Off the Kuff | Knowledge Is Good

Weekend link dump for August 18

Posted on August 18, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

“The decision to stay within the narrow lanes of your own fantasies is a choice, not biological determinism.”

First person to write a diet book for animals wins.

The Internet name space is about to get a whole lot bigger.

The paint industry has largely avoided liability for lead poisoning resulting from the use of lead-based paints, despite their knowing of its danger for many years.

Ain’t no party like an IKEA crayfish party, because who doesn’t associate IKEA with crayfish parties?

“So to me, geek is a big umbrella for people who love what they love and love sharing that love with other people.”

“Using data from over 3,000 counties, their results show that when a Walmart store opens, it kills an average 150 retail jobs at the county level, with each Walmart worker replacing about 1.4 retail workers.”

The Global Genome Initiative wants to sequence the DNA of 1.3 million animal species.

RIP, Eydie Gorme.

“There are currently 35 states that have ratified the ERA. We need just three more states for women to have equal rights under our Constitution.”

“The fact that another retailer — even a small regional one — is able to compete and sometimes beat Walmart on prices, while also operating well-organized stores staffed by workers who enjoy their jobs, like their employer and genuinely want the company to be successful? Well, that’s got to alarm the world’s biggest retailer, if not keep executives up at night.”

Proof that anything can be an excuse for a gratuitous slideshow.

“Yeah, just stop and think about that for a moment: The pioneer wildcatter who caused a sea change that has altered the face of the energy world in ways thought impossible, and the famed scientist zooming along in their wheelchairs like a couple of kids.”

Has anyone considered the possibility that Elon Musk is a Bond villain in training? He has the name for a Bond villain, anyway. I don’t really believe this, but if he suddenly buys an island and starts hiring minions, we might want to check into it, that’s all I’m saying.

The 4000 Hit Club is bigger than you might think.

“Obama should be bending over backwards to appoint not the candidate who can best manage a financial crisis, but rather the candidate who is most likely to stop a crisis from happening in the first place. That candidate is Janet Yellen.”

The 3D TV story you don’t know.

The last first day of school is a long way off for me, but I’m sure I’ll be plenty emotional when it happens.

RIP, Kevin Cordasco. Vince Gilligan and Bryan Cranston are a couple of mensches. Also, cancer sucks.

RIP, Jack Germond, the kind of political reporter they don’t make anymore.

“The moral of this story should be clear to all economists: If you choose to get involved in politics and public policy debates, your position in those debates will determine your popular legacy, and your academic ideas will be remembered only in academia. That is the price you will inevitably pay.”

Or, putting it another way, “Milton Friedman was trying to save conservatism from people exactly like Rand Paul“.

Gmail users do have expectation of privacy, some misunderstandings about a court filing aside.

Go right ahead and fire Jennifer Rubin. Then please fire Richard Cohen and Charles Krauthammer, too.

More nurse practitioners, please.

“Building a business in a state that denies basic rights to LGBT couples is difficult to justify to potential employees — straight or gay.”

When push polls fail.

There aren’t enough days in the year to determine who the craziest member of Congress not named Louie Gohmert is.

Posted in Blog stuff | Tagged linkdump | Comments Off

Hoteliers for the Dome plan

Posted on August 18, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Count the Hotel & Lodging Association of Greater Houston among the supporters of the Astrodome renovation plan.

Harris County Sports and Convention Corp. Chairman Edgar Colón, with back-up from Deputy Executive Director Kevin Hoffman, presented the agency’s vision for revamping the half-century-old structure into “The New Dome Experience,” a 350,000 square-foot, street-level space they and other county officials say could play host to everything from “the world’s largest” Super Bowl party, to graduations, to cricket matches to political conventions.

“Any event you can imagine,” Colón told a packed room at the St. Regis. The project would take 30 months to complete, and construction would begin immediately if voters approve the bond, meaning it would be done in time for the Super Bowl at Reliant Stadium in February 2017.

One of the first things Colón told the attentive crowd was that the concept would make the world’s first domed super-stadium easily modifiable, in case some private party — with funding in hand — comes forward in the future and wants to turn the structure into something else.

“It actually enhances the opportunity for future development,” said Reliant Park General Manager Mark Miller during a Q&A after the presentation. Other questions touched on whether there were plans for constructing walkways between facilities and, yes, a hotel.

Officials said those very projects are included in the Reliant Park Master Plan, which would likely require another bond referendum to execute.

During the Q&A, Colón also revealed that plans are in the works to form a political action committee that will raise money to promote the Dome referendum. If it passes, county officials have said they would have to hike the county property tax rate — for the first time in 17 years — by as much as half a cent.

“There is going to be a more organized political campaign, a political action committee, to which I’m sure you all of you can donate funds,” Colón said, eliciting some hearty laughter.

Many attendees described the plan as “exciting” and said they wanted to see the Dome preserved.

So in addition to learning that there will eventually be another bond referendum to (presumably) do maintenance and upkeep on Reliant Stadium, we find that there will be a PAC, no doubt created by the Sports & Convention Corp as I suggested, to get this sucker passed. Perhaps that will put PDiddie‘s mind more at ease. I personally think it’s too early to say whether the referendum is a favorite or an underdog. In the absence of any other information or activity, I’d probably bet on it passing, but it’s just too early to say for sure. Let me know when this PAC gets off the ground, and when/if some opposition coalesces, and then we’ll talk.

Posted in Election 2013 | Tagged Astrodome, bond referendum, Edgardo Colon, Election 2013, Harris County, Harris County Sports & Convention Corp, Hotel & Lodging Association of Greater Houston, Reliant Stadium | Comments Off

More views of Abbott’s Section 3 brief

Posted on August 18, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Texas Redistricting:

Claim: It’s Just Partisan Politics

Attorney General Abbott’s second claim is in many ways even more fundamental because it gets to the heart of what the Voting Rights Act is supposed to do.

That claim asserts that:

[R]edistricting decisions were designed to increase the Republican Party’s electoral prospects at the expense of the Democrats … [They] were motivated by partisan rather than racial considerations.

To be fair, the claim is not a new one. It’s one the state has made from the very outset of the redistricting litigation.

And given that the Supreme Court has yet to recognize the existence of a legally cognizable constitutional claim for partisan gerrymandering, it’s probably about as good as place for the General Abbott to make his stand as any.

Of course, as one commentator has pointed out, the partisanship/ethnicity question is not always a clear “either/or” one:

So, here’s the question the federal courts must decide: When the white party uses its legislative authority to undermine the brown and black party, is that a racial act or merely a political one?

But as good as that question is, there’s something even more basic at stake.

When people like General Abbott say that they would be fine with non-Anglo people if they would just vote Republican, they are, in essence, dictating the terms for African-American and Hispanic voters to have a seat at the table.

The Economist:

Mr Abbott seems to think that the VRA allows him to abrogate minority voting rights as long as he does so for partisan rather than overtly, provably racial reasons. As a matter of history, I might point out that voting discrimination did not happen “in the south in 1965”. It happened in the election of 1964. And 1962. And 1960. And 1958. And in every single election since the founding of the United States except for those few years during Reconstruction when federal troops made sure that some southerners did not have their constitutional right to vote violently kept from them because of an excess of melanin.

That said, Mr Abbott’s interpretation of the Supreme Court’s Shelby County ruling is not quite right. They, like every previous Supreme Court that has upheld the VRA, noted that Section 5 involves an unusually broad exercise of federal power. But “constitutionally suspect” is not the same thing as “unconstitutional”, and laws are only invalid when the court finds the latter. In Shelby County they had the opportunity to reach just such a finding, but declined. Also, I wonder whether Mr Abbott has read Section 5: Mr Holder does not have to prove discriminatory intent, only discriminatory effect. Mr Abbott tries mightily to show that white Democrats such as Wendy Davis and Lloyd Doggett (whose district, Mr Abbott explains, “was completely dismantled in an effort to drive him from office”—italics 100% his) were affected just as badly as black and Hispanic Democrats. But of course the harm in redistricting is done not to politicians (or not only to politicians); it is done to voters, and the VRA is principally concerned not with keeping incumbents in safe seats but in making sure that everyone can vote and that everyone’s vote is equal.

San Antonio Express News editorial board:

Put aside for the moment what Abbott considers “incidental effects.” Texas minorities have contributed about 90 percent of the state’s growth, but the maps do not reflect that.

What’s most galling here is how unabashedly unashamed is the state’s top lawyer in detailing the partisan aspect of a process that should not be as substantively so. It is written matter-of-factly, as if the public must just numbly accept it.

“Perfectly constitutional” can cover a variety of sins, but here the meaning is clear; legislators keep themselves in power because they can. And if values such as fairness, compactness, competitiveness and communities of interest (when this isn’t code for “safe districts”) get included, that’s purely coincidental.

Ricardo Pimentel:

Challenges to the state’s maps are moot and meritless, Texas says in a court document, because there was no damage done. Those 2011 maps no longer exist. Look! We have new 2013 maps!

And Texas misses the point. The damage is that the state violated the Constitution in enacting those maps in 2011 in the first place. And, as 2011 isn’t ancient history, this amounts to a current, intentionally discriminatory act that demands relief because it proves the case that Texas is unreformed and unrepentant of its discriminating ways.

[…]

Again, in my book, the 2013 maps don’t shout out trustworthiness, but these groups are not asking for new maps. First they are looking to amend their original complaints to adjust to the Supreme Court’s ruling. Then they are seeking preclearance, which will have the effect of the state trying to prove that its 2013 maps — and voter ID, by the way — are not discriminatory.

And Texas is reluctant to go there and not just because of states rights. There’s a record.

Another federal court in Washington, D.C., said, in the case of the state’s 2011 congressional maps, that the court had been “provided more evidence of discriminatory intent than (it had) space, or need, to address.” It found the same tomfoolery in the state House maps.

On voter ID, another panel of judges found the law would adversely affect minorities.

Translated: Texas, you knew precisely whom you were shafting.

See here for the background. None of this means that the Supreme Court, at least as it is currently constituted, won’t accept Abbott’s arguments. But we should be clear as to what it is they’d be signing on to if they do.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged Congress, Greg Abbott, lawsuit, redistricting, SCOTUS, Texas, The Lege, voter ID, Voting Rights Act | Comments Off

No kids allowed

Posted on August 18, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

I don’t have a problem with this.

Chef Aquiles Chavez said his decision to ban young children from his restaurant during the evening hours was not easy. And the decision wasn’t shared by his wife.

On Monday, La Fisheria, the seafood restaurant helmed by the Mexican reality TV star and chef, announced via Facebook that it is requiring guests be 9 or older when dining after 7 p.m.

The post was simple:

“After 7 p.m., people over 8 years old only. We are a family-friendly restaurant, and we also respect all of our customers, so we introduce this new policy to the restaurant. Thanks for your understanding.”

The decision to implement the policy was not.

“It was hard,” Chavez said on Tuesday. “Two of my kids are under this age, and my partner has young kids.”

The reality is that many of his customers have complained about unruly children in the dining room. It’s a Catch-22 for restaurateurs. Do you pull customers aside when children become a distraction? Or do you, as La Fisheria has chosen, keep the distractions at bay by barring youngsters altogether?

“One woman recently said, ‘I leave my children with a babysitter so I can have a romantic dinner, yet you have children running around here,’ ” Chavez said. “We had a tough decision.”

Chef Aquiles Chavez says he was getting complaints from patrons, “and you can’t tell customers’ kids to be quiet.”

Chavez said his wife didn’t approve the evening ban on children.

“My wife said, ‘Aquiles, I don’t like this.’ ”

“Customers don’t like screaming kids,” Chavez said, “and you can’t tell customers’ kids to be quiet.”

It’s a perfectly reasonable business decision, especially at a higher-end eatery, where customers will have different expectations for their experience than they would at a more family-oriented place. There are tons of good family-friendly places to eat in the area, and it’s not like kids can never eat at La Fisheria, they just have to do so earlier in the day. Which, speaking as the parent of a nine-year-old and a six-year-old, would seem like the thing one would generally prefer to do, but every family’s situation is different and I’m not going to judge. If someone were pushing for a citywide ordinance to require all restaurants to adhere to a similar policy, or if there were no other good options, then I’d be concerned. But this, this is no big deal.

