Off the Kuff | Knowledge Is Good

Debating about debates

Posted on August 3, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

There will be some number of debates between Mayor Parker and Ben Hall between now and Election Day. How many debates, and how many participants there will be in those debates, is itself a matter of debate.

In this corner…

In a letter to [Mayor Annise] Parker this week, [Ben] Hall sought three debates after Labor Day on Sept. 2 but before the start of early voting, and another three leading up to Election Day on Nov. 5.

“Too much is at stake for us not to share our plans for Houston with her citizens,” Hall wrote.

Parker campaign spokeswoman Sue Davis said the two-term incumbent has agreed to one debate, to include all mayoral candidates and to be scheduled after the Aug. 26 candidate filing deadline.

“All year long, Mayor Parker speaks daily about city issues to civic clubs, neighborhood groups and other organizations, holds tele-town halls and online chats and is available to the media,” Davis said.

…And in this corner

Hall campaign spokesman Mark Sanders cast Parker’s response as a win for the challenger.

“We are making progress,” Sander said. “A month ago she told Ben Hall there would be no debates. Today she said there would be one. We still look forward to six televised debates that will allow all the citizens of Houston to make informed decisions.”

Davis said Sanders was “misconstruing” Parker’s comment to Hall at a Juneteenth parade, where Davis said the mayor told Hall she would not debate “just him,” intending to include other entrants. The other three candidates in the race spent less than $25,000 as of June 30.

[…]

Republican political consultant Allen Blakemore said a key factor will be how many debates local civic institutions and media outlets want to host. The final debate count is likely to fall between one and six, he said.

“If Rice University says they want to put on a debate or the Greater Houston Partnership says they want to put on a debate and they’ve got local media participation, well, it’s difficult for Parker to say, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t want to do it,’ ” Blakemore said.

I think Blakemore gets this right. Sure, Parker and Hall could go the full Garland/Rooney route and put together their own traveling roadshow of Mayoral debates, but that’s usually not how these things work. Some number of organizations will want to sponsor debates. However many of them there are, it would look bad for either candidate to decline to participate. I suspect the final number will be two or three, but that’s just a guess. I do agree that one isn’t enough, and six is too many. There’s only so much material that can be reasonably covered in these debates, and after a certain point the questions start to get repeated or they become silly in an attempt to avoid repetition. On the other end, I agree with Texpatriate and Texas Leftist that the other activities Mayor Parker cites aren’t adequate substitutes for engaging her opposition, and that a lot of us thought it was bush league the way Rick Perry ducked debating Bill White at all in 2010. While it’s generally true that candidates that are leading have no great incentive to share the spotlight with those who hope to catch them, being the incumbent should mean being above that kind of game-playing. And personally, I don’t think she has anything to worry about. She has a strong record to defend, and Hall has yet to articulate any clear reason to vote her out, let alone what he himself would do as Mayor. Debating about debates eventually becomes its own issue. If I’m Mayor Parker, I’d rather talk about more interesting and substantive things than that. Texas Leftist also makes a point about it being better for any future political ambitions the Mayor may have to meet Hall head on, and I agree with that, too.

The side issue of who gets to participate in these debates will be fun to watch. Normally, frontrunners aren’t terribly excited about having a large number of debate participants since that just means more people taking potshots at them. Here, though, Mayor Parker appears to be more willing to allow the fringe characters into the as-yet-unplanned debates than Hall is. I’m generally ambivalent on this point. On the one hand, in a democracy all voices deserve to be heard. On the other hand, it’s hard to see what any of the bit players will bring to the table, since none of them has done anything to indicate they are seriously engaging in the issues that would be debated. A Mayoral debate is likely to be a 60 to 90 minute affair. How much of that time do you want to be spent on people that don’t have anything constructive to say, and how much of it do you want spent on Annise Parker and Ben Hall? Now, any organization that wants to host a debate will have its own preferences on this and that’s fine, but if Hall and Parker have different visions then it becomes another obstacle to getting anything done. If it were up to me, I’d let one or maybe two debates be all comers, but I’d insist on their being at least one of just Parker and Hall. I guarantee, we’ll get more out of that one than the others. Campos has more on that.

On a side note, I’m amused that the headline of the story was about Hall’s campaign “gathering steam” when the story was one part about the great debate debate and one part about the two new Republican campaign operatives he has coming in to replace two other Republican campaign operatives. Generally speaking, campaigns that have wholesale personnel changes midway through are not described as “gathering steam”. I will note that the new Hall team did something that the old one never did, which was send out email to the local bloggers with a copy of Hall’s letter to the Mayor containing his debate proposal; here’s a copy of it. I’m not egotistical enough to think that a handful of us Internet bloviators matter that much in the grand scheme of things, but I will point out that between us, we’ve written more about Hall and this race than the Chron has. If nothing else, you’d think a campaign might want to exert a little effort to ensure that their perspective is taken into account when we do our thing. My feelings about this campaign and the candidates aside, I’m glad to see that Team Hall has finally gotten around to doing that. Greg has more.

Posted in Election 2013 | Tagged Annise Parker, Ben Hall, candidate forum, Election 2013, Houston, Mayor | 3 Comments

On closing Main Street to cars downtown

Posted on August 3, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Houston Tomorrow runs a post by Kyle Nielsen that he originally published in May advocating for more of Main Street downtown to be like Main Street Square, that is, closed to automotive traffic.

What if we were to close Main Street to motor vehicle traffic and make it an exclusively pedestrian and bicycle corridor?

It seems to me that it would enhance cyclist and pedestrian safety, encourage the type of walkable retail and bars/restaurants that Downtown needs, decrease motorist frustration at being stuck behind a bicycle, and enhance motorist and transit safety by eliminating the motorist [illegal] left turns that still hit the Metro rail cars sporadically.

Already, driving Downtown on Main Street is not ideal for a motorist. The ban on left turns and the pedestrian zone that cuts off Main Street at Main Street Square make it not very useful to a motorist for traveling through Downtown. If you add in now being stuck behind cyclists as well, it just seems to make more sense to re-route that traffic to Fannin or Travis, where there are plenty of lanes for cars to travel.

With all of the new businesses coming in on the North side of Downtown (Goro & Gun, Pastry War, Batanga, Bad News Bar, OKRA, Clutch City Squire, El Gran Malo, etc.), having an even safer pedestrian environment for customers to move about promotes greater economic activity. This also ties in nicely with the city’s new BCycle rental bike program. Tourists or Houstonians visiting Downtown and renting a BCycle could be directed to our fantastic Main Street bike lane to check out the rest of Downtown or as a way to get to points in Midtown.

Swamplot, Hair Balls, and PDiddie, who heartily approves, are on this as well. I too think this is a good idea; note that it is only traffic on Main that would be closed, not the east-west traffic that crosses Main. I’m old enough to remember, and to have worked downtown, before the rail line was built. Main was two lanes each way, and left turns were forbidden downtown. You didn’t get stuck behind a bike if you drove on it for some strange reason, but you did get stuck behind buses. There are plenty of good alternatives for north-south driving downtown, and in my experience now hardly anyone drives on Main anyway, since why would they? I’d limit the closure to between Pierce and Franklin – the train stays on Main through Midtown, but the driving options dwindle as you head south, and there is more vehicular traffic on that part of Main – but otherwise, the argument in favor of a fully pedestrian-and-bike corridor through downtown seems clear. I don’t know what the city has to do to make this happen, but I’d like to see them study it.

Posted in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles | Tagged bicycles, downtown, Houston, light rail, Main Street line, pedestrians | 6 Comments

The hogs keep winning

Posted on August 3, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Same old story.

More than two decades into Texas’ ever escalating war against feral hogs, the wild swine continue gaining ground while Texas and the state’s native wildlife, plants and ecosystems lose it.

Despite taking millions of casualties – an estimated 750,000-plus feral hogs have been killed each of the past few years in Texas – the non-native pigs have continued their economically and environmentally destructive march across the state, with an estimated 2.6 million of them spread across at least 240 of Texas’ 254 counties.

“It’s just getting worse and worse; no matter what we’ve tried, the hogs just overwhelm us,” said Stuart Marcus, manger of the 25,000-acre Trinity River National Wildlife Refuge. “They certainly are having a negative impact on native wildlife and habitat – directly and indirectly.”

Texas holds, by some estimates, as many as 10 times the number of feral hogs it did barely three decades ago.

[…]

A research project by Rice and Texas A&M universities conducted in the Big Thicket of southeast Texas used fenced and unfenced plots of land to gauge impacts of feral hogs. The plots used by hogs saw plant diversity reduced, fewer forbs, fewer large-seed (mast producing) trees, loss of leaf-litter ground cover resulting in a reduction in the abundance of invertebrates and small vertebrates, and changes in soil chemistry that changed plant communities.

The research also indicated plots disturbed by feral hogs grew twice as many Chinese tallow trees as the hog-free areas. Tallow trees are one of the most problematic non-native, invasive plants threatening Texas, as the tallows grow in dense monocultures, shade out native trees and grasses, are of almost no value to wildlife, and are almost impossible to control.

Stuart Marcus witnesses this on the Trinity River refuge.

“I call feral hogs ‘walking tallow trees,’ ” he said. “They are just as bad as tallow trees, and wherever they root up the ground, tallow trees seem to sprout by the hundreds.”

Feral hogs’ rooting behavior causes severe damage to environmentally sensitive and hugely important areas along waterways, particularly in central, south and western Texas where such waterways are limited.

“They definitely impact plant communities and really do serious damage to riparian areas, especially the western half of the state,” Frels said.

[…]

For the past three years, research at the Kerr wildlife area has focused on sodium nitrite, a toxicant that has been used to great effect against feral hogs in Australia.

Sodium nitrite kills by disrupting blood’s ability to carry oxygen to the brain. Pigs are highly susceptible to sodium nitrite because, unlike humans and other mammals, they lack the ability to produce an enzyme that reverses the effects. A feral hog ingesting a lethal dose of sodium nitrite quickly becomes lethargic, then unconscious. Death occurs within 90 minutes.

Research indicates the poisoned pigs pose little or no threat to scavengers or predators.

Developing bait/sodium nitrite mixtures that feral hogs will eat and that deliver a lethal dose of the substance and a “delivery system” – a feeder – that feral hogs can access but can’t be used by deer, raccoons and other non-target wildlife are the focus of research at the Kerr.

“It’s showing some promise,” Frels said of sodium nitrite’s potential as another tool to use against feral hogs. “But there’s still a long way to go before it could become an option.”

If it does, it could help turn the tide in the battle against feral hogs. In Australia, use of sodium nitrite has reduced feral hog populations in large areas by as much as 89 percent.

That would be a game-changer, and we could sure use it. I just hope the hogs don’t develop an immunity to it, at least not for a long time. Good luck getting it developed.

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged feral hogs, Rice University, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department | 1 Comment

Friday random ten: Forget it, I’m gonna be a punk rocker

Posted on August 2, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

My inspiration for this week is this Buzzfeed list of 36 pop/punk albums I need to hear before I die. Clearly, I have my work cut out for me, because I have exactly none of those albums. In fact, I only have songs by two of the named artists, plus a parody of a song by a third. So here instead are ten punk songs I do have.

1. Today Is Gonna Be A Great Day – Bowling For Soup
2. Pretty Fly For A Rabbi – Weird Al Yankovic
3. American Idiot – Green Day
4. El Dorado – 50 Foot Wave
5. Anarchy In The UK – Sex Pistols
6. Blitzkrieg Bop – The Ramones
7. Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll – Ian Dury & The Blockheads
8. The Modern Dance – Pere Ubu
9. Search And Destroy – The Stooges
10. Human Fly – The Cramps

Bowling For Soup and Green Day are two of the artists on that list; The Offspring is another, and it’s their song, mentioned on the list, that Weird Al is parodying. I’ve never been much of a punk fan, but there are some good tunes here. What are your favorite punk songs?

Posted in Music | Tagged Friday random ten, theme lists | 1 Comment

July campaign finance reports, HISD and HCC

Posted on August 2, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Ericka Mellon did me the favor of the heavy lifting for HISD Trustees.

Anna Eastman

Campaign finance reports filed this week show at least two non-incumbents are entering races for the Houston school board this November, while contributions for most trustees generally were smaller following new board-imposed restrictions.

