense of embattled Attorney General Ken Paxton, saying a state bar investigation into his professional conduct is “politically motivated” and raises questions about the state’s separation of powers.

On Friday, Paxton said he had filed an objection to a state bar investigation prompted by his decision to file a lawsuit challenging the results of the 2020 presidential elections in four battleground states. The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the lawsuit saying Texas did not have standing to file it.

Paxton called the state bar investigation “partisan” and said it was “weaponizing” its regulatory power against the attorney general’s office.

[…]

Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, also blasted the investigation into the fellow Republican. Abbott, a former attorney general, said said the issue presented a “threatened intrusion upon executive branch authority.”

“These allegations raise separation-of-powers questions under our Constitution,” Abbott said in a statement. “I am confident that the Supreme Court of Texas, to which the State Bar of Texas is ultimately accountable, will ensure that the judicial branch upholds the law.”

Patrick said the investigation “appears politically motivated.”

“It is clear the Investigatory Panel, stacked with Biden and Democrat donors and activists, has weaponized its state-granted power, intended to protect a fair and just practice of law, to instead launch an attack over political differences,” he said in a statement. “These actions undermine the integrity of the Investigatory Panel and the State Bar of Texas as a whole.”

See here, here, and here for the background. Note that there are two complaints against Paxton, so it’s not clear to me which one is being whined about or responded to. I’m picturing Paxton standing behind Abbott and Patrick, like a little brother who’s gotten in over his head with the neighborhood kids. He’s picked a fight he doesn’t think he can win, so he tries to scare off his antagonists. It’s like an episode of The Little Rascals, if Spanky or Alfalfa had been caught trying to overthrow the government. We live in such dumb times.

SAISD vaccine mandate update

Sep 27th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
6 comments

Still in place for now, but clearly on shaky ground.

Best mugshot ever

San Antonio Independent School District can continue requiring its staff to get vaccinated against COVID-19, despite a judge ruling against the district Thursday in a case filed by the Texas attorney general.

Judge Angelica Jimenez of the 408th District Court denied SAISD’s plea on Thursday that state Attorney General Ken Paxton lacks the legal authority to enforce Gov. Greg Abbott’s Aug. 25 executive order, which banned public entities, such as school districts, from mandating COVID-19 vaccines. Steve Chiscano, the attorney representing SAISD, immediately appealed the ruling.

Appealing Jimenez’s jurisdiction ruling delayed a hearing requested by the state to stop SAISD’s vaccine mandate with a temporary restraining order. The school district and attorney general’s office will make their arguments again before the 4th Court of Appeals. Case information is due at the court Oct. 4, according to online court records. The lawyers will file briefs, and justices will make a decision at an undetermined date.

[…]

In a statement, the district said Jimenez’s ruling does not enforce Abbott’s executive order prohibiting vaccine mandates and that SAISD would continue its vaccine protocols.

“We do not believe the Governor and Attorney General have the legal authority to continue this lawsuit, and we respectfully disagree with the judge’s ruling,” the district said in the statement. “We know that following the executive order and not requiring vaccination of our employees is potentially deadly, and we will do what is necessary to protect the children and staff of the district.”

See here for the previous update. I’ve always thought that the vaccine mandate was a heavier lift than the mask mandates, so I won’t be surprised if Paxton eventually wins this one. But as long as that mandate remains in place, SAISD can move closer to a goal of maximizing the number of its employees who have been vaccinated. No matter the odds, that’s worth fighting for.

Weekend link dump for September 26

Sep 26th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

“Even before the thefts started, the city’s 65,000 delivery workers had tolerated so much: the fluctuating pay, the lengthening routes, the relentless time pressure enforced by mercurial software, the deadly carelessness of drivers, the pouring rain and brutal heat, and the indignity of pissing behind a dumpster because the restaurant that depends on you refuses to let you use its restroom. And every day there were the trivially small items people ordered and the paltry tips they gave — all while calling you a hero and avoiding eye contact.”

“Our analysis of HHS and CDC data indicates there were 32,000 preventable COVID-19 hospitalizations in June, 68,000 preventable COVID-19 hospitalizations in July, and another 187,000 preventable COVID-19 hospitalizations among unvaccinated adults in the U.S. in August, for a total of 287,000 across the three months. We explain more on how we arrived at these numbers below. If each of these preventable hospitalizations cost roughly $20,000, on average, that would mean these largely avoidable hospitalizations have already cost billions of dollars since the beginning of June.”

“Anyone who’d rather have COVID-19 than get vaccinated is taking two gambles: that immunity will stick around, and that symptoms won’t.”

RIP, Larry Tesler, the computer scientist who invented copy and paste.

“The Covid-driven surge in car deaths shouldn’t obscure what was already a disquieting fact before the pandemic: American automotive deaths — both of pedestrians and of people in cars — are a public health emergency.”

“The dead hand of the Trump administration already controls much of the U.S. government through the federal judiciary. Now it is reaching into other nations, too.”

“The GOP intransigence is fiercely motivating Democrats to vote even in off-year and special elections, even as Republicans and their conservative infotainment allies are functionally killing and incapacitating literally thousands of their own voters almost every day, including and especially the ones so politically engaged and devoted to the cause that they’re willing to risk death rather than wear a mask or get a shot.”

RIP, Sarah Dash, R&B singer and actress, co-founder of Patti LaBelle & The Bluebelles and LaBelle.

“Activision Blizzard now faces a federal investigation into how the company has handled employee allegations of workplace discrimination, sexual harassment, and sexual misconduct. The company’s workplace environment has faced public scrutiny since California authorities filed suit to prosecute similar claims back in July.”

“The goal on January 6 was to have Mike Pence declare Trump the winner of the election by simply leaving out seven states. And if anyone objected to that tactic, there was a backup plan for Pence to hand Trump the election through a second route.” Honestly, a whole lot of people should be facing jail time for this.

“Amazon is actively lobbying the United States government to federally legalize cannabis“.

“Cassandra Peterson — best known to the world as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark — released her new memoir Yours Cruelly, Elvira today and, in the process, came out by revealing her 19-year relationship with another woman, Teresa “T” Wierson.”

RIP, Willie Garson, actor best known for Sex and the City and White Collar.

