Off the Kuff | Knowledge Is Good

Kirkland v Fleming goes national

Posted on March 3, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Lisa Falkenberg writes the followup column on George Fleming and his repeat attempt to underwrite a campaign challenge to Steven Kirkland that I figured she’d write.

George Fleming

Fleming’s contributions to a political action committee called Moving Texas Forward – $75,000 from him and $10,000 from another of his PACs, according to records – have helped foot the bill for a new wave of attacks that have filled mailboxes, in-boxes and radio waves in recent days. All focus on Kirkland’s old record.

Gray, who according to records has taken $15,000 from Fleming and $35,000 from one of his PACs, hasn’t engaged in the attacks. She released a statement saying, in part: “If any independent groups are saying anything untrue about Steve Kirkland, they should stop immediately.”

But she hasn’t condemned the deceitful nature of the ads. And that’s a mistake, as was taking Fleming’s money with no questions asked.

Kirkland’s DWIs are shameful, no doubt. But the attack ads never mention the dates of the arrests. On the contrary, they make it seem like they happened yesterday.

[…]

Justin Jordan, who works as Gray’s campaign consultant, and has been paid thousands to do advertising by a Fleming PAC that’s supporting Gray, defended the ads.

Asked why a 30-year-old DWI is relevant in a judicial race, Jordan at first hesitated: “I’m not sure. Judge Kirkland made that an issue.”

“How?” I asked.

“He talked about it,” Jordan said. “I think his record is fair game.”

Jordan denied that the ads were misleading, including one mailer featuring scary drunken driving statistics and court documents detailing Kirkland’s conviction, jail sentence and license suspension. The only date provided is one featured prominently, in big type, near the top right: May 2012.

“Whether it was 30 years ago or 30 days, a DWI is a DWI,” Jordan said. “If you have a public record you should defend it. And the only thing we’ve heard from Judge Kirkland’s campaign is whining and crying.”

Jordan’s explanation for the May 2012 reference? It was the date a photo of Kirkland included in the ad was taken. Apparently, it’s more important we know when a random photo of Kirkland was taken in his chambers than when he actually committed the offenses at the heart of the attack ad.

See here and here for the background. Sure, a DWI is relevant in a campaign. So is lying. Kirkland has been honest about his past history with alcohol. Too bad Fleming and Jordan aren’t being honest about their characterization of it. Hope it was worth it to you if you win, Lori Gray.

Meanwhile, the Huffington Post picked up the story and added a little bit more to what we already knew, but didn’t provide a fully accurate picture.

In an email to The Huffington Post, Fleming noted that he is a lifelong Democrat who frequently contributes and supports judicial elections in Texas. Like other lawyers, he said, he is invested in ensuring that the most competent judges ended up on the bench.

“I don’t have a vendetta against anyone,” he said. “Our selection in Texas of judicial candidates is an elective system. Like so many others, I participate in that system and have for many years.”

[…]

But if Fleming’s donations are based on merits, there haven’t been many candidates he’s found meritorious. Campaign finance records show that both he and his PAC got involved in just two other races after [the 2012 primary between Kirkland and now-Judge Elaine Palmer]. The first was a state representative campaign.

The second was to support Lori Gray, a lawyer who is currently running against Kirkland in the Democratic primary for a seat on the 113th District Court.

I was a bit suspicious of that “after the 2012 primary” formulation, so I went and did a search by Contributor for both George Fleming and the Texans For Good Leaders PAC. It’s true that the latter has mostly been active since 2012, and has only contributed to one other candidate – State Rep. Richard Raymond – besides Palmer and Gray, though they did contribute $5,000 to the HCDP in 2009. However, Fleming himself does have an extensive history of contributions to mostly Democratic candidates. I searched from January 1, 2000 onward, and he gave quite a bit to the likes of Ellen Cohen, Kristi Thibaut, Susan Criss, and a few Democratic judicial candidates in 2008. He also gave $20K to Friends Of Carole Keeton Strayhorn in 2005, $1,000 to now-Supreme Court Justice Jeff Brown, and ironically enough $250 to Steven Kirkland in 2011. So much for that. Be that as it may, Fleming’s defense of himself has some merit, but by the same token in a year like this there are far better causes to which to contribute. It also doesn’t mitigate the bad acts of his anti-Kirkland crusade. If you want to be known by the body of your work, it’s best not to have one example of your work stand in stark contrast to everything else you’ve done.

Posted in Election 2014 | Tagged Elaine Palmer, Election 2012, Election 2014, George Fleming, Harris County, judicial races, Lori Gray, Steven Kirkland | 3 Comments

More evidence of Cameron Willingham’s innocence

Posted on March 3, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

The scientific evidence against Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004 for the arson deaths of his three children, has long been discredited. The other piece of evidence used against him at trial was the testimony of a jailhouse informer, who said that Willingham confessed to him. Now that piece of evidence is under attack.

Cameron Todd Willingham’s stepmother and cousin, along with exoneree Michael Morton, joined the Innocence Project on Friday to call on Gov. Rick Perry to order the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to investigate whether the state should posthumously pardon Willingham, who was executed in 2004.

“We are forever passionately committed to the mission of clearing Cameron’s name,” said Patricia Cox, Willingham’s cousin.

[…]

The [Innocence Project] says it discovered evidence that indicated the prosecutor who tried Willingham had elicited false testimony from and lobbied for early parole for a jailhouse informant in the case.

The informant, Johnny Webb, told a Corsicana jury in 1992 that Willingham had confessed to setting the blaze that killed his three daughters. The Innocence Project also alleges that the prosecutor withheld Webb’s subsequent recantation. The organization argues that those points, combined with flawed fire science in the case, demand that the state correct and learn from the mistake it made by executing Willingham.

Former Judge John H. Jackson, the Navarro County prosecutor who tried Willingham, said the Innocence Project’s claims were a “complete fabrication” and that he remained certain of Willingham’s guilt.

“I’ve not lost any sleep over it,” Jackson said.

[…]

During the trial, Webb, who was in jail on an aggravated robbery charge, said he was not promised anything in return for testifying. But correspondence records indicate that prosecutors later worked to reduce his time in prison.

In a 1996 letter, Jackson told prison officials Webb’s charge should be recorded as robbery, not aggravated robbery.

But in legal documents signed by Webb in 1992, he admitted to robbing a woman at knife point and agreed to the aggravated robbery charge.

In letters to the parole division in 1996, the prosecutor’s office also urged clemency for Webb, arguing that his 15-year sentence was excessive and that he was in danger from prison gang members because he had testified in the Willingham case.

In 2000, while he was incarcerated for another offense, Webb wrote a motion recanting his testimony, saying the prosecutor and other officials had forced him to lie.

That motion, [Barry] Scheck said, was not seen by Willingham’s lawyers until after the execution. Meanwhile, he said, prosecutors used the testimony to stymie efforts to prove Willingham’s innocence and prevent his death.

An investigation is needed, Scheck said, to improve the judicial process.

I’ve written extensively about the Willingham case. To me, the dismantling of the arson investigator’s evidence is more than enough to convince me that he did not receive a fair trial and very likely would not have been convicted – quite possibly, not even arrested – if valid investigative techniques had been used at the time. Having the non-scientific evidence called into doubt as well – surely there was a failure to disclose, at the least – makes me wonder what anyone might base a continued belief in Willingham’s guilt on. That doesn’t stop Rick Perry from keeping a closed mind about it, of course. Grits, who notes the story here, is clearly correct to say that the best chance for anything to happen with this case begins in 2015, with a new Governor. I personally think the chances are better with one candidate than with the other, but for sure there’s no chance with the current Governor. EoW has more.

Posted in Crime and Punishment | Tagged arson, Barry Scheck, Cameron Willingham, forensics, innocence, Innocence Project of Texas, Rick Perry, Texas | Comments Off

Texas Farm Bureau unhappy with anti-immigrant Republicans

Posted on March 3, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

It’s an opportunity for Democrats, assuming they actually mean what they’re saying.

When Republican agriculture commissioner candidate Eric Opiela appeared on television sets across Texas recently to declare “No amnesty under any circumstances,” he was no doubt attempting to appeal to the conservative constituency that is expected to turn out in next week’s primary election.

So are his major primary opponents, former state Reps. Sid Miller and Tommy Merritt, and Uvalde Mayor J Allen Carnes, who oppose any pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Current Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples, a candidate for lieutenant governor, is also blasting one of his Republican opponents, state Sen. Dan Patrick, over reports that he hired undocumented workers and supported amnesty for one of them decades ago.

But all of the candidates also happen to disagree with one of the country’s most powerful agricultural lobbying groups, which boasts some half a million members in Texas. The American Farm Bureau Federation and its local arm, the Texas Farm Bureau, are strong supporters of a major immigration reform bill the U.S. Senate passed last year that offers a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. The bill has been heavily criticized by many conservative politicians, both nationwide and in Texas, highlighting a rift between the Republican Party and the agricultural lobby that widened recently during debate over the farm bill.

“Let’s just cut to the chase on this thing: Eighty-five percent of the agricultural labor that goes on in the state of Texas … is done by either undocumented or illegally documented people,” said Steve Pringle, legislative director for the Texas Farm Bureau. “If and when that labor supply is not there, that production simply goes out of business.”

[…]

For Pringle, the Republican Party’s shift to the right in recent years means that the Texas farm lobby may be looking for friends in places that would have seemed unlikely just a few years ago. In the 2012 election cycle, the Texas Farm Bureau donated $10,000 to U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee.

“Let’s just put it this way,” Pringle said. “We are finding conservative Republicans less and less supportive of agriculture.”

Like I said, a potential opportunity for Democrats to steal a bit of support from some typically unfavorably places, and not just in the Ag Commissioner race. The TFB has endorsed Carnes, but it’s not clear they’d transfer that support to, say, Eric Opiela or Sid Miller if one of them became the nominee. We’ve heard this sort of talk before, from typically pro-Republican business groups that support immigration reform, such as the Texas Association of Business, but it generally doesn’t translate into any tangible action. TAB in particular has a history of getting good press for saying pro-immigrant things and occasionally calling out some of the worst offenders among the Republicans, but they never follow it up by actively opposing the legislators they identify as the problem, even as the rhetoric has gotten more and more strident. If the TFB wants to be seen as more than just an empty voice for immigration reform, the place they can and should start is in the Lt. Governor’s race. If they fail to support Leticia Van de Putte, especially over Dan Patrick or Todd Staples, we’ll know they didn’t intend to be taken seriously. Just walk the walk, fellas, that’s all I’m asking.

Posted in Election 2014 | Tagged Ag Commissioner, Dan Patrick, Election 2014, endorsements, Eric Opiela, immigration, J. Allen Carnes, Leticia Van De Putte, Lite Gov, Sid Miller, Texas, Texas Farm Bureau, Todd Staples, Tommy Merritt | Comments Off

Weekend link dump for March 2

Posted on March 2, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

No, the Scooby Gang has nothing to do with the Five College Consortium.

The credit card data theft will continue for the foreseeable future.

The power of third parties compels you.

Sometimes it’s better to help from a distance than up close.

In other news, Tom DeLay is still an idiot.

Girl Scout cookies and medical marijuana clinics: Two great tastes that taste great together. In California, anyway.

Zoos have successfully used contraceptives on their animals for years. Ceasing the use of contraceptives and getting those animals to breed again, that’s a different story.

“Indeed, this is the reason [shaken baby syndrome] is such a convenient diagnosis. It allows prosecutors to charge a suspected abuser despite no outward signs of abuse. But we now know that other causes can produce these symptoms, which means that some percentage of the people convicted in SBS cases are going to prison for murders that may have never happened.”

What House of Cards got wrong on phone surveillance.

Maybe we should all lean out a little more.

Hope you’ve patched your iPhone.

Hard to believe, but Amazon is worse than WalMart at treating employees.

RIP, Maria von Trapp, last surviving member of the singing Von Trapp family.

“Still: a significant portion of what Whole Foods sells is based on simple pseudoscience. And sometimes that can spill over into outright anti-science.”

RIP, Harold Ramis. As Mel Brooks said at the passing of Harvey Korman, the world is a more serious place today.

Science journalism versus sports journalism, in a steel cage death match (okay, maybe not).

“With one fake apology, Nugent has forever revealed himself as someone playing the same political game as all of the phonies his outspokenness was meant to call out.”

RIP, Alice Herz-Sommer, believed to be the oldest survivor of the Holocaust.

The last harrumph of Fix The Debt.

“Any Christians who want to can believe that gay people are sinful and wicked, or that gay marriage is a terrible thing. What they can’t do is use those beliefs as a get-out-of-jail-free card that gives them permission to break the law or escape civil liability when they harm other people.”