You can see La Fisheria’s Facebook post announcing the policy and which has drawn over 600 comments and over 60 shares so far, here; there’s another 100+ comments on the 29-95 version of the story. I will note that it’s perfectly fine in general to bring kids to nice restaurants. It’s good to give kids experience eating in places where their best manners are expected. They like doing grownup things once in awhile, and in my observation they tend to want to live up to your expectations for them. We took the girls to Artisans last month and they did fine. It helps to establish beforehand that the rules are different than they would be at, say, Berryhill, and it helps if they aren’t already starving when you arrive and don’t get too bored while waiting, but that’s just common sense. I’m actually a little surprised that this was a problem at all at La Fisheria – I honestly can’t recall ever having a meal interrupted or ruined by an unruly child. But clearly it was an issue at La Fisheria, and they took the action they believed they needed to deal with it. I’m curious to know if you have any experiences with obnoxious kids – or really, the parents who are unable or unwilling to handle them – at restaurants. Please share them in the comments if you do. CultureMap has more.

Posted in Food, glorious food | Tagged Houston, parenting, restaurants | 2 Comments

Saturday video break: Nothing Compares 2 U

Posted on August 17, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Song #6 on the Popdose Top 100 Covers list is “Nothing Compares 2 U”, originally by The Family and covered by Sinead O’Connor. Here’s the original:

Say it with me now: I’ve never heard this version, or of this group, which the Popdose writer says “was a group formed from the ashes of The Time”, not that that helps me. It’s a bit on the cheesy side, but I was totally digging that sax player’s glasses. Here’s Sinead:

A huge hit for a mostly non-commercial artist. But more important than anything I can say about the song or her (far superior) version of it is that Sinead O’Connor was absolutely, positively, 100% right, and we really should have listened to her.

Posted in Music | Tagged cover songs, videos | 1 Comment

Time for more information about Early To Rise

Posted on August 17, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

What Lisa Falkenberg says.

They’ve turned over more than 150,000 signatures in favor of putting an early education tax on the Harris County ballot in November. Now the folks behind the Early to Rise campaign need to turn over the details.

Actually, they should have turned them over a while ago. The well-meaning folks who signed the petition did so with only the vaguest notion that, somehow, they’d be helping kids, and our community. But some of us need a little more information.

The petition said only that it was authorizing the Harris County Department of Education to levy a tax of one penny per $100 of assessed home value “for early childhood education purposes to improve success of children in kindergarten and beyond.”

A fact sheet called the effort a “public/private partnership” that will provide training, assistance and equipment to preschool programs and parents. Clicking on “take a deeper look at the Early to Rise Plan” on the group’s website won’t get you any deeper. It gives the basics and a list of board members who would lead a newly formed nonprofit to administer the tax funds.

Those board members include respected community leaders such as James Calaway of the Center for Houston’s Future, former Houston first lady Andrea White and the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell. But their good names aren’t enough. We need a detailed proposal, in writing, that spells out how money will be distributed, to what kinds of operations, under what criteria? How many families will be helped? How many children? At what age?

Not to mention how will the board members be chosen, what kind of oversight will they be subject to, what kind of disclosures will they have to make to ensure that any conflicts of interest can come to light, what is the process to remove a board member that needs to be removed, etc etc etc. We know these answers for elected officials, and we know these answers for boards and whatnot that are appointed by elected officials. We know none of that for Early To Rise and the Harris County School Readiness Corporation. The American Prospect, which has a nice overview of Early To Rise and the story so far, suggests that they don’t really have a good answer to these questions.

The obvious concerns over handing the revenues to an unelected nonprofit board are not lost on the leaders of Early to Rise. However Jonathan Day, a former city councilman and one of the Early to Rise board members, argues this is much better than the alternative of letting the Harris County Department of Education administer the program, which would politicize the process. The Department of Education has had its share of political drama, including hiring a former county commissioner and convicted felon as its lobbyist. Day worries that by giving the Department of Education control over the process, childcare centers would get selected for the program based on political advantage rather than need. He says that’s already become a problem with charter schools. “We have some bad charter schools. Are we able to close ‘em down?” he says. “Every one of those charter schools has a bunch of defenders, [including] the state representative.” By putting the money in the hands of an unelected body, Day believes the program will avoid many of the same political problems. “You can to a very significant extent, avoid those kinds of results which are very damaging,” he says, and notes that the Department of Education would still have oversight.

Day was a City Attorney, not a City Council member, but never mind that. I don’t get making HCDE out to be nefarious, especially since this proposal isn’t going to go anywhere without HCDE’s support. I agree that the hiring of Jerry Eversole was a forehead-slapping move, but he was hired for the purpose of lobbying Commissioners Court to back off its efforts to get a bill passed to kill the HCDE. I personally wouldn’t touch Eversole with a ten-foot pole, but that is a role for which he is qualified. Most of the actual political drama on HCDE had to do with a faction that never numbered more than one or two that was on board with the kill-HCDE agenda. The biggest, and possibly sole, protagonist of this was Michael Wolfe, who was defeated in 2012. Outside of Wolfe, the drama level at HCDE has been remarkably low. Bringing up charter schools is a distraction, since they have nothing to do with any of this, and besides, the Lege passed a bill this past session that among other things will – in theory, at least – make it easier to shut down substandard charters. Finally, I can’t believe that Jonathan Day is naive enough to think that an unelected and not-selected-by-electeds board would be less subject to political pressure or less tempted by favoritism than any other board. This goes right back to the question of oversight and what the consequences are for misbehavior. We need to have some assurances that our tax dollars are being used appropriately. That is not too much to ask.

Back to Falkenberg:

Bob Sanborn, CEO of the nonprofit watchdog organization Children at Risk, says he shares many of [County Judge Ed] Emmett’s worries: “I don’t really trust the governing structure. I don’t trust the taxing entity it’s going through, and that becomes a little problematic. This whole idea of unelected boards – what happens when they change membership?”

At the same time, he said he told Emmett in a conversation a while back, “you know, in the end, if this is on the ballot, it’s pro-children and I have to support it.”

I think that’s where many of our hearts are. Now the folks at Early to Rise just have to persuade our minds.

Yeah, that’s where I am, too. But it’s a huge leap of faith, and it’s one none of us should have to make. We’ll know on Tuesday what the plan is for HCDE. I sure hope these concerns get addressed.

Posted in Election 2013 | Tagged Early To Rise, Ed Emmett, Election 2013, Harris County, Harris County School Readiness Corp, HCDE, Jerry Eversole, Jonathan Day, Michael Wolfe, pre-kindergarten, property taxes | 2 Comments

Special prosecutor to be appointed in Perry/Lehmberg veto case

Posted on August 17, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Moving forward.

Rosemary Lehmberg

A San Antonio senior state district judge confirmed Thursday that he will name a special prosecutor to investigate possible charges of coercion and abuse of official capacity against Gov. Rick Perry.

Judge Robert “Bert” Richardson said he expected to name someone early next week, at which time “an order will be prepared and filed with the court.”

The investigation stems from the governor’s veto of $3.7 million annual funding of Travis County’s Public Integrity Unit.

Perry acknowledged that he let it be known that if Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg, a Democrat, did not resign her office following a DWI conviction, that he would cut off funding for the integrity unity.

Perry, a Republican, would name Lehmberg’s replacement.

Lehmberg did not resign and Perry subsequently vetoed funding for the unit, which prosecutes corruption and public malefeasance. Among other cases, the unit has been investigating the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas — one of Perry’s landmark accomplishments. CPRIT is facing allegations of favoritism and mismanagement of public funding.

After the Austin American-Statesman reported Perry’s challenge to Lehmberg, Texans for Public Justice filed a criminal complaint against Perry. The complaint cited state laws that prohibit public officials from abusing their office in coercing or bribing others.

See here, here, and here for the background, and here for a copy of the complaint. Note that the issue is not the actual veto, but the demand Perry made for Lehmberg to resign under the threat of his veto, that is the basis of the complaint. It’s the “resign or else” statement that the TPJ alleges is coercion. Had Perry simply issued the veto, there’d be no allegation of wrongdoing. It’s certainly open to debate whether Perry’s actions really did rise to the level of lawbreaking – that will be a question for the special prosecutor, and possibly a judge and jury, to decide – but let’s be clear that it was the demand for Lehmberg to resign and not the veto itself that is at issue. Texas Politics, Juanita, and Texpatriate have more.

Posted in Crime and Punishment | Tagged budget, District Attorney, Rick Perry, Rosemary Lehmberg, special prosecutor, Texas, TPJ, Travis County, veto | Comments Off

More on Abbott and his lawsuit settlement

Posted on August 17, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

I have three things to say about this.

Still not Greg Abbott

When Greg Abbott’s spine was crushed by a falling oak tree in 1984 he had no health insurance, no paycheck and no feeling in his legs.

But he had a good lawyer and, back then, access to a civil justice system that was generally hospitable toward plaintiffs. So Abbott did what many people would do in his situation: he sued.

Nearly 30 years later, as Texas attorney general and the leading candidate for governor, Abbott is facing new questions about the multimillion-dollar settlement he was awarded and about his advocacy of laws that critics say have tilted the judicial scales toward civil defendants.

Those critics, generally Democrats who oppose the Republican-backed lawsuit curbs, say the policies Abbott has fiercely promoted over his career as a judge and elected official make it virtually impossible for a plaintiff to win the kind of award he got.

“You would think that a young man, at the start of his career, crippled by an injury, would want to make sure that others that may have the misfortune to follow in his footsteps would ensure that those people had the opportunity to be compensated for their injuries in the same way he was,” said Tommy Fibich, a Democratic donor and personal injury lawyer. “He instead closed the door because that would help him get re-elected.”

Abbott said the reforms he had backed and helped cement in court rulings had been necessary to curb a rash of frivolous lawsuits. But he said the changes would not affect people like him.

“If there were someone jogging today, got hit by a tree today, suffered the same kind of accident today, they would have access to the very same remedies I had access to,” he said.

“Our legal system was abused in this state,” he continued. “There were many invalid claims that were filed in court, that clogged up the courts, that either denied or delayed access for people who had valid claims.”

Tort laws have changed drastically since Abbott’s accident, adding hurdles for people who sue for personal injuries and making it harder for them to win large sums. But there is disagreement about whether Abbott could receive a similar settlement today.

[…]

Charles M. Silver, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law and co-author of the study that disputed claims made by proponents of medical malpractice caps, said changes in personal injury law and a “pro-defendant” posture in the judicial branch made such a large financial settlement substantially less likely.

“Today that would be an extraordinarily high recovery,” Silver said. “It would be harder to get that type of award today.”

1. I had previously suggested that Abbott must have had health insurance when he suffered his injury. Apparently I was wrong about that. But I was still right that he never faced any dire financial problems as a result of his injury.

2. Be that as it may, the main point is still that Abbott utterly lacks empathy for anyone unfortunate enough to be in similar circumstances today, or anytime in at least the past two decades. He has done nothing to make the circumstances of anyone in need of access to health care better, and through his repeated lawsuits against the Affordable Care Act has actively sought to prevent anyone else from making their circumstances better.

3. Abbott’s claim that anyone who suffered a similar injury today “would have access to the very same remedies I had access to” strikes me as unlikely in the extreme. It also strikes me as a fact that might be checkable, at least to some extent, though I don’t expect any journalist to try to follow up on that. But seriously, does anyone think in the legal climate we have in Texas today, one that Greg Abbott helped shape as a Supreme Court justice in the 90s, that such an outcome is even remotely likely, especially for someone who isn’t already in a position of influence or with access to ample resources? Attorney Wade Barrow doesn’t think so.

Since Abbott’s settlement, Texans for Lawsuit Reform, one of his most loyal and robust contributors, has been on a perpetual mission to eliminate the rights of catastrophically injured Texans.

The list of limitations that Texans for Lawsuit Reform has passed since 1986, with the help of politicians like Abbott, that would directly limit his claim if he were to make it today include limitations on medical care in the past, lost wages and punitive damages. Abbott’s settlement document specifically references punitive damages.

However, the much graver threat to Abbott’s case today is the Texas Supreme Court’s continued insistence on substituting its judgment for that of juries. In fact, since Abbott’s settlement, the Texas Supreme Court has repeatedly held that “naturally occurring conditions” do not create an unreasonable risk of harm.