RIP, Peter Palmer, stage and screen actor who originated the role of L’il Abner on Broadway. Mark Evanier has a nice remembrance of him.

“Why are more men dying from COVID? It’s a complicated story of nature vs. nurture, researchers say.”

“Fact: The unvaccinated phenomenon in America represents the story of Covid today. But the press tip-toes around it, pretending it’s normal for millions of Americans to risk death by refusing to take a vaccine that’s been administered billions of times worldwide.”

RIP, Melvin Van Peebles, groundbreaking filmmaker, actor, writer, and composer.

“As opposition to vaccines becomes a more partisan issue, however, progressives who are vaccine-hesitant will face a decision. Do they remain on the left, even as the politics around the conspiracy theories they embrace lead them out of their ideological comfort zones? Or do they dispense with progressivism in favor of a view of the world that holds that public health is subordinate to personal choice?”

“The pandemic has been a vast natural experiment to determine whether there are people who would literally rather die than admit they were wrong about politics. I would have speculated ahead of time that such people exist, and in significant numbers. But now we know for sure.”

What about Lizzie?

Sep 26th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
10 comments

Rep. Lizzie Fletcher is waiting to see what happens to her district with redistricting, just like the rest of us.

Rep. Lizzie Fletcher

Lizzie Pannill Fletcher’s political career became something of a trophy to Washington Democrats in 2018 after she won the Houston-based 7th Congressional District — long a bastion of Texas Republican leadership.

The seat was once held by the late President George H. W. Bush, and one of Fletcher’s most prominent constituents is U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. The 7th was designed to be a safe Republican stronghold, but the 46-year-old former trial attorney snatched it away three years ago. And while many of her classmates from the 2018 Democratic wave lost reelection in 2020, she held on against a formidable Republican opponent.

Any day now, she’ll find out how intent Texas Republicans are on taking the seat back.

The Texas Legislature is poised to unveil its proposed maps for new Texas Congressional districts, and some expect they’ll redraw the 7th in a way that dooms Fletcher’s chances of winning there again.

Fletcher is well aware she is in political purgatory.

“I’ve always known that this is just part of the process and … there’s so much happening here, that perhaps it’s good that it’s not my focus,” she said in an interview. “It’s on my radar that my job is to represent my constituents and certainly hearing what I’ve heard, knowing what I know, I do feel a responsibility to try to protect the district and to protect them.”

[…]

What that district will look like after the Legislature is done drawing new maps is now one of the most debated questions in Texas politics, and the merciful scenarios for Fletcher are limited.

It’s an open secret that House GOP leadership wants to elevate her 2020 rival, retired veteran Wesley Hunt. And after Republicans held onto the Legislature last year, speculation began about how to draw maps in a way that would make it impossible for her, and U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, a Dallas Democrat also elected in 2018, to win reelection.

[…]

But eight state and national Republican operatives with direct ties to the Texas delegation warned in interviews that an aggressive effort to unseat Fletcher could endanger the Republican incumbents who surround her district: U.S. Reps. Michael McCaul of Austin, Dan Crenshaw of Houston and Troy Nehls of Richmond.

Historically, the Legislature listens to the sitting Congressional Republicans when they redraw maps, and McCaul, as a senior Republican, is serving as a point person between the state lawmakers and his GOP colleagues.

While early details of the new districts remain closely held, some Republican sources said they sense survival instincts are setting in among the federal Republicans. Meaning, few are excited about the notion of pulling conservative voters from nearby Republican incumbents’ districts to take out Fletcher.

Instead, the map drawers could decide to leave Fletcher alone, and siphon Republicans from her district to bolster the long term reelection chances of Republicans in neighboring districts.

But that might hurt Fletcher in a different way: Her district could end up including many new Democratic voters unfamiliar with her, leaving her vulnerable to a primary challenge from an established Houston Democrat.

Wesley Hunt is running for something, he just hasn’t specified what yet. Moving is always an option, for when the Republicans draw the new seats. As for Rep. Fletcher, we’ve discussed the scenarios a few times here. The Republican decline in Harris and Fort Bend counties is a challenge for them. I’m sure they can draw something that would favor a Republican over Fletcher, but at what risk to their incumbents in close districts? For what it’s worth, Dave Wasserman is predicting that Reps. Fletcher and Allred get packed and not cracked, which is to say their districts become Democratic vote sinks to protect the Republicans around them. That may make her more vulnerable to a primary challenge, but she’s pretty well-regarded and she has lots of cash on hand, two things that would help her in that scenario.

And if she does wind up on the outs, one way or another?

“I don’t know that I’ve thought through my process,” she said, describing how she will sort out her political future. “But I’m generally most concerned about making sure that my constituents get the representation they deserve.”

“At this point, all options are on the table,” she said.

When asked if that included retirement, she laughed: “I’m too young to retire, right?”

But there is another option.

The 2018 wave was consequential in Texas partly because it gave Democrats a farm team for the first time in decades. Fletcher could run for a different office.

“If I think I have something to offer, or if I think I can contribute … I have to kick the tires for a long time before I feel confident that I can do a job here, but I think I’ve done a good job here,” she said.

Lord knows, we can always use good statewide candidates. This is not how I would prefer to find them, but it’s a possible path. We’ll see where we go.

The Housing and Community Development mess

Sep 26th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

A review of headlines from last week, which I did not have the brain space to do anything with:

Turner fires Houston housing director who accused him of ‘charade’ bid process to benefit developer

Turner names interim housing director in wake of corruption claims by former department head

Turner orders legal review of housing deal at center of ‘charade’ claims by fired housing director

Editorial: Tell the truth, Mayor Turner. Why the ‘charade’ over wasteful housing contract?

I still don’t quite have the brain capacity to make sense of all this. None of it looks good for Mayor Turner, but how things end don’t always reflect how they began. These would be terrible headlines not just for the Mayor but for everyone on City Council if we had elections this year, but we don’t. There may be some echoes of this when the 2023 campaigns roll around, but my guess is that unless there’s something epic inside all of this we will have moved onto many other things by then. At heart, that’s one of the reasons I voted against the proposal back in 2015 to change from two year terms and a limit of three for local elected officials to four year terms with a limit of two. I know a lot of Council members hated having to run every two years, but I believed then and still believe now that there’s value to it. Anyway, here we are. We’ll see how many people remember any of this a month from now, let alone in two years.