Sometimes making a scene is the right thing to do.

“In a sentence: The GOP health-care fix will push people on to government health care, raise the deficit, affect more workers and increase the number of uninsured.” In other words, it’s perfect.

Are you craving more Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski? Well, you’re in luck.

The Supreme Court will get another crack at software patents.

715 new planets, none of them Pluto.

Dear Paula Deen: Please stop talking. Seriously, for your own good, just stop.

Another Bill Watterson sighting, along with what may be his first piece of comic art since he ended Calvin and Hobbes.

RIP, Jim Lange, host of The Dating Game.

It’s almost always a better deal to order the larger pizza. Also, math.

If you look up the word “empathy” in the dictionary, you won’t find this guy‘s picture.

“Nevertheless, it’s worth noting that public attitudes toward gay marriage changed at about the same rate as attitudes toward interracial marriage.”

Republicans don’t care about the deficit. Repeat that till it sinks in.

Posted in Blog stuff | Tagged linkdump | Comments Off

Early Voting concludes for the primary

Posted on March 2, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Here are your final daily early voting totals for the March primaries in Harris County. As is usually the case, the last day was the biggest. Republicans ended up with 75,400 early votes, Democrats with 30,108; that’s about 10,000 more R early votes than in 2010, and about 10,000 fewer D early votes. In 2010, in both the Republican and Democratic primaries, about 60% of the vote occurred on Election Day. If that were to happen this year, Dems would finish with about 75,000 votes, and Rs with about 175,000. If you want to go back to 2006, Republicans split their vote almost evenly between early and Election Day, while Democrats were in no rush to get to the polls, and cast two thirds of their ballots on E-Day. That year, barely 10,000 Dems voted early, and 33,00 voted in total, just more than the number of early voters this year. That’s what a truly slow year looks like. Anyway, it’s plausible to me that Dems may be more inclined to turn out later this year and that Republicans might have emphasized voting early, and if so those projections could move up a bit for Ds and down a bit for Rs. I’ll be surprised if Republicans don’t wind up with double the number of voters, however.

That’s for Harris County, at least. Elsewhere, Democrats are generally exceeding 2010 totals, as are Republicans in many counties. The Secretary of State only has totals for the top 15 through Thursday. If you compare those totals to the final totals for 2010, Democrats have already exceeded the overalls for 2010 in Dallas, Tarrant (by more than double), Travis, Collin, Denton, Williamson, and Cameron, with Bexar falling just short. Overall, Dems had 181,036 early votes through Thursday in these counties, and Republicans had 289,687; the final EV totals in 2010 were 184,694 for D and 306,422 for R. Adding in the Friday totals from just Harris County would make 2014 top the 2010 totals for Ds and would bring the Rs close to their 2010 number, so I think it’s fair to say that early voting was up for both parties overall, and in the end I think the final tallies will be as well. The Republican number to beat is about 1.5 million, and for Dems it’s about 700,000. We’ll see how it goes. Any predictions you’d like to share about totals and outcomes, go right ahead.

Posted in Election 2014 | Tagged early voting, Election 2006, Election 2010, Election 2014, Harris County, primaries, Texas, turnout | Comments Off

No stopping the San Felipe Skyscraper

Posted on March 2, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Not at this time, anyway.

A Harris County district court judge has denied an opposition group’s request to immediately halt construction on a 17-story office tower in a River Oaks area neighborhood.

The group, which filed suit in February against the project at 2229 San Felipe being developed by Houston-based Hines, has said it will continue to fight the tower.

Its lawsuit argues the project would be “abnormal and out of place” in the neighborhood. Last week, five more residents joined the six who sued, and attorneys targeted the contractor, Gilbane Building Co., in addition to the developer.

In its request for a temporary restraining order, the group claimed that since the work on the site began in December cracks have appeared in residents’ patios, noise and exhaust from construction equipment have invaded properties and property values have dropped by the day.

The group also claims that the developers and contractors hope to progress far enough into construction to reach a “point of no return.”

Both sides presented arguments to State District Judge Elaine Palmer Thursday. She denied the request for a temporary restraining order, which would have immediately stopped construction for a short time. The resident group plans next to request a temporary injunction, which would halt construction, but for longer.

In a response to the restraining order request, the Hines attorneys argued the residents cite no legal reason supporting a drastic action like stopping construction and said the residents offered no substantial proof to back claims for such an “extraordinary” action.

They also said that the project is fully permitted by the city and argued that the city, which has been monitoring construction, has not issued any traffic or noise citations and that there have been no accidents or injuries.

See here for the background. The lawsuit sounds a lot like the Ashby Highrise lawsuit, but I suppose there are enough differences between that project, and that lawsuit, and this one to allow this one to go forward. For now, anyway. We entered uncharted waters with the outcome of the Ashby lawsuit, so who knows what comes next.

Posted in Elsewhere in Houston | Tagged Ashby highrise, density, Houston, lawsuit, San Felipe, traffic, zoning | Comments Off

Pushing marriage equality into new frontiers

Posted on March 2, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

I love the idea behind this.

Less than two weeks after a federal judge declared Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional, a new effort has been launched in the South seeking to build wider acceptance of gay and lesbian couples in the hope of overturning similar bans across the region.

The $1 million effort will be focused on field organizing and sharing the stories of gay couples through local community and business events as well as social media in 14 Southern states.

The key, supporters say, will be to share stories like those of Linda Ellis and her partner, Lesley Brogan, who appeared at Monday’s event. The two have been together since 1988 and are raising their sons John, 15, and Sam, 12, in Decatur, Ga.

“They will tell you we are just like any other old married couple,” Ellis said. “They will tell you that, and it’s not true. Not yet. And we’re ready for it to be.”

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed was among those kicking off the “Southerners for the Freedom to Marry” campaign Monday, saying he believes gay marriage supporters are on the “right side of history.”

“This is about a trajectory. This is about the fact that marriage equality is on an irreversible path toward being legalized across the United States of America,” said Reed, who spoke of his initial reluctance to move from civil unions to supporting gay marriage based on religious reasons.

“And some folks have to decide, just like I did, where they want to be on a historical issue,” said Reed. “I was wrong, and I changed my opinion.”

Texas is one of the states in which this push is occurring. The announcement for this effort came out before Wednesday’s historic ruling, but just because a judge has spoken doesn’t mean that a campaign of outreach and persuasion isn’t still needed, because it is. The co-chairs and public faces of the effort here are Rep. Joaquin Castro and media/political strategist Mark McKinnon, who advised the George W. Bush and John McCain campaigns. Here’s the press release on this from Freedom to Marry, the driving force behind the whole thing:

Freedom to Marry, the campaign to win marriage nationwide, today launched a $1 million multi-state campaign to build majority support for marriage in the South. The new effort, called Southerners for the Freedom to Marry, will include significant field and media work over the next year in partnership with supportive organizations across the region. Bipartisan co-chairs include civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), who kicked off the campaign in a web ad; U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA); and George W. Bush advisor Mark McKinnon from Texas.

“Our investment in the South comes at a pivotal time in the marriage movement,” said Evan Wolfson, founder and president of Freedom to Marry. “The South is home to hundreds of thousands of loving, committed same-sex couples – and to a majority of the nearly 50 federal marriage cases now underway in courts across the country. Our new campaign will give voice to the many in the region now ready to move forward, including clergy, business leaders, conservatives, and family members, to show that all of America is ready for the freedom to marry.”

Despite growing support in the South, Southern states continue to discriminate against the more than 200,000 couples and their families who make the region their home. According to 2010 Census Bureau data, same-sex couples raising children are more common in the South than in any other region of the country. A recent poll of registered Southern voters showed that support for the freedom to marry in the region is now evenly split.

In the kick-off ad, Rep. Lewis shares his private photos of his heroic civil rights leadership, and passionately declares, “You cannot have rights for one segment of the population – for one group of people – and not for everybody. Civil rights and equal rights must be for all of God’s children.”

The Southerners for the Freedom to Marry campaign launched with 13 honorary co-chairs:

• Alabama: State Representative Patricia Todd (D)
• Arkansas: TV producers Harry Thomason & Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, Fayetteville Mayor Lioneld Jordan (D)
• Florida: Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R)
• Georgia: Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed (D), Rep. John Lewis (D)
• Mississippi: Lance Bass, musician and author
• North Carolina: Chapel Hill Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt (D)
• South Carolina: Rep. James Clyburn (D)
• Texas: Rep. Joaquin Castro (D); Mark McKinnon, chief media advisor to President George W. Bush
• Virginia: U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D)

“As a conservative, I don’t believe you or I or the government can tell people who they can love or marry,” said McKinnon. “Freedom means freedom for everyone, not just for some. That’s why I’m a southerner for the freedom to marry. And the political reality is that the marriage wedge has lost its edge. This train has left the station and we all need to get onboard.”

Southerners for the Freedom to Marry is led in partnership between Freedom to Marry and the following: the Equality Federation, the Campaign for Southern Equality, Georgia Equality, Equality Alabama, Equality Florida, Equality Louisiana, Equality Texas, Equality Virginia, Equality North Carolina, South Carolina Equality, the Equality Network of Oklahoma, and the Fairness Campaign of Kentucky.

They have more on the co-chairs here, a video of civil rights hero US Rep. John Lewis discussing marriage equality here, and more on the campaign kickoff and the people involved here. I wish them all the best of luck.

Posted in National news | Tagged Equality Texas, Freedom to Marry, gay marriage, gay rights, Joaquin Castro, Mark McKinnon, Texas | Comments Off

Who will be the next Steve Stockman?

Posted on March 2, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

No one can truly replace Steve Stockman, one of the most gifted performance artists that the Congress has ever seen, but many are trying to win his now-vacated seat.

No clown shortage here

In some ways no one can replace Steve Stockman, who chose not to seek re-election to Texas’ 36th Congressional District and instead mounted what many see as a quixotic primary challenge to U.S. Sen. John Cornyn.

None of the 12 Republicans running in the primary to replace Stockman is likely to match the shenanigans that, analysts say, made Stockman an embarrassment to some in the party.

“In many ways Stockman did the party a big favor,” said Rice University political science professor Mark Jones. “They couldn’t get rid of him. Whoever replaces him will be much less of a distraction and have much less of a negative impact on the image of the Texas Republican Party and the Republican Party more generally.”

No single candidate has emerged with a clear advantage in the 36th District Republican primary, which likely will decide the race. The district is so strongly Republican that the other candidates – one Democrat, one Independent, one from the Green Party and two Libertarians – have only a ghost of a chance, said Brandon Rottinghaus, University of Houston political science professor.

The 36th District gave President Barack Obama 26 percent of its 2012 vote.

Because there are so many candidates, a runoff May 27 is likely, Jones said. He said a candidate could win a runoff spot with as little as 15 percent of the vote.

For once I agree with Mark Jones. With Stockman gone – assuming he doesn’t manage to knock of Sen. John Cornyn in that primary, which no one expects – Texas will be down to two nationally known embarrassments in Congress. While there is plenty of B-level talent among the delegation, none of them likely has what it takes to join Louie Gohmert and Ted Cruz on the main stage. Ben Streusand, whose nasally voice from millions of TV ads for CD10 in 2004 is still wedged in my brain, may have an edge in the race and is sure to say some stupid things if elected, or even just if he makes the runoff, but it takes a lot more than that to be Stockman quality. Stockman has that certain je ne sais quoi about him that while I can’t say it will be missed, it will be notably absent.

Posted in Election 2014 | Tagged Ben Streusand, CD36, Congress, Election 2014, Louie Gohmert, primaries, Senate, Steve Stockman, Ted Cruz, Texas | Comments Off

Saturday video break: Alcohol

Posted on March 1, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Just because two songs have the same name, it doesn’t mean they’re the same song. In theory, there’s an unlimited number of song titles; in practice, there are a lot of repeats. We’ll be looking at some examples of those as well as we proceed, starting with today’s example. Here’s The Kinks with a lesser known tune from their songbook:

I love the old-timey sound here, with the brass instruments and the clarinet. With the subject matter of “demon alcohol”, you could imagine it being performed – non-ironically, of course – at a dive in New Orleans.

Now for a very different and much better known song of the same name, from the Barenaked Ladies:

Two things are true: One, “Stunt” was a really good disc, with multiple radio-friendly cuts on it. Two, I don’t think I’ve ever heard any of those radio-friendly cuts on any radio station I’ve ever listened to in Houston, not even the reasonably broad-based KACC. I admit, I don’t listen to Top Hits or Alternative stations, which is where I expect BNL’s songs lived in the 90s. But it’s a mystery to me why none of them have begun turning up on Classic Rock stations, given that they’re now, you know, music from two decades ago. As we know, though, there’s no such thing as “Classic Rock” after 1989, so wherever these songs live on the radio now, they’re still not on the radio stations (okay, station) where I think they ought to be.