Board president Anna Eastman, who represents District I, which includes the Heights, faces a challenge from Hugo Mojica, executive director of the Greater Northside Chamber of Commerce. Eastman raised more than any other trustee or candidate this reporting period, bringing in nearly $18,300 since January. Mojica, who formerly worked for the Project GRAD nonprofit that contracted with HISD, raised more than $2,100.

In south Houston’s District IX, now represented by Larry Marshall, a former HISD trustee, W. Clyde Lemon, has filed to run. Marshall, entangled in a bribery lawsuit, canceled his fundraiser in late June and raised no money this reporting period, which ran from January through July 15.

It’s unclear if Marshall, first elected in 1997, is seeking re-election. Marshall could not be reached immediately for comment Wednesday.

Lemon, an attorney who represented District IX in the mid-1990s before Marshall’s election, raised $2,550 this reporting period. He has $923 on hand. Marshall has more than $18,000 on hand from prior fundraising.

The other seats on the ballot this November are District V (Mike Lunceford), District VI (Greg Meyers) and District VII (Harvin Moore). No other candidates have filed to run. They have until Aug. 26 to file.

I couldn’t have put it any better than that. Go see the full post for Mellon’s summaries. If you want to see the reports themselves, you have to go to the HISD Trustees webpage, then click the link for the trustee in question, and from there you’ll see a link for their finance reports. The downside to this is that there’s no easy way to find reports for a challenger like Hugo Mojica. To be honest, I’m not even sure where these reports get filed, so I don’t know where to look for them other than on the Trustees’ own pages, which obviously isn’t enough. If it’s HISD that gets the reports, then my request to HISD is this: Please make it possible to find all candidates’ reports online. If Larry Marshall doesn’t run again, there’s likely to be a multitude of candidates. We deserve to know what their funding sources are.

As for HCC, their campaign finance reports page does list one challenger, Kevin Hoffman, and since they have all the reports available via that page they can easily add others as needed or appropriate. However, as of this writing they don’t have the July reports available yet, just the January ones. I’ll check back again later and let you know when those are up.

Posted in Election 2013 | Tagged Anna Eastman, campaign finance reports, Clyde Lemon, Election 2013, HCC, HISD, HISD Board of Trustees, Houston, Hugo Mojica, Kevin Hoffman, Larry Marshall | 1 Comment

More on Rep. Poe and the University line

Posted on August 2, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Here’s the Chron story on Rep. Ted Poe’s surprising-to-me support of building the University Line.

Rep. Ted Poe, R-Humble, whose district shifted earlier this year to include portions of the area where the planned University Line would run along Richmond Avenue, said door-to-door canvassing by his staffers as well as phone and online responses demonstrate his constituents support the line.

In remarks Tuesday on the House floor, Poe said 604 respondents to a Facebook solicitation supported the rail line, compared to 340 opposed to it.

“We’re not saying it is scientific, but it does help let me know what people are thinking,” Poe said. “I believe the area I represent wants light rail.”

Poe’s district includes Richmond from Main Street to Shepherd Drive. The alignment west of Shepherd lies within the district of Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston, one of the rail line’s most formidable and implacable foes.

[…]

Though some early plans received a favorable environmental review by the Federal Transit Administration, Metro board chairman Gilbert Garcia said the agency’s priorities are focused now on opening the three lines under construction and developing bus rapid transit along Post Oak Boulevard.

“We have our hands full,” Garcia said, noting that Metro isn’t seeking federal funds for the University Line at this time.

Garcia said Poe’s encouragement left the door open to securing federal funds, although it might be years before Metro gets to the point of asking for them.

See here for more. The good news is Rep. Poe’s sensible, constituent-responsive approach, which will be at least somewhat of a counterbalance to Rep. John Culberson’s fanatical opposition. Rep. Poe’s point that if we don’t take the money that we are eligible for someone else will get it is welcome. The bad news is that the most critical part of the University Line is still under Culberson’s thumb. Barring a court-ordered redraw of the Congressional boundaries that puts Culberson on the outside or an upset win over him by a rail supporter, the basic dynamic hasn’t changed much. Given that we’re not likely to turn our attention to the University Line for at least a few years anyway, perhaps this will give fate a chance to intervene in some way we don’t see coming. In the meantime, it’s a small but positive development, and I’ll take those where I can get them.

Posted in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles | Tagged Gilbert Garcia, Houston, John Culberson, light rail, Metro, Ted Poe, University line | Comments Off

Show them the data

Posted on August 2, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Interesting.

Terry Grier

A major donor to HISD’s key school reform effort is putting its remaining $3 million check on hold amid concerns that detailed research about the success of the program is lacking.

The president of the Houston Endowment, Ann Stern, wrote a letter to top school district officials this month criticizing the recent progress report on the Apollo program for not including “meaningful” student performance data.

Stern said in an interview Tuesday that she is optimistic the foundation ultimately will award the remaining money to the Houston Independent School District, but she wants to see more a detailed research report.

“We are hoping to be able to make this payment,” she said. “We have not canceled anything.”

The Houston Endowment pledged $6 million to the Apollo reform program in 2011 – assuming certain conditions were met – and has paid half that amount. The final $3 million payment was scheduled to be made by Wednesday.

[…]

On Tuesday, [Harvard researcher Roland] Fryer emailed [Superintendent Terry] Grier to explain that he and his team were working on a final study but are waiting on information such as whether students transferred schools or enrolled in college. The transfer data is crucial to analyzing test scores, he said, because if a student spent, say, six months at a high school and then moved to a new campus before taking the exams, the student’s results should be weighted.

Fryer said he hoped to have the final evaluation complete by Nov. 1.

“In my view, if it’s not good enough to turn in for academic publication, it’s not good enough to show a Board or a funder,” he wrote.

See here for the most recent update on Apollo, and the letter Stern sent to Grier and Eastman is here. I don’t see anything particularly objectionable about this request, and I’m as interested in seeing this data as Stern is. It’s pretty straightforward – if Apollo works as advertised, we should find a way to fund as much of it as we can. If not, there are better ways to spend that money. Let’s let the data help us figure that out.

Posted in School days | Tagged Ann Stern, Anna Eastman, budget, HISD, HISD Board of Trustees, Houston, Houston Endowment, schools, Terry Grier | 2 Comments

Abbott and CPRIT

Posted on August 2, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

From the Things Greg Abbott Should Have Been Doing Instead Of Filing All Those Lawsuits Against The Obama Administration, But Didn’t Do department.

Still not Greg Abbott

In the more than four years he served on the state cancer agency’s governing board, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott exercised no oversight as the agency made misstep after misstep in awarding tens of millions of dollars to commercial interests.

The state’s top lawyer and watchdog instead appointed one of his deputies, who missed about a third of the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas Oversight Committee meetings, and, by all accounts, was not much of a presence in the agency’s questionable decision-making.

“It turns out that Abbott sitting on the oversight board was a green light rather than a caution sign,” wrote Matt Angle, director of the Lone Star Project, a Democratic political action committee. “Businesses backed by Abbott contributors – many of whom are partisan Republicans – have received large grants and contracts from CPRIT without fear of any oversight at all.”

The attorney general’s minimalist scrutiny of the cancer institute did not draw much attention when the Legislature lit into the agency during the regular session, but now that he is running for governor it is becoming a significant campaign issue.

“It is surprising to me that someone who is the attorney general would not attend board meetings of a fund that involves $3 billion in taxpayer dollars,” said Tom Pauken, who is vying with Abbott for the nomination for governor in next spring’s Republican primary.

Abbott’s role at the cancer agency has raised additional questions because of the investigation his office is conducting into the agency’s scandals. Critics question how he can objectively investigate alleged conflicts of interest and favoritism at the agency after his office did nothing to stop it. They also ask how he can look into possible impropriety involving donors that made contributions to the agency and later received grants when some of those donors also have given to Abbott and figure to be tapped again as his gubernatorial campaign kicks into gear.

[…]

A review of Abbott’s correspondence while his office was on the oversight board, obtained under the Texas Public Information Act, found nothing expressing concern about the agency.

“It’s nice to talk about suing Obama all of the time, but the attorney general has other duties,” Pauken said. “When there’s so much taxpayer money on the table, it is surprising that the attorney general would be asleep at the switch.”

[Abbott’s chief communications officer Jerry] Strickland dismissed criticism of the office’s lack of oversight as political.

“Given the failure of CPRIT staff to follow procedure and properly inform the Oversight Committee, it would have been impossible for any designee to fully brief the attorney general about what was happening because they were left in the dark about critical decisions and mistakes along the way,” Strickland wrote. “Presumably, that’s also why none of the oversight committee members appointed by the Governor, Lt. Governor or the Speaker raised issues about the grants. Despite their varied experiences and expertise, they simply were not provided with information that would have raised red flags.”

That has not stopped critics from noting that some of the agency’s most questionable grants went to companies affiliated with some of Abbott’s major donors.

Since 2001, James Leininger has donated $289,000 to Abbott, campaign finance records show, and Peter O’Donnell has contributed $130,000 during the same time period. Some political activists question these donations, noting that Leininger’s company, Caliber Biotherapuetics, received $12 million from the cancer agency for a scientific proposal despite receiving low scores from reviewers; O’Donnell invested in Peloton, whose $11 million award underwent no institutional review whatsoever.

Among Abbott’s critics is Glenn Smith, director of the liberal Progress Texas PAC, which filed a complaint against the cancer agency with prosecutors in Austin. Noting Abbott never attended a meeting, Smith asked, “Why would he? The scandal-plagued agency was funneling millions to Abbott’s contributors. From Abbott’s point of view the corruption was going swimmingly.”

There’s no dispute that Abbott was completely hands-off as a member of the CPRIT oversight board, that the person he picked as his proxy was lax about attending meetings, or that Abbott’s office never found any of the wrongdoing that was going on. His defense is that 1) he was no more compromised or clueless than any of the other board members, and 2) it’s all politics anyway. Good luck with that first argument is all I can say about that. If you’re trying to abet the case that we need real change in our state leadership and not just a shuffling of the deck, you’re doing fine. As for the complaint that it’s all politics, welcome to the big leagues. I’ve no doubt that politics is a part of this – the Lone Star Project was the originator of much of the information in this story – but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to it. If you don’t have a substantive rebuttal to the charges then your accusation about politics will sound like you’re the one playing politics. Abbott’s not used to being in the spotlight, or to being scrutinized this closely. Time to raise your game, dude.

Posted in Show Business for Ugly People | Tagged Attorney General, campaign finances, CPRIT, Election 2014, Governor, Greg Abbott, James Leininger, Lone Star Project, Texas | Comments Off

Obama pledges to keep fighting for the Voting Rights Act

Posted on August 1, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Let’s hold him to that.

President Barack Obama assured civil rights leaders Monday that he will aggressively protect minority voters in Texas and other states, a month after the Supreme Court ended decades of federal election scrutiny.

“The Supreme Court struck down one provision, not the entire act,” said Wade Henderson, president of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, after a meeting with Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder. He said they reaffirmed “the federal government’s overriding responsibility to protect democracy and the right to vote for all Americans.”

State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, joined him and two dozen other activists for the private White House meeting.

He also came away optimistic, even if Congress — as most analysts expect — doesn’t restore federal oversight.

“If you look at an issue as contentious as the Voting Rights Act, you want an all-of-the-above strategy,” said Martinez Fischer, chairman of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus. The group has challenged the state of Texas over redistricting and a 2011 law to require voters to show photo IDs. “You want to have a congressional plan. You want to have an outreach plan. You want to have a litigation plan.”

[…]

On Thursday, Holder announced that the Justice Department would invoke an obscure provision of the law, Section 3, to ask a court to restore special oversight for Texas for a decade.

Gov. Rick Perry, state Attorney General Greg Abbott and other GOP leaders in Texas denounced the move as an effort to circumvent the Supreme Court.

Texas has a long history of voting rights violations. But state GOP leaders say its relatively high turnout among minority voters shows that ongoing scrutiny is unfair.

To borrow from our Vice President, that allegations that pursuing Section 3 claims is somehow “circumventing” the Supreme Court is pure malarkey. SCOTUS did not throw out Section 5, the preclearance section of the VRA, it threw out Section 4, which was the historic formula for determining who was subject to preclearance. Section 3 has been there all along, it was just not needed in Texas before now. All that’s happened is that the plaintiffs and now the Justice Department have filed motions with the federal courts that argue Texas should continue to be subject to preclearance under Section 3 of the VRA. Whatever the ruling, you can be sure that the matter will find its way back before the Supreme Court again. How that can possibly be considered “circumventing” is beyond me. And if the state of Texas really wants to end being subjected to this kind of scrutiny, perhaps it could put more effort into not passing discriminatory laws related to voting.