The fight over widening I-35

Sep 26th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

Hold tough, Austin. We feel your pain here.

In May 2019, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) unveiled a $7.5 billion plan to expand the abhorred stretch of I-35 that snakes through the center of Austin. Dubbed the Capital Express Project, the proposal’s potential changes were drastic: In addition to adding two levels of tunnels, it would widen the highway on each side by several lanes and significantly increase the interstate’s footprint. State officials proclaimed the proposition, still in its infancy, as the long-awaited answer to the capital city’s notorious traffic woes.

“This is a huge choke point for the entire state of Texas,” Texas Transportation Commission Chairman Bruce Bugg said of the plan. “We now have a solution on the table. The time for talk is over. The time for action is now.”

On its face, the proposal seemed like a promising offer for Austinites who spend countless hours idling on the most congested stretch of road in all of Texas. But in reality, it was the blueprint for an ineffective, outdated strategy that would only spur sprawl, transportation advocates argued. In fact, they pointed out, studies show that roadway buildout actually increases congestion because it fuels the need for car-centric transit.

All of this was on the mind of Austin Mayor Pro Tem Natasha Harper-Madison as she drove up to Dallas later that fall. Born and raised on the capital city’s East Side, she knew the impacts of highway expansion all too well. The place where Black residents had been subjected to decades of systemic racism and financial redlining after being forcibly moved to in 1928, East Austin was effectively cut off from the rest of town by I-35. As a result, the interstate wasn’t just a hulking mass of concrete and asphalt, she said: It was oftentimes the dividing line between the haves and the have-nots.

Given these experiences, Harper-Madison was eager to explore alternative transportation solutions when she first learned about TxDOT’s proposal. Enter Klyde Warren Park, a 5.2-acre public space that was established atop a downtown stretch of Dallas’ Woodall Rodgers Freeway in 2012. Witnessing the vibrant, tree-lined area was nothing short of revelatory, Harper-Madison said. The complex, once consumed by concrete and traffic congestion, had been converted into a natural gathering ground for people from all walks of life.

[…]

That trip couldn’t be more pertinent for Harper-Madison and her fellow Austin officials these days. That’s because TxDOT is now on the verge of pushing forward plans to expand I-35 — a painstaking endeavor that leaders worry could result in a big-money boondoggle if not handled correctly. For context, there are three community-drawn proposals that would limit the highway’s existing footprint, downsize it to an urban boulevard, or even incorporate Klyde Warren–inspired green spaces, but the state has shown little interest in entertaining them. Instead, TxDOT has prioritized two “build alternatives” that would simply demolish the I-35’s upper decks and widen the thoroughfare considerably.

Such proposals (which are eerily similar to those being contested in Houston) run in direct opposition to the town’s long-term transportation plans because they double down on a car-centric model less than two years after Austin voters approved a $7 billion mass transit bond. Residents don’t want bigger highways, Harper-Madison said. They want smarter, forward-thinking ways to get around their city.

If allowed to move forward, TxDOT’s proposed expansion will engulf nearly 150 homes and businesses along the interstate. Many of these, like the Stars Cafe and the Austin Chronicle building, are local institutions. Others, such as the Escuelita del Alma day care center, Taqueria Los Altos, and Hector the Barber, are popular utilities whose erasure would leave a glaring absence in nearby communities. With Austin already struggling to combat skyrocketing costs of living and growing suburban sprawl, now isn’t the time to push people out, Council Member Greg Casar said.

I don’t live in Austin, and I don’t have to deal with I-35, which by any definition is a mess and a hellhole. But when I hear about a $7.5 billion plan to widen and add capacity to I-35, I don’t see a solution, I see an even bigger nightmare of construction-induced worse traffic, neighborhoods and existing businesses being displaced and destroyed, and an even bigger traffic problem a few years down the line. I wonder what a $7.5 billion investment in mass transit might look like. And if you do live in Austin and have similar thoughts about this, I say raise hell and fight it with all you’ve got, because they will steamroll you otherwise. Good luck, you’re going to need it.

There will probably be another freeze this winter

Sep 26th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
3 comments

Hopefully not as bad, but, well, you know.

Savor the rest of the summer and all of fall because this winter in Texas is going to be “frigid and flaky” similar to February’s deadly storm, according to the Farmers’ Almanac.

The Almanac, which has been predicting the weather outlook for farmers and gardeners for over 200 years, says to expect a “frosty flip-flop winter” for the United States. For most of the country, there will be near-normal amounts of snow with some notable month-to-month variations, the Alamanc says.

In late January, Texas and Oklahoma may be in for icy weather “like you experienced last winter,” according to the Almanac’s report.

The Farmers’ Almanac previously predicted Texas’ winter storm Uri in which heavy snowfall, ice storms and bitter temperatures brought an enormous strain on the state’s power grid, leaving millions without electricity. Over 200 people died.

[…]

Before Texans start booking resort days in Cancun, the almanac is hoping the conditions will not be as bad as Uri.

“Hopefully, it won’t be as robust, but it doesn’t hurt to be prepared,” the Almanac said.

We can talk about Greg Abbott’s approval ratings right now all we want. If we have another freeze that’s anything like this past February, especially if people lose power like they did this year, forget it. After all his claims about how everything was fixed now, he better damn well hope so.

So we have a fraudit

Sep 25th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

What a load of crap.

The Texas secretary of state’s office announced late Thursday that it has begun a “full forensic audit” of the 2020 general election in four Texas counties: Collin, Dallas, Harris and Tarrant. But the statement from that agency did not explain what prompted the move.

There has been no evidence of widespread voter fraud in Texas in 2020.

Sam Taylor, a spokesperson for the office, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. No elections officials in the four counties immediately responded for comment.

The announcement came hours after Republican former President Donald Trump requested Gov. Greg Abbott add an election audit bill to this year’s third special session. While Trump lost his reelection bid, he did win in Texas.

It was unclear if his request was related to the announcement from the secretary of state’s office. But Taylor’s press release said the agency has “already begun the process in Texas’ two largest Democrat counties and two largest Republican counties—Dallas, Harris, Tarrant, and Collin.” While Tarrant has long been a Republican stronghold, Democratic President Joe Biden narrowly beat Trump there, according to the county’s election results.