Posted in Music | Tagged classic rock, same name different song, videos | Comments Off

City to Uber: Enough with the emails already

Posted on March 1, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

So this happened.

The battle over Houston’s taxi rules moved Thursday from the streets to cyberspace, reflecting ongoing tension between an aggressive newcomer and a city government determined to proceed cautiously.

Thousands of email messages urging elected leaders to allow the ridesharing service Uber into Houston slowed city servers and led City Attorney David Feldman to ask that the company stop the online onslaught. A similar service trying to operate in Houston, Lyft, stayed on the sidelines of the latest dispute.

“The excessive number of emails has gone unabated, to the point that it has become harassing in nature and arguably unlawful,” Feldman wrote in a letter to Robert Miller, Uber’s Houston-based attorney.

[…]

Uber started an online petition Monday, asking people to show their support. Each signature sent an automated letter via email to 23 city officials. As of 4 p.m. Thursday, more than 9,900 people had signed the petition.

The deluge left the city in the odd position of telling Uber to stop bothering it with messages from its own residents and voters. Law professors said the demand was questionable.

“I can’t think of a law that (the email deluge) is infringing,” said Jacqueline Lipton, co-director of the Institute for Intellectual Property and Information Law at the University of Houston. “Most harassment laws contain a real and not imagined threat.”

Uber posted Feldman’s letter online Thursday, accompanied by the company’s vow not to give up on entering the Houston market.

“All of the people who have signed this petition with the intention of communicating with their elected representatives should have their voice heard,” Uber spokeswoman Nairi Hourdajian said.

You can see where Uber posted Feldman’s email, plus a link to the petition, here. This was a dumb thing for Feldman to do. It’s never a good idea for public officials to tell the public to butt out of their business. He has no legal grounds for it, and it just sounds terrible. I don’t know what he was thinking when he sent that.

That said, there is a message that perhaps Uber needs to hear, and Mayor Parker delivered it in a more appropriate way:

To those who want Uber: the process is working w/ all deliberate speed. Regulation takes time. Crashing city inboxes doesn't speed it up.-A

— Annise Parker (@AnniseParker) February 27, 2014

The people who want Uber aren’t the only people the city needs to hear from. Everyone with a stake in this needs to have a chance to be heard, and not all of them are in a position to do so by entering their name on a webform and clicking Submit. It does take time to revise and update regulations, and I for one would rather the city take that time to get it right. By all means, Uber fans, sign the petition and contact the Mayor and your Council members by whatever valid means you want, but let’s have some reasonable expectations about the process and its duration. We’ll get there when we get there, which right now looks like the end of March or the beginning of April.

Posted in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles | Tagged Annise Parker, David Feldman, Houston, Houston City Council, Lyft, taxis, Uber | Comments Off

State of the county 2014: Let’s keep working together

Posted on March 1, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Time for Judge Emmett to tell us how things are going in Harris County. (Spoiler alert: They’re going fine, thanks for asking.)

Judge Ed Emmett

On the eve of what could be his final term as Harris County’s top elected official, County Judge Ed Emmett on Thursday called for the consolidation of various government entities and services, citing explosive growth in the unincorporated areas of the county, the city’s lack of annexation and deteriorating infrastructure.

Saying he was not advocating for a total fusion of city and county governments, Emmett cited several areas ripe for consolidation: ports, health care, affordable housing and law enforcement, including county and city forensic crime laboratories.

“The future state of Harris County will depend on the ability of the region to work together to best address the needs of our residents,” Emmett said in his annual State of the County address, delivered to a Hilton Americas luncheon crowd that included dozens of elected officials from the county, city of Houston and several of the 34 independent municipalities the county encompasses.

Emmett and other county leaders, particularly County Sheriff Adrian Garcia, have in recent years harped on census projections that indicate the number of people living in the unincorporated areas of the county – nearly 1.7 million in 2012 – is expected to exceed the number of people living inside Houston city limits by the end of the decade, if the city continues a policy of limited annexation.

Emmett, county judge since 2007, said that practice has created a “problem in unincorporated Harris County, where we don’t have ordinance-making power, we’ve got subdivisions where the streets are beginning to wear out because they were built 50 and 60 years ago.”

Without consolidation of services, Emmett said, “we’re going to end up with a county that is overwhelmed, with a city that is still going to not be able to take care of its streets.” He noted the creation of any “multi-county district” or consolidation of ports would have to be approved by the Legislature.

[…]

Mayor Annise Parker said Thursday the city and county “are working more closely together than any time in our history,” citing the processing center, libraries, Metro and the Port of Houston.

“We will continue to look for opportunities where we can meld operations for more efficiencies and savings for our citizens,” she said.

I have a copy of the speech here; it should be posted on Judge Emmett’s website shortly. There’s a lot to be said for further consolidation of county and city functions. A lot of functions overlap or duplicate each other, and the potential is there to make these services more efficient. I sometimes worry that the current level of harmony between Houston and Harris County is mostly a function of the cordial relationship between Mayor Parker and Judge Emmett. Whether that’s a ration fear or not, I’d still like to see if we can get a lot of this stuff formalized while the two of them are still in office, so we don’t have to worry about whether the next Mayor gets along with Judge Emmett and/or his future successor or not.

Along the same lines, taking a more regional approach to some aspects of governance and planning makes a lot of sense as well. This is a much tougher thing to do because it usually requires legislative assistance, and because as Judge Emmett notes there’s a tendency to protect one’s turf. But a lot of our problems and our needs cross political boundaries and can’t be solved or even approached without some level of cooperation. The advantage of regional agencies and districts is they can help ensure adequate levels of funding to solve those problems. And if we’re going to talk about regional approaches, and since Judge Emmett talked about transportation as a big problem that needs a lot of attention, let me suggest that maybe now would be a good time to start talking about Metro and whether it might make sense to expand its service area to include places like Fort Bend and The Woodlands. If it’s a good thing to avoid duplication of effort in government offices, it’s a good thing to avoid it in transportation agencies and function, too. Just something to think about as long as we’re thinking big.

Posted in Local politics | Tagged Annise Parker, Ed Emmett, Harris County, Houston, Metro | 6 Comments

Harris County GOP to yell at cloud on Monday

Posted on March 1, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Lone Star Q:

Calling gay people “sodomites” and U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia a “would-be dictator,” the Harris County Republican Party announced it will host a news conference Monday morning in response to Garcia’s ruling Wednesday striking down Texas’ bans on same-sex marriage.

The event at county GOP headquarters seems like a pretty obvious ploy to energize the conservative base in advance of Tuesday’s primary — when, among others, Chair Jared Woodfill faces a challenger from within the party.

According to a release sent out Friday afternoon, party workers and eleted officials will “stand shoulder to shoulder with people of faith to denounce the lawless ruling of a federal court seeking to impose the whims of unelected judges on the people of Texas.”

“President Obama set a precedent of lawlessness by intimating that he would now use his ‘pen’ and ‘phone’ to circumvent the will of the people and their elected representatives. Now every petty would-be dictator this side of the Rio Grande is advancing personal agendas by decree,” said Woodfill, who is referred to as “a staunch advocate of family values.”

“This is an astonishing example of judicial activism and a violation of the separation of powers. Whatever the personal views of Judge Garcia, he does not have the power to makes laws. Our Founding Fathers would be furious to find out that the Constitution was being interpreted to allow sodomites to marry,” stated Dr. Steve Hotze.

Remember when some people said there was no difference between the Democrats and the Republicans? Those were the days, I tell you. Just another thing to keep in mind when you vote this year.

Posted in Show Business for Ugly People | Tagged gay marriage, gay rights, Harris County, Jared Woodfill, Republican Party, Steven Hotze | 4 Comments

Vaccinating skunks

Posted on March 1, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

To prevent rabies, of course.

Texas, which has long campaigned for family pets to be vaccinated against rabies, is now attacking from the sky one of the state’s foulest carriers of the disease: skunks.

Skunks would obviously put up quite a stink if caught and hauled in to a veterinarian’s office for shots. So the state health department is taking the rabies vaccine to the vermin.

Twin-engine airplanes this month are crisscrossing 8,800 square miles of East and Central Texas to drop 1.2 million vaccine packets.

Each vaccine is the size of a fast-food ketchup packet and is coated with smelly fish meal to entice skunks to eat it.

Packets will rain down at a rate of about 150 per square mile, as pilots try to evenly disperse the vaccines over rural portions of Montgomery, Fort Bend, Waller and 14 other counties to the west and north of Houston.

The massive airdrop – which should skirt around residential neighborhoods – is part of an expanded test by the Texas Department of State Health Services of the V-RG vaccine – the same preventative used over the past two decades to nearly eliminate the canine and fox strains of rabies.

“We want to know if it will be just as effective in wiping out the skunk strain as it did the other two,” said Tom Sidwa, state public health veterinarian.

See? It is possible for uninsured people to get health care in Texas, if by “uninsured people” you mean “skunks”, and by “health care” you mean “air-dropped vaccination packets”. Details, details.

Seriously, this is a good idea that worked with one strain of rabies and ought to work equally well with another. I hope to read a future report about how successful this effort was.

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged rabies, skunks, Texas, Texas Department of State Health Services, vaccinations | 1 Comment

Friday random ten: My gayest list ever

Posted on February 28, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

In honor of Wednesday’s epic ruling invalidating Texas’ Double Secret Illegal Anti-Gay Marriage law, here’s a supersized list celebrating the LGBTQ artists in my collection:

1. We Are The Champions – Queen
2. The Consequences of Falling – k.d. lang
3. I Don’t Know What It Is – Rufus Wainwright
4. Take Me To The Pilot – Elton John
5. Bring Me Some Water – Melissa Etheridge
6. Tainted Love – Soft Cell
7. Closer To Fine – Indigo Girls
8. October – Kings
9. Tonight – George Michael
10. YMCA – The Village People
11. Driver Eight – R.E.M.
12. West End Girls – Pet Shop Boys
13. Cosmic Thing – The B-52’s
14. Born To Run – Frankie Goes To Hollywood
15. Gobbledigook – Sigur Ros

Some mighty fine tunes in there, if you ask me. This list was helpful to me in putting my own list together, and of course there’s always Wikipedia. Who’s on your list?

Posted in Music | Tagged Friday random ten, gay rights, theme lists | Comments Off

Next steps in the Texas same sex marriage lawsuit

Posted on February 28, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

In case you were wondering, Attorney General and candidate for Governor Greg Abbott will appeal Wednesday’s historic ruling striking down Texas’ constitutional amendment barring same sex marriage.

The state of Texas has officially given notice that it is appealing a San Antonio judge’s ruling that completely struck down its ban on same sex marriage.

“Defendants … Rick Perry, Greg Abbott, and David Lakey … hereby appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit from the Order Granting Plaintiffs’ Motion for Preliminary Injunction, signed and entered in this action on February 26, 2014 ,” said the state’s notice, filed in federal court in San Antonio on Thursday.

Abbott’s statement is here. Democratic candidate for AG Sam Houston thinks Abbott shouldn’t have bothered.

I agree with Judge Garcia when he says “state-imposed inequality can find no refuge in our United States Constitution.” There is no question that marriage is a right that should be afforded to all consenting adults regardless of race. In my view, the same right should be afforded regardless of sexual orientation, and I am not convinced Texas should commit substantial time and money to appeal a ruling that is likely to remain unchanged when considered by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Needless to say, none of the Republican candidates agreed with that.

Texas Monthly, writing before Abbott’s promise to appeal, examines the timing of the process.

[Judge Orlando] Garcia’s ruling falls in line with similar district court decisions issued recently in Oklahoma, Virginia, and Utah—making it increasingly likely that the U.S. Supreme Court will eventually have to settle the matter, possibly as soon as the 2014-15 session.

During a conference call [Wednesday] afternoon, Barry Chasnoff, one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs, said that while he hoped Abbott would choose not to appeal the decision and allow it to stand—as attorney generals in states like New Jersey have done—he nonetheless expected that in “a political year” Abbott would issue an appeal.

Garcia’s injunction will place the case on a fast track to the appeals courts, which is also where the Utah and Oklahoma cases are headed. But while Oklahoma’s and Utah’s cases are being appealed to the traditionally moderate Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Texas appeal will be heard by the traditionally conservative Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans.