Texas Redistricting deals with this question as well.

In the eyes of the Supreme Court, the failure of Congress to update that formula when it renewed section 5 in 2006 created fatal constitutional problems for the formula because it treated states differently without – in the view of the Supreme Court – an any-longer valid reason for doing so.

But section 3 is different.

For starters, section 3 looks not at 1972 but at recent intentionally discriminatory behavior to decide if a state should be put under preclearance review. And it makes that determination on a case by case basis – letting courts tailor the remedy to the situation.

But, as importantly, it applies throughout the nation.

If Vermont engages in intentionally discriminatory behavior, it too could be placed under section 3 review. That makes section 3 very different from section 5, where the list of covered jurisdictions was effectively set in stone by a rigid, time-based coverage formula.

When elected officials complain – as a number have – that section 3 treats states differently, that’s tantamount to complaining that drunk-driving laws treat people who drink-and-drive differently from those who don’t. They do – but for good reason.

It’s worth your time as always to read in full. The comparisons to Texas as a drunk driver and a shoplifter are dead on.

In the meantime, I’m going to take freakouts like this as evidence that Perry, Abbott, et al are genuinely worried about the outcome.

Greg Abbott, the Texas attorney general and candidate for governor, today ramped up his attack on the president, accusing him of wielding the Justice Department for political purposes.

“Mr. Obama’s attorneys conceal this partisan agenda with lofty rhetoric about minority voting rights,” Abbott writes today in an anti-Obama screed in the conservative Washington Times.

Abbott’s commentary, published a day after the president assured civil rights leaders that he’ll press Texas and other states aggressively on minority voter rights, gets featured display in the Times.

[…]

Abbott argues that Democrats have used Voting Rights Act litigation to stymie GOP inroads with Hispanics. He blames redistricting litigation for forcing from office several Hispanic Republicans – state Reps. Jose Aliseda, Raul Torres, Aaron Pena and John Garza, and U.S. Rep. Quico Canseco.

Hilarious. The Republicans’ own efforts to woo Hispanic voters are stymieing enough; they don’t need any extra help in that department. As for that fabulous five of Republican Latinos, four were elected in the 2010 landslide, the other switched parties in a district that voted 70%+ Democratic. Even the Republicans’ heroic efforts to draw him a district he could win weren’t enough to keep Aaron Pena from chickening out before trying to run under his new colors. Quico Canseco was such an inept candidate that despite the various illegal methods employed to help him, he still wound up as the only GOP incumbent to lose in a district carried by Mitt Romney. They needed to cheat for him to win, and they couldn’t quite cheat enough, poor babies. Daily Kos has more.

Posted in Show Business for Ugly People | Tagged Barack Obama, Election 2012, Eric Holder, Greg Abbott, Justice Department, lawsuit, Quico Canseco, redistricting, SCOTUS, Texas, Trey Martinez-Fischer, voter ID, Voting Rights Act | 1 Comment

Maybe the same failed approach will work this time

Posted on August 1, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

It could happen, right?

Same hair and same amount of crazy as Rick Perry

Transportation experts now estimate that the state needs $5billion a year to keep Texas moving. The proposal that fell apart in the House this week would add less than a billion annually.

And after months of wrangling, relations between the House and Senate have grown increasingly testy. Republicans, who control both handily, have split between fiscal conservatives concerned over government spending and business-backers concerned over growth and infrastructure.

The House created a special committee to look at the issue. The Senate immediately passed the same measure that failed in the House, to siphon part of the state’s rainy day fund for the Department of Transportation.

“We’re beginning with the House and its working group at the same point where we left it off,” said Sen. Robert Nichols, the Jacksonville Republican leading the effort.

Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, had a different term for it: “This is like legislative Groundhog Day.”

House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, also predicted more of the same. He said he doubted the required two-thirds of House members would support the Senate bill.

“I don’t think that you can keep pushing uphill the same bill that was losing support, not gaining, as the summer wore on,” Straus said. He has decried the effort to address a major threat to the state’s economic health without considering new revenue sources.

“The governor has made it clear that this isn’t an issue that he is willing to allow us to step back and take a more comprehensive approach to,” Straus said. “So we’re here. We should do what we can that attracts the necessary votes — and take it piecemeal if that is what he is asking us to do.”

The divisions are deep on any proposal, and getting 100 of the 150 members to coalesce behind any plan will be difficult, Straus said, pledging a “good-faith effort.”

During the regular session, legislators rejected any suggestion to hike gas taxes or increase fees on car registrations.

As Paul Burka likes to put it, we don’t have policy in this state, we have ideology. An approach that relied on policy might suggest some combination of right-sizing the gas tax, floating bonds, enabling toll roads where reasonable, and – I know this will sound crazy, but stick with me – seeking sensible alternatives to building more roads. The ideological approach insists that there is blood in this stone, we’re just not squeezing it hard enough. Good luck with that. To be fair, while Speaker Straus clearly recognizes the problem here, it’s not clear that there would be enough support for the sensible approach. Even if Rick Perry were to be replaced by an alien that preferred sensibility to sloganeering, I don’t know that you could find a majority in the House and two-thirds of the Senate to back an increase in the gas tax, no matter what other provisions were in there. (What’s that you say? We don’t need a two-thirds majority in the Senate in a special session? Silly rabbit, we only drop the two thirds rule for important things, like voter ID and abortion restrictions.) As with many other things, nothing will change until the composition of our government changes.

Posted in That's our Lege | Tagged constitutional amendments, gas tax, Joe Straus, rainy day fund, Rick Perry, Senate, special session, Texas, The Lege, TxDOT | 2 Comments

Waco equality update

Posted on August 1, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

From the Dallas Voice:

Waco’s LGBT city employees may soon be protected from discrimination based on their sexual orientation and gender identity.

With four of six members present, the city’s Equal Employment Opportunity Advisory Committee voted unanimously Thursday to recommend to the city manager that the protections be added to the city’s EEO policy.

LGBT activist Carmen Saenz, who addressed the committee, said the proposal will go to the city manger pending the city attorney’s approval in the coming weeks.

There was confusion back in January when Waco resident Susan Duty said she and a few others were trying to add LGBT protections to the city’s nondiscrimination ordinance instead of its EEO policy. Waco doesn’t have a citywide nondiscrimination ordinance.

The initial plan was to go before the committee and have them vote on a recommendation to have the Waco City Council look into an ordinance, which would protect LGBT workers citywide. But that meeting was delayed until April and then July. By then, Duty said she’d found out the committee only deals with city employees, so the ordinance would have to be presented directly to the City Council.

Saenz said despite the mix-up, “this was our original plan.”

See here for the background. Duty may still push for the city ordinance, but this is a nice step forward regardless. Here’s the Waco Trib story:

The policy would allow LGBT employees to take any discrimination complaints that can’t be resolved by their superiors to a specially convened panel that would include a member of the equal employment committee, City Attorney Jennifer Richie said.

The city already officially bars employment discrimination and harassment based on race, sex, religion, color, national origin, age, marital status and disability. But no state or federal laws prohibit employers from discriminating against transgender or gay employees.

Carmen Saenz, a Waco psychology worker who presented the proposal to the committee, said the aims of the policy are modest.

“We had no intention of asking for benefits or anything like that,” she said. “All it means is that your sexual orientation is not a factor in hiring you or firing you.”

City Manager Larry Groth could not be reached for comment for this story, but he said in an interview earlier this year that the city does not consider sexual orientation or gender identity in its employment decisions.

Saenz said she knows of no cases of employment discrimination against LBGT workers in Waco city government. Nor has she ever faced  discrimination living openly as a lesbian for 11 years in Waco.

But she said a written policy would ease the fears of city workers who now feel they have to stay closeted.

“I can guarantee that there are people who work for the city who live in fear of their bosses finding out they are gay,” she said.

[…]

Erma Ballenger, a Baylor University social work lecturer who heads the Equal Employment Opportunity Advisory Committee, supports the policy. She said the city doesn’t need to have hard evidence of discrimination to justify a nondiscrimination policy.

“We’re acknowledging there is no factual data, but there’s no way of collecting that data,” she said.

Committee member Sherry Perkins, who works in corporate human resources, said it just made sense to widen the nondiscrimination policy to assure that everyone is treated equally.

“I think it’s certainly in line with what we’ve been asked to do,” she said.

Seems pretty straightforward to me, and I guarantee it will make a lot of people think a lot more favorably of Waco. Saenz, who as noted before was a high school classmate of mine, had this to say in addition, which she put on that Voice post and sent to me via Facebook:

Every single member of the City of Waco Equal Employment Opportunity Advisory Committee (EEOAC) was thoughtful, respectful, and insightful in their questions and discussion. The City of Waco EEOAC made a powerful statement, at least to me, by their vote. As Waco grows progressively larger and continues to offer new employment opportunities, it is right and fair to extend existing protections to cover all citizens.

I am so grateful to Dr. Paul Derrick, who eloquently and passionately spoke before the EEOAC, all who worked so hard to help make this meeting possible, and for all of the wonderful messages, emails and phone calls since the meeting on Thursday. Thank you for helping to make Waco, Texas a safer, kinder, and welcoming place for me and all other LGBT residents.

A small group of active citizens can make a difference and effect change.

This initiative is a direct result of the Waco Equality Project conducted at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Waco by Daniel Williams of EqualityTexas.

Daniel Williams and Chuck Smith of Equality Texas, along with Rafael McDonnell of Resource Center Dallas have provided guidance, support and resources.

The Social Action Committee and Welcoming Congregation Committee of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Waco have hosted multiple forums, educating and advocating for LGBT equality.

Without the work, support, and resources of these amazing people and organizations this work would not have occurred. I am grateful for their past and continued support and energy.

May more cities in Texas follow Waco’s lead. Well done, y’all.

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged Carmen Saenz, Equality Texas, gay rights, Susan Duty, Texas, Waco | Comments Off

Texas blog roundup for the week of July 29

Posted on August 1, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

The Texas Progressive Alliance applauds the entry of the Justice Department into the fight to continuing to subject the state to preclearance as it brings you this week’s roundup.

Continue reading →

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

Rep. Poe supports rail on Richmond

Posted on August 1, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

He supports something, anyway, and that’s a step forward.

After seeking input from Houstonians, Congressman Ted Poe has spoken out in favor of building “something” in the University transit corridor. A statement outlining his position was released on Facebook yesterday:

“On Monday, I asked for your opinion on whether or not federal funds should be prohibited from helping to build the Richmond Rail in Houston. Over the past few days, my office has received dozens of phone calls, hundreds of emails and over one thousand Facebook comments on this issue. Many of you even took the time to speak to my staff in-person when they went door to door in the district to talk to those of you in the affected area. I thank you for all of your input on this issue. It’s simple: blocking federal funds from coming to Houston will not save any money. Instead, your money will be spent on building infrastructure in other cities. I look forward to working with Congressman Culberson, the Houston Congressional Delegation and METRO to find a solution that serves both the interests of our constituents and the City of Houston.”

Poe reports in the video that a majority of his constituents support the light rail line on Richmond.

Click over to see the video. I am quite pleasantly surprised to hear this from Rep. Poe, and more than a little smug about the fact that the anti-rail fanatics were outvoted. They always were the minority, but effectively masked that by being loud. There’s a lesson in there for the rest of us. Anyway, I was set to publish a couple of the alerts I got about this, but clearly I wasn’t quick enough on the trigger. See below the fold for them; no point in ripping all that text out. Kudos to everyone who answered the call, and to Rep. Poe and his staff for genuinely listening.