Former Secretary of State Ruth Ruggero Hughs, who oversaw the 2020 elections, resigned when the Texas Senate refused to confirm her appointment. A deputy for Hughs called the 2020 election “smooth and secure” earlier this year.

Who knows what any of this even means, or what safeguards are in place to ensure integrity and transparency. I’d say that this was a rogue official going off on their own, but I think we all know that when Donald Trump tells a weak leader like Greg Abbott to do something, Abbott will comply.

In the meantime, county officials have responded, for the most part appropriately.

Harris County leaders on Friday blasted the Texas secretary of state’s decision to conduct a comprehensive “forensic audit” of the 2020 election in four counties, including Harris, as a political ploy to appease conspiracy theorists and former President Donald Trump.

County Judge Lina Hidalgo accused Gov. Greg Abbott of trying to curry favor with the former president, who on Thursday called for an audit of the Texas results, despite comfortably carrying the state in his unsuccessful bid for re-election. She likened the effort to audits in Arizona and Pennsylvania, which have failed to find major errors in vote tallying.

There is no evidence of widespread fraud or irregularities in Harris County’s 2020 election, where a record 1.7 million voters participated.

“This does not deserve to be treated as a serious matter or serious audit,” Hidalgo said. “It is an irresponsible political trick. It is a sham. It is a cavalier and dangerous assault on voters and democracy.”

Precisely who ordered the audits of election results for Harris, Dallas, Collin and Tarrant counties, as well as what they would entail, remains a mystery. The Secretary of State’s Office distributed a news release Thursday evening, though the secretary of state post has been vacant since May and spokesman Sam Taylor did not respond to a request for comment.

I’d forgotten that we don’t actually have a Secretary of State right now. I guess that “audit” must have gotten started on its own. Probably a computer glitch somewhere.

County Elections Administrator Isabel Longoria said she was surprised by the secretary of state’s announcement, noting she had spoken with that office’s staff hours earlier about an unrelated matter. Longoria said no state agency or department has provided her with any information about how the audit of Harris County’s election results will be conducted.

After the 2020 contest, Longoria said her office conducted a partial manual review of mail ballots and electronic records from voting machines. Eleven months later, Longoria said she has turned her attention toward preparing for future elections.

“I’m now being blindsided about an audit that we have no information on and no direction on,” Longoria said. “My job is protect the voters… not just open up the books to whoever has a new conspiracy of the day, and let you run rampant with confidential election records.”

County Attorney Christian Menefee said the Texas audit “is clearly being done in bad faith” since it was announced just hours after Trump requested it. All three Harris County officials said they will comply with the law and any potential rulings from judges, but would otherwise not take the audit effort seriously.

“The goal of this is to intimidate our election workers and the folks who volunteer in elections, to undermine our confidence in democracy and to pander to … a gentleman who lost an election 11 months ago,” Menefee said. “We’re going to continue to push back where appropriate.”

Commissioners Court is divided over party lines on the audit. The two Democratic commissioners, Adrian Garcia and Rodney Ellis, said they agreed with Hidalgo’s criticism. Republican Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey said despite county elections officials’ assurances that the 2020 contest was conducted securely, he does not know if that is accurate.

“I think there’s enough questions there,” Ramsey said. “Obviously, you need to go back and look at the numbers. Just because there hasn’t been anything (found) at this point, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. That’s why you do an audit.”

OK, I’m back on the “redistrict that guy into oblivion” train. Harris County deserves way better than that.

Not just our county officials, either.

“The conspiracy theorists who want to come up with all these ways or reasons why this election wasn’t right — they might very well find something else [to doubt],” said Republican Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley. “It’s time to move on.”

Whitley and officials in Harris also said they have not been told what the audits entail or what prompted them. They said they learned about them from a late Thursday press release sent by a spokesperson in the secretary of state’s office. Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee said an audit can have many forms, but Harris County elections administrator Isabel Longoria said her office hadn’t heard any details of what the state’s plans are as of noon Friday. Longoria said the county has already confirmed the results of the elections several times.

“If people want to hear it again and again and again and again, that nothing’s wrong — great,” she said. “But at what point are you going to be willing to hear the truth, that nothing was wrong with the November 2020 elections?”

[…]

Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, a Democrat, echoed Hidalgo’s remarks.

“This is a weak Governor openly and shamelessly taking his orders from a disgraced former President. Governor Abbott is wasting taxpayer funds to trample on Texans’ freedom to vote, all in order to appease his puppeteer,” Jenkins said over text message.

Jenkins said in an interview that Dallas County will not resist the audit for now — but if the state asks for more than what the county thinks is suitable under the election code, he could see challenging it in court.

Collin County had no comment at the time. Courage, y’all.

I’m sorry, I don’t have anything coherent to say about this. It’s bullshit all the way down, and I have a hard time taking its premise seriously enough to engage with it. But I will say this much, these guys have amazing timing.

On Friday afternoon, the leaders of the unorthodox 2020 election audit in Arizona announced the results of their monthslong, Trump ally–sponsored hunt for voter fraud in Maricopa County, which Joe Biden won by fewer than 11,000 votes out of millions cast.

The timing of the release hints at the significance of the audit’s findings. For months, Donald Trump has been billing the investigation as the thing that will provide definitive proof of his victory in Arizona. If the audit was going to show that the election was stolen from Trump by Democratic goons in cactus-covered antifa ski masks, why release it late on a Friday afternoon at a time usually reserved for dumps of information people want to go uncovered?

A leaked report on Thursday evening offered an answer. The ballyhooed and controversially conducted hand count of nearly 2.1 million Maricopa County ballots still showed Biden defeating Trump, and though the margin changed by 360 votes it was actually Biden whose margin of victory grew from 45,109 to 45,469.

“This is yet the latest in a string of defeats for Donald Trump saying the election was rigged and fraudulent,” longtime Republican election attorney Benjamin Ginsberg said in a press call with the elections group States United. “[This] was their best attempt. This was an audit in which they absolutely cooked the procedures, they took funding from sources that should delegitimatize the findings automatically. This was Donald Trump’s best chance to prove his allegations of elections being rigged and fraudulent and they failed.”

It turns out that not even a partisan-funded and -conducted recount using procedures out of a Pee Wee Herman film could change the outcome. “The Cyber Ninjas couldn’t do the thing they were on the hook to do,” said cochairman of States United Norm Eisen.