Based on this legal precedent, cases similar to Abbott’s are thrown out of court without a jury hearing them. While it is only known generally that a tree fell on Abbott, it is likely that the Texas Supreme Court would dismiss such a case.

If the Court ruled in that manner, Abbott or anyone with the same type of case would collect nothing today.

Catastrophically injured Texans now often find themselves without the legal remedies Abbott had at the time of his settlement, and they are forced to go on government assistance at taxpayer expense because the liable party cannot be held accountable for negligent acts.

It is impossible to reconcile Abbott’s longstanding relationship with Texans for Lawsuit Reform and his own personal experience. Either Abbott made what he would now have to concede are likely “frivolous” claims for his personal injury settlement, or he is complicit in supporting legislation and court opinions that he knows to be unjust based on his own life experience.

Texas Watch recently documented just how much the tort “reform” amendment of 2003 has limited access to the courts, and before that documented how often the Supreme Court throws out jury awards. Even without detailed fact checking, Abbott’s claim is farfetched on its face at best. More from Texas Watch here.

Posted in Election 2014, Legal matters | Tagged Election 2014, Governor, Greg Abbott, health care, health insurance, lawsuit, Supreme Court, Texas, tort reform | 2 Comments

Meet your Constitutional amendments

Posted on August 17, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

The Trib runs down the nine proposed constitutional amendments that will be on the ballot this November.

First on the ballot will be HJR 62, by state Rep. Chris Turner, D-Grand Prairie, which would authorize the Legislature to provide a property tax exemption for the spouses of veterans. This amendment specifically authorizes a tax exemption for all or part of the market value of the residences of spouses of military members who are killed in action.

Second will be HJR 79, by state Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas, which would eliminate a requirement for a State Medical Education Board and a State Medical Education Fund. Neither is in operation, with the State Medical Education Board having been defunct for more than a quarter-century.

HJR 133, by state Rep. Linda Harper-Brown, R-Irving, will appear third on the ballot. The amendment would extend the tax exemption period on storing aircraft parts in the state and would provide more tax relief to aerospace manufacturers, which often hold such parts in inventory for an extended period of time.

HJR 24, by state Rep. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, will follow and authorize the Legislature to give a partial property tax exemption on charity-donated residences to disabled veterans or their surviving spouses. The amendment would strike the current requirement that qualifying residents be “100 percent” disabled.

SJR 18, by state Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, will appear fifth on the ballot and would allow homeowners age 62 or older to use reverse mortgages to purchase residences. The current law only expressly allows traditional mortgages, which lets such homeowners borrow against the equity of their homes. The amendment would allow the prospective borrower to use a Federal Housing Administration-insured home equity conversion mortgage to help buy a new home.

Next will be SJR 1, also known as the Rainy Day Fund Amendment. The amendment would create two funds to help finance key projects in the state water plan by pulling about $2 billion from the Texas Economic Stabilization Fund. Authored by state Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, the amendment has been opposed by conservatives who have argued that pulling money from the Rainy Day Fund would endanger Texas’ economic health.

HJR 87, by state Rep. Sergio Munoz, Jr., D-Palmview, will appear seventh on the ballot. It would authorize home-rule municipalities to choose how to fill city council vacancies if the positions have less than 12 months remaining in a three- or four-year term. The amendment would remove the requirement to hold a mandatory special election for those positions.

HJR 147, by state Rep. Bobby Guerra, D-Mission, will come next on the ballot. It would repeal a constitutional provision authorizing the creation of a hospital district in Hidalgo County.

Last on the ballot will be SJR 42, by state Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston. It would authorize the State Commission on Judicial Conduct to use additional disciplinary actions — including public admonition, warning, reprimand, or required additional training or education — against judges or justices after a hearing. The current law allows the SCJC to issue a public censure or recommend a judge’s removal or retirement.

SJR1 is the water infrastructure fund. The road building fund item that finally passed in Special Session 3 won’t grace the ballot until 2014 by agreement, so as not to have two referenda that tap the Rainy Day Fund on the same ballot. The rest of them, I gotta say, I know little to nothing about. Most of them are probably no big deal, and most of them will likely have little to no campaigning done for or against them, so we’ll have to see what the usual suspects have to say about them going forward. If you have an opinion about any of them, please speak up in the comments. Stace has more.

Posted in Election 2013 | Tagged Constitution, constitutional amendments, Election 2013, rainy day fund, Senate, SWIFT, Texas, The Lege, water | 3 Comments

Friday random ten: For those about to rock

Posted on August 16, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

It’s about time to rock isn’t it? This made me realize I’d never done a Random Ten list about “rock” songs. No time like the present, I say.

1. It’s Still Rock & Roll To Me – Billy Joel
2. We Will Rock You – Queen
3. Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo – Rick Derringer
4. R.O.C.K In The U.S.A. – John Cougar Mellencamp
5. Rock Around the Clock – Bill Haley and His Comets
6. Rock And Roll – The Velvet Underground
7. Rock And Roll All Nite – KISS
8. Rock And Roll Music – The Beatles
9. Rock And Roll Never Forgets – Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band
10. Rock And Roll Lawyer – Austin Lounge Lizards

We took my in-laws to see the Lounge Lizards some years ago. My father-in-law, a now-retired bankruptcy attorney, told us afterward that “Rock And Roll Lawyer” was his favorite song from their set. Rock on, y’all.

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

Who would run for SD10 if Wendy runs for Governor?

Posted on August 16, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

The DMN considers the possibilities.

Sen. Wendy Davis

Several Democratic contenders have emerged. Topping the list is Fort Worth City Council member Joel Burns, who acknowledged last week that he’s been approached by operatives about a possible campaign to replace Davis.

“It’s something that I’ve thought about,” Burns said. “But until she decides what she wants to do, I can’t give it more than that.”

Burns acknowledged that Davis is a special candidate.

She beat Republican incumbent Kim Brimer for the seat in 2008. Four years later, she won a close race over former Rep. Mark Shelton, R-Fort Worth.

But Burns thinks that if he gets into the race, he can meld a winning coalition of minorities, women and moderates.

“Anyone who has shown a history of forging coalitions and can talk about the main street issues facing Texans has a leg up,” he said.

State Rep. Chris Turner, D-Arlington, has been mentioned frequently as a possible contender, even though he doesn’t live in the Senate district. He would have to move to mount a campaign.

But Turner, a veteran of former U.S. Rep. Martin Frost’s political tree, says he’s not interested in replacing Davis.

“I’m running for re-election to the House,” Turner said. “I decided that a long time ago, and that hasn’t changed.”

Turner’s wife, Democratic strategist Lisa Turner, has also been mentioned as a possible successor, but she said she’s not interested in running.

But there are other interesting options for Democrats.

Rep. Nicole Collier, D-Fort Worth, is in her first term in the House and is considered one of the local party’s rising stars. She could appeal to some of the same constituencies that powered Davis to victory.

Collier could not be reached for comment.

Former Fort Worth City Council member Kathleen Hicks could also mount a campaign.

In 2012, she lost the Democratic primary for the newly created 33rd Congressional District to Marc Veasey. And this spring, she failed in a council comeback bid. But Hicks has a recognizable name and connections in the district.

Some Democrats in Davis’ inner circle, however, are upset that Hicks supported former state Rep. Domingo Garcia of Dallas over Veasey in the 33rd District.

I’m on record saying that I’d like to see Joel Burns run, so I’m glad to see that people have talked to him about it. Rep. Collier would be a good option as well. Like Sen. Davis, she’s an Annie’s List candidate. I like Rep. Turner and he had a fine session this year, but I think he might be best served staying in the House and building up seniority. As long as someone good runs and there isn’t a nasty primary, I’ll be happy. Holding this seat will be tough, but it was always going to be a challenge. I’ve been clear about this being the downside risk of Sen. Davis running for Governor, and it’s equally clear by now that everyone is willing to take that risk. Well, everyone except possibly Sen. Davis herself – we don’t know that yet, though we do hear things. I do agree with PDiddie that the decision is bigger than just being about Sen. Wendy Davis. The universe is telling her to run for Governor. I don’t think she’ll be able to resist, and I’m not sure there’s a good case that she should try.

Posted in Election 2014 | Tagged Chris Turner, Election 2014, Governor, Joel Burns, Kathleen Hicks, Lisa Turner, Nicole Collier, SD10, Senate, Texas, Wendy Davis | 3 Comments

Endorsement watch: GLBT Caucus and HSYD

Posted on August 16, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

We are entering the part of the election cycle where groups are making their endorsements. One of the first out of the box is the Houston GLBT Political Caucus, which held its endorsement meeting on Saturday night. Here’s their press release, sent late Monday night:

150 members of the Houston GLBT Political Caucus met on Saturday to consider endorsements in the November 5, 2013 Houston municipal races and races for Houston Independent School District and Houston Community College System.

Mayor Annise Parker and 25 other candidates attended the four-hour meeting, during which candidate qualifications, campaigns, and support of equality issues were discussed and debated at length. All eligible candidates previously completed an extensive candidate questionnaire and sat for an interview with members of the Caucus Screening Committee.

“As always, our members engaged in spirited and passionate debate over which candidates are best equipped to serve Houstonians and the GLBT community.” said Caucus President Noel Freeman. “It is a very difficult process when you have so many great candidates competing for our support.”

You can see the individual endorsements announced on their Facebook page. Here’s their slate for 2013:

Mayor – Annise Parker (I)
Controller – Ronald Green (I)
At Large #1 – Stephen Costello (I)
At Large #2 – David Robinson
At Large #3 – Jenifer Pool
At Large #4 – C.O. Bradford (I)
At Large #5 – Jack Christie (I)
District A – No endorsement
District B – Jerry Davis (I)
District C – Ellen Cohen (I)
District D – Assata Richards
District E – No endorsement
District F – No endorsement
District G – No endorsement
District H – Ed Gonzalez (I)
District I – Graci Garces
District J – Mike Laster (I)
District K – Larry Green (I)
HISD District 1 – Anna Eastman (I)
HCC District I – Zeph Capo7

Note: (I) = Incumbent.

You can see a photo of their slate here. There are no major surprises on that list. Looking back to 2011, candidates in that election who did not receive the Caucus’ endorsement include Ronald Green (no endorsement in the Controller race that year); David Robinson (they endorsed Jenifer Pool on AL2); and Jack Christie (they endorsed then-incumbent CM Jolanda Jones). First-term CMs Davis, Cohen, Laster, and Larry Green were Caucus-endorsed as candidates.

On Tuesday, the Houston Stonewall Young Democrats announced their endorsements, which you can see here. They mostly overlapped with the Caucus; the only instance in which HSYD made an endorsement that differed from the Caucus was in At Large #3, where HSYD went with Rogene Calvert.

Like I said, endorsement season for groups and organizations is beginning in earnest. I’ve also seen announcements this week about Democracy For Houston and the Tejano Democrats. I expect plenty of others to follow soon. I generally wait to see a press release or some kind of web announcement before I update the Endorsements list on my 2013 Election page. If you’re aware of some endorsement announcement that I’ve missed, please send me the release or link or whatever, and I’ll update appropriately. Thanks very much.

Posted in Election 2013 | Tagged Election 2011, Election 2013, endorsements, HCC, HGLBT Political Caucus, HISD, HISD Board of Trustees, Houston, Houston City Controller, Houston City Council, Houston Stonewall Young Democrats, Mayor | 3 Comments

One more ballot item

Posted on August 16, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

In addition to the Astrodome and (maybe) Early To Rise referenda, Harris County voters will also get to decide on a jail bond referendum. From the preview story on Tuesday:

Harris County Commissioners Court on Tuesday also is expected to order a $70 million bond election for a long-discussed facility to process inmates arrested by county and city law enforcement.

The proposed $100 million facility, a significantly pared down version of a project county voters rejected in 2007, would replace the main county jail’s cramped processing center, which has been operating over capacity even as the jail population has fallen.

The proposal also would fulfill the city’s longtime wish to shutter its two aging jails, which cost $25 million a year to operate.

[…]

Voters narrowly rejected a $195 million bond measure to build a much larger jail facility six years ago. That version of the project was a $245 million jail with 2,500 beds and expansive mental health and medical facilities.