According to Kenneth Upton, a Dallas-based senior lawyer for the gay legal advocacy group Lambda Legal, the Texas appeal could be decided around the same time as the Oklahoma, Virginia, and Utah appeals. So although it’s still considered unlikely, there’s a chance that the Texas case could be the one the Supreme Court hears first—and could end up bringing same-sex marriage to all fifty states.

That would make it a bookend to the Lawrence v. Texas case from 2003. We sure have come a long way. I recommend you also read this TM feature story from the February issue, about plaintiffs Mark Phariss and Vic Holmes:

Phariss and Holmes, who filed suit with another same-sex couple in October and whose case will be heard this month by the U.S. District Court in San Antonio, are unlikely catalysts for social change: until recently, Phariss wasn’t entirely out of the closet, and both men were deeply hesitant about being part of the case. Holmes, who is a 43-year-old physician’s assistant in Fort Worth and former Air Force officer, feared that exposing themselves so publicly might make them targets of antigay violence. Phariss, who is 54 and an attorney, worried that the attendant publicity would alienate colleagues and clients, many of whom didn’t know about his sexuality. He even asked the legal team handling the suit if it could withhold a press release from the Dallas Morning News, since that’s the newspaper that everyone he works with reads.

“The day it was filed, I literally got physically sick,” recalled Phariss. “Leading up to that, we definitely had moments where we looked at each other and asked, ‘Have we lost our minds?’ It’s no accident that my name is the last of the plaintiffs listed.”

A decade after Lawrence v. Texas —the landmark 2003 Supreme Court decision that declared state laws forbidding homosexual activity to be unconstitutional—Texas seems to have found two more reluctant gay-equality activists. Like John Geddes Lawrence, who was closeted at the time of his 1998 arrest in Houston for consensual sex with another man in his own house, Phariss and Holmes found themselves drawn into the battle for marriage equality almost by happenstance. At every step of the way, they’ve had to keep convincing themselves this is the right thing to do. “The truth of the matter is I had some reticence about meeting with you,” Phariss told me.

[…]

The lawsuit originated with co-plaintiffs Nicole Dimetman and Cleopatra De Leon, who live in Austin but married in Massachusetts in 2009. In the aftermath of last summer’s Windsor decision, the women decided to sue Texas to recognize their marriage. One of their main motivations, they said, was to cement parental rights regarding their son, whom De Leon gave birth to in 2012 and whom Dimetman has since adopted. “We want to be able to tell our kids that we are married,” De Leon told me.

In August, Dimetman, an attorney who previously worked for the San Antonio office of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld (which had filed an amicus brief in the Windsor case), asked her former employers if they would be willing to represent the couple. After Akin Gump agreed to take on the case, the firm’s attorneys began reaching out to other gay couples, asking them to join as co-plaintiffs. They believed that a diverse group of plaintiffs—male and female, unmarried and already married in another state—would give the lawsuit its best chance. One of the first people lawyer Frank Stenger-Castro talked to was Phariss, whom he knew through legal circles. Phariss and Holmes eventually agreed to join the suit and went to the Bexar County Clerk’s office, where they requested and were denied a marriage license.

Why would Phariss and Holmes take on such a public role, given Phariss’s semi-closetedness and their concerns for their safety? They say that, in good conscience, they couldn’t not do it.

“There’s this phenomenon where someone is in trouble and needs an ambulance, and everybody says, ‘Call 911,’ and everybody assumes someone else is going to do it, and nobody winds up doing it,” said Holmes. “I didn’t see anybody else doing this, so I thought, ‘Okay, I’ll be the one who makes the call.’ ”

They’re happy they did make that call, as expressed by their statement after the ruling.

“We are extremely happy — happy beyond words — with Judge Garcia’s decision,” Phariss and Holmes said Wednesday in a written statement. “Today, Judge Garcia affirmed that the Equal Protection Clause applies to all Texans. We are delighted by that decision, and we expect that, if appealed, it will be upheld.”

In the same joint statement, Dimetman and De Leon described the decision as “a great step towards justice for our family.”

“Ultimately, the repeal of Texas’ ban will mean that our son will never know how this denial of equal protections demeaned our family and belittled his parents’ relationship,” they said in a written statement. “We look forward to the day when, surrounded by friends and family, we can renew our vows in our home state of Texas.”

Not everyone is happy, of course – this Chron story has a couple of quotes from usual suspects expressing their unhappiness.

Gov. Rick Perry said the ruling was yet another attempt by the federal government to tell Texans how to live their lives.

“Texans spoke loud and clear by overwhelmingly voting to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman in our constitution, and it is not the role of the federal government to overturn the will of our citizens,” he said. “We will continue to fight for the rights of Texans to self-determine the laws of our state.”

[…]

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples, who authored the amendment to the state constitution that banned same-sex marriage when he was a state senator in 2005 issued a short, but to-the-point Tweet on the ruling:

“Having carried the constitutional amendment defining marriage between 1 man & 1 woman, I will change my definition of marriage when God does.”

Perry and Staples and Dan Patrick and all the rest of them deserve all the unhappiness they get over this. Couldn’t happen to a better bunch of people.

By the way, there’s a second lawsuit that has yet to be heard.

Another gay marriage lawsuit will be heard in Austin, possibly as early as June. Federal Judge Sam Sparks will hear an argument made by a gay couple that the state ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional because it discriminates against them based on their gender. The argument is slightly different from the one made before Garcia and could trigger another round of appeals.

You may recall that Abbott tried to get these two cases consolidated and moved to Judge Sparks’ court, but both Judges Garcia and Sparks rejected those motions. In preliminary hearings, Judge Sparks had expressed some skepticism about the plaintiffs’ claims in the lawsuit that he will hear, which as noted is based on different claims than the one Judge Garcia just ruled on. It will be interesting to see what happens in that case.

Another lawsuit likely to be affected by this is the one that was filed by Jared Woodfill against the city of Houston over Mayor Parker’s order to make spousal benefits available to legally married same sex couples as well. Lone Star Q discusses that.

Ken Upton, a senior staff attorney at Lambda Legal who’s representing the gay Houston employees, told Lone Star Q on Thursday that U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia’s ruling striking down the amendment will bolster the argument for same-sex benefits in Houston.

“It should be persuasive that the City and the employees have a substantial likelihood of success on the merits given that another federal judge in a sister district has found the law to violate both the liberty and equality guarantees of the 14th amendment,” Upton said.

You’d sure think so, wouldn’t you? That case is now in federal court, being heard by Judge Lee Rosenthal. There should be another hearing for it soon, unless the plaintiffs decide to drop it. Take the hint, Jared.

Last and least, Louie Gohmert is still an idiot. Just thought you’d want to know that.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged Annise Parker, Attorney General, Dan Patrick, DOMA, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, gay marriage, gay rights, Greg Abbott, Houston, Jared Woodfill, Lambda Legal, lawsuit, Louie Gohmert, Rick Perry, Sam Houston, SCOTUS, Texas, Todd Staples | 3 Comments

Don’t worry, Abbott and The Nuge are still besties

Posted on February 28, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Everyone who thinks what happened last week was bad for his campaign is just too stupid to see the big picture.

BFFs 4eva!

Right about the time Nugent was firing up the second crowd of North Texas voters last week in Wichita Falls, Abbott’s chief strategist, Dave Carney, wondered out loud on Twitter if the campaign’s Democratic opponent, Sen. Wendy Davis, wanted to go mano-a-mano with The Nuge on issues important to Texas voters.

“Wonder if @wendydavistexas would risk a straight up vote,” Carney wrote, using Davis’ Twitter account name. “Her and her views V. @TedNugent and his? I know who would win today!”

A week’s worth of Democratic outrage did nothing to shake Carney from that notion. The longtime consultant, who worked in the first Bush White House, is no stranger to Texas politics. He got his start here in 1993, helping Kay Bailey Hutchison defeat Sen. Bob Krueger, the last Texas Democrat to serve in the U.S. Senate, and he has played a major role in every Republican gubernatorial campaign since 2002.

The Nugent blowback theory, in his view, is yet another fiction spun by liberal elites and their friends in the mainstream media. Just like the fantasy that Sen. Kay “Bailout” Hutchison — who Carney quit working for long ago — was going to beat his more conservative client, Gov. Rick Perry, in the 2010 governor’s race. Just like the myth that a diverse “dream team” of Democratic candidates in 2002 had any chance of tossing out the dominant Republicans.

Never mind that Nugent has acknowledged having “beautiful” affairs with underage girls in his heavy touring days, or that he has called Hillary Clinton a “bitch” and worse. Yes, all that was a bit over the top. And no, the way Abbott handled the flap did not produce his finest hour on the campaign trail, particularly when CNN’s Ed Lavandera tried to ask the candidate about the controversy. After a standard brush-off failed to stop the reporter, an Abbott campaign aide physically blocked him from asking any more questions.

Now even Nugent, in the slightest nod to his critics, has issued a limited apology, not for any misogynistic slurs or engaging in sex with underage girls, but for referring to President Obama as a “subhuman mongrel,” a phrase Nazis once applied to Jews.

Regardless, inside the Abbott campaign, all of the handwringing over the gig with Nugent — and other perceived missteps — is confined to, as Carney puts it, a bunch of “Austin echo chamber” elites who are woefully out of touch with the voting public.

“They’re clueless about politics,” he said in an interview with The Texas Tribune. “This group-think stuff has zero impact on voters.”

So, to sum up:

1. Abbott’s association with Ted Nugent was awesome for him.

2. Anyone who thinks otherwise is an idiot.

3. Nothing will change until someone loses an election over something like this.

Are we fired up yet? Now go do something about it.

Posted in Show Business for Ugly People | Tagged Election 2014, Governor, Greg Abbott, Ted Nugent, Texas, Wendy Davis | Comments Off

The state of HISD

Posted on February 28, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

HISD Superintendent Terry Grier assesses the district in his State of the Schools address.

Terry Grier

While not mentioning the closure controversy Wednesday, Grier touted the district’s progress – being named the nation’s top urban school district in 2013, for example – while conceding he has more work to do in the two years left on his contract.

“We’re on a journey together, an ambitious journey, a journey that’s not easy, and that will not be complete in a year,” Grier told some 2,000 educators, community leaders and parents packed into a downtown hotel ballroom. “Change takes time.”

He announced new initiatives including expansion of foreign language studies and efforts to reduce student mobility during the school year.

[…]

Touting Houston’s diversity, he said an additional 14 elementary schools will offer dual-language Spanish programs next year, doubling the number in the district. The programs allow native English and Spanish speakers to take classes together, helping them gain proficiency in both languages.

“I think it’s a great idea,” said Kennedy Garrett, an eighth-grader at Wharton Dual Language Academy who introduced Grier in Spanish before his speech. “If you have the opportunity to be in it, I’d say go for it. There are going to be challenges, but it’s worth it.”

Grier, in his North Carolina drawl, later attempted a few words in Arabic and said officials were considering an Arabic immersion school.

HISD’s Mandarin immersion school, opened in 2012, has proved popular, drawing a waiting list as early as pre-kindergarten.

Grier also announced an effort to cut down on students switching schools midyear, often multiple times because their parents are chasing cheap rent. Grier said the district would provide busing for the students to stay at their original schools. He did not provide a price tag for the plan he called “home field advantage.”

You can see videos of the speeches and more information on the dual-language programs, which I too think are a great idea, here. Of interest is that Grier barely mentioned the Apollo program, which continues to have questions raised about the permanence of the academic gains it has achieved. Grier suggested that HISD may just take what it has learned from Apollo – basically, tutoring works – and apply it more broadly, a development that if it happens would I daresay be received well. He also emphasized the need to improve reading scores in HISD, which if done would be a huge accomplishment. Hair Balls has more.

Posted in School days | Tagged HISD, HISD Board of Trustees, Houston, Juliet Stipeche, schools, Terry Grier | Comments Off

Texas stands with polluters against the EPA one more time

Posted on February 28, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Here we go.

Houston Ship Channel, 1973

The Obama administration’s climate change agenda on Monday faced one of its first real tests in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, where Texas and a group of industry leaders challenged an Environmental Protection Agency regulation aimed at limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

The question before the court is whether permits needed by large polluting facilities like power plants, factories and refineries should also restrict emissions of greenhouse gases. Texas and several industry coalitions say the permits, which companies must obtain before building facilities, should not be required for such emissions.

Instead, argued Texas Solicitor General Jonathan Mitchell and Washington, D.C.-based attorney Peter Keisler, permits should only limit emissions of regular air pollutants like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide.