Continue reading →

Posted in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles | Tagged activism, Houston, John Culberson, light rail, Metro, Ted Poe, University line | 1 Comment

July finance reports for non-candidates

Posted on July 31, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Not everyone who files a finance report with the city is running for something this November. Term-limited incumbents, and former candidates who still have money in their campaign treasuries are required to file reports as well. Here’s a look a those who did this July:


Dist  Candidate     Raised     Spent    On Hand    Loan
-------------------------------------------------------
AL3     Noriega     25,245     5,224     23,602  11,000
D         Adams
I     Rodriguez          0     3,274     10,293       0

2011      Jones          0         0      3,203       0
2005        Lee          0         0      1,287       0
2009      Locke          0       427      4,065       0
2003      Berry          0     5,000          0  71,622

Here are all the reports. I did not find one for CM Wanda Adams. Doesn’t mean she didn’t file one – as noted CM Cohen filed one but it’s not visible on the city’s finance reports page – but one was not to be found.

Noriega report
Rodriguez report

Jones report
Lee report
Locke report
Berry report

CM Melissa Noriega has some debt, which is why she raised funds this year. I have no idea if she plans to run for something else in the future, but if she does I’ll be in the front row, cheering her on. I’m pretty sure she lives in Commissioners Court Precinct 2, not that I’m hinting or anything. CM James Rodriguez has been reportedly interested in taking on Commissioner Morman in 2014, but if so he hasn’t started fundraising for it.

As for the former candidates, I listed the year of their last election instead of an office, since only two of them held one. I presume at this point that Jolanda Jones is not going to push boundaries and run for District D. It wouldn’t surprise me if she does run for something else someday, but it doesn’t look like this will be the year for that. Mark Lee ran for Controller in 2003 and District C in 2005, narrowly missing the runoff in the latter race. Neither he nor Gene Locke nor Michael Berry seem likely to run for anything again, but one never knows. Unlike Congress and the Legislature, there’s just not that much leftover city campaign money lying around.

Posted in Election 2013 | Tagged campaign finance reports, Election 2003, Election 2005, Election 2009, Election 2011, Election 2013, Election 2014, Gene Locke, Harris County, Houston, Houston City Controller, Houston City Council, James Rodriguez, Jolanda Jones, Mark Lee, Mayor, Melissa Noriega, Michael Berry, Wanda Adams | Comments Off

Special Session 3: Beyond Thunderdome

Posted on July 31, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Beyond ridiculous, if you ask me, not that they did.

Same hair and same amount of crazy as Rick Perry

Standing before mostly empty chairs in the 150-member Texas House on Tuesday, House Speaker Joe Straus adjourned the second special session and announced that Gov. Rick Perry would be calling them all back for a third special session later in the day.

After gaveling in the House at 2:36 p.m., Straus briefly thanked members for their time and hard work during the second special session before acknowledging Perry would probably call a third special session 30 minutes after both chambers had officially adjourned the second special session.

“See you in 30 minutes,” he quipped, telling the few dozen House members in the Capitol to stick around for the opening of the third session.

An aide to Perry confirmed that the governor plans to call a third special session shortly.

Some Republicans would like to blame the Democrats for this fine mess they’re all in.

“I think we need to remember why we are having this extra special session. One state senator, in an effort to capture national attention, forced this special session,” Capriglione told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “I firmly believe that Sen. Wendy Davis should reimburse the taxpayers for the entire cost of the second special session. I am sure that she has raised enough money at her Washington, D.C., fundraiser to cover the cost.”

State Rep. Chris Turner, D-Grand Prarie, who leads the House Democratic Caucus, said Capriglione calling on Davis to reimburse taxpayers is “absurd.”

“The special sessions have largely been political and just a continuation of decade-old culture wars that do very little to resolve policy and do a lot to continue to divide Texans and in the process wasting a lot money,” Turner said. “The decision to call a special session is the governor’s and governor’s alone, he has to decide if its worth the costs.”

State Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, tweeted Monday evening that Dewhurst should have passed the transportation bill in the first special session on the night of Davis’ filibuster.

Lt. Gov. is blaming House for TXDOT $. History lesson: he had SJR ready to go in the 1st Special & killed it to score political pts #txlege

— Joe Moody (@moodyforelpaso) July 29, 2013

A resolution to fund transportation had cleared both Houses and members of either party had said publicly the measure had enough support to pass. Dewhurst declined an appeal from Democrat lawmakers to bring up and pass the measure before the abortion filibuster began and the measure – like the abortion restrictions – failed to pass the first special session.

“It seems to me the lieutenant governor’s priority was focusing on partisan issue of abortion and trying to score political points rather than taking care of the business of the state ready to be resolved,” Turner said.

Not to mention, as Texpatriate points out, that Capriglione can’t count votes.

Anyways, the House only voted 84-40 in favor of the bill, sixteen short of the supermajority required for passage. Among the 40 dissenting votes, only 13 were Democrats. This means that even if every Democrat in the room had supported the bill, it would have failed. Make no mistake, the Tea Party killed HJR2.

And as I noted that’s a lot of absentees and/or abstentions. The Republicans only needed six Democratic votes to get to 100 if they were uniformly in favor. They got 27 Yeas, so any shortfall is indeed their fault.

Rumor has it that once again there will be other items on the call. At least one additional item, if there are to be any, would be welcomed by members of both parties.

Despite broad bipartisan support, Texas lawmakers have been unsuccessful this year in their efforts to pass a bill issuing tuition revenue bonds — or TRBs — to fund campus construction around the state. Returning for yet another special session, which Gov. Rick Perry called on Tuesday, may provide them with an opportunity to try again.

“I don’t think any of us have ever given up hope,” state Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, said. “We would certainly like to see TRBs on the call.”

At the end of the regular session, the TRB bill was held up by political jockeying as the clock ran out. In the two subsequent special sessions, Perry did not add the issue to the official to-do list. Lawmakers could have tried to move a TRB bill, but when the legislation is not on the governor’s special session call, it’s easy to defeat on a technicality.

Before the second special ended, Perry indicated that he might consider adding TRBs to that call. “Once we get the transportation issue addressed and finalized, then we can have a conversation about whether or not there are any other issues that we have the time and inclination to put on the call,” he said.

But a plan to address the state’s transportation funding needs failed, and so TRBs were never added. Now, Perry has called lawmakers back for a third 30-day special session, and transportation funding remains the only item on the agenda — for now.

“If and when both chambers pass the transportation bill, I believe very strongly that the governor will add TRBs to the call,” state Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, said.

Zaffirini pushed for a TRB bill for the last three regular sessions and has already filed a bill in the just-called special session. State Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, and state Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, are among the 21 co-authors on Zaffirini’s legislation and have also filed TRB bills of their own.

No other items as yet, but it’s early days.

As for the main event, a little leadership might help it finally get passed.

Rep. Joe Pickett, a leading House transportation policy writer, says the Legislature’s infantry is exhausted and it’s time for a meeting of the generals.

“We’ve taken this pretty far a couple of times now,” Pickett said of lawmakers’ efforts this summer to provide a modest boost in state funding of roads and bridges.

But the push got snared by abortion politics in the first special session. In the second, it caught its pants leg in a complex bramble of disagreements that include philosophical clashes over how much money is needed in the state’s rainy day fund; many Democrats’ resentment that public schools play second fiddle to infrastructure in the state budget process; and increasingly petty resentments among Republicans who run the show. The whole thing is playing out as top Republicans figure out their futures, in a game of musical chairs for statewide offices, and lowly Republicans look over their shoulders to see if they’re getting a primary opponent this winter.

“Maybe the Big 3 should meet and see if they have any suggestions on how to get this over the line,” Pickett said, referring to Gov. Rick Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio.

“Give us some guidance or an outline” Pickett pleaded. He said several lawmakers belonging to both parties have suggested that the top leaders should huddle.

A better funding mechanism wouldn’t hurt, either. But don’t hold your breath waiting for that. BOR and Texpatriate have more.

Posted in That's our Lege | Tagged Chris Turner, constitutional amendments, Donna Howard, filibuster, Giovanni Capriglione, Joe Moody, Joe Pickett, Joe Straus, Kel Seliger, rainy day fund, Rick Perry, Senate, special session, Texas, The Lege, tuition revenue bonds, TxDOT, Wendy Davis | 2 Comments

SJL for DHS?

Posted on July 31, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

That sound you heard Monday was a bunch of heads exploding.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee

Conservative bloggers went wild Monday when they got wind of the Congressional Black Caucus’ suggestion that President Obama pick Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Houston for the post of Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

Rich Cooper, avid blogger for Security Debrief, responded to the news of the Jackson Lee recommendation in a post by saying, “Apparently, it is not a joke. For reasons that baffle any sense of reality, it is a serious gesture on the part of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) to encourage President Obama to nominate Rep. Jackson Lee as a replacement for outgoing-DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano.”

A letter dated July 25 and signed by CBC Chairwoman Rep. Marcia Fudge, an Ohio Democrat, urges President Barack Obama to consider Jackson Lee for the position formerly held by Janet Napolitano, the first woman to hold the position. Napolitano resigned earlier this month to become president of the University of California.

“Representative Jackson Lee would serve as an effective DHS Secretary because she understands the importance of increasing border security and maintaining homeland security,” the nomination letter reads.

Since entering Congress in 1995, Jackson Lee has served on several committees, including Foreign Affairs, Judiciary and Homeland Security, in which she was the Chairwoman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation Security and Infrastructure Protection.

“As Chairwoman, Representative Jackson Lee supported increased airplane cargo inspections and increased security for railroads, issues of great importance to the security of this nation and its citizens,” the letter continues.

Jackson Lee currently holds the post of Ranking Member of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security, a position that the CBC says she “stands as a strong and honest ‘voice of reason.’”

I couldn’t care less what a bunch of conservative bloggers think about this. Rep. Jackson Lee is clearly qualified based on her service and experience in the House. Whether she’s the right person for the job or not is another matter and a decision for President Obama. I kind of think she’s not the person he has in mind because he does generally tend to prefer people who keep a lower profile. The drama that a bunch of yahoos would cause if she were nominated should have no bearing on that, though in the real world I’m sure it would be a consideration. I don’t expect this to go anywhere, but you never know. And if Rep. Jackson Lee were to be elevated, then I agree with Texpatriate that the special election to replace her will be quite the spectacle. A reason to root for her to be tapped if you like that sort of thing.

Posted in Show Business for Ugly People | Tagged Barack Obama, CD18, Congress, Homeland Security, Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas | Comments Off

DUI and blood testing

Posted on July 31, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Not sure what I think about this.

A decision by the Harris County District Attorney’s Office to demand blood tests for every drunken-driving suspect who refuses breath tests has drawn an unusual opponent: Houston police officers.

“We’re just very concerned it’s going to take officers off the street for an extended amount of time,” said Ray Hunt, president of the Houston Police Officers’ Union.

Hunt said that, unlike officers specially trained to find and arrest drunken drivers, most officers are not used to navigating the system, which includes swearing out a warrant, waiting for a judge to sign it, then finding someone at a hospital to draw the suspect’s blood. A single arrest could take an entire shift, he said.

“They’re not going to be as savvy on how to do these warrants, so it’s going to take them six to eight hours, and that means the officer is off the street for that entire time,” Hunt said. “It’s a major issue.”

Houston defense lawyers echoed that concern.

“Spending so much time, energy and money to prosecute a Class A or Class B misdemeanor is ridiculous,” said Todd Dupont, president of the Harris County Criminal Lawyer’s Association.

Prosecutors say the change, which took effect in April, will save time and money in the long run because drunken-driving cases are more likely to be resolved via plea agreement than a trial.

[…]

In San Antonio, police have been mandating blood testing for all suspected drunken-driving cases for nearly two years. The key, Bexar County prosecutors said, was a gradual implementation and money earmarked for computers, facilities and a nursing staff.

On the one hand, doing blood tests as a matter of routine would lead to much more certainty of outcome, because blood testing is more accurate than the notoriously imprecise Breathalyzers, and not subjective or unproven like field sobriety tests or horizontal gaze nystagmus. The experience in Bexar County appears to be positive, though we didn’t get a defense bar perspective on that. On the other hand, it’s more expensive up front and far more invasive. It is a lot of resources to put into combating a misdemeanor crime, and it doesn’t really do anything about the fact that a relatively small number of repeat offenders are responsible for a disproportionate amount of drunk driving incidents and mayhem. If it means that we’d be getting rid of the less reliable methods of evidence gathering for DUI arrests then there’s value to this, but I’d like to know more before I make up my mind.

UPDATE: Byron Schirmbeck had some questions about this new development as well, and he put them in writing and sent them to the DA’s office. He got this response, which he graciously shared with me for publication here. Worth your time to read.