Advocates emphasize that the new proposal is not a jail. With 552 short-term beds, the project is designed primarily as a processing facility, aimed at getting inmates in and out more quickly and cheaply by eliminating duplicative city-county law enforcement processes.

The building also would have space for social service agencies to help released inmates, especially the mentally ill, return to society.

“It’s changed, really,” County Judge Ed Emmett said. “We’re talking about a building that will make the current jails much more efficient and that will allow us to address the mental health issues that plague so many of the people that get arrested.”

As you know, I voted against that 2007 referendum. This one is different, and I plan to vote for it. The key point here is that this project will not mean an increase in jail capacity, which was my main point of opposition to the 2007 referendum, but a more efficient way to process short-term inmates. It will also allow the city to close its outmoded and costly jails, which has been a goal for a long time. The county jail is in much better shape now, thanks in large part to the efforts of Sheriff Adrian Garcia, and everyone is on board with the idea of keeping the inmate count down, though there is still much to be done on that front. This proposed facility is in line with the good work that has been done so far, and I’m happy to support it.

Posted in Election 2013 | Tagged Adrian Garcia, bond referendum, Commissioners Court, Election 2007, Election 2013, Harris County, Harris County Sheriff, Houston, jail overcrowding, jails | Comments Off

Metro gets more money

Posted on August 16, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Good news.

Southeast Line

Congress has appropriated $189 million for two of our light-rail lines – the North/Red Line extension and the Southeast/Purple Line.

Each line will receive $94.5 million. The funds are part of the $900 million Full Funding Grant Agreements signed by federal officials in November 2011.

METRO Board Chairman Gilbert Garcia called this appropriation vital. “This is another key development in our progress towards building light rail for Houston. We want to extend thanks to our Congressional delegation and the many people who have supported efforts to improve the METRO transit system,” he said.

We expect to begin receiving this latest appropriation within the next 30 days. We’ll be spending the money to complete the 5.3-mile extension of the North/Red Line, which is an extension of our current Main Street Line. We’ll also be using the funds to build the Southeast/Purple Line, a 6.6 mile-line traveling through historic African-American communities, connecting to Texas Southern University and the University of Houston.

“Congress is giving us a critical tool with this funding, and we are taking every step we can to make sure these dollars are well spent,” said Tom Lambert, METRO interim president & CEO.

The North/Red Line is scheduled to open in December, and the Southeast/Purple Line and the East End/Green Line are expected to open in 2014. The locally-funded East End/Green Line is 3.3. miles, running from downtown to Magnolia Park Transit Center.

Here’s more on the full funding grant agreement they received from the FTA in 2011. Metro received a similar amount of money in 2012. Nice to know Congress isn’t so dysfunctional yet that simple stuff like this gets derailed, no pun intended.

On a tangential note, The Highwayman ponders the question of how much a ride on a Metro bus or train should cost.

Two concepts seem to bog down any debate about buses and trains.

1. Transit doesn’t pay for itself.

2. The fare system is terrible, so we should just make it free and then more people will ride it.

As a story in Monday’s paper pointed out, the Metropolitan Transit Authority is planning to make all buses and trains free for Labor Day weekend. The agency hopes to lure some riders to try the bus, and it hopes some of them will stay. Many transit agencies do the same thing. So does Netflix. It’s a marketing tool, and the reason I used AOL CDs as drink coasters in college.

It also opens up discussion of the two points noted above, which seem stuck in already-drawn conclusions.

Both premises miss the point of what transit is about and compare it to things it really isn’t. Public transit agencies are not businesses, they are governmental entities. Even in the best of cases, like New York and San Francisco, the systems do not pay for themselves.

Neither do roads, libraries, parks or other amenities that some people think make a community more livable.

Based on 2011 federal data, fares pay for 19 percent of Metro’s operating budget. That’s higher than any other major public transit system in Texas, but far lower than more robust transit systems on the coasts. We score about as well as Phoenix, which like Houston isn’t exactly a transit town yet.

On the other hand, Metro can’t just give it away, though some people argue that fare evasion on light rail is so rampant that the rides might as well be free. Federal officials want to see local officials make some effort to help pay for the system.

I discussed the matter of eliminating fares here; short answer, I think making transit free would cause it to be stigmatized by certain elements as a form of welfare, and that would ultimately be very bad for the concept of mass transit. I don’t have a problem with Metro doing the occasional free-ride promotion, but I think its plans to redesign and extend the bus system will be much more successful at boosting ridership; the addition of the three new rail lines will help, too. I carpool with my wife downtown these days, but I wind up taking the bus home about once a week because she needs the car after work for various errands. It’s convenient and fairly quick, and having that option prevents us from doing stupid and wasteful things like driving (and parking) two cars downtown. I commuted by bus, ferry, and subway for four years of high school in New York, so this idea isn’t strange to me. I think many people are reluctant to be without their car under any circumstances, and that’s an obstacle to be overcome if we want more transit usage in Houston. A lot of younger folks are not getting drivers licenses these days, at least not as early as folks my age did, so perhaps there will be a generational effect to help boost Metro a bit. I wouldn’t expect to see much of that anytime soon, however.

Posted in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles | Tagged Congress, FTA, Gilbert Garcia, light rail, Metro, North line, Southeast line | 1 Comment

Early To Rise submits its petitions

Posted on August 15, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

From here it gets real.

The Harris County School Readiness Corp., a new nonprofit led by business and civic leaders, is calling for a ballot intiative to levy a 1-cent-per-$100 tax through the Harris County Department of Education to generate about $25 million a year for training teachers and buying school supplies for child care centers serving children up to age 5.

Chairman James Calaway touted the proposal Tuesday as he stood ready to roll a dolly stacked with five boxes filled with more than 150,000 signatures into the office of one of the plan’s most vocal critics, Harris County Judge Ed Emmett.

“Let’s deliver these to the county judge so he can begin his five days of verification to get it on the ballot,” he said.

Here’s their press release. There’s already a dispute over how quickly the signatures must be certified. Calaway says Tax Assessor Mike Sullivan has five days to randomly verify a subsample of the signatures. Sullivan and County Judge Ed Emmett say he has until the deadline for putting items on the ballot, which is August 26. That’s also the deadline for the Attorney General to render an opinion that would be relevant and timely. At the behest of Judge Emmett, County Attorney Vince Ryan has submitted a request for an AG opinion that asks “whether the Harris County Judge is authorized to deny a petition to order an election to levy and collect an equalization tax for the Harris County Department of Education and related questions”. (Sen. Dan Patrick has also requested an opinion.) You can hear all the attorneys limbering up in the background as they prepare for the inevitable lawsuit. I presume the fact that Ryan submitted the request means that Judge Emmett was told he couldn’t do it himself, a fact that Lisa Falkenberg pointed out awhile back. So at least this is known to be kosher.

I don’t know what will happen next, but if I had to guess I’d say this makes it to the ballot. Barring a ruling that the law being used is invalid, I’m not sure what the pretext would be for stopping it. Doesn’t mean Abbott couldn’t come up with a reason if he wants to, of course. But let’s say it does make it onto the ballot. I’m wondering now if the Harris County School Readiness Corporation has had any second thoughts about its reasons for pushing this in 2013 instead of waiting till 2014. As I understand it, they thought that they’d have a better shot in 2013, when voters from the city would be a disproportionately large share of the electorate. While I don’t think that support or opposition to the Early To Rise plan will cleave exactly along partisan lines, I do think it’s reasonable to think the Democrats are more likely to support it and Republicans are more likely to oppose it, and given that, you’d like for the mostly-Democratic city to be the bulk of the voters. Of course, in our generally low-turnout city elections, the voters who show up aren’t necessarily representative of what a high-turnout electorate would be. With the addition of the Astrodome referendum, it’s impossible to say what the county electorate will look like, and it’s no longer a guarantee that city of Houston voters will be the bulk of it. If the key to getting this passed is a Democratic electorate, then maybe it would have been better to wait till next year and the hoped-for Wendy Davis Express to serve as a tailwind. Of course, no one could have known all this six months ago, or whenever the Harris County School Readiness Corporation first geared up. They picked their target, now we’ll see how wise they were to do so.

That’s getting ahead of ourselves, because we still don’t quite know exactly what we’d be voting for.

For months, corporation members have been negotiating with the Harris County Department of Education on a governance agreement.

“We’ve been working to find the right balance of public oversight,” Calaway said, declining to talk specifically about details until the proposal is presented publicly to the department’s board of trustees Tuesday.

Wishing to dispel myths that the nonprofit simply would be cut a check for the tax dollars and left free to spend it on its own operations, Calaway said much of the finance and accounting work would be handled by the Department of Education.

The nonprofit’s three-person staff would coordinate with existing early education providers to spend the money, he said.

The challenge is sorting out how much public oversight to mandate for a private entity spending public dollars, Calaway and education department Superintendent John Sawyer agreed.

Sawyer said the proposal is unlike any other private-public partnership he has seen.

“Elected officials would allow the operations to be overseen by a board different from themselves,” he said. “My board has got to come to grips with that. Or not.”

The suggestion of having HCDE name a board member has been dropped by agreement. I suspect they’ll get the details hammered out, but I’m wondering what happens if they don’t. Does it make sense for the Harris County School Readiness Corporation to push a proposal that the HCDE hates? The whole reason why the Harris County School Readiness Corporation was able to mount this petition drive is because the HCDE still exists, unlike most other county school boards. It’s HCDE’s tax rate that we’re being asked to increase. Being harmonious with them would seem to be the first order of business. We’ll see what they come up with by Tuesday. Campos, who thinks the “right balance of public oversight” is “100%”, has more.

Posted in Election 2013 | Tagged Attorney General, Early To Rise, Ed Emmett, Election 2013, Greg Abbott, Harris County, Harris County School Readiness Corp, Harris County Tax Assessor, HCDE, Houston, John Calaway, John Sawyer, lawsuit, Mike Sullivan, petitions, pre-kindergarten, Vince Ryan | 2 Comments

Astrodome referendum officially on the ballot

Posted on August 15, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

It’s been a long, strange trip, but at last you will get to vote on the fate of the Astrodome.

The Commissioners Court on Tuesday unanimously voted to place a bond election for up to $217 million to convert the iconic stadium into a massive, street-level convention hall and exhibit space, saying residents should take part in deciding the historic structure’s fate.

Should voters reject the bonds, County Judge Ed Emmett and Precinct 2 Commissioner Jack Morman said Tuesday they see no other alternative than to demolish the former “Eighth Wonder of the World,” which has sat vacant since city inspectors declared it unfit for occupancy in 2009. The Reliant Astrodome has not housed a professional sports team since the Astros moved to Minute Maid Park in 2000.

“If it does not pass in November, then that should be the death knell for the Dome,” Morman said.

[…]

While the vote to put the measure on the ballot was unanimous, court members’ personal support for the project is not.

Only Emmett and Precinct 1 Commissioner El Franco Lee said they definitely will cast a vote in favor of the bond referendum. Both, however, said they have no plans to launch – or, in Emmett’s case, participate in – campaigns to get the measure passed.

“There needs to be some plans made to do it, if it’s going to be a success,” Lee, who wants to save the Dome, said of a campaign. “The judge is our leadership, so we’ll just see what occurs from there.”

The Commissioners Court on Tuesday also approved $8 million for work that needs to be done to the half-century-old stadium regardless of whether it is torn down or renovated. That work includes asbestos abatement, demolition of the exterior spiral walkways and the sale of signs and other salvaged items that qualify as sports memorabilia.

County engineers and consultants, who estimated it would cost $217 million to repurpose the Dome, also determined it would cost $20 million to demolish it, not including the $8 million.

If the bond fails in November, Precinct 3 Commissioner Steve Radack said it “would make no sense to me at all” to spend millions of dollars demolishing the structure.

“There’s another day to have another election,” he said. “Why are you going to spend $8 million and then tear it down?”

The vote to call the bond election was made with one condition championed by Radack: That the ballot language explicitly say that the project would require an increase to the county property tax rate, which has not been raised in 17 years.