I look forward to a similar result in Texas. Daily Kos and NPR have more.

Lawsuit filed over our very dumb new social media “censorship” law

Sep 25th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

So very dumb.

Texas is being sued over its new law barring social media platforms from banning users over their political views by two trade associations that represent some of the industry’s biggest online companies.

NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Industry Association, which represent Google and Twitter, among other companies in the e-commerce and social media industries, filed a lawsuit Wednesday asking a federal judge to block the law.

Under the law, which was passed by the Legislature as House Bill 20, and signed by Gov. Greg Abbott on Sept. 9, social media platforms with over 50 million monthly users in the U.S. — a threshold that includes Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube — must publicly report details about content removal and account suspensions biannually. The platforms are also required to establish an easily accessible complaint system, where users could flag violations of the law.

Supporters of the bill said it was a necessary step to ensure users’ viewpoints aren’t censored and people who are blocked have a path for recourse.

The state cannot force platforms to host content they wouldn’t otherwise host, the presidents of NetChoice and CCIA said in a Tuesday meeting with reporters. The law threatens the safety of users, creators and businesses that use platforms to reach their audiences, said NetChoice President and CEO Steve DelBianco.

“They can’t be forced to carry content that violates the community standards that they use to curate a community of online content that suits their advertisers and audience,” DelBianco said.

[…]

This lawsuit isn’t the first of its kind for NetChoice and CCIA. In May, the groups sued to block a similar measure in Florida, which became the first state to regulate tech companies’ speech. In June, a federal judge granted the request to block the enforcement of the law.

DelBianco said the First Amendment flaws outlined by the judge in Florida’s case “match pretty closely” to the Texas law.

I didn’t blog about this while it was happening because it was dumb. It was more performance art in a legislative session that was all about grievances and wingnut wish lists. This law will almost certainly die a quiet but expensive-to-defend death without ever being enforced, and we will all get on with our lives. And we will all be a little bit dumber because of it.

From the “ounce of prevention” department

Sep 25th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

What is that worth, again? It’s right on the tip of my tongue.

Accessing a critical COVID-19 therapy could soon be tougher in Texas as the federal government moves to ration the treatment amid the spread of new variants.

The Biden administration is taking over distribution of monoclonal antibodies, returning to the system that had been in place until vaccines became readily available and infections began to plummet this year. It also purchased 1.4 million additional doses.

Under the old system, the federal government had been doling out doses to states based on need, and states were then responsible for distributing them.

The administration had until recently been allowing hospitals and other health care centers to order directly from manufacturers, and the U.S. Health and Human Services Department would initiate a review of any individual site that ordered more than 50 doses to make sure none were hoarding.

But with the highly contagious delta variant continuing to spread nationally, demand for the treatment has soared, with concerns that it could soon outstrip supply. By last week, the vast majority of doses — 70 percent — were going to just seven Southern states where COVID cases are still high and vaccination rates are low, including Texas.

“The recent increase in the prevalence of the delta variant coupled with low vaccination rates in certain areas of the country resulted in a substantial (20-fold) increase in the ordering and utilization of (monoclonal antibodies) since mid-July,” the federal health services agency said in a statement. “Just seven states accounted for about 70 percent of our monoclonal antibody ordering. Given this reality, we must work to ensure our supply of these lifesaving therapies remains available for all states and territories, not just some.”

Under the new model — and a 50 percent bump in allocations that President Joe Biden ordered this month — Texas and Florida are still getting far more doses than other states. Texas received 23,640 doses this week, behind only Florida, which received 30,950. Georgia received the third most, 9,920.

There’s an extremely whiny quote in the story from Chip Roy, and y’all, if people like that put one tenth the effort they exert being crybabies into getting people vaccinated, we wouldn’t have these problems, because we’d have crushed COVID by now. My sense of empathy has been a major casualty of this pandemic, and I’d really like to get it back.

More federal support for emergency contraception

Sep 25th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

Good.

The federal government announced Friday it is providing additional funding to Austin nonprofit Every Body Texas to address a potential increase in clients’ need for emergency contraception and family planning services now that Texas prohibits abortions as early as six weeks into pregnancy.

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a release Friday that the Office for Population Affairs will award funding to the group, which is the statewide administrator of the federal Title X funding program, which provides family planning and reproductive health services to low-income patients.

Friday’s move comes as the Biden administration is challenging Texas’ near-total ban on abortion in court.

The federal government is also launching a new funding program that allows any entity across the country, regardless of if it receives Title X funding, to apply and receive additional money to provide reproductive and family planning services to patients impacted by Senate Bill 8.

There is $10 million available for these two programs, though it is unclear how much Every Body Texas is receiving directly. According to the federal government’s website, the grant application for the new program, called Funding to Address Dire Need for Family Planning Services, says they expect to award 10 grants between $150,000 and $1.5 million by the end of this year. The announcement said Every Body Texas must use the money provided by March 31.

[…]

Becerra also issued a memorandum detailing two federal statutes he says his department would enforce to provide protection for patients who may need an abortion and health care providers who assist pregnant patients in certain situations.

“​​Today we are making clear that doctors and hospitals have an obligation under federal law to make medical decisions regarding when it’s appropriate to treat their patients,” Becerra said in a release. “And we are telling doctors and others involved in the provision of abortion care, that we have your back.”

It was not immediately clear late Friday how Becerra’s memorandum would impact people’s ability to access an abortion in Texas or providers’ willingness to perform the procedure.

The two federal laws Becerra referred to include the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act and the Church Amendments. The federal government issued a memorandum reminding health care providers that patients who appear in the emergency room must receive appropriate medical screening, stabilizing treatment and a transfer, in or out of state, regardless of state laws, including pregnant patients or patients experiencing a pregnancy loss.

Becerra said the federal government would impose civil monetary penalties against hospitals or physicians if they violate that law.

Second, the federal Office of Civil Rights released guidance about the Church Amendments, which prevent discrimination against health care personnell who object to performing an abortion because of their relgious beliefs. Those amendments also protect health care providers from discrimination if they do assist or perform a lawful abortion, such as an abortion where federal funds are used to end pregnancies that result from rape or incest or to save the life of the pregnant person.