Posted in Crime and Punishment | Tagged Adrian Garcia, Bexar County, blood testing, breathalyzer, District Attorney, DUI, Harris County, Harris County Sheriff, Mike Anderson | Comments Off

A closer look at Mayoral campaign finances

Posted on July 30, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

I said I’d get to a closer look at the Mayoral campaign finance reports later, after I had a chance to read all the way through them. That time is now, so let’s have our look.

Mayor Parker’s finance report.

The Mayor’s report clocks in at 701 pages, with more than 500 of those pages documenting contributions. That’s a lot of donors – over 2000 of them – and quite a few of them were recognizable names. Here are a few of the notable donors that I spotted.


Name             Amount   Notes
======================================================
Amber Mostyn     $5,000   Major Dem donor
Anna Eastman     $  100   HISD Trustee 
Ben Barnes       $1,000   Former Lt Gov
Billy Briscoe    $  250   2010 Treasurer candidate 
Brian Cweren     $  250   Former District C candidate
Brock Wagner     $  100   St Arnold CEO
Christina Bryan  $  250   2010 judicial candidate
Drayton McLane   $5,000   Former Astros owner
CM Ed Gonzalez   $  500   District H
CM Ellen Cohen   $  100   District C
Franci Crane     $5,000   Wife of current Astros owner
Gracie Saenz     $  350   Former CM
Jim Crane        $5,000   Astros owner
Janice McNair    $5,000   wife of Texans owner
Janiece Longoria $5,000   Port Commissioner
Jenifer Pool     $  157   At Large #3 candidate
Jim Adler        $1,000   The Tough Smart Lawyer
Juliet Stipeche  $  100   HISD Trustee 
Kent Friedman    $1,000   Sports Authority
Laura Spanjian   $  200   Sustainability Director
Michael Skelly   $1,057   Parks By You board member
Nancy Kinder     $5,000   Philanthropist
Peggy Hamric     $  350   Former HD126 Rep
Peter Brown      $5,000   Former CM
Phoebe Tudor     $5,000   Philanthropist
Reagan Flowers   $  250   Former HCDE candidate
Rich Kinder      $5,000   Energy executive
Robert McNair    $5,000   Texans owner
Rusty Hardin     $5,000   Defense attorney
Steve Mostyn     $5,000   Major Dem donor
Steven Kirkland  $3,000   Former District Court Judge

There are some other names I could have included on that list, but you get the idea. There were two other names I noticed that made me do a double-take. One was a former girlfriend of mine, the last woman I dated seriously before I met Tiffany. I haven’t seen or heard tell of her in years, and I had no idea she had any interest in politics, let alone this race. The other was a fellow named Edward Snowdon, who is not this Edward Snowden, since among other things they spell their surnames differently. It did send me scrambling to Google to verify that.

You may notice a couple of donations that end with $57. There were many more such examples in the Mayor’s report. That puzzled me at first, till I remembered that the Mayor turned 57 this year, and that there had been a birthday-themed fundraiser for her awhile back, at which amounts like $57 and $157 were suggested contributions.

Parker also took in a ton of PAC money, about $360K worth according to my added-in-my-head count. She drew a fair amount of state and national money, from the likes of the Victory Fund, Annie’s List, and EMILY’s List, in addition to the usual suspects.

Ben Hall, whose S-PAC report I finally found – I hadn’t realized that my search was only including personal reports – also had some notable donors:


Name             Amount        Notes
======================================================================
May Walker            $1,300   Constable 
Paul Kubosh           $2,500   Brother of AL3 candidate Michael Kubosh
Carolyn Evans-Shabazz $  100   At Large #2 candidate
Howard Jefferson      $2,850   HCDE Trustee
Laurie Robinson       $1,000   Former At Large #5 candidate
Reagan Flowers        $  250   Former HCDE candidate
Christina Bryan       $  250   2010 judicial candidate
Olan Boudreaux        $1,000   2010 judicial candidate
Reggie McKamie        $1,000   Former DA candidate
Carol Galloway        $  100   Former CM and HISD Trustee
Davetta Daniels       $   50   Former HISD Trustee candidate
US Rep. Al Green      $5,000   CD09
Dikembe Mutombo       $1,000   Former Houston Rocket
William Lawson        $3,000   Pastor
Levi Benton           $1,000   Former District Court judge

Any friend of Dikembe Mutombo is someone to reckon with, if you ask me. Christina Bryan and Reagan Flowers are the only people I saw that appeared on both lists, though I can’t swear to that. After scrolling through however many hundreds of pages of this stuff, the mind tends to soften. Hall had only two PAC contributions that I saw, from CWA COPE for $7,500 and from the HPFFA for the max of $10,000. He also took in $31,700 from law firms and other businesses, including a $5,000 in kind donation for office space.

Now for expenses. I’m going to break this down into a few general categories and do comparisons where reasonable. Note that Hall has a second finance report for expenses made from personal funds, from which I will also draw for this post. First up is consulting expenses.


Annise Parker

Amount                         Consultant                        Notes
======================================================================
$62,500        Storefront Political Media           General consulting
$48,000                        Keith Wade           General consulting
$43,751                     Lake Research                      Polling
$38,500                     James Cardona       Fundraising consulting
$33,000                            KChace       Fundraising consulting
$27,000                  Stuart Rosenberg                       Salary
$26,650                         Sue Davis         Media Communications
$23,000        Storefront Political Media            Campaign research
$10,800              Lone Star Strategies        Compliance consulting


Ben Hall

Amount                         Consultant                        Notes
======================================================================
$68,000                 Strong Strategies       Fundraising consulting
$34,000                 The Yates Company    Voter outreach consulting
$25,142                   Dee Ann Thigpen       Communication services
$17,500                    Damon Williams    Voter outreach consulting
$12,500                 The Yates Company          Consulting services
$10,000       Advantage Comm. Consultants   Media & community outreach
$ 6,000                The Imprint Agency      Social media consulting
$ 7,500                   Najvar Law Firm        Compliance consulting
$ 4,500                      Sharon Davis    Voter outreach consulting
$ 3,100                      Darcy Mackey        Volunteer coordinator

This doesn’t cover everything for each campaign. Parker had numerous other people on salary, and all of them, including Rosenberg, also received a monthly “cell and medical” stipend. Other than Rosenberg, all the names on her list are people and firms that have been with her since at least 2009. Among Hall’s consultants, Williams, Davis, and Mackey also were paid wages, as were some other folks. The thing that really stands out to me is that Hall spent about as much as Parker did on fundraising, but took in about one seventh as much as she did. I will also note that there are some Republican names among those listed above. Jerad Najvar, whom I’ve mentioned here a couple of times for his good work getting the Texas Ethics Commission to permit campaign contributions via text messaging, is a Republican. Jeff Yates of The Yates Company is a former Executive Director of the Harris County GOP; I actually couldn’t find anything on Google about The Yates Company but was informed about Jeff Yates’ Republican connections some time ago by other folks who knew him. Deeann Thigpen worked for Rep. Ted Poe for six years as his press secretary. Make of all that what you will. Also of interest is that Parker spent money on polling and “campaign research”, which I’m pretty sure is the polite term for “opposition research”, while Hall as far as I can tell did not.

Now let’s look at communications in its various forms.


Annise Parker

Amount                              Payee                        Notes
======================================================================
$42,430        Storefront Political Media                Newspaper ads
$14,086        Storefront Political Media           Online advertising
$10,000            Teleroots Technologies                   Phone bank
$ 8,787        Storefront Political Media                  Direct mail
$ 7,387        Storefront Political Media             Campaign letters
$ 7,000                 Que Onda Magazine                Advertisement
$ 6,543        Storefront Political Media   Letterhead, envelopes, etc
$ 5,898        Storefront Political Media  Banners, stickers, misc lit
$ 3,475         Rindy Miller & Associates                   Production
$ 2,735        Storefront Political Media                  Photography
$ 2,200        Storefront Political Media               Website design
$ 1,022        Storefront Political Media                    Postcards

No, I don’t know what the difference between “direct mail” and “campaign letters” is. And wow, that’s a lot of money on newspaper ads. It was three separate entries for $14,143 and change each. I did not see any money for signs, but I suspect those are covered in the January report. I haven’t gone looking for it, because one 700 page report is enough. Rindy Miller did all of Parker’s buying of TV ad time in 2009, and producing her TV ads. I presume from this she doesn’t have much of that in the works just yet.


Ben Hall

Amount                         Consultant                        Notes
======================================================================
$99,450   New Stream Marketing Strategies         Voter ID phone calls
$50,000                 KMJQ-FM Radio One            Radio advertising
$40,000  Talaferry Media Group dba D-Mars           Online advertising
$28,105                    Sprint 2 Print                   Yard signs
$20,000                      1230 AM KCOH            Radio advertising
$13,000                      1230 AM KCOH           Studio sponsorship
$11,735               Neumann and Company                   Push cards
$10,600       Advantage Comm. Consultants                    Print Ads
$ 5,417                       ShakeFX LLC                      Website
$ 5,000                        Nebo Media             Radio production
$ 5,000    African American News & Issues                  Advertising
$ 4,000  Talaferry Media Group dba D-Mars               Campaign signs
$ 3,342  Talaferry Media Group dba D-Mars                  Advertising
$ 2,930  Talaferry Media Group dba D-Mars                   Push cards
$ 2,819                    Sprint 2 Print    Signs and bumper stickers
$ 2,250  Talaferry Media Group dba D-Mars     T-shirts and advertising
$ 2,000           Giant Video Productions            Video productions
$ 1,500          Stylist Profile Magazine                Advertisement
$ 1,315  Talaferry Media Group dba D-Mars      T-shirts and push cards

Quite the kitchen sink approach here, and no I have no idea what “Voter ID phone calls” means, or why it’s so much more expensive than a phone bank. I do know that New Stream Marketing Strategies did marketing/advertising work for Rick Santorum in 2012. $70K on radio ads is a lot. It’s about what Gene Locke reported spending on radio ads in his 8 day report in 2009. Locke’s report didn’t specify stations, however, so he may have been making a broader buy. I will add that Hall also spent roughly $25K on “sign distribution”, so if you see a lot of his signs out there, know that someone got paid to deliver them. I consolidated four different payments to Neumann and Co for push cards, so I want to point out that Hall spent money on Spanish and Chinese language push cards, which strikes me as a good idea.

And finally, some other miscellaneous expenses. Mayor Parker’s campaign spent $760 in copy costs at FexEx Kinko’s. I wouldn’t normally bother with something as minor as that, except that I saw an entry on Hall’s report that said they paid $2,400 to Advanced Business Copiers for copier rental. Someone’s going to have to explain that one to me.

Hall spent $20,485 at Tony Mandola’s for his announcement event, and $20,000 at Ranchero King Buffet for another event. Good times.

Mayor Parker’s campaign remitted $11,390 to Merchant Bank for credit card donation fees, and $38,676 to the US Treasury for payroll taxes. Other campaigns that have salaried workers pay such taxes as well, but that’s more than average. The credit card fees seem rather high as well, but I’d have to go back and review other reports to get a handle on that.

One last thing to mention is that $40K that Hall spent on online advertising, which sure seems like a lot of money. Texpatriate takes a closer look at how that money was spent and what effect it had.

Ben Hall

I would like to tell this story, from the start, because it is quite entertaining. Imagine Annise Parker’s campaign team held a meeting to come up with the absolute worst-case scenario that could arise out of Hall advertising on Facebook. That might as well be what happened, considering how badly Dr Hall’s campaign messed up (again, to use polite words).

First, Dr Hall’s campaign had a pathetically lackluster showing in the Social Media races. While Parker had other 50k Facebook likes and 15k Twitter followers, Hall had about 2k likes and 200 followers. At one point, I was keeping track of the race between them, but I eventually quit because it was not anywhere near competitive.

Eventually, the Hall campaign decided (quite rightly so) that a Social Media presence would be invaluable in a 21st Century campaign. The campaign then invested thousands of dollars into online advertisements, specifically on Facebook and Twitter. Now, the way these sorts of advertisements work is that you come up with some buzz words and select a general geographical location. I have no knowledge of how the Hall campaign answered these questions, but based upon the results, I have an inkling as to what they answered.