See here for the last update. We were headed towards a referendum in 2008 back when Astrodome Redevelopment was proposing a convention center as the Dome replacement, but the economic collapse knocked that off track, and so here we are now. The big question at this point is who lines up to oppose this. The Harris County Sports and Convention Corporation, whose renovation plan is what the Court approved for the ballot, will take the lead in communicating the referendum and the reasons to vote for it to the public. I have no idea how much money they’ll have to mount a real campaign, however. It’s certainly possible that some deep-pocketed types could show up to fund a campaign in favor of this, or in opposition to it. It’s also possible that there will be little more than earned media and some online presence to inform the voters. If I had to guess, I’d say this passes, but who knows? How do you plan to vote on this? Leave a comment and let’s get a totally unscientific data point to bat around. Texpatriate and Swamplot have more.

Posted in Election 2013 | Tagged Astrodome, Astrodome Redevelopment, Bill Jackson, bond referendum, Commissioners Court, demolition, Ed Emmett, El Franco Lee, Election 2013, Harris County, Harris County Sports & Convention Corp, Jack Morman, property taxes, Steve Radack | 9 Comments

Keller accepts a plea deal on ethics charge

Posted on August 15, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

She gets off pretty lightly, if you ask me.

Sharon Keller, the state’s top criminal court judge, has reached a deal to substantially reduce a record $100,000 fine levied by the Texas Ethics Commission for failing to fully disclose millions of dollars of real estate and income in financial statements.

Under the settlement, released Friday, Keller will pay $25,000 to resolve repeated violations of the section of state law that governs personal financial disclosures for elected officials.

In a move that surprised even state watchdog groups, the commission in April 2010 slapped Keller with a $100,000 fine – the largest-ever civil penalty against a politician – after finding that she did not report a total of at least $3.8 million in earnings and property on two annual financial statements.

Keller fixed the omissions on the financial statements, but appealed the commission’s fine to a Travis County state District Court, where it languished for three years.

On Thursday, the Ethics Commission approved the settlement with a 7-0 vote, but referred questions to the attorney general’s office, which represents state agencies in legal matters. The attorney general’s office declined comment.

[…]

In 2007, she became mired in national controversy and fought to hold onto her bench on unrelated charges raised by the state Commission on Judicial Conduct that she improperly closed the court to a death row inmate’s appeal, just hours before he was executed. A special master found Keller did nothing legally wrong in that case.

During the death-row case, Keller claimed she could not afford to pay her high-powered attorney, Charles Babcock, prompting a state watchdog group to dig into her personal financial filings, said Craig McDonald, executive director of Texans for Public Justice.

Keller’s financial form omissions first were reported by the Dallas Morning News in March 2009. Texans for Public Justice then filed the ethics complaints with the commission that led to the original $100,000 fine.

“We’re disappointed the fine was rolled back by 75 percent,” McDonald said. “We thought the $100,000 fine sent a message to politicians like Keller that they can’t hide assets from the public and their personal financial statements need to be taken seriously.”

See here, here, and here for some of the background on this long and faith-destroying saga. In my opinion, Sharon Keller is the second luckiest politician in the state, trailing Rick Perry by a hair. It’s rare to find someone who has done so much for so long to bring down the wrath of karma on themselves only to get off scot–free again and again. She’s a one-woman rebuttal to the concept of justice in society. I don’t even know what to say.

Posted in Crime and Punishment | Tagged Court of Criminal Appeals, ethics, Sharon Keller, Texas, Texas Ethics Commission | Comments Off

Texas blog roundup for the week of August 12

Posted on August 15, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

The Texas Progressive Alliance thinks sine die are the two sweetest words in the Latin language as it brings you this week’s roundup.

Continue reading →

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

Interview with Rogene Gee Calvert

Posted on August 14, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Rogene Gee Calvert

Next up for At Large #3 is Rogene Gee Calvert, who has worked for non-profits such as the United Way of the Texas Gulf Coast and for the city, as a City Director under Mayor Bill White, and Chief of Staff for former CM Gordon Quan. She has also served as President of the Asian Chamber of Commerce. My interview with her is below, but before I get to that I want to say that I have had contact with the campaigns of Michael Kubosh and Roy Morales, but have not completed interviews with them. I have Kubosh scheduled for Monday, and am still waiting to hear back from Morales. I will run them when I get them done. People are busy, these things happen every interview cycle, it’s no big deal. As promised, here’s my interview with Rogene Gee Calvert:

Rogene Gee Calvert interview

You can see all of my interviews as well as finance reports and other information on candidates on my 2013 Election page.

Posted in Election 2013 | Tagged At Large #3, Election 2013, Houston, Houston City Council, interviews, Rogene Calvert | 1 Comment

The people want Wendy to run for Governor

Posted on August 14, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

The Democratic people certainly do.

Though speculation is still rampant on state Sen. Wendy Davis’ possible run for governor, some Democratic groups aren’t waiting for her call before pledging their support.

Annie’s List, a political group that supports Democratic female candidates, announced the launch of WeWantWendyDavis.com Tuesday after reserving the domain name earlier this week.

“Besides wanting to show Wendy Davis that she has a broad network of people who want her to run, we wanted to also ask people what they wanted to do to help her,” said executive director Grace Ann Garcia. “We consider this an online recruiting effort on our part.”

The website allows supporters to fill out a form indicating opportunities to support a possible gubernatorial bid, including hosting house parties, volunteering and donating money.

[…]

Battleground Texas, a Democratic campaign to make the heavily Republican state politically competitive, is also ramping up for a possible run, emailing supporters Tuesday with a petition to encourage Davis to run for governor.

“It’s clear that if Texas Democrats want any chance of beating Attorney General Greg Abbott and his multi-million dollar war chest next November, we need somebody strong to take on the challenge. I think Wendy’s just the right woman for the job,” executive director Jenn Brown wrote in the email. “But before she makes a decision, Wendy needs to know that you’re behind her.”

The petition also offers a free “I want Wendy” sticker to signees.

They’re hardly alone – the Lone Star Project, the TDP, BOR – those are just the ones I’ve heard of so far. My Facebook post about her reportedly making up her mind about running has already been shared 15 times, which is a record for me. Is it just me, or does there seem to be a lot more excitement about Wendy Davis’ possible candidacy than there has been about Greg Abbott‘s actual candidacy? I get that that and $1.25 gets you a ride on a Metro bus, and I get that there’s a novelty factor at play here, but still. When was the last time any Democrat got this much buzz for a statewide race? Maybe Ann Richards, but remember, when she ran for Governor in 1990, she was already a statewide officeholder (she was State Treasurer, an office that no longer exists) and she had to survive a nasty primary against then-AG Jim Mattox. Bill White got some decent fanfare in 2010, but he had been campaigning for a Senate special election that never happened, and he was going up against the Perry-KBH primary fight. I can honestly say I’ve never seen anything like this before. Again, it doesn’t mean anything yet, and who knows what things will be like in another six or twelve months, but you could do a lot worse for a campaign launch than this.

UPDATE: Stace is on board, too.

Posted in Election 2014 | Tagged Ann Richards, Annie's List, Battleground Texas, Bill White, Election 2014, Governor, Greg Abbott, Lone Star Project, TDP, Texas, Wendy Davis | 3 Comments

When is it OK for the feds to intervene in Texas?

Posted on August 14, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

When the Affordable Care Act is involved.

It’s constitutional – deal with it

Though Texas will join 26 other states in defaulting to a federal marketplace for purchasing health insurance — a major component of the Affordable Care Act — it is one of only six that will not enforce new health insurance reforms prescribed by the law. It’s a decision some say could lead to confusion over who’s responsible for protecting Texas insurance consumers.

Because Texas did not create its own state-based marketplace, known as a health insurance exchange, under the Affordable Care Act, it must use a federally facilitated one instead. By federal law, the state must enforce provisions and regulations related to the insurance exchange and market reforms unless it notifies the federal government that it cannot or will not. If a state does not enforce those reforms, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will step in to do it.

Texas, Arizona, Alabama, Missouri, Oklahoma and Wyoming have all notified the federal government that they will not be policing the health law. John Greeley, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Insurance, said his agency cannot enforce regulations tied to the federal insurance exchange or market reforms because it is not authorized to do so.

“We can’t act on anything that doesn’t exist in state law,” he said.

[…]

In the states that will not enforce the exchange and market reforms, the federal government will have to review insurance forms and respond to consumer complaints about health insurance, said Kevin Lucia, an assistant research professor with the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms. Those duties, he added, are “typically reserved for state insurance departments.”

[Stacey Pogue, a health policy analyst with the liberal Center for Public Policy Priorities] said the state’s decision could create an “administrative burden” for insurance plans and could result in confusion for Texans who purchase health insurance under the federal exchange. For instance, she said, if people worry their insurance providers are discriminating against them based on their gender — a practice banned by the federal reforms — they may not know whether to report a complaint to CMS or to TDI.

“There’s all this opportunity to be bounced back and forth, which is a burden for consumers,” she said. If consumers have to report insurance violations to the federal government, that could prevent TDI from having a complete picture of consumers’ experience with insurance providers, she added.

“Consumers can be experiencing a lot of problems on the market that the state regulator doesn’t know about,” Pogue said.

That would be a feature, not a bug, as far as the state leadership is concerned. They care far more about scoring a political win by making the Obamacare implementation look bad than they have ever cared about actually solving the problem of people not having health insurance. How much effect this will have I can’t say – the Texas Department of Insurance claims they’ll still be there for Texans that have problems, for whatever that’s worth – but the bottom line remains that the state is determined to do everything in its power to keep as many people off health insurance as possible. After all that chest-thumping about being severely “pro-life”, you just have to wonder how some of these people sleep at night. But at least now we don’t have to wonder about when the federal government is evil and intrusive and anathema, and when it is not. Think Progress has more.

Posted in Show Business for Ugly People | Tagged health insurance, insurance exchanges, Medicaid, Texas, Texas Department of Insurance | Comments Off

What to do with that extra money?

Posted on August 14, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Some unexpected good financial news for the city, but what to do about it is the tricky part.

Just months after hiking health premiums, shifting costs to employees and plugging a projected multimillion-dollar deficit in its health benefits fund, the city of Houston has found itself with a sizable surplus in that account instead.

The city had used $14 million to fill the projected deficit in its health fund in January, after predictions about claims and premiums proved inaccurate. In a memo issued this week, Human Resources Director Omar Reid said the city’s calculations were indeed off – but in the other direction, with claims coming in lower than expected.

That, combined with the January payment, leaves the health fund with an $18 million surplus, he wrote.

Fresh off benefit cuts and premium hikes in May, the municipal employees’ union is livid. It is demanding that Mayor Annise Parker rescind jumps in co-pays, deductibles, co-insurance and out-of-pocket maximums, and cut the increase in employee premiums from 14.9 percent to 8.7 percent.

The city’s share of premiums, which covers three-quarters of plan costs, with the rest coming from workers, also rose 14.9 percent in May.

City Councilmen Stephen Costello, Dave Martin and James Rodriguez said they are concerned city staff have shown an inability to project health costs and said the public should be wary, too. Health costs make up almost 10 percent of the city’s general fund operating budget.

“To have a change as drastic as this means somebody really didn’t do a very good job of diligence in their financial analysis of the program, and I’m trying to find out why is that happening,” Martin said. “More importantly, what can we do about it in the future, and how reliable is the data today?”

Rodriguez added, “My faith is somewhat shaken in their ability to calculate these numbers.”

I wouldn’t be too hard on the city’s financial analysts. Clearly, they made overly cautious projections, but I find it difficult to crime them for it given the steady drumbeat of pension-related financial doomsaying we’ve been subjected to lately. How could they be anything but overly cautious in an environment like that? I’m quite certain they’d have been taken to the woodshed for being too exuberantly optimistic if their initial projection had been much lower. The story doesn’t detail how this projection was made, but my guess is that the analysts relied heavily on historical data, most likely without sufficiently taking into account the fact that health care costs have grown a lot more slowly in the past five years than at any time in the past fifty years. Of course, they may have accounted for that but also considered that no one really knows why cost growth has slowed, and no one really knows how long that slowdown trend will last. If they erred towards excessive caution, I can understand their thinking.

Still, that caution had a profound impact on the city’s employees, who paid a lot more for their health care than they actually needed to. The union is right to demand that the employees get their money back. I’m sensitive to the concerns that this could be a blip on the graph, but that gets back to my earlier point about how these projections were done. Now that we have some empirical data, how about we revisit what our assumptions were and see where we might make some adjustments? That should inform how we proceed and how we make it right for the city’s employees, who have given up a lot to balance the city’s budget. They deserve a fair shake.