See here for the full statement from HHS. This is the sort of thing that would have been good to do at any time, but these are not normal times, and it’s everyone’s job to fight back against SB8. I hope the commitment continues once we have a (hopefully positive) resolution to the litigation. The Chron has more.

Trying again to get SCOTUS to stop SB8

Sep 24th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

Good luck.

A coalition of Texas abortion providers went back to the Supreme Court Thursday, asking the justices to expedite a review of the state law that bars abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.

The law has been in effect for 23 days, but the federal appeals court hearing the challenge has only set a tentative hearing schedule for December. The providers are asking the justices to — in effect — step in and decide a key issue in the case now, instead of waiting for a federal appeals court to rule on the issue.

The new court papers mark the latest furious attempt on behalf of providers to stop a law that bars most abortions before a woman even knows she is pregnant. The law, which challengers say was drafted with the specific intent to evade judicial review, is now being challenged by providers in federal and state courts, as well as by the Department of Justice.

In the new brief, the providers say the law is written in a way that makes it almost impossible to challenge because it bars Texas officials from enforcing it and instead allows private individuals to bring suit against anyone who may assist in helping a person obtain an abortion performed after six weeks. The clinics are asking the Supreme Court to decide “whether a State can insulate from federal-court review a law that prohibits the exercise of a constitutional right by delegating to the general public the authority to enforce that prohibition through civil actions.”

Separately, they have filed papers asking the court to put their request on a fast track. Under normal circumstances supporters of the law would have had about 30 days to respond, and the process could drag into the winter months. Instead, the clinics want the justices to consider the case October 29 and hear oral arguments in December.

That timing would coincide with the Supreme Court hearing another, completely separate challenge to a Mississippi law that bars most abortions after 15 weeks. Mississippi is asking the court to overturn Roe v. Wade and the court has set arguments for December 1.

If the court were to grant the request from the Texas providers, it could hear the two challenges in the same month.

[…]

In making the unusual request, the clinics noted that providers in neighboring states have reported increases of patients traveling across state lines and other states have begun to push copycat laws.

The clinics had previously asked the justices to block the law before it went into effect, but the high court declined to do so on September 1.

Back then, in an unsigned 5-4 order, the majority wrote that while the clinics had raised “serious questions regarding the constitutionality of the Texas law,” they had not met a burden that would allow the court to block it due to “complex” and “novel” procedural questions. Chief Justice John Roberts joined the three liberal justices in dissent.

Just as a reminder, as this is another one of those situations where there’s so many lawsuits it’s hard to keep track, these are the plaintiffs who had originally sued in July and had to appeal to SCOTUS in late August after some serious shenanigans from the Fifth Circuit. This time they’re asking the court to rule on constitutional grounds, not just allow for a temporary restraining order. I have no idea what their odds of success are, but it can hardly hurt. Maybe now that SCOTUS has seen the sharp downturn in the public’s opinion of them following their cretinous and cowardly refusal to block SB8 in the first place they’ll have a bit of a rethink. We’ll see. Reuters and The 19th have more.

Four House members to step down

Sep 24th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

In order of announcement…

Rep. Scott Sanford.

Rep. Scott Sanford

State Rep. Scott Sanford, a Republican from McKinney, announced Sunday he is not running for reelection, citing his family, especially his grandchildren.

“As the legislature embarks on its third special session, I’m reminded of the seasonality of government. It ebbs and flows as it follows its constitutional guidelines, the needs of the citizens and the reality of political processes,” he said in a news release.

“Life also has its season, and Shelly and I are thrilled to now be in a new season as grandparents. Even more exciting, our second grandchild is expected to arrive soon. In the midst of changing life seasons and a personal evaluation of priorities, I have made the prayerful decision to not file for re-election,” he added.

Sanford represented the 70th District in the House since 2013. The 57-year-old also serves as a pastor at Cottonwood Creek Church in Allen.

I have no clear impression of Rep. Sanford, he’s basically a generic Republican to me. His HD70 in Collin County is on the far outer fringes of competitiveness after moving moderately left over the decade. It’ll be interesting to see if the Republicans try to shore up a district like that or leave it more or less as is while they triage higher priority areas of need.

Rep. Celia Israel.

Rep. Celia Israel

State Rep. Celia Israel, D-Austin, announced Wednesday she will not seek reelection and instead explore a run for Austin mayor next year.

“The heartbeat of a city is people from all walks of life working together and learning from each other,” Israel wrote on social media. “That’s why I’m proud that the founding core of my exploratory committee is diverse, with a broad array of lived experiences.”

Israel has represented House District 50 since 2014. The Austin-based district is safely Democratic, though its boundaries are likely to change before the 2022 election due to the redistricting process that is currently underway in the Legislature.

Israel has been an advocate for the LGBT community in the lower chamber, helping start the Texas House LGBTQ Caucus in 2019. She has also been outspoken about abortion rights, and she was one of the House Democrats who left the state in July to protest the Republican elections bill.

The Austin Chronicle had the news earlier. I’m a big fan of Rep. Israel, and if I lived in Austin she’d be high on my list for Mayoral candidates. If she wins I hope she sees that as a potential step towards a future statewide run, because we could definitely use someone like her in the executive wing of the Capitol.

Rep. Chris Paddie.

Rep. Chris Paddie

State Rep. Chris Paddie, a Marshall Republican who chairs the powerful House State Affairs Committee, said Wednesday he will not seek another term in the lower chamber.

The news comes less than a month after Paddie, who has represented House District 9 since 2013, announced he would run for reelection.

In a statement, Paddie said that as the Legislature undergoes the redistricting process, he had “decided that the timing is right to spend more time with my family and allow my East Texas colleagues to spend time fighting for our values instead of having to make some of the tough choices required.”

“Serving in the Legislature is not a career, but a way to serve your neighbors,” Paddie said. “I remain fully committed to advocating for good public policy and will continue do so in non-elected avenues of public service.”

Rep. Paddie, like Rep. Sanford, is one term away from being vested in the generous legislative pension system. He must really be done. I know that the local wingnuts have had it in for him, so maybe this was just enough. He was certainly conservative, but he had policy chops and took the job seriously, and I give him credit for that much. The default Republican these days is Briscoe Cain, and Paddie’s successor will very likely be a Cain clone, so in that sense his retirement is a loss to the Lege.