Most likely, the buzz words “fed up” or “morass” or “angry” were used. This would have been done, ostensibly, in an attempt to attract all those healthy dissidents who respectfully oppose Mayor Parker’s administration. Instead, the buzz words tended to match up nicely with those who support armed insurrections and the like. Additionally, instead of focusing on Houstonians, the ads targeted individuals from throughout the State.

The result was a sorry collection of Rednecks, Klansmen, Neo-Nazis and McVeigh sympathizers who found their ways to the Ben Hall campaign’s Facebook page. This ended up causing, again, an unmitigated disaster. Ben Hall’s Facebook likes rose from about 2k to 5.7k, causing nearly 2/3 of the supporters to be astroturfed non-Houstonians.

Yikes. Here’s Hall’s Facebook page, and a brief scan of it will show examples of what Texpate is talking about. Texpate has some screenshots as well. One’s campaign Facebook page and Twitter feed is always going to attract some snarky commentary from your opposition if you’re doing it right, but this is something else altogether. Let it serve as a cautionary tale about buying a social media presence instead of building one organically.

Posted in Election 2013 | Tagged Annise Parker, Ben Hall, campaign finance reports, Election 2009, Election 2013, Facebook, Gene Locke, Houston, Mayor | 4 Comments

Transportation deal dies

Posted on July 30, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Technically, it’s not dead till sine die, but it sure is on life support.

A compromise plan to spend $848 million on Texas highways just landed in a ditch.

House members voted down a plan to split oil and gas production money between the state’s economic stabilization fund and highway spending. It needed 100 votes to pass and got 84.

The rebuke of a compromise plan worked out this weekend means a third special session might be on the horizon. Gov. Rick Perry said he would call lawmakers back if they failed to solve the state’s transportation spending shortfall.

The compromise plan, based on a proposal by Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, split the oil production revenues between the so-called rainy day fund and transportation spending. To protect the rainy day fund, the Legislative Budget Board, an 18-member commission of lawmakers that oversees state finances, will annually set a minimum needed for the rainy day fund. If revenues are projected below that level, the board could recommend the money not be transferred to transportation funds.

The compromise plan drew opposition from both those who demanded a stronger minimum cap, often referred to as a floor, and those opposed to any limitation.

The Statesman has more.

Gov. Rick Perry’s office has not said if he will call members back for a special session, but promises a statement soon. In the meantime, House members have made it clear they don’t want to see the Capitol again anytime soon.

“Governor, if you’re listening, don’t call us back tomorrow,” bill sponsor state Rep. Joe Pickett, D-El Paso, said from the podium shortly after the unsuccessful vote. Maybe next spring, when we’ve slept a bit.”

House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, followed shortly with this in a prepared statement:

“Diverting a capped amount of money from the Rainy Day fund to repair roads is much like using a Band-Aid to cover a pothole; in the end, you still have a pothole and you’ve spent a lot of money without solving the fundamental problem. Legislators know that Texas needs a much more comprehensive approach to funding our growing state’s growing transportation needs, and another 30-day special session will not change that.”

The House will return at 2 p.m. Tuesday. And the Senate might even yet take a vote on HJR 2, despite its less-than-dim prospects in the House (a member of the prevailing side, the 40 no-voters, could bring it up for reconsideration Tuesday, but House members said nothing of the sort will happen).

Both chambers passed House Bill 16, the companion bill, which would create a House-Senate interim committee to study transportation funding. Perry’s office has not indicated if he will sign the bill.

The Trib notes that the vote was 84-40, so either there were a lot of abstentions or a lot of absentees. If the latter, there could possibly have been a successful vote if enough members had showed up. I suspect, however, that the absentees were missing for a reason. I suppose anything can happen today, but it sure ain’t looking good for this plan. I’m not too upset about because it was a jerryrigged compromise of a band-aid, and maybe this failure will convince legislators that they need to take a more fundamental approach. But no one’s ever gotten rich betting on the Lege to learn lessons and do the right thing, so I’m not holding my breath on that score. Nothing to do but wait and see what happens next. The Highwayman has more.

Posted in That's our Lege | Tagged constitutional amendments, Joe Pickett, Joe Straus, rainy day fund, Rick Perry, Robert Nichols, special session, Texas, TxDOT | 3 Comments

From the “She told you so” department

Posted on July 30, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

No one could have seen this coming. Well, no, pretty much anyone could have.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says she’s not surprised that Southern states have pushed ahead with tough voter identification laws and other measures since the Supreme Court freed them from strict federal oversight of their elections.

Ginsburg said in an interview with The Associated Press that Texas’ decision to implement its voter ID law hours after the court struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act last month was powerful evidence of an ongoing need to keep states with a history of voting discrimination from making changes in the way they hold elections without getting advance approval from Washington.

The Justice Department said Thursday it would try to bring Texas and other places back under the advance approval requirement through a part of the law that was not challenged.

“The notion that because the Voting Rights Act had been so tremendously effective we had to stop it didn’t make any sense to me,” Ginsburg said in a wide-ranging interview late Wednesday in her office at the court. “And one really could have predicted what was going to happen.”

The 80-year-old justice dissented from the 5-4 decision on the voting law. Ginsburg said in her dissent that discarding the law was “like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.”

Just a month removed from the decision, she said, “I didn’t want to be right, but sadly I am.”

And that would be why the Justice Department is throwing down. Justice John Roberts likes to say that the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. It’s a nice, pithy sentiment, but it leaves out the obvious fact that some folks need to be made to stop discriminating on the basis of race. If the federal courts determine that Texas has been doing this and it needs to be bailed back in to preclearance under Section 3 of the Voting Rights Act, will he acknowledge that when the next appeal comes his way? Texas Redistricting has more.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged Justice Department, lawsuit, redistricting, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, SCOTUS, Texas, voter ID, Voting Rights Act | Comments Off

The DOMA ruling and the workplace

Posted on July 30, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

The SCOTUS ruling on DOMA will have an effect in Texas, if not now then eventually, we just don’t know exactly what that effect will be yet.

Companies may assume that the recent Supreme Court case rejecting a key part of the Defense of Marriage Act doesn’t affect them because Texas doesn’t recognize same-sex marriages.

But they ignore the ruling at their peril, according to some employment lawyers who have been examining whether the ruling that struck down the federal ban on recognizing same-sex marriages will entitle same-sex spouses to pension benefits, health care insurance and family leave coverage.

“No one really knows,” said Joe Gagnon, an employment lawyer with Fisher & Phillips in Houston, who represents management clients. But Gagnon argues that employers eventually could be on the losing end of a court battle if they exclude same-sex spouses as beneficiaries and plan participants.

It’s always hard to figure out how a court ruling will play out. But the ruling looks thorny for employers, especially those that have multistate operations in states that recognize same-sex marriages and ones that don’t.

Or what if a company transfers an employee from California – which recognizes same-sex marriage – to its operations in Texas? Will the employee’s same-sex spouse have the same benefit privileges in Texas as in California?

“We don’t know the answer yet,” said Michael A. Abbott, an employee benefits lawyer with Gardere in Houston.

We don’t know the answer, but sooner or later these questions are going to be litigated. If you’re legally married in one of the states that allows it and then you lose some kind of work-related benefit because you and your spouse moved or were transferred to Texas, you’re not going to accept that. It’s just a matter of time before there’s a conflict. It may be that the inevitable lawsuit gets filed by someone who doesn’t want his company recognizing accommodating same sex spouses in their retirement benefits. Either way, sooner or later something’s got to give.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged DOMA, gay marriage, gay rights, lawsuit, SCOTUS, Texas | Comments Off

BGTX and Anglo women voters

Posted on July 29, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

The San Antonio Current has a great story on what Battleground Texas is up to, and why more than just increasing turnout is needed to turn Texas blue.

Best Wendy Davis iconography yet

The Democrats can take Texas in 2016 if they can tap into one a key segment: white Texans, and in particular white women, the new kingmakers–or queenmakers–of Lone Star politics.

Why? Women of color broadly support Democratic candidates, but that’s just the point: BGTX needs to mine new veins of voters. At least at this stage, minority population trends alone will not lock up the race, since heavily Republican non-Hispanic whites will still hold a slim majority through the next presidential cycle. Even if Battleground succeeds in ramping up meager Hispanic voter turnout to white levels, a Republican candidate would likely still prevail in 2016.

“I think [Texas Battleground] realizes that it’s not just a matter of finding and turning out minority voters,” says Ruy Teixeira, co-author of the book The Emerging Democratic Majority and a senior fellow at Center for American Progress. “It’s also a matter of finding and turning out relatively liberal white voters, given the structure of the Texas electorate and given how conservatively white voters have been voting. The treasure trove would presumably be more likely to be college educated, more likely to be younger, and more likely to be women living in the big metropolitan areas.”

[…]

Utilizing 2008 Texas exit polls (not available for the state in 2012) crossed with U.S. Census Bureau voter turnout figures from 2012, and applying those ratios to a projection of the number of 2016 eligible voters by ethnicity as calculated by the Center for American Progress yields a Republican victory in in the next contest.

Even under an assumption that Battleground Texas successfully mobilizes target voters, elevating Hispanic and other minority turnout to levels achieved by whites last year (which is actually a slight decrease for African-Americans, the group posting the highest 2012 turnout rate), the state retains its crimson hue by a five-point 52-47 margin. However, given those same parameters, tweaking up Democratic support by white women from 28 percent (from 2008 exit polls) to, say, a lowly 35 percent, blues the result.

That’s why, in order to accelerate the demographic slide into blue territory, the Democrats will have to both peel off white support from the Republicans and mobilize whites who currently do not vote—in part because of the perception of futility of voting Dem in Texas. Fortunately for BGTX, the hard swerve to the right by the current Republican Party has left the political center wide open for recruitment of moderate white voters, all the more so for females incensed by the recent Republican-led restrictions on their reproductive rights.

Using 2008 data for 2016 likely understates things a bit for Team Blue, because we know from actual results at the State Rep district level plus eve of Election Day polling that Latinos voted for President Obama more heavily in 2012 than in 2008. Be that as it may, I agree with the general premise. Increasing Latino turnout is a key piece of the puzzle but it’s not the only piece. I’ve talked several times about the need for candidates with at least some crossover appeal in 2014, and in a Presidential year where Republican turnout is less of a variable, a Democratic Presidential candidate will just have to do better with Anglo voters than Obama has done.

I think that’s likely to happen regardless, at least to some extent, but as we have seen, Hillary Clinton would likely maximize that effect. Via TPM, Clinton is polling ten points better than Obama nationally among Anglo women. Translate that to Texas, add in the fact that there’s more room to grow, that Republicans have been doing a good job making the case against themselves, and the efforts of BGTX, and you can easily see the 2016 margin shrink further, perhaps to the point of tossup status. It will certainly be worthwhile to keep an eye on the polls, and where possible the crosstabs, to see how the data trends. PDiddie has more on this.

The other aspect of that story was to give some hard data on BGTX’s efforts so far:

Out of Austin, a lean BGTX managerial team recruits “fellows” who pledge a certain number of hours per week and attend a boot camp. Each fellow coordinates a team of regular volunteers back in their neighborhood. In the organization’s first four months, it recruited and trained over 2,500 deputy voter registrars across the state and 200 summer fellows all across Texas, with over a dozen in San Antonio. Following the OFA “snowflake” model, these volunteers participate in voter registration drives at events, through phone banks and by door-to-door canvassing. Voter registration is dual purpose: It elevates the number of registered voters, and information on the voter-registration card is harvested for a master database.

It’s too early to know what kind of impact the fieldwork is having, but voter registration is climbing steeply. More than 800,000 new Texas voters registered in the eight-month period stretching from the last presidential elections through the end of June, a whopping 64-percent increase from the comparable period after the previous vote, according to data from the Texas Secretary of State.

On the cyber side, BGTX works the same digital formula developed for the Obama 2012 campaign: sophisticated data mining techniques, micro-targeting strategies and massive usage of social media and email. Facebook landing pages, Tweet barrages and a steady stream of finely tuned email messages sweep up new volunteers and, especially, sponge up donations. In the first four months of operation, the BGTX Web page had rung up more than $1 million via donations, or 96 percent of the total take of $1.1 million. Seventy-nine percent of donations came from inside Texas and the median donation size of more than 3,500 payments was $25.