Posted in Local politics | Tagged budget, Dave Martin, health care, health insurance, Houston, Houston City Council, James Rodriguez, Stephen Costello | Comments Off

Interview with Roland Chavez

Posted on August 13, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Roland Chavez

Next up among At Large #3 candidates is Roland Chavez. Chavez was a Houston firefighter for 34 years before retiring in June. He was active for many years in the firefighters’ union, Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association, Local 341, including a stint as its President. He was President of Local 341 in 2004 when they signed their first ever Collective Bargaining Contract with the city. He also served as chair of the North Side Metro Rail Expansion Committee on the recommendation of then-CM Adrian Garcia. Here’s the interview:

Roland Chavez interview

You can see all of my interviews as well as finance reports and other information on candidates on my 2013 Election page.

Posted in Election 2013 | Tagged At Large #3, Election 2013, Houston, Houston City Council, interviews, Roland Chavez | Comments Off

Davis reportedly running for Governor

Posted on August 13, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

At least according to Robert Miller.

Sen. Wendy Davis

Credible sources tell me that Sen. Wendy Davis will run for Governor in 2014 and not seek reelection to Texas Senate District 10. It will set up a high stakes match-up with Attorney General Greg Abbott in the November 4, 2014, general election.

Sen. Davis believes that she faces a tough race regardless of whether she seeks reelection to the Senate or runs for Governor. In 2010, Gov. Rick Perry received 52.7% of the vote in SD 10 compared to 44.6% for Mayor Bill White. In 2012, Gov. Romney defeated President Obama in SD 10 53.3% to 45.4%.

Sen. Davis has been elected twice in SD 10, so it clearly is a winnable race — but tough. Sen. Davis is now a national figure for Texas Democrats, and a senate reelection run would draw in national money both for and against her. If she is going to have a tough nationalized race, she would prefer it be for Governor.

The last Democrat to be elected Texas Governor was Ann Richards in 1990. Since then, the Democratic nominee has received the following percentage of the vote: 1994 – Richards 45.7%; 1998 – Mauro 31.2%; 2002 – Sanchez 40%; 2006 – Bell 29.8%; 2010 – White 42.3%. Public Policy Polling released a poll July 2, 2013, showing General Abbott leading Sen. Davis 48% to 40%, and the same poll had Gov. Perry leading Sen. Davis 53% to 39%. Texas is still a deeply red state, and running for Governor as a Democrat in Texas is a steep uphill climb.

Nevertheless, there are upsides for Sen. Davis. The stars could align, however improbably, and she could conceivably win. Alternatively, assuming she runs a credible race, a cabinet or subcabinet position would probably be available to her under President Obama or in a future Clinton administration. Lastly, a strong showing in 2014 would position her as the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for Governor or U.S. Senator in 2018, assuming the Democrats have a better shot with each passing election cycle.

However, the real winner of Sen. Davis’ decision to run for Governor are Texas Democrats. Without her, they have no credible statewide candidate in 2014. With her, they will likely find other credible Democrats willing to step out and run statewide. She will also provide a race that Battleground Texas, the Obama campaign’s effort to turn Texas blue, can organize around. Finally, she will likely boost Democratic turnout in urban counties such as Dallas and Harris helping down ballot Democrats running for county and judicial offices.

If true, you can save yourself a stamp. I don’t know who Robert has been talking to and obviously I don’t know if he’s heard correct information or not, but I basically agree with his reasoning here. I’ve said before that Sen. Davis’ higher profile is an asset for a statewide run, but not necessarily one for a re-election effort. The possibility of a position within the Obama and/or Clinton administrations in the event she falls short addresses one of the concerns I’d had about her running now, which is that there isn’t a statewide office (save for Railroad Commissioner) on the ballot in 2016, so Davis would need something to keep her politically engaged and visible at least to Democratic activists until 2018. It’s one thing to run and lose, and another thing entirely for her to take a gig after running and losing that makes her less likely to run again and/or less viable as a candidate for the next opportunity.

Everyone has their own take on what Sen. Davis will need to win this race. I’ll just reiterate my position that the first step is dealing with the fact that Democratic turnout in off-year elections has been basically flat since 2002. That’s good news in the sense that there’s tons of potential for growth, but obviously that represents a lot of work to be done, and not much time in which to do it. Barring a 2006 level of Republican turnout or an unprecedented Democratic wave, Davis is going to have to draw some votes away from Greg Abbott in order to win. The good news there, as Michael Li has pointed out, is that early poll results show Davis doing better among Anglo voters than Bill White did in 2010, which suggests that the race may be closer than it first looks. I’m not going to put too much stock in that right now – there will be plenty more polls if indeed Davis runs – but it is something to keep in mind. When more polls do come out, remember that Republican turnout has been a moving target over the past three elections, and Democratic turnout is likely to be higher than in years past. That’s going to make pollsters’ assumptions about the composite of the electorate a big factor in reading poll results. Nobody knows right now what the makeup of 2014 voters will be – we’ll all be guessing.

Miller mentions that with Davis’ entry, other credible Dems will likely take a shot at the other offices as well; TDP Chair Gilberto Hinojosa has alluded to such in the past as well. I’m hopeful that may include folks like Sen. Leticia Van de Putte and Sen. Rodney Ellis, neither of whom would have to give up their seats in 2014, for Lt. Gov. and Attorney General, respectively. I don’t know who else may be out there, but as with John Cook popping up to run for Land Commissioner, I’m sure there are folks many of us hadn’t been thinking about out there.

Davis has said she’ll make her official announcement in the next two weeks, so we’ll know soon enough if he’s got the scoop or not. In the meantime, I’ll repeat my suggestion that we recruit Fort Worth City Council member Joel Burns, who succeeded Davis on that body, to run to succeed her here as well. Texas Politics and Texpatriate have more.

Posted in Election 2014 | Tagged Battleground Texas, Election 2002, Election 2006, Election 2010, Election 2014, Governor, Greg Abbott, Joel Burns, Leticia Van De Putte, polls, Rodney Ellis, SD10, Senate, Texas, turnout, Wendy Davis | 8 Comments

Endorsement watch: Chron for Early To Rise

Posted on August 13, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Technically, this isn’t an endorsement, since there isn’t anything to endorse just yet. Nonetheless, it is clear that the Chron supports the Early To Rise campaign.

It looks like Harris County will vote on the future of the Astrodome this November. If we can get $200 million on the ballot for a convention center, we should be able to get a vote on $25 million for children’s education.

[…]

This petition mechanism is admittedly obscure. It relies on sections of the Texas Education Code that were removed in a 1995 overhaul but still govern how the Harris County Department of Education operates. It may not be the best way to expand early childhood education, but it is likely the only way.

We hope County Judge Ed Emmett will work to get this on the ballot. The debate over Early To Rise should be about policy, not procedure.

Strictly speaking, this isn’t the only way to expand early childhood education. There’s nothing stopping the Legislature from funding an expansion of pre-K everywhere in the state. No question that would be an excellent investment in the state and would do more to increase test scores and boost graduation rates in the short term while reducing crime and improving the economy in the longer term. Of course, this is the Legislature we’re talking about – you may recall that they slashed the state’s already meager spending on pre-K in 2011 – so yeah, this is the only likely way to make this happen. If you don’t like the mechanism being used here, go yell at a legislator that doesn’t support increased spending on pre-K statewide.

In the meantime, the Early To Rise campaign sent out a press release announcing that they are turning in 150,000 signatures to County Judge Ed Emmett. Seventy-nine thousand are needed to get the item on the ballot. As we have been made to understand this process, Commissioners Court doesn’t get to vote whether or not to put the item on the ballot, though the exact process and timing remain unclear. I’m not quite sure how this will play out, but we’ll find out soon enough. One thing that the Court will be dealing with is the Astrodome referendum, which they are expected to approve. I’ll have more on both stories tomorrow.

UPDATE: Here’s the Chron story about the petition signatures.

Last week, the county attorney asked the state attorney general on behalf of Emmett to clarify whether the initiative process used by the campaign still is on the books and whether having those signatures verified means anything at all.

“My job is to make sure that I do what is legal and right,” Emmett said, calling the process, never before used in Harris County, “truly bizarre.”

“Somebody’s got to tell me if I’ve got to put it on the ballot and then what it has to say,” he said.

[…]

Despite his legal questions and concerns about the governance structure that would funnel tax dollars to the nonprofit without government oversight, Emmett said his office will forward the signatures to Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Mike Sullivan for verification.

Early to Rise and Emmett disagree about the timeline Sullivan must follow.

[James Calaway, chair of the Harris County School Readiness Corp.’s Early to Rise Campaign] said the county has five business days to meet a critical ballot deadline. Emmett said his advice from the county attorney differs.

Sullivan said Monday he had not yet received direction from the county attorney, nor talked to Emmett, about whether he has a deadline or when that may be. He said his staff is, nonetheless, ready to begin verification while it is sorted out.

The stage is set. We’ll see how it goes from here.

Posted in Election 2013 | Tagged Astrodome, Commissioners Court, Early To Rise, Ed Emmett, Election 2013, endorsements, Harris County, petitions, pre-kindergarten | Comments Off

Travis County to fund Public Integrity Unit

Posted on August 13, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Not optimal, but better than the alternative of shutting it down till 2015.

Rosemary Lehmberg

The Travis County Commissioners Court agreed [last] Tuesday to restore some money to the Travis County district attorney’s Public Integrity Unit after Gov. Rick Perry in June eliminated state funding for the office. The five-member commissioners court voted 4-1 on the proposal, which will cost Travis County taxpayers about $1.8 million next year.

[…]

Lehmberg told the commissioners on Tuesday that continuing the unit’s work was vital and that it affects both Travis County and all of Texas.

She said the staff had already “scrubbed down our budget” to eliminate unnecessary costs.

The new budget will be substantially less than the unit’s previous annual operating budget of $3.7 million, which had been funded by the state. Its annual budget will now total $2.5 million, including $1.8 million from county tax funds and up to $734,422 from forfeited property controlled by the county.

The smaller budget will require the unit to reduce some of its responsibilities. At least 52 of its current 425 cases — primarily in insurance and tax fraud — will be returned to the referring state agencies, and the unit will no longer take statewide cases, Lehmberg said.

The plan will also reduce the number of employees from 34 to 24.

The proposed budget for the unit will take effect in October, when its new fiscal year begins.

Commissioner Gerald Daugherty, who was the only vote against the proposal, argued forcefully against using taxpayer money to fund the unit.

“Is it fair to the taxpayers of Travis County to take [the unit’s budget] on?” he asked.

Though the other four commissioners acknowledged the difficulty of asking taxpayers to shoulder the burden, “we have to make some of the tough decisions here,” said Commissioner Margaret Gomez.

“We have a moral responsibility as well as the district attorney to prosecute crime,” said Commissioner Bruce Todd. “My fear is that some of that would be lost by simply saying, ‘no.’”

See here for the last update. I think this was the right thing for them to do, but Commissioner Daugherty’s question is valid. Really, the thing I’d be worried about is that the Lege will take this as a precedent and try to foist responsibility for funding the PIU on Travis County going forward. If they did it once, they can do it again, right? I hope Travis County has a good lobbyist on retainer, for its own sake. Perhaps the eventual adjudication of that complaint about Perry’s veto threat will help clarify things. BOR has more.

Posted in Crime and Punishment | Tagged budget, Commissioners Court, Rick Perry, Rosemary Lehmberg, Texas, The Lege, Travis County, veto | 2 Comments

Interview with Jenifer Pool

Posted on August 12, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Jenifer Pool

This week we move into the crowded field for At Large #3, which is the only open At Large Council seat on the ballot. Currently held by CM Melissa Noriega, there’s a large but not easily pinpointed number of candidates hoping to succeed her. I say that because the rumor mill is suggesting that candidates Chris Carmona and Al Edwards may be dropping out. The filing deadline is still two weeks away, so it’s premature to say who is or isn’t officially in, but it is fair to say that the field in AL3 is in flux.