“Greenhouse gas emissions should not be treated the same as other air pollutants,” Mitchell told the court, pointing out that Congress has only passed legislation on traditional air pollutants, not greenhouse gases. “Congress does not establish round holes for square pegs.”

The scope of the question at hand is narrow because it only deals with permitting. In court cases in 2007 and 2011, the Supreme Court upheld the EPA’s ability to broadly regulate greenhouse gas emissions from “mobile sources,” like motor vehicles, and “stationary sources,” like power plants.

Still, if Supreme Court justices agree with Texas and the industry petitioners, the Obama administration’s attempts to combat climate change independently of Congress will suffer a major setback.

“Permitting is one of the most powerful tools in the toolbox,” said Pamela Giblin, an Austin-based lawyer with the firm Baker Botts LLP, which represents many energy and chemical companies that are affected by the regulations. “You’ve got these multibillion-dollar projects; you’ve got bulldozers there waiting until you get the permit. … The agency is never going to have as much leverage over a company as it does when they’re madly trying to get the permission to break ground.”

See here for some background. The Chron sums up what’s at stake.

The EPA made the move to regulate heat-trapping emissions from industrial sources after a 2007 Supreme Court decision that said the agency had the authority to limit greenhouse gases from cars and trucks under the federal law.

As a result, President Barack Obama has tried to bypass Congress by moving his ambitious agenda for addressing climate change through the EPA, angering many Republicans.

In briefs filed with the court, Texas Solicitor General Jonathan Mitchell argued that the Clear Air Act cannot be interpreted to allow EPA’s permitting requirements when the rules cause “preposterous consequences.” By the state’s estimation, more than 6 million industrial sources nationwide would be forced to meet the requirements at a cost of $1.5 billion.

[…]

Legal experts said Texas might not be able to sway the justices because previous court decisions give deference to federal agencies when statutes are ambiguous.

“The Supreme Court has said we defer to the agency if its position is reasonable,” said Thomas McGarity, professor of administrative law at the University of Texas at Austin.

David Doniger, the climate policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said fewer than 200 industrial facilities needed permits in the first two years of the new requirements for greenhouse gases. “So despite all the cries of alarm, the Clean Air Act’s permitting requirements are working just fine,” he said.

[…]

Tracy Hester, professor of environmental law at the University of Houston, described the state’s request as a “classic Hail Mary.”

“Given the court had this whole buffet of issues and still narrowed it to one” when it decided to hear the Texas case, “that makes going for the whole 99 yards unlikely,” Hester said.

Lyle Denniston thinks things went reasonably well for the Obama administration.

As is so often the case when the Court is closely divided, the vote of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy loomed as the critical one, and that vote seemed inclined toward the EPA, though with some doubt. Although he seemed troubled that Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli, Jr., could call up no prior ruling to support the policy choice the EPA had made on greenhouse gases by industrial plants, Kennedy left the impression that it might not matter.

It was quickly evident that the EPA’s initiatives, seeking to put limits on ground sources of greenhouse gases, almost certainly had four votes in support: Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor. They could not seem to accept that, when the challengers themselves are divided on the best way to read the Clean Air Act’s impact on such emissions, the Court should go with one of those choices rather than with the EPA’s.

The most enthusiastic supporter of the industry challengers was Justice Antonin Scalia, although Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., asked strongly skeptical questions about EPA’s justification for its actions. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., revealed little of where he might wind up, acting mostly as a moderator of his more active colleagues, and Justice Clarence Thomas said nothing.

That, of course, left Justice Kennedy. He was quite protective of the Court’s own decision seven years ago, launching EPA into the field of greenhouse gas regulation, and of a reinforcing decision on that point by the Court three years ago. But neither was close enough to the specifics of what EPA has now done, so he seemed short of just one precedent that might be enough to tip his vote for sure.

“Reading the briefs,” he commented to Verrilli, acting as the EPA’s lawyer, “I cannot find a single precedent that supports your position.” It appears that there just isn’t one to be had.

That, then, raised the question: how much would Kennedy be willing to trust the EPA to have done its best to follow Congress’s lead without stretching the Clean Air Act out of shape, as the EPA’s challengers have insisted that it has done? He made no comments suggesting that he accepted industry’s complaint of an EPA power grab.

We’ll know in a few months. Daily Kos has more.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged Clean Air Act, Environmental Protection Agency, greenhouse gases, lawsuit, pollution, SCOTUS, Texas | Comments Off

BGT fires back

Posted on February 27, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Good for them.

Allegations that Battleground Texas broke the law during its voter registration activities are “entirely without foundation,” the Democratic group wrote in a letter to Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst on Tuesday.

Dewhurst, citing a secretly recorded video of Battleground volunteers in Bexar County, had earlier called for a criminal investigation because of allegations that privacy laws had been broken.

But Graham Wilson, an attorney for the group, told Dewhurst in the letter that his call for a probe “reflects no familiarity with either the law” or rules promulgated by the office of the secretary of state, which handles voter registration regulations at the state level.

He said opinions from Attorney General Greg Abbott demonstrate that phone numbers gathered during the voter registration process were considered public information. Phone numbers allegedly copied down by Battleground volunteers sparked the accusations in the first place.

“In short, Battleground Texas is operating in full compliance with the law as set forth in the Attorney General’s legal opinions, and with attention paid as appropriate to the Secretary of State’s official guidance in this area,” Wilson wrote.

[…]

As for the phone numbers, Wilson cited three opinions from the office of the attorney general, including one from 2010 stemming from a case in Dallas County. In that opinion, Abbott’s office concluded that “the county may not withhold the telephone numbers” from a requestor who had asked for the information.

Battleground also cited a pamphlet from the office of the secretary of state that says in part that a volunteer deputy registrar “may also copy the relevant information from the application in writing just as you would be able to do if you went to the registrar’s office and pulled a copy of the original application.”

Wilson said the group does not photocopy voter registration applications and “has not used and is not retaining phone numbers taken off voter registration forms by volunteers.”

See here for the background. I’ve got a copy of the AG opinion here and the letter to Dewhurst, which shows him the level of respect he deserves, here. Not really a whole lot to add at this point – either a DA files a charge or convenes a grand jury (Abbott handed off to Bexar County DA Susan Reed, who last I checked was seeking a pinch hitter) or they don’t. Any lawyers want to take a crack at evaluating this one? BOR has more.

Posted in Show Business for Ugly People | Tagged Attorney General, Battleground Texas, Bexar County, David Dewhurst, Election 2014, Greg Abbott, James O'Keefe, Secretary of State, Susan Reed, Texas, voter registration | Comments Off

Cab companies push back on Uber/Lyft

Posted on February 27, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

The first Council action on updating the taxi and limo codes to accommodate Uber and Lyft went about as you’d expect.

Houston City Council members struggled Tuesday to strike a balance between ensuring paid rides in Houston are available to everyone and encouraging competition from new firms that say they can provide faster service.

Speakers at a joint meeting of two council committees considering changes in taxi regulations said the business models of the new companies, Uber and Lyft, could complicate a system important not just to established businesses, but to city residents dependent on cabs.

“This needs to be broader than who makes a dollar off of it,” said Tomaro Bell, president of the Super Neighborhood Alliance.

Lyft and Uber use non-professional drivers behind the wheels of their personal vehicles. Taxi industry leaders complained that the new companies would not face the same requirements as established ones, such as serving disabled passengers and providing service all over Houston.

“They don’t want the difficult part. They want the easy part,” said George Tompkins, who owns a company with five taxi medallions in Houston. “They want the fruit but they don’t want the vine.”

[…]

Council members also blasted the online companies for jumping into the market without approval after months of discussions. The companies’ hasty action complicated the council discussion, said Christopher Newport, chief of staff for the city’s regulatory affairs department.

“There is an implication you are having a conversation under duress,” he said.

Uber and Lyft faced similar concerns when they started service in Seattle, Chicago and Washington, D.C.

The online companies’ ultimate effect on Houston taxi service is difficult to predict, Newport said. Data from other cities doesn’t point to an obvious outcome in Houston.

Taxi companies complained about the potential loss of business before Houston revised its cab laws to cover jitney service that circulates in high-traffic areas. When the city eventually allowed jitneys in certain circumstances, though, their entrance didn’t significantly harm taxi companies.

The shorter chron.com story has a bit more information. I am not surprised that the claim-jumping entries by Lyft and UberX caused some fuss on Council, but in the end I don’t think it will matter. I refer you back to the demand study on taxi service in Houston, which points pretty clearly to Council taking action of some kind to open the market. The Chron sure wants it to happen. I think it will, and I think the market for paid rides is not zero sum; I think it will expand to accommodate the newcomers, though I’m sure there will be some pain for the legacy cab companies. In the end, I believe we will be better off.

Posted in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles | Tagged Department of Administration and Regulatory Affairs, Houston, Houston City Council, Lyft, taxis, Uber | 2 Comments

Firefighters union sues city to block cutbacks

Posted on February 27, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Not sure about this.

Houston firefighters went to court Tuesday in an effort to block the city from removing personnel, trucks and ambulances from service. But a judge rejected their argument that the “rolling brownouts” plan violates the union’s collective bargaining agreement with the city.

State District Judge Elaine Palmer turned down the request for a temporary restraining order and ordered a follow-up hearing for March 7 to weigh the merits of a permanent injunction.

Fire union president Bryan Sky-Eagle said he filed the order “as a pre-emptive strike” to protect people and firefighters from the consequences of idling even more units. He argued that the purpose of the collective bargaining agreement is safety and that removing units from service undermines that.

“Once you start unilaterally making those changes, whatever the motivation may be – budgetary or political or otherwise – you start losing the intent,” Sky-Eagle said before the hearing.

City Attorney David Feldman argued at the hearing that what units are placed in service at what times is a management decision that is the city’s right to make. “The fact is, the union can’t run the fire department. The city’s got to run the fire department,” Feldman said before the hearing. “I disagree with them, obviously, as to whether there is a contractual right to have a certain number of units in service. It’s a management right, because you’ve got to deal with the resources available.”

See here for the background. I’m no lawyer, but I don’t see how this belongs in a courtroom. It’s a pretty standard budget dispute, at least as I see it. Mayor Parker said in a press release that the same kind of cutbacks were made in 2010 during the budget crunch without any objections from the union. The lack of an TRO suggests to me that the city will prevail here, but we’ll see. Texpatriate has more.

Posted in Local politics | Tagged Annise Parker, Bryan Sky-Eagle, budget, David Feldman, HFD, Houston, HPFFA, lawsuit | Comments Off

Texas blog roundup for the week of February 24

Posted on February 27, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

The Texas Progressive Alliance thinks Ted Nugent is an appropriate spokesman for the modern Republican Party of Texas as it brings you this week’s roundup.

Continue reading →

Posted in Blog stuff | Tagged blog roundup, TPA | Comments Off

Endorsement watch: Hey, there’s still a little bit of early voting left

Posted on February 27, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

From the “You just can’t rush these things” department, the Chron endorses James Cargas in the Democratic primary rematch in CD07.

James Cargas

Whomever wins in the Democratic primary for U.S. House 7th District will face an uphill battle in a Republican-friendly district to defeat Rep. John Culberson. But voters can also look at this race as something more than preparation for November. The choice in this primary reflects a decision that Texas Democrats will have to make if they ever find electoral success: the tempered insider or the strident activist. It is a choice that Republicans have had to grapple with for some time. Sometimes it is a division over policy, sometimes over strategy, but it rarely leaves everyone satisfied.

So, in this race we provide the same advice for Democrats that we give Republicans: Go for the candidate who talks about Houston issues and not just in cable news quotes. That candidate is James Cargas.

His career in oil and gas has sent Cargas, 47, from the Clinton White House to City Hall and the energy corridor. That’s experience tailor-made to represent the district, which stretches west from Bellaire and the Galleria area, following Interstate 10 as its northern barrier before turning north to follow Highway 6. It is a district filled with energy company high-rises, and they need a representative who understands the nuances of the industry.

Cargas peppers his speeches with quotes from George Mitchell about reasonable regulation and focuses his regulatory eye on irresponsible operators who give the industry a bad reputation. It is the sort of voice that Houston needs in D.C.

Not sure why it took them until ten days into early voting to get around to this one. I mean, the Chron endorsed Cargas in the 2012 primary runoff, and other than a few potshots at Lissa Squiers what they said then isn’t all that different from what they’re saying this time. The runoff in 2012 was nasty and personal even by Democratic primary standards, but the rematch has been fairly subdued, perhaps because of that. I don’t think the winner will have much better luck against Culberson this year than in 2012, but there you have it anyway.