The voter registration numbers are exciting. There isn’t any updated information on the SOS webpage – we should see new figures for this November’s election – but note that while registrations increased by almost 500,000 from November 2004 to November 2008, they barely increased at all from November 2008 to November 2012. I’m sure that had at least something to do with Obama’s slight performance decrease from one election to the other. Let’s definitely keep an eye on this, and let’s all do our part to help BGTX keep it up.

Posted in Show Business for Ugly People | Tagged Barack Obama, Battleground Texas, Election 2004, Election 2008, Election 2012, Election 2014, Election 2016, Hillary Clinton, polls, President, Texas, turnout, voter registration | 7 Comments

Texas loses another lawsuit against the EPA

Posted on July 29, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Getting to be a habit.

Houston Ship Channel, 1973

A federal appeals court on Friday rejected a legal challenge by Texas and Wyoming to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, in a 2-1 vote, said the states and various industry groups did not have standing to sue because they could not show that they had suffered an injury or that a ruling throwing out the EPA plan would benefit them.

The decision comes after the same court upheld the EPA’s first wave of greenhouse gas regulations in 2012, and is another win for the EPA, which has a strong track record in the courts in challenges to its rules, particularly those targeting greenhouse gas emissions.

“The states and industry groups trying to block EPA from curbing carbon pollution under the Clean Air Act are on a long losing streak,” said David Doniger, climate policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Friday’s decision concerned a challenge to the EPA’s efforts to make states include carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases when they issue permits to industrial facilities setting limits on various types of pollution they emit.

[…]

Frank O’Donnell, president of the not-for-profit group Clean Air Watch, said Friday’s ruling strengthens the hand of the EPA as it starts to implement President Barack Obama’s climate action plan. Obama in June directed the agency to write rules to curb carbon emissions from the country’s fleet of existing power plants.

But O’Donnell said Texas and other states opposed to federal environmental regulations are likely to drag their heels when forced to comply with EPA timelines.

“I predict they will be late filing their plans, due in 2016 under the scenario the president set forth, and will dare the federal government to intervene,” O’Donnell said.

You can see the ruling here, via the Environmental Defense Fund. There have been so many of these lawsuits that I have a hard time keeping track of which one is which, so I’ll just turn this over to the Sierra Club for the last word.

“The U.S. Supreme Court and other federal courts have now ruled in favor of controlling climate disrupting-pollution nine times,” said Cyrus Reed, conservation director with the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club. “Attorney General Greg Abbott and Commissioner Bryan Shaw preferred to spend their time and resources on lawsuits doomed to fail, regardless of the consequences for Texas’s economy, rather than cooperating with the Environmental Protection Agency and upholding the law. Carbon pollution protections are the law, even in Texas. After three years of damaging droughts, it is time for the large polluters and state agencies alike to join the environmental community in working to reduce emissions.”

“While Texas officials were wasting taxpayer dollars with fights against the federal government, Texas legislators were quietly updating state laws in early 2013 to require TCEQ to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act,” continued Reed. “Abbott and Shaw have spent millions of taxpayer dollars on these frivolous lawsuits rather than letting regulators do their jobs.”

Be sure to tell Latino voters about this one, Greg.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged Clean Air Act, DC Circuit Court of Appeals, Environmental Protection Agency, greenhouse gases, Greg Abbott, lawsuit, TCEQ, Texas | Comments Off

Farmers Branch loses again

Posted on July 29, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Same story, next chapter.

When will they learn?

The Farmers Branch ordinance barring people in the U.S. illegally from renting in the city is unconstitutional, an appeals court ruled for the second time Monday.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans said the ordinance encroached on the federal government’s authority.

Monday’s decision ended the city’s second appeal to the court, which had upheld the lower court’s ruling last year.

The city asked for a rehearing after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down parts of an Arizona law.

In its majority opinion Monday, the judges were critical of Farmers Branch’s ordinance, which would have required all renters to obtain licenses proving they were in the U.S. legally.

Judges also found fault with the city’s plan to fine or revoke the renters’ licenses of landlords who leased to immigrants without permits.

“The ordinance not only criminalizes occupancy of a rented apartment or single-family residence, but puts local officials in the impermissible position of arresting and detaining persons based on their immigration status without federal direction and supervision,” the court said.

Through May, the suburb of about 29,000 residents had spent roughly $6 million since 2006 on legal expenses related to its fight against illegal immigration.

The law firm that sued the city over the rental ordinance said it plans to submit additional bills to Farmers Branch that are likely to top $2 million.

See here for the previous update. I was a little nervous after the court ordered a review of the original ruling to take into account the SCOTUS decision on the Arizona “papers, please” law, but I’m glad to see that fear was unfounded. The question at this point is whether Farmers Branch will finally accept that it has learned a very expensive lesson and quit adding to the tab. It’s not yet clear what they will do, but at least now their City Council has a voice of reason on it.

Monday evening, [new Council member Ana] Reyes praised the appeals court’s decision on the rental ordinance and said she wanted the city to drop the issue.

“The anti-immigration ordinance was outside of our local jurisdiction,” she said. “It is unconstitutional. This issue has been extremely divisive and costly for the citizens of Farmers Branch. It’s now time to move forward and reinvest our residents’ hard-earned tax dollars back into our community.”

CM Reyes of course is the first Hispanic member of Farmers Branch’s City Council, elected after they lost a different lawsuit to enact single member districts. It will be completely fitting if that development finally leads to Farmers Branch being persuaded to quit illegally and expensively trying to persecute a segment of its population.

Posted in La Migra | Tagged Ana Reyes, appeals, City Council, Election 2013, Farmers Branch, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, immigration, lawsuit, SCOTUS, single member districts, Texas | 1 Comment

Ashby everywhere: The San Felipe highrise

Posted on July 29, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Hard to keep track of them all.

THESE UNDERSTATED “Stop the San Felipe Skyscraper” signs started going up about knee-high this weekend in River Oaks and Vermont Commons to protest that shiny 17-story office tower that Hines is proposing to build nearby. Though these signs — spotted at the corner of Spann and Welch and San Felipe and Spann, catty-corner from the proposed site — might be lacking the services of an imaginative cartoonist like their yellow precursors across town in Boulevard Oaks, their message still comes through, directing the onlooker as well to a recently launched website for all things skyscraper-stopping:

Of course, Hines continues to say through PR man George Lancaster that the company plans to build something “upscale and handsome, befitting its River Oaks address.” The rendering shown here is the most recent version of that; it differs a bit from the one Swamplot published in May that seems to have sparked much of the ire — and which boiled over in what the new website describes as a “heated” and “tense” community meeting last night with reps from Public Works and city council member Oliver Pennington: “Many participants came away from the meeting with the idea that the only way to stop the project will be through immediate legal action.”

“Good luck with that”, said everyone who opposed the Ashby Highrise. You can see the antis’ webpage here. They address what I consider to be the main question here:

Aren’t there already other high-rises in this same area?
There are three other high-rises within four blocks of the site. Of these, two are office buildings that are shorter by several stories. A residential high-rise (the Huntingdon) is taller. Here are the differences:

– All three of the other high-rises are on major thoroughfares with six lanes (Kirby) or four lanes (Shepherd).
– The other high-rises are separated from nearby residences by high walls (Huntingdon), open space (Shepherd), or other intervening structures (Compass building).
– 2229 San Felipe has larger garage capacity but will be surrounded by two-lane streets
– 2229 San Felipe has only a 10-foot setback from the street.

Residential buildings have a much lower density than comparable office buildings. As an idea, the Wingate and St. Honore developments on San Felipe at Revere may add 20-30 cars to an entire block, as compared to the 400 cars being added at 2229 San Felipe.

I have no idea what they’re getting at in that last paragraph. “Density” is people per square mile, so by their own reckoning the 2229 San Felipe building contributes greatly to it. Be that as it may, I have some sympathy for these folks, since that stretch of San Felipe is just like the part of Bissonnet where the Ashby will be – one lane each direction. On the other hand, as they themselves admit, there are three other highrises in the area. It’s a little hard to claim that a new highrise would stand out.

My general rule on these things is whether or not the location makes sense. This one is more of a gray area than others. I don’t think the neighbors will have any luck blocking it, but I suppose they haven’t yet broken ground on the Ashby, so who knows. The one sure thing is that we’ll continue to see situations like this, until either the real estate market inside the Loop gets saturated, or city ordinances get a drastic makeover. I’m not sure which is more likely to happen first.

Posted in Elsewhere in Houston | Tagged Ashby highrise, construction, density, Houston, River Oaks, San Felipe | Comments Off

Weekend link dump for July 28

Posted on July 28, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Sharknado was educational. Just think how much the sequel could teach you.

Granting corporations a right of “religious freedom” is bad enough. Granting them that based on phony science is even worse.

Christie Hefner tells what she learned working for her dad’s magazine.

The Do Not Call list used to be a good idea.

Voter ID laws are about suppressing the vote, and everyone knows it.

Bringing high speed Internet service to schools is a great and necessary idea.

Virginia is for lovers, just not that kind of lovers.

Hidlago County has nearly half again as many people as Wyoming, but with two fewer Senators.

You will have free access to broadcasts of the 2014 World Cup…if you live in Europe. In the US, you’ll still need to have cable.

Banning banks from commodities trading would be fine by me.

Forget 10,000 hours. Concentrate on 10 minutes.

Some folks at The Times did not appreciate Nate Silver. His old buddies from The Baseball Prospectus are all chuckling and shaking their heads right about now. TBogg, naturally, put it best.

RIP, Dennis Farina, cop turned actor.

Three words: Duct tape surfing.

What sabotaging the government looks like.

“One might imagine a lot of surveillance uses for these robots, so just think, the next time you crunch a roach under your shoe you might be destroying government property.”

“Poverty is a more powerful influence on the outcome of inner-city children than gestational exposure to cocaine”.

I think the main lesson I take from this is that some people just shouldn’t have cellphones. Or access to the Internet.

If Eliot Spitzer can have a second act, then Melissa Petro deserves one, too.

Really, we need to decide what sort of standard to use to decide when a politician brought down by a non-political scandal is “cleared” to return to political work and be judged by political criteria.

We’ve whipped inflation for the foreseeable future. Let’s obsess about something else, mmmkay?

Ladies do tend to feel colder than us dudes. Deal with it.

At long last, Alan Turing is finally getting a pardon. He should never have needed one, of course, but this is at least a little something.

Your smartphone will soon need anti-virus software, too.

How’s that Latino outreach going, Republicans?

What Norm Ornstein says.

RIP, Willie Louis, key witness in the trial of the murderers of Emmett Till, and a great role model for doing the right thing.

And now, a little girl dancing in the background of a local news report. You’re welcome.

“‘Conservative’ occupies the same space in the evangelical imagination as ‘sexual purity’ does. To say someone was ‘too conservative’ — theologically, politically, socially — would be like their saying a bride was too much of a virgin.”

RIP, Virginia Johnson, of Masters and Johnson.

RIP, George Mitchell.

Posted in Blog stuff | Tagged linkdump | Comments Off

Transportation funding deal completed

Posted on July 28, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

All over but for the voting.

House and Senate leaders reached final agreement Saturday afternoon on how to protect the state’s rainy day fund as they propose to shift half of future rainy day dollars into roads, according to an official close to the negotiations.

There would be no “floor” — or minimum balance for the state’s savings account — placed in the Texas Constitution, the source said.

Instead, the enabling bill for the road-funding constitutional amendment would say that 10 key lawmakers who monitor the budget from their seats on the Legislative Budget Board would adopt a minimum amount the rainy day fund should have. They would do that every two years, as they choose an estimate of personal income growth in Texas that defines what percentage cap is applied to certain state spending. That exercise, required under a constitutional spending limit approved by voters in the late 1970s, is usually performed by the board in November of even-numbered years, shortly before lawmakers return in January for their regular session.

Under the road-money deal, if budget board members can’t agree on a minimum balance number for the rainy day fund, then the Department of Transportation would get no new money from the proposal to split future rainy day revenues in half, with 50 percent going to roads and 50 percent going into savings. The enabling bill also would call for a joint House-Senate committee that would study transportation funding, the source said.

As leaders acknowledged Friday, the deal calls for the constitutional amendment on road funding to be set for the November 2014 ballot. That keeps it separate from this fall’s vote on a water-projects constitutional amendment. And the new money for highways couldn’t go to toll roads or to replace debt service payments from general-purpose revenue that are needed to repay some of the $5 billion of so-called Prop. 12 road bonds that have been approved by lawmakers and voters.