That said, there are some candidates whom we do know for sure are running, and one of them is Jenifer Pool. Pool is a small business owner and a former President of the HGLBT Political Caucus, who ran for At Large #2 in 2011. (My interview with her from that election is here.) She’s a Steering Committee member of the Human Rights Campaign-Houston, and though her webpage oddly lacks a biography, I found this interesting life story of her from last year when she served as the 2012 Female Pride Marshal. Here’s what we talked about:

Jenifer Pool interview

You can see all of my interviews as well as finance reports and other information on candidates on my 2013 Election page.

Posted in Election 2013 | Tagged At Large #3, Election 2013, Houston, Houston City Council, interviews, Jenifer Pool | Comments Off

Texas says “No preclearance now, no preclearance forever!”

Posted on August 12, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

As we know, the plaintiffs in the redistricting lawsuit against the state of Texas have filed briefs arguing that the state should still be subject to preclearance under Section 3 of the Voting Rights Act. They have been joined in this motion by the Justice Department. Last Monday was the deadline for the state to file its response, and to say the least they dispute the idea that Texas needs any kind of federal oversight in matters relating to electoral law. Rick Hasen explains.

In a nutshell, Texas argues that even if it is guilty of recent intentional discrimination on the basis of race against minority voters (a point which of course if vigorously denies), it cannot be bailed into a preclearance regime under section 3. Texas argues that the Supreme Court’s recent opinion in Shelby County bars the use of the preclearance regime against it or any state unless the state has engaged in conduct as bad as Southern states did in the 1960s before the Voting Rights Act (e.g., racially discriminatory poll taxes, failure to stop violence against African Americans at the polling place, etc.), such a remedy would be an unconstitutional application of Congress’s powers to enforce the 14th or 15th Amendments. Texas says that Shelby County requires that any remedy be “congruent and proportional” to current racial discrimination, and that a preclearance remedy is too strong even with evidence of current racism unless the racism is “flagrant” and “pervasive.”

To me, this is a clear overreading of Shelby County. Recall that in Shelby County the Court majority surprisingly and unjustifiably (given its prominence in NAMUDNO) failed either to apply or reject the “congruence and proportionality test” for Congressional power. I flagged the curious omission the day the opinion issued and wrote about it more in my APSA paper. The Court just sidestepped the issue. And the Court pointedly failed to strike down the preclearance remedy as a whole, leaving Justice Thomas to complain that the majority was delaying the inevitable. That left Section 3 untouched as a legal matter. To say that Shelby County bars the use of preclearance under any circumstances absent proof of flagrant pervasive discrimination is unsupported by any fair reading of the decision itself. This is especially true because section 3 bail-in requires proof of current discrimination, the key point upon which Shelby County struck down the coverage formula of section 4, and it further gives any court asked to approve bail-in the discretion to fashion the extent of the preclearance remedy to match the scope of the state’s violation.

But despite Texas’s overreach, Texas could well find a receptive audience at the Supreme Court. Look at what happened this summer: the Supreme Court struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act and little happened. Sure, the Justices took a hit in public opinion among African Americans and liberal voters. But there are no large protests in the streets. There does not even seem to me to be the same general level of public outrage that there was about the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision from 2010.

Now there are a number of reasons why we have not seen a public outcry. The day after Shelby County came the gay rights decisions, which pleased some liberals and diffused some of the anger at the Court. (Some suggested that the Court issued its decisions in this order for this reason.) Liberal whites seem less angered about this decision than one about money in politics. The public may not be paying attention yet—VRA preclearance is a pretty arcane issue, compared to pointing to Sheldon Adelson or the Koch brothers as convenient poster children for the Citizens United era.

Whatever the reason, the fact that the sky did not fall after Shelby County could lead Justice Kennedy and Chief Justice Roberts to feel comfortable going further—maybe to get rid of preclearance all together (or reject its application to Texas—and if not to Texas then to whom?). And wait for affirmative action next term, and the coming challenges to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, and part of the Civil Rights Act. And once the Roberts Court feels its days are numbered, things may move more quickly.

As they say, that would be a big effin’ deal. First, though, the San Antonio court gets to deal with these arguments, and I suspect they won’t be buying what Texas is selling. That won’t be the end of it, of course. I suppose Congress could deal with repairing the VRA along the lines that SCOTUS demanded (not that the Court would consider itself bound to its own precedent if it didn’t want to, of course), or there could be a change in the composition of the Court before this reaches them – an Obama appointee in place of, say, Justice Kennedy or Scalia could have a profound effect – but as things stand there is much to be worried about. Lisa Falkenberg, TPM, BOR and SCOTUSBlog have more.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged Justice Department, lawsuit, redistricting, SCOTUS, Texas, Voting Rights Act | 1 Comment

Louie, Louie

Posted on August 12, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

The head, it explodes.

Louie Gohmert

A number of Texas-based Tea Party organizers are clamoring for Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) to challenge Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) in a primary, according to the National Review.

Gohmert is scheduled to speak at a town-hall meeting organized by Grassroots America We The People, a Tea Party-linked group in East Texas whose head says many of the organization’s members want Gohmert to run.

Gohmert has ruled out a bid against Cornyn, however.

Cornyn is not popular with some members of the GOP base, who have criticized his work while heading the National Republican Senatorial Committee and are unhappy that he’s not backing an effort by Tea Party-affiliated Republican senators to use the looming debt-ceiling battle to try to force defunding ObamaCare. That effort has the support of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).

Honestly, what can one say? This is one of those times where sarcasm is totally wasted. If he ran, he could win. That might also inspire a Democrat to file for this race, too, and who knows what could happen from there. But seriously, there is no rational way to react to this. It’s facepalms or high fives, and people on both sides of the partisan aisle could do either. Train Blazers, Burka, Juanita, and Eileen Smith have more.

Posted in Election 2014 | Tagged Election 2014, John Cornyn, Louie Gohmert, Senate, Texas | 1 Comment

Why, Chron, why?

Posted on August 12, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

The Chron has some plaintive questions for Texas’ junior Senator.

Not Ted Cruz

Ted Cruz is a smart man. Texas’ junior U.S. senator is an expert on the U.S. Constitution and a brilliant, Harvard-educated trial lawyer who has appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court numerous times.

Why then, for heaven’s sakes, is Cruz signing on in support of a tea party-led effort to block funding of the Affordable Care Act that threatens a shutdown of the government? This makes no sense, either for Texas or for the Republican Party. In the unlikely event it succeeds, it would spell disaster for both.

GOP strategist Karl Rove, among many others, has pointed out that the strategy would affect only about 1 percent of funding for Obamacare, which is scheduled to come into effect in October.

In the unlikely event Cruz and others succeed in shutting down the government over funding for Obamacare, the results will be a public-relations disaster that the Obama administration undoubtedly will use to maximum effect in the 2014 midterm congressional elections.

Besides, Cruz was sent to Washington to represent all Texans’ best interests. In this case, that duty is best carried out not by stoking more political drama but by showing respect for a process, decreed by the Constitution Cruz rightly reveres, that has made the Affordable Care Act the law of the land.

From a strictly partisan point of view, the most baffling aspect of this approach is the total lack of an upside it would bring for Cruz and his party.

First, Ted Cruz was not “sent to Washington to represent all Texans’ best interests”, he was elected by the seething masses of the GOP primary that thought David Dewhurst was an effete squish, and it is their interests alone that he represents. Why do you think he’s spending so much time in Iowa these days? Not a lot of Texans there, last I checked. Second, as numerous national writers have noted, Cruz belongs to a faction of the radical conservative movement that isn’t interested in electoral outcomes as much as it is interested in rigid ideological purity. (See the primary challenge to Sen. Mitch McConnell, for being insufficiently anti-President Obama, for the latest example of such.) They would much rather lose by their own lights than win even a 98% victory if the latter involves any kind of compromise. You would think the Chronicle might have grasped these basic facts by now, but then they endorsed Cruz for election on the “expectation that Cruz will be schooled by the examples of previous senators from Texas, beginning with [Kay Bailey] Hutchison and continuing with Lloyd Bentsen and Lyndon B. Johnson”, with KBH being the “exemplary role model” here. I’m sorry, but anyone that could actually believe such a thing is naive enough to think that sending money to a Nigerian prince is a sound investment. Ted Cruz is doing exactly what he said he would do while he was running for Senate. The Chronicle’s editorial board would do well to pay attention next time.

Posted in Show Business for Ugly People | Tagged Election 2012, endorsements, Senate, Ted Cruz, Texas | 1 Comment

Weekend link dump for August 11

Posted on August 11, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Twenty-eight things that happened after the Harry Potter books ended.

That iPhone charger may be doing more than just charging your iPhone.

Dolly Parton is even cooler than you thought.

“But now Republicans have taken themselves hostage. They’re threatening to hurt themselves and their states and their voters and their most committed activists if Democrats don’t give them their way on Obamacare.”

“There’s more to life than low wages. There are other ways to boost profits, even in low-wage businesses. Pay more upfront and you’re likely to see better customer service, and you may save more in the long run on training or absenteeism.”

Google Reader is dead, but RSS feed readers most definitely are not.

Turning an abandoned WalMart into a ginormous library is a great idea.

How to strike out on one pitch.

Don’t click this link if you have a fear of clowns. But do click it if you want to learn about why some people fear clowns.

Google wants to make TVs smarter and remote controls simpler.

Tawana Brawley is back in the news. Try to remain calm.

RIP, Doghouse Riley, about whom more here and here.

“A rule that allows everyone to make money except for the person who is the impetus for that money is a bad rule.”

Unskewing baseball statistics is no more likely to end well than the initial incarnation of “unskewing”.

Republicans have problems with the ladies. I have a feeling that stuff like this won’t help.

Wil Wheaton is not happy with the Discovery Channel.

“Photocopied invoices, part numbers, engineering tables, and medical information could be just plain wrong, even if the document that was being copied was 100% correct.”

All reasonable steps to get Russia to repeal its unjust and immoral anti-homosexuality laws should be taken.

From the “What liberal media?” files.

The fact that Erick Erickson is taken seriously as anything but a cheerleader is irrefutable evidence that we do not live in a meritocracy.

RIP, Pacific Princess, also known as The Love Boat.

For a guy who claims to love Milton Friedman, Sen. Rand Paul sure knows nothing of his work. But then he knows nothing about a lot of things.

Meet Johnny Manziell’s lawyer. Only in Texas, baby.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to sell our endorsement to the highest bidder.

I endorse the use of “The Washington Department of Football“, or “Washington Doffs” for short, as a replacement for the inappropriate and racist nickname the team now uses.

Posted in Blog stuff | Tagged linkdump | Comments Off

The new accountability standards

Posted on August 11, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Here’s the TEA press release about the school accountability ratings for 2013, which came out on Thursday.

The Texas Education Agency today released the 2013 state accountability system ratings for more than 1,200 school districts and charters, and more than 8,500 campuses. The ratings reveal that almost 93 percent of school districts and charters across Texas have achieved the rating of Met Standard.

Districts, campuses and charters receive one of three ratings under the new accountability system: Met Standard; Met Alternative Standard; or Improvement Required. School district ratings (including charter operators) by category in 2013 are as follows:

RATING DISTRICT CHARTER TOTAL PERCENT

Met Standard/Alternative 975 161 1,136 92.5%

Met Standard 975 126 1,101 89.7%

Met Alternative Standard N/A 35 35 2.9%

Improvement Required 50 30 80 6.5%

Not Rated 1 11 12 1.0%

TOTAL 1,026 202 1,228 100.0%

“A transition to a new accountability system comes with a great deal of uncertainty,” said Commissioner of Education Michael Williams. “The 2013 ratings confirm that the vast majority of districts and campuses are meeting the state’s standards and providing a quality education for our students.”

The 2013 ratings are based on a revised system that uses various indicators to provide greater detail on the performance of a district or charter and each individual campus throughout the state. The performance index framework includes four areas:

Student Achievement – Represents a snapshot of performance across all subjects, on both general and alternative assessments, at an established performance standard.
(All Students)

Student Progress – Provides an opportunity for diverse campuses to show improvements made independent of overall achievement levels. Growth is evaluated by subject and student group.
(All Students; Student Groups by Race/Ethnicity; English Language Learners; Special Education)

Closing Performance Gaps – Emphasizes improving academic achievement of the economically disadvantaged student group and the lowest performing race/ethnicity student groups at each campus or district.
(All Economically Disadvantaged Students; Student Groups by Race/Ethnicity)

Postsecondary Readiness – Includes measures of high school completion, and beginning in 2014, State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR®) performance at the postsecondary readiness standard.
(All Students; Student Groups by Race/Ethnicity; English Language Learners; Special Education)

Districts and campuses with students in Grade 9 or above must meet targets on all four indexes. Districts and campuses with students in Grade 8 or lower must meet targets on the first three indexes (excluding Postsecondary Readiness).