Rep. Jim Murphy.

Rep. Jim Murphy

State Rep. Jim Murphy, R-Houston, announced Thursday he will not seek another term to the Texas House.

Murphy, who represented House District 133 from 2007-09 and again since 2011, chairs the House GOP Caucus and the House Higher Education Committee.

He announced in June his intention to seek reelection, saying in a news release that while the Legislature “accomplished a lot” during the regular legislative session that ended in May, “unfinished business still remains.”

On Thursday, though, Murphy said he is “just looking forward to life’s next great opportunity” and that it had been “an honor and privilege” to serve the constituents of HD-133.

Maybe he reads my blog. Murphy is also in a fringe-competitive district, one that may be a bigger challenge to stay as red given the trends in Harris County and the need of Republicans to shore up some other districts. He was very helpful in getting pension reform passed a couple of years ago, and like Rep. Paddie more about doing things than posturing and complaining. We’ll see if his replacement, if Republicans hold the seat, is like that or not. I’d bet on “not”.

Finally, on a semi-related note, there are five candidates in the special election to replace former Rep. Leo Pacheco in HD118, three Dems and two Republicans. Early voting starts for it on Monday. It’s highly unlikely that anyone will get seated while the Lege is still in session, but for symbolic reasons if nothing else it would be nice for the Dems to not fumble this one.

Looking for the missing students

Sep 24th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

More important than usual this year.

The state’s largest school district recorded a first-day enrollment of 172,091 students, a significant decrease compared with previous years. It is not uncommon for enrollment to lag, even to its lowest point of the year, in August.

While numbers reported later in the fall typically provide a more accurate depiction of a district’s student body, HISD’s enrollment in recent weeks has slowly risen to about 190,000 as of last week, according to House, but remains lower than the nearly 200,000 who finished last school year.

Still, [HISD Superintendent Millard House II] said before embarking on the home visits Saturday, the district is on pace to reach its target of about 197,000 students.

“Student reengagement efforts are ongoing, and it is our goal to facilitate outreach to the families of all students who have left HISD,” he said. “We are not here to judge, we are here to support. That is very important for us to understand. So, as we knock on doors this morning, we are here to ensure that we get these babies back in classrooms so that they can get the kind of support they need.”

HISD is not alone.

The Texas Education Agency registered a decrease last year of statewide enrollment from the previous year for the first time since it began collecting enrollment data.

There were roughly 5.37 million students enrolled in schools across Texas last year, a 2.2 percent decrease — about 122,354 students — from the prior year, agency officials wrote in a June report.

[…]

Such problems — having an outdated address or phone number as a student’s contact information — are par for the course for Burl Jones, a student outreach worker at HISD, who said he goes on “wild goose chases all the time” as he tries to get students back into classrooms.

COVID-19 made it worse. Some students did not have access to the internet early on, and some parents remain skeptical of vaccines or health protocols.

“Sometimes, people will be there, they won’t answer the door. Or you have an address on file for them and they don’t actually live there,” Jones said. “That is what it is out there, man, that is the real world. … I do what it takes to find them. It’s like, I am an investigator. I don’t give up. I get a joy out of recovering these kids.”

HISD also has held several phone banking sessions, including in partnership with Houston Federation of Teachers, the district’s largest employees union.

I’m sure there are more kids homeschooling this year than usual, but for sure there are kids who are simply missing from the rolls. We know there were many kids last year during remote schooling who never logged on, for whatever the reason. Kids have already lost a lot of ground, so it’s extra important to make sure no one gets left behind. I sure hope they can find everyone.

Judge Hidalgo has an opponent

Sep 24th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
5 comments

For the general election.

Judge Lina Hidalgo

Humble ISD School Board president Martina Lemond Dixon announced Wednesday she is running for Harris County Judge as a Republican candidate in the 2022 election.

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo was one of the youngest candidates and first Latina ever elected to office after she beat out Republican incumbent Ed Emmett in 2018 to become judge of the third-largest county in the country.

Dixon took aim at Hidalgo in her announcement, claiming she is “more interested in playing politics and advancing her out of touch progressive agenda than managing the largest county in TX.”

“Whether it is crime, flood recovery, roads or taxes, we can get it done and put our county back on track if we put politics aside and work together,” Dixon said.

Whatever. I am at this point officially not worried about Judge Hidalgo. I will look forward to seeing the January finance reports.

Interview with Matias Kopinsky

Sep 23rd, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

Matias Kopinsky

We wrap up our tour of HISD District I this week with Matias Kopinsky. Kopinsky is the son of Argentine immigrants who grew up speaking Spanish. He attended Herod Elementary, Meyerland Performing and Visual Arts Middle School, and Bellaire High School, and got a BS in petroleum engineering from UT. The HISD Board as currently constituted is all female, so if elected he would change that. That wasn’t one of the things we talked about, I just thought about it while writing this intro. Here’s what we did talk about:

PREVIOUSLY:

Sue Deigaard, District V
Anne Sung, District VII
Elizabeth Santos, District I
Janette Garza Lindner, District I

Appeals court appears skeptical about Paxton’s whistleblower defense

Sep 23rd, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

As well they should be.

Best mugshot ever

A panel of Texas 3rd Court of Appeals justices expressed skepticism of an argument from Attorney General Ken Paxton’s lawyers on Wednesday that he is exempt from the state’s whistleblower act because he’s not a public employee and a case against him should be thrown out.

Former Paxton deputies in the Office of the Attorney General claim in a whistleblower lawsuit that they were fired for reporting alleged crimes by Paxton to law enforcement. Paxton’s lawyers are trying to get the case dismissed and asked the appeals court to throw out the case on the grounds that Paxton is not subject to the whistleblower law. A lower court denied Paxton’s motion to dismiss the case in March.

Barely a minute into oral arguments, Justice Chari L. Kelly began questioning Solicitor General Judd E. Stone II, who is representing Paxton in the suit.

“Isn’t the action of every employer at the OAG’s office an action by the employee governmental agency?” Kelly said.

Justice Gisela D. Triana questioned Stone’s argument that all elected officials are exempt from the whistleblower law and Chief Justice Darlene Byrne asked whether his interpretation would give Texas Supreme Court justices immunity from sexual harassment claims from their employees.