Posted in Election 2014 | Tagged CD07, Congress, Democratic primary, Election 2012, Election 2014, endorsements, James Cargas, John Culberson, Lissa Squiers, runoff | Comments Off

Federal judge strikes down Texas’ anti-same sex marriage law

Posted on February 26, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Wow.

A federal judge in San Antonio ruled Wednesday that Texas’ ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutionally deprives some citizens of due process and equal protection under the law by stigmatizing their relationships and treating them differently from opposite-sex couples.

U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia cited recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings as having trumped Texas’ moves to ban gay marriage.

“Today’s court decision is not made in defiance of the great people of Texas or the Texas Legislature, but in compliance with the U.S. Constitution and Supreme Court precedent,” he said in his order. “Without a rational relation to a legitimate governmental purpose, state-imposed inequality can find no refuge in our U.S. Constitution.”

But Garcia’s ruling, while a major victory for groups seeking to make marriage legal for gay and lesbian couples nationwide, will not win them Texas marriage licenses anytime soon.

Although Garcia issued a preliminary injunction against the state’s enforcing its 2003 law and 2005 constitutional amendment that limit marriage to opposite-sex couples, he stayed it from taking effect until his ruling can be reviewed on appeal.

It will unquestionably be appealed, and even with the so far unbroken string of victories for marriage equality these past three months I still can’t shake the feeling that the Fifth Circuit will come up with some reason to overturn this decision. That concern can wait for another day. For today, let’s celebrate this big step forward. Lone Star Q has a copy of the opinion. Here’s a statement from Freedom to Marry:

oday a federal judge in San Antonio joined judges in Utah, Ohio, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Virginia in ruling that bans on same-sex couples marrying or recognizing out-of-state marriages of same-sex couples are unconstitutional.

Evan Wolfson, founder and president of Freedom to Marry, released the following statement:

“Today the 6th federal judge in a row has ruled – in Texas – that there is simply no legitimate justification for denying marriage to loving gay and lesbian couples. The court’s holding is solid and serious, and follows the language and logic of the Supreme Court’s marriage ruling last year and the Constitution’s clear command. With 47 marriage cases in 25 states now moving forward, and the possibility that a freedom to marry case will again reach the Supreme Court as soon as 2015, we must continue the conversations and progress — Texan to Texan, American to American — that show that all of America is ready for the freedom to marry.”

The Public Research Religion Institute released data today that shows increased support for the freedom to marry in the South and in Texas. Nearly two-thirds (65%) of Southern millennials support the freedom to marry, and support across the South is split, with 48% in support and 48% opposed. Support has grown the fastest in the South of any region in the country, more than doubling in the last ten years. In Texas, support is split, with 48% of Texans in support and 49% opposed.

We are living in exciting times, but there’s still a lot of work to be done. Here’s Chuck Smith from Equality Texas:

“Today’s ruling by Judge Garcia is a huge victory that moves Texas one step closer to the freedom to marry”, said Equality Texas executive director Chuck Smith. “The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Windsor made it clear that animus or moral disapproval is not an acceptable justification for denying any American their constitutional right to equal protection of the law. We are gratified to see Judge Garcia uphold the Constitution of the United States and declare that Texas’ restrictions on the freedom to marry are unconstitutional and unenforceable. We anxiously await the day when the United States Supreme Court will reach the same conclusion.”

This case will proceed on appeal. And Equality Texas will continue to work to increase public support in Texas for the freedom to marry. Follow this case and other pending legal cases in Texas at WhyMarriageMattersTX.org.

Meanwhile, Texas is still a state where it is legal to fire or refuse to hire someone solely because they are or are perceived to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. Texas is still a state where adopted children who have two moms or two dads cannot obtain an accurate birth certificate. Texas is still a state without standardized procedures to correct gender markers on identity documents. And Texas is still a state that keeps a statute declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court over a decade ago in Lawrence v. Texas on the books.

I’ll have more after the story gets reported in the papers and the inevitable howling and gnashing of teeth by the forces of inequality begin. Until then, I say “Hell, yeah!” Burka, Texpatriate, BOR, Texas Leftist, and Hair Balls have more.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged DOMA, Equality Texas, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Freedom to Marry, gay marriage, gay rights, lawsuit, SCOTUS, Texas | Comments Off

The UT/TT poll’s track record in past Democratic primaries

Posted on February 26, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

The one result in that UT/TT poll from Monday that has people freaking out is the one that shows nutball LaRouchie Kesha Rogers leading the Senate race with 35%, followed by David Alameel with 27%. I expressed my skepticism of that result at the time, because among other things I have my doubts that their sample is truly representative of the Democratic primary electorate, but I thought it might be worthwhile to take a look at the Trib’s previous efforts at polling Democratic primaries and see how they’ve done in the past. There are two elections to study. First, let’s go back to 2010 when all of the statewide offices were up for grabs. Democrats had three contested primaries that the Trib polled: Governor, Lt. Governor, and Ag Commissioner. Here are the results.

In the Democratic primary race, former Houston Mayor Bill White has a huge lead over his next closest challenger, businessman Farouk Shami, pulling 50 percent to Shami’s 11 percent. Five other candidates are in the running for the Democratic nomination; the survey found that only 9 percent of those polled prefer someone other than the two frontrunners.

Undecided voters are still significant in both gubernatorial primaries. On the Republican side, 16 percent said they hadn’t made up their minds. Pressed for a preference, 51 percent chose Perry, 34 percent chose Hutchison, and 15 percent chose Medina — an indication that Perry could win without a runoff if he can attract those voters into his camp. Among Democratic voters, 30 percent were undecided, and of those, 48 percent, when pressed, said they lean toward White. With White already at 50 percent, that means Shami would have to strip votes away from him in order to force a runoff or to claim a win.

[…]

Democratic primary voters have a couple of other statewide races to decide. In the contest for lieutenant governor — the winner will face Republican incumbent David Dewhurst in November — labor leader Linda Chavez-Thompson took 18 percent of those polled, former Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle got 16 percent, and restaurateur Marc Katz had 3 percent. Five percent of voters said they wanted “somebody else,” and a whopping 58 percent remain undecided on the eve of early voting, which begins on Tuesday. Kinky Friedman and Hank Gilbert — two refugees from the governor’s race now running for agriculture commissioner — are locked in a tight race, 32 percent to 27 percent. While Friedman’s ahead, the difference is within the poll’s margin of error. And, as with the Lite Guv race, “undecided” is actually leading, at 41 percent. The winner will face incumbent Republican Todd Staples in November.

And here’s the reality:


Governor
			
Alma Aguado      2.83%
Felix Alvarado   4.95%
Bill Dear        0.96%
Clement Glenn    1.44%
Star Locke       0.92%
Farouk Shami    12.84%
Bill White      76.03%


Lieutenant Governor

Linda C-T       53.13%
Ronnie Earle    34.67%
Marc Katz       12.18%


Commissioner of Agriculture

Kinky Friedman  47.69%
Hank Gilbert    52.30%

So White did have a big lead on Shami, but it was much bigger than they indicated. Linda Chavez-Thompson was indeed leading Ronnie Earle, but by a significant amount, more than enough to avoid a runoff. And Hank Gilbert defeated Kinky Friedman, despite the UT/TT poll showing Friedman in the lead.

How about the 2012 Senate primary, which is a reasonably decent facsimile of this one, as it’s a large field of mostly unknown candidates? Here’s the poll:

The Democrats, too, could be building to a July finish, probably between former state Rep. Paul Sadler and Sean Hubbard, according to the poll.

Sadler led the Democrats with 29 percent, but was followed closely — and within the poll’s margin of error — by Hubbard. Two other candidates — Addie Dainell Allen and Grady Yarbrough — also registered double-digit support.

And the actual result:


U. S. Senator

Addie Allen      22.90%
Sean Hubbard     16.08%
Paul Sadler      35.13%
Grady Yarbrough  25.87%

Sadler did in fact lead the field, but Hubbard came in fourth, well behind eventual second-place finisher Grady Yarbrough, whom the Trib pegged for fourth.

So what conclusions can we draw from this? Mostly that we don’t have enough data to be able to evaluate the Trib’s ability to poll Democratic primaries. To be fair to them, they were quite accurate in the corresponding GOP races. They had Rick Perry winning in 2010, though not quite over 50%, with Debra Medina’s level nailed exactly, and they had David Dewhurst with a lead over Ted Cruz with Tom Leppert in third, but with the Dew falling short of a majority. As such, I’d put some faith in their GOP polling, at least until we see how they actually did. But I would not put much faith in their Dem results. They clearly pushed people to pick someone – anyone! – in the Senate race, they polled before David Alameel dropped a bunch of mail, which they themselves said (but didn’t acknowledge in their writeup) is exactly the sort of thing that could enable someone to win that race, and as I said I just don’t believe they’ve got a representative sample of the Dem primary electorate. I’ll be more than a little shocked if it turns out they got this one right.

One more thing: What if they are right about Rogers leading? Well, as long as she doesn’t crack 50%, I’d suggest we all remain calm. For all its constraints and limitations, the state Democratic Party has managed to get the nominees it has wanted in the last three Senate primaries. Rick Noriega cleared 50% in round one in 2008, and Sadler in 2012 and Barbara Radnofsky in 2006 both won their runoffs – Radnofsky has said that her overtime race against the now apparently dormant Gene Kelly was the best thing that happened to her, as it boosted her fundraising and made people actually pay attention to that race. I feel reasonably confident that if Rogers is in a runoff with anyone, everyone else in the party will fall as loudly and visibly as they can behind her opponent, whoever that winds up being. It’s already happening to a large degree – the TDP, the HCDP, and the Fort Bend Democratic Party have put out messages condemning Rogers and urging Democrats not to vote for her. I’d have preferred to see that happen earlier than this, and I’d much rather it not come to banding together to beat her in a runoff, but I’m not going to fall into a spiral of self-loathing over this one poll result. Do your part to help people make a good decision in this race, and be prepared to support someone other than Kesha in a runoff if it comes to that.

Posted in Election 2014 | Tagged Ag Commissioner, Barbara Radnofsky, Bill White, David Alameel, David Dewhurst, Debra Medina, Democratic primary, Election 2006, Election 2008, Election 2010, Election 2012, Election 2014, Farouk Shami, Gene Kelly, Governor, Grady Yarbrough, Hank Gilbert, Kesha Rogers, Kinky Friedman, Linda Chavez-Thompson, Paul Sadler, polls, primaries, Rick Noriega, Rick Perry, Ronnie Earle, runoff, Sean Hubbard, Senate, Ted Cruz, Texas | 2 Comments

And the same old crap begins in Steven Kirkland’s race

Posted on February 26, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Lone Star Q reports that Steven Kirkland received the endorsement of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, just as the same kind of attacks on his character that he dealt with in 2012 cranked up again.

Steven Kirkland

Kirkland, a close friend of Houston Mayor Annise Parker’s, served as a Harris County state district judge from 2009 until 2013. He was defeated in the 2012 Democratic Primary by Elaine Palmer, who ran an anti-gay campaign funded by a vindictive attorney against whom Kirkland had entered a judgment. Kirkland says that same attorney, George Fleming, is financing his current opponent in the March 4 primary, Lori Gray.

In recent days, Kirkland has been the target of misleading robo calls, radio ads and mailers calling attention to his arrests for drunken driving and public intoxication 30 years ago. The ads, paid for by a PAC tied to Fleming, reportedly suggest the arrests were far more recent. Kirkland, who has been sober for 29 years, details his recovery on his campaign website. He also details Fleming’s vendetta against him.

“How can Lori Gray be a fair judge if she allows her campaign manager to keep spreading lies? How can she be the defender of justice when she is part of Fleming’s effort to buy judges?” Kirkland writes. “Justice in Harris County should not be for sale. Judges should be selected on their qualifications, not lies and deceptions. I’m putting my faith in the people to join me and protect our courts.”

There’s no question that Fleming is financing Lori Gray’s campaign. You just have to look at Gray’s campaign finance reports – her only other donor of any significance is Paul Kubosh, who was also a contributor to Elaine Palmer in 2012 – the finance reports for the Texans For Good Leaders PAC, and the finance reports for the Moving Texas Forward PAC, which appears to be the financier of those calls, ads, and mailers.

Speaking of mailers, I got a copy of that nasty and misleading attack mailer that Texpatriate wrote about. You can see it here and here. Note the lack of any date on the arrest files, plus the 2012 date on the photo of Kirkland; very classy, that. Clearly, Lisa Falkenberg wrote that column too soon. Claiming she had no connection to Fleming was questionable at best to begin with, but now that Fleming has gotten up to his usual tricks means Lori Gray cannot avoid the association at all. As Mark Bennett likes to say, when you outsource your marketing, you outsource your ethics. If you don’t approve of what someone else is doing on your behalf, it’s your responsibility to get them to stop, and if they refuse it’s your responsibility to publicly distance yourself from what they’re doing. In the absence of any such action on her part, it’s fair to assume that Lori Gray approves of what George Fleming is doing. She deserves as much approbation as Fleming.