Under the 2013 state accountability system, campus ratings (including charter campuses) by category and school type are as follows:

RATING ELEM MIDDLE HS MULTI TOTAL PERCENT

Met Standard/Alternative 4,062 1,511 1,338 295 7,206 84.2%

Met Standard 4,062 1,504 1,156 264 6,986 81.7%

Met Alternative Standard N/A 7 182 31 220 2.6%

Improvement Required 477 133 129 39 778 9.1%

Not Rated 73 62 280 156 571 6.7%

TOTAL 4,612 1,706 1,747 490 8,555 100.0%

For eligible campuses that achieve the rating of Met Standard, distinction designations in the following areas have also been assigned: Top 25 Percent Student Progress; Academic Achievement in Reading/English language arts; and Academic Achievement in Mathematics.

Approximately 3,600 campuses that achieved the Met Standard rating earned some type of distinction. More than 750 campuses earned distinctions in all three potential areas. These distinction designations are based on campus performance in relation to a comparison group of campuses. Distinctions earned (by campus type) in 2013 are as follows:

DISTINCTION(S) EARNED ELEM MIDDLE HS MULTI TOTAL

Top 25% Progress & Read/ELA & Math* 385 182 152 40 759

Top 25 % Progress 326 94 117 16 553

Top 25% Progress & Reading/ELA 186 88 34 11 319

Top 25% Progress & Math 209 93 48 10 360

Reading/ELA 547 183 63 28 821

Reading/ELA & Mathematics 164 81 147 32 424

Mathematics 133 122 84 24 363

* Denotes campus received Met Standard rating plus all three possible distinctions under the 2013 state accountability system.

“Under the new accountability system, these designations recognize outstanding work at the campus level that would not be acknowledged in previous years,” said Commissioner Williams. “Despite the many positive numbers, I am confident school leaders across our state share my concern for the number of campuses where improvement is still required, especially at the elementary level. If we can target our efforts in those grade levels today, the state will see improvements for all students in the years ahead.”

Commissioner Williams noted that while the four components of the new accountability system are in place, future adjustments will be made based on district and stakeholder feedback. In addition, House Bill 5 (passed by the 83^rd Texas Legislature) requires stronger measures of postsecondary readiness to be added to the system

To view the 2013 state accountability ratings for districts, charters and campuses, visit the Texas Education Agency web site at http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/perfreport/account/2013/index.html.

That last link will take you to the accountability system overview page, which has all the explanations and summaries of the numbers. All district and individual campus ratings can be found here. HISD schools begin on page 80. As the Chron reported, HISD has some work to do.

Terry Grier

More than 20 percent of campuses in the Houston Independent School District failed to meet the state’s tougher academic standards this year, according to data released Thursday.

Across Texas, 10 percent of schools fell short in the new rating system, which for the first time holds them accountable for results on the state’s more challenging standardized exams that launched last year.

Most districts in the Houston region fared well. Every campus in Cypress-Fairbanks, the second-largest local district, met the standards. In Fort Bend ISD, which ranks next in size, one school fell short.

Aldine ISD struggled, with 27 percent of its schools missing the mark.

[…]

In HISD, the largest district in Texas, 58 of the 268 rated campuses – or 21.6 percent – received the “improvement required” label.

Unlike last year, HISD fared worse than the Dallas school district, which has similar demographics and ranks second in size. About 15 percent of the Dallas campuses missed the standards.

Superintendent Terry Grier said he was pleased that most schools did well on a measure that looks at test scores across all subjects and grade levels.

“At the same time,” Grier said in a statement, “these ratings clearly highlight areas where we must focus our resources to ensure every student in every neighborhood is prepared to succeed in college and in the workforce.”

Half of the 20 schools in Grier’s signature reform program, Apollo, earned the “met standard” rating. The multimillion-dollar effort, which started three years ago, includes specially hired tutors and increased class time.

All of the schools in North Forest ISD missed the standards, except for one run by a charter school.

HISD’s press release on the accountability standards is here. One point to note:

HISD campus results for each of the four indexes were:

Student achievement: 251 out of 268 rated schools (94 percent) met standard
Student progress: 235 out of 263 rated schools (89 percent) met standard
Closing performance gaps: 232 out of 265 rated schools (88 percent) met standard
Postsecondary readiness: 42 out of 46 rated schools (91 percent) met standard

That sounds a little better than “21.6 percent of HISD campuses failed to meet the standard”. Not meeting any one of the four standards gets you the “improvement required” label. What that suggests is that most of the HISD schools that were classified as “improvement required” met at least one of the three or four indexes. A look through the HISD schools on the master list confirms this – only Wheatley High School and Hartsfield Elementary School struck out completely. That may make bringing them up to standard a little easier. On the other hand, four of the eight non-charter North Forest schools (see page 126) rated Needs Improvement in each index. HISD definitely has its work cut out for it there. Everyone is still figuring out what the new system means, and it will get tougher over time, but HISD has budgeted money to improve the schools that failed to satisfy one or more index. We’ll see how much progress they make next year.

Posted in School days | Tagged HISD, Michael Williams, North Forest, STAAR, standardized testing, Terry Grier, Texas, Texas Education Agency, The Lege | Comments Off

Two ways to deal with a problem you don’t want to solve

Posted on August 11, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

First, deny there is a problem.

It’s constitutional – deal with it

Attorney General Greg Abbott said Thursday he would never give up the fight against Obamacare, but the front-running candidate for Texas governor declined to embrace a temporary shut-down of the federal government — one of the key strategies promoted by U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and other Tea Party-backed Republicans in Washington.

Obamacare, officially known as the Affordable Care Act, was the topic of conversation at a campaign event Abbott staged at a business in north Austin. (As it turns out, the company is one of Abbott’s campaign contractors).

Employing the town hall format, with questions from an audience packed in advance with supporters, Abbott highlighted his efforts to fight the federal law in court and said its financial burdens on employers would kill jobs in Texas.

“The flaws and false promises of Obamacare are now being exposed,” Abbott said. “Obamacare is the wrong prescription for American health care and I will never stop fighting against it.”

[…]

Though Abbott warned of massive financial and regulatory burdens of the federal health care reforms, he said he supported two of its major provisions — one that bans insurance companies from putting lifetime caps on insurance policies and another that bars them from refusing coverage due to pre-existing conditions. The attorney general said those two provisions should be adopted in the law as stand-alone measures.

One reporter noted that Texas has the highest number of uninsured people in the nation and asked Abbott what he planned to do about it. Abbott expressed support for permitting insurance companies to sell policies across state lines but also suggested the problem isn’t as bad as some suggest.

“Just because someone may be uninsured does not mean they don’t have access to health care,” Abbott said. “The percentage of people in the state of Texas with access to healthcare is in the mid- to high-90 percent range. People still have access to quality health care in the state of Texas.”

Tell you what, Greg. How about you and everyone on your staff give up that nice health insurance package that you have that we taxpayers provide for you, and spend the next four or so years paying for your own health care, and going to the local emergency room as an indigent patient when the cost gets to be too much for you? Then you can talk about having “access to health care” in a more authoritative way. What say you, is it a deal?

The other way to deal with a problem you don’t want to solve is to lie about it.

One reason that Abbott gave for fighting the law came in response to a doctor who asked him from the audience about what Texas could do to keep the federal law from interfering with doctors’ judgment about the best way to treat their patients.

“You’re raising one of the more challenging components of Obamacare, and a hidden component in a way, and that is government is stepping in between the doctor-patient relationship and trying to tell you what you can and cannot do, interfering with both your conscience and your medical oath to take care of your patient,” said Abbott, who is campaigning to succeed Gov. Rick Perry.

That is similar to arguments raised against tighter abortion restrictions approved in special session, including a ban on the procedure at 20 weeks, along with stricter regulations on clinics and abortion-inducing drugs.

Asked the difference afterward, Abbott said, “The difference is that in the law that was passed in the state of Texas … what they’re trying to do is to give a woman five months to make a very tough decision, while at the same time get involved in trying to protect the unborn.”

That doesn’t even make sense. I guess I didn’t expect internal consistency, but you’d think by now he’d at least have a better rationalization prepared. This is little more than “Because I said so”.

Anyway. All of this was in part because Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was in the state trying once again to tempt Texas with a deal to expand Medicaid. Which our Republican leaders won’t do because they don’t care about solving the problem of people not having insurance. They care about the potential for increased paperwork under the Affordable Care Act, and they care that some business owners might have thinner profit margins, but they don’t care that the fatter profit margins those business owners now claim to enjoy come at the expense of their employees. Because why should they care? They have insurance. It’s not their problem, and they’re not interested in solutions.

Posted in Show Business for Ugly People | Tagged Greg Abbott, health care, health insurance, insurance exchanges, Kathleen Sebelius, Medicaid, Rick Perry, Texas | Comments Off

Better bats

Posted on August 11, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Technology marches on.

As part of new MLB regulations, manufacturers use ink to test bats’ stability. If the dot bleeds more than a quarter inch, indicating low density, that wood isn’t major-league caliber.

Thanks to that practice and more implemented since 2008 when bat breakage has been studied by the U.S. Forest Service, the rate of shattered maple bats has decreased 50 percent, according to results of the study released Friday by the United States Department of Agriculture.

Referred to as “slope of the grain,” the straighter the wood appears along the bat, the less likely it breaks and hits other players or fans. Regulations put in place because of the study call for three degrees or less slope on the wood — essentially a straight line — for use in MLB.

The changes have affected half of Louisville Slugger’s bat production, as MLB’s leading bat manufacturer still produces half of its bats from ash.

[…]

In the five-year study, experts with the U.S. Forest Service and MLB examined every broken major-league bat from July through September of the 2008 season and found inconsistency in the wood’s makeup caused maple to splinter on contact.

Data collection isn’t over, though, as the USDA team will continue recording and analyzing video of every broken MLB bat since 2009, including some from the new-regulation bats in 2013. The goal is to keep bats with potential to fracture out of players’ hands — and away from fans.

This is a safety issue, since splintered bat fragments flying all over the place are an obvious hazard. It’s also a cost issue, especially for college baseball programs. The reason college programs used aluminum bats for so long is that aluminum bats hardly ever break, and thus can last a long time without needing to be replaced. Now that college teams are required to use wood bats, making sure those bats are less likely to break will be a boon for their budgets. On the down side, it probably means no one will ever again get a Chair of Broken Dreams like the one that Mariano Rivera recently received. But then that was likely the case anyway.

Posted in Baseball | Tagged Baseball, Louisville Slugger, Mariano Rivera, MLB | Comments Off

RATING	DISTRICT	CHARTER	TOTAL	PERCENT
Met Standard/Alternative	975	161	1,136	92.5%
Met Standard	975	126	1,101	89.7%
Met Alternative Standard	N/A	35	35	2.9%
Improvement Required	50	30	80	6.5%
Not Rated	1	11	12	1.0%
TOTAL	1,026	202	1,228	100.0%

RATING	ELEM	MIDDLE	HS	MULTI	TOTAL	PERCENT
Met Standard/Alternative	4,062	1,511	1,338	295	7,206	84.2%
Met Standard	4,062	1,504	1,156	264	6,986	81.7%
Met Alternative Standard	N/A	7	182	31	220	2.6%
Improvement Required	477	133	129	39	778	9.1%
Not Rated	73	62	280	156	571	6.7%
TOTAL	4,612	1,706	1,747	490	8,555	100.0%

DISTINCTION(S) EARNED	ELEM	MIDDLE	HS	MULTI	TOTAL
Top 25% Progress & Read/ELA & Math*	385	182	152	40	759
Top 25 % Progress	326	94	117	16	553
Top 25% Progress & Reading/ELA	186	88	34	11	319
Top 25% Progress & Math	209	93	48	10	360
Reading/ELA	547	183	63	28	821
Reading/ELA & Mathematics	164	81	147	32	424
Mathematics	133	122	84	24	363

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