Stone said employees filing sexual harassment claims would have other avenues for relief outside the whistleblower law, but argued that the attorney general as an elected official cannot be sued under the law, which covers public employees, appointed officials and governmental entities.

[…]

Stone argued that barring the attorney general from firing employees when they disagree with legal positions or have lost his trust would be an infringement on the elected official’s power.

But Kelly questioned that argument and nodded to claims by the whistleblowers’ lawyers that Paxton is a public employee because he receives checks from the state and participates in its retirement system, and that he acts as the entity because he is its titular head.

“If he can go in and change any decision internally … If he truly has the power to have the last say on anything that comes out of the agency. How is he not the agency?” she asked.

Stone said the justices should interpret the law as it was written, which did not include elected officials in the text of those who can be sued on whistleblower claims.

But Joe Knight, who argued for the whistleblowers’ lawyers, blasted the idea that the Legislature wrote a statute meant to ensure public employees complied with the law and then exempted elected officials without explicitly saying so. He said the drafting of the law in such a way would be “strange and unlikely,” and said the “Legislature does not hide elephants in mouseholes.”

In briefings to the court, the whistleblowers’ lawyers said when lawmakers intend to exempt elected officials from being labeled as public employees, they do so in the text of the law. The Texas Whistleblower Act does not.

The whistleblowers’ lawyers said exempting the attorney general would rob the law of its purpose to protect public employees reporting wrongdoing by government entities.

Stone also argued in briefs that the former officials did not make the reports to law enforcement authorities required to invoke whistleblower protection, and that even if they had, they reported only potential crimes, not crimes that had actually happened.

The whistleblowers’ lawyers attacked that argument, saying their clients reported their concerns to the Travis County District Attorney’s Office, the FBI, the Texas Rangers and the attorney general’s human resources office.

The lawyers also said their clients believed Paxton had already abused his office, tampered with government records, taken bribes and obstructed justice through his interactions with Paul when they brought their concerns to law enforcement.

See here, here, and here for some background. It must be noted that all three appellate court justices are Democrats, so their opinions will carry limited weight before the Court of Criminal Appeals, no matter how ridiculous Paxton’s arguments are. That’s just how it is, I don’t make the rules. No indication when the court may rule, but the initial suit was filed last November, the motion to dismiss was denied in March, and the appeal to the Third Court was made in June, so as far as that goes, we’re moving at a decent pace.

Commissioners Court avoids quorum break

Sep 23rd, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

Good.

Harris County Commissioners Court this week unanimously agreed on a proposal to cut the overall property tax rate for the coming year, a compromise that avoids a potential quorum break by Republicans that would have forced an even deeper cut.

The rate of 58.1 cents per $100 of assessed value is 3 percent less than the current levy. This means the owner of a home valued at $300,000, with the standard 20 percent homestead exemption already factored in, could save up to $54 in the first year. However, as Harris County Appraisal District valuations continue to rise, homeowners could see slightly higher tax bills, despite the lower rate.

The overall rate is the sum of the rates Commissioners Court sets for four entities: the county as a whole, the flood control district, the hospital district and the Port of Houston. Compared to the current levies, the flood control district rate will increase slightly, while the other three entities would see a rate cut.

Democratic Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia last week proposed a rate of 58.6 cents per $100 of assessed value, a 2.2 percent cut from the current rate of 59.9 cents.

The two Republican members wanted more significant savings for taxpayers, noting economic hardships wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic. Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey proposed a rate of 57.9 cents.

County Judge Lina Hidalgo warned against cutting the tax rate, and thus revenues, too much because it will make raising more revenue in the future more difficult. That is because of a revenue cap the Legislature placed on cities and counties last year which limits year-over-year growth to 3.5 percent without voter approval.

“We should be negotiating on what the county needs,” Hidalgo said. “It does not benefit me, politically, to want to cut taxes less. I simply know we’re headed down a dangerous path.”

After hours of haggling at a hearing Tuesday afternoon, the panel agreed on the 58.1 cent rate, which Garcia offered as a compromise. The court at one point was mulling a half dozen options and County Administrator David Berry confessed he was struggling to keep track of who had proposed which.

See here for the background. They say in baseball that you gain more by avoiding dumb decisions than you do by making brilliant ones. I’m just glad we were able to avoid the dumb outcome here.

Texas blog roundup for the week of September 20

Sep 23rd, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
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The Texas Progressive Alliance is as ready as it’s going to be for the next special session as it brings you this week’s roundup.

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The COVID shot for kids is coming

Sep 23rd, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

Not a moment too soon.

On Monday, Pfizer released the initial trial results, showing that its vaccine is safe and effective for the 5-11 age group. The findings are a key step toward inoculating a younger population that so far has been unprotected from the virus.

“It’s good to hear the studies are paying off,” García said. “We are happy to be part of the process to help other people get more trust in the vaccine, so we can start getting back to normal as soon as possible.”

The announcement summarized results from 2,268 trial participants. The findings show that children develop an antibody response similar to the 16- to 25-year-old age group when given a lower dosage of the vaccine.

Pfizer and BioNTech, the company’s German partner, plan to include the data in a “near-term submission for Emergency Use Authorization” while safety research is ongoing. Dr. Bill Gruber, a Pfizer senior vice president, told The Associated Press that the company plans to apply for emergency use by the end of the month.

My kids are thankfully old enough to already be vaccinated, but I know a lot of people who have been eagerly awaiting this announcement. I expect there will be a surge of new vaccinations in the weeks following the emergency use grant, and while it will surely fall well short of the full total of eligible kids, it will make a decent dent in the overall vaccination rate. We’re going to need every bit of this. The 19th and Daily Kos have more.

Interview with Janette Garza Lindner

Sep 22nd, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

Janette Garza Lindner

We continue with HISD District I, and today’s candidate is Janette Garza Lindner. A native of Brownsville, Garza Lindner has lived in Houston for 20 years. She is a UT graduate with a degree in Management Information Systems, and has served as a Latinos for Education board fellow and as the main community representative on the Arts Connect Houston leadership committee. I discovered her candidacy when doing my post on the July HISD finance reports; she was filed as a candidate but had not done any fundraising then. Here’s what we talked about:

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Sue Deigaard, District V
Anne Sung, District VII
Elizabeth Santos, District I

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