Posted in Election 2014 | Tagged attack mailers, Democratic primary, Election 2012, Election 2014, George Fleming, Harris County, Lori Gray, Moving Texas Forward PAC, Steven Kirkland, Texans for Good Leaders | 7 Comments

Some Republican candidates are still embracing Ted Nugent

Posted on February 26, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Why not? He’s an excellent representative of and for them.

Sid Miller

Sid Miller, a Republican candidate for agriculture commissioner, won’t oust rocker Ted Nugent as his campaign treasurer over controversial remarks made about President Barack Obama and other officials, the Longview Republican said Monday.

Nugent, who’s been with the Miller campaign since October, came under fire last week while touring with Attorney General Greg Abbott’s gubernatorial campaign for called Obama a “subhuman mongrel” among other controversial statements and behaviors.

Nugent apologized Friday for his remarks about the president during an interview with Ben Ferguson, a conservative radio host and CNN commentator.

“He’s used words that I wouldn’t use,” Miller said. “He has a very colorful vocabulary. He recanted some remarks that he made about the president, so I think that everything’s good.”

Miller acknowledged that Nugent’s comments were controversial, but said he also does charitable work with Hunters for the Hungry and the Wounded Warrior Project that goes unnoticed.

“Nobody seems to talk about the good the man does,” Miller said.

Hey, if Greg Abbott has no regrets about embracing Ted Nugent, then why should Sid Miller have any? If Greg Abbott thinks it’s OK to be “blood brothers” with a sexual predator, why shouldn’t Sid Miller? If Greg Abbott thinks Ted Nugent’s half-assed “apology” late last week is a sign of genuine contrition and a promise to never do that sort of thing again, why shouldn’t Sid Miller? Why shouldn’t Sid Miller follow Greg Abbott‘s lead?

Posted in Election 2014 | Tagged Ag Commissioner, Election 2014, Governor, Greg Abbott, Sid Miller, Ted Nugent, Texas | Comments Off

Ashby II: Highrise Boogaloo

Posted on February 26, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

The Ashby Highrise lawsuit may be over, but its legacy lives on.

A lawsuit seeking to stop a 17-story office tower under development in a River Oaks-area neighborhood blasts the project as “abnormal and out of place” in a grass-roots effort that observers suggest was emboldened by the recent success of the high-profile fight against the Ashby high-rise.

Cranes are already at work at 2229 San Felipe, despite the abundance of “Stop the San Felipe Skyscraper” yard signs in the neighborhood between Shepherd and Kirby. Opposition to the project, under development by Houston-based Hines, has included an online petition with more than 1,000 signatures, a website to fight the development and personal pleas to City Council.

The residents’ lawsuit filed last week in a Harris County civil court argues, among several factors, that the height of the building would interfere with privacy and that it would cause unreasonable traffic delays, devalue surrounding properties and erode the character of the neighborhood.

[…]

Hines spokesman George Lancaster on Friday called the 2229 San Felipe project “an important and appropriate development for an area mixed with residential, commercial and multifamily properties.”

He said it is fully permitted by the city, meets all building codes and legal requirements, and will add landscaping and sidewalks.

He also said it will meet demand for new office space in that part of town.

[…]

Matthew Festa, a South Texas College of Law professor who specializes in land-use regulations, said the new lawsuit suggests last year’s Ashby verdict set a precedent.

“It shows that in a city that is famous for having less restrictive land use, one of the dangers is that particular projects can be opposed on a case-by-case basis by neighborhood groups,” Festa said. “The other thing it shows is that when one group can be successful in fighting a development project, other people are going to follow that model.”

Festa testified for the developers in the trial over the Ashby high-rise, presenting a history of land-use regulations in Houston.

I’ve noted this fight before; as that was before the surprising-to-me victory by the Ashby plaintiffs, I was rather skeptical of their efforts. Given that verdict, however, it would seem the game has changed in more or less the manner described by Prof. Festa. Given how our famous lack of zoning is seen as making Houston a libertarian paradise for developers and a key component to our economic growth, the irony is pretty thick. The two sides are currently in mediation and there have not been any hearings on this yet, so things may change. I don’t have much to add to this other than to say I’ll be keeping an eye on it. The anti-highrise group’s webpage is here and their change.org petition is here; that and their news page has links to a lot of previous coverage of this, if you want to catch up on it. Prime Property, which has a copy of the lawsuit, has more.

Posted in Elsewhere in Houston | Tagged Ashby highrise, density, Houston, lawsuit, Matthew Festa, San Felipe, traffic, zoning | 1 Comment

UT/TT poll: Abbott 47, Davis 36

Posted on February 25, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

The Trib publishes its second poll of the Texas gubernatorial race.

After what are shaping up to be easy primary wins in March for the leading gubernatorial candidates, Republican Greg Abbott starts the general election race for governor with an 11-point lead over Democrat Wendy Davis, according to the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll.

Meanwhile, several statewide races on the Republican primary ballot — for lieutenant governor, attorney general and comptroller — appear headed for May runoffs. None of the leaders in those races looks close to the 50 percent support they would need to win next month’s primary outright.

In the governor’s race, Abbott would beat Davis 47 percent to 36 percent in a general election held today, with 17 percent of registered voters saying they have not made up their minds about which candidate to support, according to the poll.

“We’ve been talking since the beginning of this race about whether anything would be different, and we’re not seeing anything that’s different,” said Jim Henson, co-director of the poll and head of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. “There was some talk about how Davis had done better in our last poll, and that was partially an artifact of her rise in the fall, and we’re seeing something of a reassertion of the normal pattern.”

In the October survey, Davis’ announcement and sudden political celebrity cut the Republican’s lead over her to 6 percentage points. Now, the distance between the two has widened a bit.

“The story of the last four months is, Davis loses a couple points, Abbott gains a couple of points,” said Daron Shaw, co-director of the poll and a professor of government at UT-Austin. “He had a pretty good couple of months. She had a pretty bad couple of months, all without many people paying attention.”

Actually, Davis gained a point from the previous poll, but don’t let that get in the way of a good narrative. One could also note that this is a better result for Davis than the PPP poll that came out a few days after that first UT/TT poll and which showed her down 15. One other difference between this poll and the first one is that the first one was a three-way race between Abbott, Davis, and Libertarian Kathie Glass, who got 5%. This poll was a straight up two-way race, which is informative but not directly comparable. One presumes Abbott would have scored a bit higher on that first poll if Glass had not been included. Again, though, don’t let an annoying fact slay a good story.

Look, the challenge for any pollster this year in Texas is to guess what turnout will be. Democratic turnout has been flat over the past three non-Presidential elections, while Republican turnout has varied greatly. This year, Democrats have an unprecedented organizational effort to register voters and turn them out. Anecdotally, it feels like there’s a much greater awareness of and engagement in the election this year, but it’s not easy for an observer like me to distinguish between the same old reliables being more vocal and the emergence of genuinely new voices. I’m sure the pollsters are going to go by previous patterns, which is what I’d do if I were them, at least at this point in the race. But this is the key question to ask going forward and as more polls inevitably come out. What assumptions are being made about turnout, on both sides? It’s certainly possible that all of Battleground Texas’ efforts will crash and shatter into nothingness, but by their words and actions the Republicans aren’t betting on that. We just don’t know yet what the effect might be, and polling will reflect that.

Before they get to the general election, each faces a primary election. On the Republican side, the poll found Abbott well ahead of his rivals, with 90 percent support among likely Republican voters, followed by Miriam Martinez at 5 percent, Lisa Fritsch at 4 percent and Larry Secede Kilgore at 1 percent. Davis leads Ray Madrigal 87 percent to 13 percent among likely Democratic voters.

[…]

In the Democratic primary, the candidate who has been on the ballot the most times, Kesha Rogers, leads the best-financed candidate, David Alameel, 35 percent to 27 percent. Maxey Scherr had 15 percent, followed by Harry Kim at 14 percent and Michael Fjetland at 9 percent. Voters are largely unfamiliar with those candidates; 74 percent initially expressed no opinion before being asked how they would vote if they had to decide now.

“This is what it looks like when you have a bunch of candidates, no infrastructure and no money,” Henson said. “The first person to raise some money and run some ads could really move this.”

I’d take that Senate result, which by the way has a larger margin of error of 6 points, with a huge grain of salt. Primary polling is a lot trickier than general election polling, and there’s very little recent history to fall back on for guidance. As such, while I don’t have any particular quibble with the gubernatorial primary poll results, I wouldn’t put too much stock in them, either. And on a side note, that previous UT/TT poll had Abbott below fifty percent, with “Don’t Know” being almost as popular a response. You’d think that might have gotten a bigger note in the story.

Anyway. The poll summary is here and the methodology is here. One thing I missed originally but was reminded of on Facebook and later by Peggy Fikac is that this poll was conducted between February 7 and 17, which means it all happened before the Nugeaganza and Dan Patrick’s Good Samaritan gone bad saga (the various GOP primaries were also polled). Who knows what effect, however transient, those stories might have had on these results. It also might have been nice for the Trib’s pollsters to at least mention that in passing, given the prevalence and ubiquity of those stories. Be that as it may, I’ll be tracking Texas poll results for 2014 on the sidebar, as I did for the Presidential race in 2012. We’ll see how they stack up when all is said and done. PDiddie has more.

Posted in Election 2014 | Tagged Battleground Texas, Dan Patrick, Democratic primary, Election 2014, Governor, Greg Abbott, polls, primaries, Senate, Ted Nugent, Texas, turnout, Wendy Davis | 3 Comments

Davis outraises Abbott on the 8 day report

Posted on February 25, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Nice.

Sen. Wendy Davis

Democrat Wendy Davis reported that she outstripped Republican Greg Abbott in fundraising, bringing in $2.85 million over a 29-day period. His totals were reported here.

Davis has $11.3 million tucked away looking ahead to the general election. Her overall bank account still lags well behind Abbott’s $30 million.

The Republican attorney general has seen his campaign boosted in the past seven months by about two dozen benefactors capable of writing him large checks totaling more than $100,000.

For Davis, her totals arise from combining three political accounts controlled by her campaign. Those most recent totals include:

Wendy R. Davis for Governor, Inc.: $1.6 million
Wendy R. Davis Candidate/Officeholder: $2.035 million
Texas Victory Committee, Inc.: $1.2 million

Fundraising reports are not yet on the TEC website; check back later today or tomorrow here to search for them. This is a great bounceback from the 30 day report, and means as BOR has noted that Davis has outraised Abbott in two of the three reporting periods, as she topped him in January as well. Sure, he has more cash on hand, but the point is that she can more than keep pace, and she has a much broader network of donors to tap into, not just a handful of zillionaires. There’s a long way to go and a whole lot of work to do, so it’s great to be reassured again that Davis will have the resources she will need to fight this out.

Posted in Election 2014 | Tagged Election 2014, fundraising, Governor, Greg Abbott, Texas, Texas Ethics Commission, Wendy Davis | Comments Off

On schools and neighborhoods

Posted on February 25, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Efforts to revitalize neighborhoods in the Fifth Ward are running into HISD’s proposal to close five schools.

Nearly half the students who attend Nathaniel Q. Henderson Elementary School live steps away from campus in an aging, rundown apartment complex. The neighborhood, in Houston’s historic Fifth Ward, is at a crossroads.

The city is seeking a federal grant to help fund a multimillion-dollar makeover of Cleme Manor Apartments, even as school district officials consider closing N.Q. Henderson Elementary due to low enrollment.

Parents and elected officials in the area say they see a contradiction, with the high-poverty neighborhood northeast of downtown teetering between deterioration and revitalization.

“If there’s no school, how am I going to draw more people in this area?” City Councilman Jerry Davis asked the school board this month. “We need to work together. We can’t have one entity going out doing good works and not the other.”

Henderson Elementary is one of five campuses on HISD’s potential closure list. After hearing from the public at a series of meetings, the district plans to reveal any changes to the proposal next week. The school board is set to vote March 13.

One of HISD’s smallest elementary schools, Henderson enrolls roughly 360 students. About 170 live at Cleme Manor Apartments, a development for low-income tenants on Coke Street, a crosswalk away from Henderson.

In early February, the city’s housing department gave notice that it is seeking final approval for a $3 million federal grant to renovate Cleme Manor. The project, according to the notice, would promote affordable housing and “encourage economic revitalization for Houston’s near north-side.” The funds would come from a grant dedicated to recovery after Hurricane Ike.

[…]

The city also is considering pursuing a federal grant to help fund more than 160 single-family homes that would be scattered across the Fifth Ward, said Stedman Grigsby of the Housing and Community Development Department.

Justin Silhavy, the demographer for the Houston Independent School District, said he is in regular contact with city officials and knows about the planned projects. However, he said, he doesn’t expect the number of children in the general area to grow significantly.

Several schools around Henderson Elementary also are underpopulated. HISD’s rezoning plan could help fill Pugh and Bruce elementary schools – each less than two miles from Henderson – though students could end up choosing to attend other campuses under the district’s transfer policy.

See here and here for the background on HISD’s plan. For this part of the plan, HISD would send Henderson students to two other nearby schools, both of which are also underpopulated. The problem is that the area has been steadily losing people for years now. I believe the Fifth Ward is ripe for the kind of redevelopment we’ve seen in Midtown and EaDo, but I have no idea what the timeframe is for that, and there’s no guarantee that will lead to an increase in the kid population. So I get why HISD is proposing these closures – as the Chron editorialized, the objective case is good, but community engagement has been sorely lacking. Even then, it’s a tough thing to close schools. The effect on a neighborhood where a couple hundred kids already attend a given school is profound and disruptive, and in this case is in conflict with the larger goal of attracting people back to that neighborhood. I’d like to know what an alternate plan, one that involves investing in these schools to entice students, perhaps students that don’t currently attend an HISD school, to enroll there might look like before I’d be willing to sign off on closing them.

Posted in School days | Tagged demography, Fifth Ward, HISD, HISD Board of Trustees, Houston, schools | Comments Off

Another way to squeeze the payday lenders

Posted on February 25, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

I wholeheartedly approve of this.

The Postal Service (USPS) could spare the most economically vulnerable Americans from dealing with predatory financial companies under a proposal endorsed over the weekend by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

“USPS could partner with banks to make a critical difference for millions of Americans who don’t have basic banking services because there are almost no banks or bank branches in their neighborhoods,” Warren wrote in a Huffington Post op-ed on Saturday. The op-ed picked up on a report from the USPS’s Inspector General that proposed using the agency’s extensive physical infrastructure to extend basics like debit cards and small-dollar loans to the same communities that the banking industry has generally ignored. The report found that 68 million Americans don’t have bank accounts and spent $89 billion in 2012 on interest and fees for the kinds of basic financial services that USPS could begin offering. The average un-banked household spent more than $2,400, or about 10 percent of its income, just to access its own money through things like check cashing and payday lending stores. USPS would generate savings for those families and revenue for itself by stepping in to replace those non-bank financial services companies.

[…]

But while ending triple-digit interest rates and fine-print tricks is a good thing for consumers, it doesn’t reduce the demand for those financial services. The USPS could slide into that space and meet that need without preying upon those communities. “Instead of partnering with predatory lenders,” David Dayen writes in The New Republic, “banks could partner with the USPS on a public option, not beholden to shareholder demands, which would treat customers more fairly.” America’s post offices are an ideal physical infrastructure for furnishing these services to communities currently neglected by banks. Roughly six in 10 post offices nationwide are in what the USPS report calls “bank deserts” — zip codes with either one or zero bank branches.

I noted that David Dayen story in a previous linkdump. I like this idea for the same reason why I like the idea of letting Wal-Mart open banks: It would provide low-cost banking and financial services, including short-term, low-dollar loans, to a large class of people whose only current options are high-cost predatory lenders. Anything that puts downward pressure on the price of these services and makes savings and checking accounts available to people who don’t have them is a win in my book. This idea should especially appeal to people who don’t care for having cities step in to regulate payday lenders, since it would reduce barriers to competition and allow for real customer-friendly innovation in a highly non-customer-friendly market. What’s not to like?

Posted in National news | Tagged banks, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Elizabeth Warren, payday lenders, US Postal Service, Wal-Mart | Comments Off

Early voting, one (six day) week in

Posted on February 24, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

We have one week completed for early voting, though it was only a six day week thanks to the Presidents Day holiday. Here are the daily totals from the County Clerk. Republicans continue to be the majority of early voters in Harris County, by almost a 3-1 margin. I thought it might be interesting to compare early voting totals so far in the 15 biggest counties from 2010 and 2014. The Secretary of State tracks this information, though they generally don’t update on weekends. As such, the best I can do for now is a comparison of the first four days for each. Here’s 2010, here’s 2014, and here’s how it looks in a table:


County      2010 R   2014 R   Diff   2010 D   2014 D   Diff
===========================================================
Harris      21,067   25,789  4,722   12,358    9,541 -2,817
Dallas       9,326   16,777  7,451    6,140   10,246  4,106
Tarrant     11,491   18,164  6,673    2,689    7,851  5,162
Bexar       10,353   14,575  4,222    8,370   10,476  2,106
Travis       6,140    5,083 -1,057    4,614    7,798  3,384
Collin       7,419    8,593  1,174      726    1,456    730
El Paso      2,938    2,023 -  715    6,844    7,102    258
Denton       4,635    7,768  3,133      508    1,227    719
Fort Bend    4,470    4,967    497    1,179    1,266     87
Hidalgo        984    1,520    536   11,232   13,619  2,387
Montgomery   5,235    9,022  4,787      523      532      9
Williamson   4,810    4,585 -  225    1,056    1,413    357
Nueces       2,344    2,414     70    1,948    1,826 -  118
Galveston    1,838    4,010  2,172    1,607      910 -  697
Cameron        747      839     92    3,300    4,426  1,126

Total       93,797  126,129 32,332   63,094   79,689 16,595

Both parties’ turnout are up from 2010, though unsurprisingly the R side is up more. All those contested statewide races, and all the money in them, do have an effect. While there is a contested race for Governor on the D side, it’s not nearly as high profile as it was in 2010. Dems are depending more on local races for their turnout. On that note, whoever had Tarrant as the county with the largest gain in Democratic primary voters so far, please come collect your winnings. Still, it’s good to see turnout up in the places that have hot primaries up and down the county ballot – Dallas, Travis, and Bexar, in particular. The dropoff in Harris County I would largely attribute to the turnout driven in 2010 by the Bill White campaign. We have several contested county races, but nothing of that stature, and only one legislative primary that’s likely to move a significant number of people, that being in SD15. The dropoff in Galveston is probably in part a spillover effect of the lac of Bill White’s campaign, and in part due to Galveston having Democratic countywide incumbents running for re-election in 2010 but not in 2014. The dip in Republican primary turnout so far in Williamson, and the modest growth in Collin, are interesting if the trends continue, but not necessarily suggestive of anything. Surely Dallas County has shown us that there isn’t necessarily a correlation between primary turnout and partisan performance in November. And of course this is only through Day Four. We’ll see how it looks after all the early votes are in.

One other thing that the SOS historic early voting pages can show you is the registered voter totals for each of the top 15 counties. Let me add in the 2006 Day 4 page to show you how these numbers have changed over time.


County           2006       2010       2014  06-14 Diff
=======================================================
Dallas      1,168,476  1,129,814  1,170,598       2,122
Travis        544,483    586,882    627,040      82,557
El Paso       367,284    375,128    390,949      23,665
Hidalgo       271,132    290,097    307,426      36,294
Cameron       161,648    171,024    181,802      20,154

Tarrant       882,459    924,682    969,434      86,975
Collin        369,493    413,772    466,533      97,040
Denton        320,307    355,340    388,608      68,301
Montgomery    217,354    243,027    270,019      52,665
Williamson    200,285    230,122    259,878      59,593

Harris      1,880,042  1,889,378  2,006,270     126,228
Bexar         877,484    891,082    915,839      38,355
Fort Bend     257,140    300,777    349,550      92,410
Nueces        193,079    188,165    184,789      -8,290
Galveston     183,805    179,928    185,850       2,045

I separated the top 15 counties into three groups: Strong D, strong R, and in between. Quibble with my choices if you want, it works well enough for me. Note that these are all March numbers; we will see further changes in November. I’m delighted to see such a large jump in Harris County. That number was just barely over 2 million in November 2012, but it was back under 2 million in 2013. It’s also nice to see Dallas County regain all the voters they lost between 2006 and 2010. I don’t have anything to add beyond that. I just wanted to present this data to you as an FYI.

Posted in Election 2014 | Tagged Bexar County, Bill White, Collin County, Dallas County, early voting, Election 2006, Election 2010, Election 2012, Election 2014, Galveston, Governor, Harris County, Tarrant County, Texas, Travis County, turnout, voter registration, Williamson County | 3 Comments

Leave Greg Abbott aloooooooooooooone!

Posted on February 24, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

He’s ready to move on from Nuge-a-palooza. What more do you want?

Still not Greg Abbott

Controversy over Attorney General Greg Abbott’s decision to campaign for governor with Ted Nugent continued to simmer Friday, even after the outspoken rocker apologized for calling President Barack Obama a “subhuman mongrel.”

Gov. Rick Perry, who has appeared on stage with Nugent, condemned Nugent’s comments during a Thursday appearance on cable TV.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, followed on a subsequent cable appearance by saying Nugent’s comments about the president would never fly out of his mouth. The cascade of criticism continued with U.S. Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., also chiming in to blast Nugent.

That set the stage Friday for a rare scene: a somewhat conciliatory Nugent.

“I did cross the line,” Nugent said when asked about his Obama comments by conservative radio host and CNN commentator Ben Ferguson. “I do apologize, not necessarily to the president, but on behalf of much better men than myself, like the best governor in America, Gov. Rick Perry, (and Abbott) the best attorney general in America.”

But Abbott, the likely GOP nominee for governor, continued to brush off pressure from Democrats, who have prodded him all week to not only denounce his appearance with Nugent but to publicly shun other inflammatory comments the rock star has made over the years.

“I believe Ted Nugent recognized his language was wrong and he rightly apologized,” Abbott said in a statement. “This is not the kind of language I would use or endorse in any way.”

[…]

Abbott’s campaign swing with Nugent was mired in controversy. And Abbott spent most of the week ducking questions about some of Nugent’s most divisive comments in the past (Abbott repeatedly said when asked about Nugent’s past comments that he was unaware of them).

On Friday, Abbott looked to pivot from the controversy.

“It’s time to move beyond this, and I will continue to focus on the issues that matter to Texans,” he said.

Look, I did my homework, I ate my vegetables, and I cleaned my room. Why am I still being punished for that silly little party I threw last weekend while you were out of town? I wasn’t the one that trashed the living room. My friends did that, and they’ve apologized for it. It’s time to move beyond this and focus on the issues that matter to me.

Luckily for Abbott, it’s a new week, eight day finance reports are about to be posted, and everyone else’s campaign will continue to clamor for attention. There will be other shiny objects to attract us. But as a reminder that Greg Abbott doesn’t get to decide when it’s time to move on, here’s what Wendy Davis was saying over the weekend.

“This isn’t about some aging rock star way past his prime that simply needs to go away,” Davis said during her remarks at the Texas Democratic Women Convention in Austin. “This is about Greg Abbott. It’s about his character, his judgment, his values when he stands on a stage next to someone like that and refers to him as his ‘blood brother.’”

[…]

On Saturday, Davis directed her attacks at what she called Abbott’s “cozy relationship” with Nugent, who has previously acknowledged having sex with underage girls.

“We won’t let politicians hide behind the venom and the ugly history of predatory acts targeting underage girls by their campaign surrogates,” Davis said, adding that the campaign appearances called into question Abbott’s leadership.

During her remarks, Davis also criticized Gov. Rick Perry for vetoing the Lilly Ledbetter Act, designed to prevent wage discrimination against women. Davis sponsored that bill in the Senate.

“I can tell you this: I will be sitting at my desk with pen in hand to sign that bill,” Davis said.

And via Kathleen Geier, here’s a roundup of The Nuge’s greatest misogynistic hits, none of which Greg Abbott knew about because no one on his staff knows how to use Google. Peggy Fikac piles on as well. Happy Monday, y’all.

Posted in Election 2014 | Tagged Election 2014, Governor, Greg Abbott, Ted Nugent, Texas, Wendy Davis | 1 Comment

Calendar

Categories

Archives

My linkage

Polling Texas 2020

Polling Texas 2018

Polling Texas 2016

Polling Texas 2014

Polling Texas 2012

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Tags

Blogroll

Utilities

Categories

Archives

Polling Texas 2016

Polling Texas 2014

Polling Texas 2012

My Linkage

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Tags

Blogroll

Utilities