No guarantees that there’s enough support in the chambers to pass this – remember, it takes a 2/3 vote in each, and that means even a small number of nihilists or anyone else who just doesn’t like the deal can scuttle it. Then it goes to the voters, but not till next year. I presume the result of the water infrastructure referendum will be suggestive, if not predictive, of this amendment’s fate. We’ll know on Monday if it gets that far.

Posted in That's our Lege | Tagged constitutional amendments, Election 2014, rainy day fund, Robert Nichols, Senate, special session, Texas, The Lege, TxDOT | Comments Off

No pressure, Wendy

Posted on July 28, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

You can run for any office you want, as long as it’s Governor.

Sen. Wendy Davis

[State Sen. Wendy] Davis is under intense pressure from national Democratic leaders to seek statewide office in 2014. At two fundraising events Thursday, Davis didn’t speculate about her future. But she was accompanied by a VIP fan club.

At a morning $500 breakfast event at Johnny’s Half Shell, guests included Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer of California, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Patty Murray of Washington and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii. In addition to [Rep. Mark] Veasey, Texas Reps. Pete Gallego of Alpine and Sheila Jackson Lee of Houston also turned out for the event.

Jackson Lee said while she would support Davis if she choose to run for governor, she didn’t want to “put Senator Davis on the spot.”

“She will make that decision, along with many others,” Jackson Lee said, adding that Davis’ actions this summer alone have energized grassroots Democrats.

This was at a big fundraiser for Davis in Washington, DC, where as you might imagine the attendees are more interested in supporting a candidate for Governor than a candidate for State Senate. On the matter of whether it might make more sense for Davis to run for Lieutenant Governor instead, the Trib quotes from the inaccessible Statesman story as follows:

Texas Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, swept through Washington on Thursday with a high-dollar breakfast fundraiser in the morning, and a lower-budget affair in the evening, amid indications that she isn’t considering a run for lieutenant governor as an alternative to a run for governor or re-election to the state Senate. Matt Angle, founder of the Democratic Lone Star Project, which conducted a Twitter town hall with Davis between fundraisers, said speculation that Davis might find the lieutenant governor’s office a more inviting target actually misses the point. If Davis were to be elected to preside over a mostly Republican Senate, that majority could use Senate rules to strip the lieutenant governor’s office of much of the power that would make it worth holding.

Those of us that have considered this question have in fact dealt with that possibility, and it is a factor. How much weight to assign it is anyone’s guess, as is the question of how much the influence of Rick Perry will linger beyond 2014. All I can say is that I hope Sen. Davis is getting as much objective, unbiased information as she can, and makes what she thinks will be the best decision for herself. I don’t envy her the task of sorting it all out. BOR has more.

Posted in Election 2014 | Tagged Election 2014, Governor, Lite Gov, Senate, Texas, Wendy Davis | Comments Off

More leftover campaign cash

Posted on July 28, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

The Chron writes about a subject I’ve covered before.

Former Rep. Shelley Sekula-Gibbs of Houston used leftover campaign funds to buy a life membership in the National Rifle Association. Former Rep. Martin Frost of Dallas paid a $6,000 Federal Election Commission fine. Former Rep. Tom DeLay of Sugar Land hired a media consultant. And former Rep. Henry Bonilla of San Antonio, a Republican lawmaker-turned-lobbyist, showered 35 candidates – including two prominent Democrats – with campaign donations.

Over the past two decades, retired members of the Texas congressional delegation have spent more than a million dollars they had raised for their House and Senate campaigns on expenses incurred after they left office, a Houston Chronicle review of Federal Election Commission records has found. For some of the ex-lawmakers, the expenses continued for years after they last held office in Washington.

The post-congressional spending ranged from small thank-you trinkets for supporters to large expenditures on mailing lists, computer equipment, political consultant fees and donations to other politicians that have allowed some ex-lawmakers to maintain perpetual political operations. Two former lawmakers made payments to family members.

All of the retirement spending was made possible by donors who contributed to the Texas lawmakers’ campaigns while they were holding office. A review of FEC reports indicates that none of the former legislators refunded any funds to their former donors after leaving office.

The existence of these accounts – used by 71 percent of Texas lawmakers who left office over the past two decades – may come as a surprise to many of their constituents. But it’s all perfectly legal – as long as the former officeholders use the money for political or charitable causes.

“You can use campaign funds for any lawful purpose – except they can’t be converted to personal use,” said Michael Toner, former chairman of the Federal Election Commission.

[…]

Campaign watchdogs say the current law allows former officeholders too much latitude in deciding how to use leftover money.

“There’s actually quite a lot of room for lawmakers to finagle their own campaign budgets,” said Craig Holman, a campaign finance expert at the liberal advocacy group Public Citizen.

Holman said the FEC definition of prohibited “personal use” is too narrow and allows former members to indirectly use their funds to benefit family members or themselves by funneling money into organizations they manage or control.

While the Chron story is about former federal officeholders, this is an issue at the state level, too. I thought there was a state law that required all funds to be disbursed within a set period off time, but if that is the case I’ve never seen it enforced. If it were up to me, I’d mandate that any funds left unspent four years after the person’s last day in office would be put into a fund that helps the relevant enforcement agency do its thing. Seems only fitting to me.

[Jim] Turner has the longest-lasting campaign account. The former state legislator and congressman had amassed more than $1 million in campaign funds when he retired rather than face off against veteran Republican Rep. Joe Barton of Ennis in a heavily Republican district. Eight years later, Turner has $990,000 remaining.

Turner said he has kept his campaign account active because he might run for office if “Texas becomes Democratic again.”

“I have always wanted to keep the option open and may want to run for a statewide office,” he said. “I was sidelined by redistricting, but I’ve always enjoyed public service.”

Turner’s last election was in 2002. I don’t care for his strategy of waiting till Texas is sufficiently blue in 2018 or 2022 to maybe use all that money to take another shot at public office. I hope the Democratic primary voters in those years would look askance on someone who sat on a million bucks for 15 or 20 years just in case conditions became favorable for him again instead of using it to help other candidates and causes. My advice to Turner would be to either gut it up and run against Big John Cornyn in 2014 – a million bucks won’t get you that far in a Senate race, but it beats starting out with nothing – or just admit that your time has passed and donate the cash to Battleground Texas. But seriously, don’t keep sitting on it. It’s not doing anyone any good.

Posted in Show Business for Ugly People | Tagged campaign finance reform, campaign finances, Congress, Election 2014, FEC, Henry Bonilla, Jim Turner, John Cornyn, Martin Frost, Senate, Shelley Sekula Gibbs, Texas, Texas Ethics Commission, Tom DeLay | Comments Off

Parking Panda

Posted on July 28, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Interesting

Parking Panda, an online parking reservation system, launches Tuesday in Houston and Dallas. The site’s already up and running, taking reservations for lots around many area venues, including Minute Maid Park, Reliant Stadium and the Toyota Center.

The concept is pretty simple: Go online, find the parking lot you want, based on price and location, and reserve a spot. In some cases, Parking Panda co-founder Nick Miller said, people can even reserve a select spot.

In places where parking can be problem, like around a Texans game, having a guaranteed spot removes the hassle of hunting around or timing your arrival to find a close enough spot. Even if you’re ten minutes late, the spot is there waiting for you.

In Washington, D.C., where Miller said the company has seen one client use the service 125 times in the past year, the use is branching out beyond major venues to include parking around museums and entertainment districts.

That could be where things head in Houston, too, he said. Take the crowded Montrose corridor or Washington Avenue, where the city recently enacted strict parking rules. Before heading out for the night, someone potentially could find a spot ahead of time and leave the car there for the evening.

[…]

Major events and large parking garages aren’t the only places touched by the technology gains in parking. Though the bulk of the business is commercial lots, Miller said Parking Panda has some spot sellers who are, essentially monetizing their driveways.

“We have people who are making a couple hundred dollars a month,” he said.

Not everyone has a driveway worth renting, but for those in high-density areas, or near offices, the opportunity is out there.

The larger point, Miller and others say, is cities have finite space to store cars. If someone who lives a block or so off Westheimer is commuting downtown, someone in Sugar Land who works off Westheimer may be willing to rent the vacant driveway during the day to guarantee a spot.

I guess this is our week for vehicle-related innovations. It’s an interesting concept, and you can see what they have available for Houston here. I’m thinking the rent-your-driveway option might be quite appealing for events like the Art Car and Pride parades, if one lives in those areas. For that matter, I’m thinking some of my neighbors who live close to White Oak might check this out – if people are going to be parking in front of their houses anyway, they may as well make their driveway available and earn a few bucks for it. What do you think?

Posted in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles | Tagged Art Car Parade, cellphones, density, downtown, Heights, Houston, Montrose, parking, Parking Panda | Comments Off

Saturday video break: Sweet Jane

Posted on July 27, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Song #9 on the Popdose Top 100 Covers list is “Sweet Jane”, originally by The Velvet Underground and covered by The Cowboy Junkies. Here’s the original:

Don’t think I’d heard that before. Of course, I’m not well versed on the Underground’s catalog – besides the obvious “Walk On The Wild Side”, I have “Rock And Roll” in my collection, and that’s about it. It’s good, and mighty mainstream-sounding for a band like the VU. Here’s the Cowboy Junkies’ cover:

I’m a fan of Margo Timmins’ voice, and I think it works beautifully here. As I’ve noted before, I generally like cover versions by women of songs originally done by men. What do you think about this one?

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

Lege may have found a way on transportation funding

Posted on July 27, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

As of Thursday, Special Session 3: Beyond Thunderdome was looming.

Both chambers of the Legislature were filled with activity Thursday afternoon but they ended up essentially where they had started: waiting on House and Senate negotiators to come up with a transportation funding plan most lawmakers could agree on.

There was little sign Thursday that the two chambers were any closer to finding common ground, even though Gov. Rick Perry has vowed to call them back for a third special session if they can’t get around the current impasse.

A majority of members in both chambers favor taking advantage of a spike in tax revenue from the ongoing oil drilling boom to boost funding for the Texas Department of Transportation. They remain divided on how exactly to use that tax revenue, currently earmarked for the Rainy Day Fund, and whether fears that that fund’s future balance may drop below a certain level need to be addressed.

“As you may have seen in the news, like any negotiation, this one has had its ups and downs,” House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, told the chamber Thursday afternoon.

The House adjourned until Monday, suggesting negotiations could stretch into the weekend. Earlier in the day, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said he hoped Senators could be done by Friday.

But late in the day Friday, it appeared that the stalemate had been broken.

House and Senate members have reached agreement on transportation funding legislation, senators said Friday, hammering out details of a proposed constitutional amendment that, if voters approve, would mean an additional $850 million a year for highway spending.

However, the House sponsor of the legislation, state Rep. Joe Pickett, D-El Paso, stopped just short of declaring the deal signed and delivered.

“We’re pretty close,” Pickett said as a conference committee on the legislation prepared to meet again late Friday. “We have a little heartburn that we haven’t gotten over. But I don’t think it will fall apart.”

[…]

The final proposal, senators said, mostly hews to the version approved by senators this week. It would direct to the state highway fund half of the oil and gas severance tax revenue that otherwise would have gone to the rainy day fund. The House version instead would have ended a constitutional dedication to public education of a quarter of gasoline tax revenue.

In addition, again mirroring the Senate version, it would include a rainy day fund “floor.” If the fund fell below that level, then TxDOT would get less or perhaps none of the oil and gas severance tax revenue in any given year.

But in a concession to the House, that floor would be set in statute, not the state Constitution. And that number could change over time as determined by the state Legislative Budget Board. That initial floor has not been determined, state Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, said.

There is still one possible roadblock.

A key sticking point between both chambers was whether the amendment needed language that would set a so-called floor on the Rainy Day Fund. The original Senate plan would have placed a provision in the state Constitution that would block the diversion whenever the fund’s balance falls below $6 billion. House Democrats had opposed including that provision in the Constitution.

The proposal made by leaders in the House on Friday would give the 10-person Legislative Budget Board the option of setting a floor for the Rainy Day Fund, with the authority placed in state law rather than in the Constitution. Senate Finance Chairman Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, said details on that part of the deal were still being worked out.

The LBB is chaired by the lieutenant governor, with the House speaker serving as vice chair. Four senators and four House members fill out the rest of the board.

House Democrats have been wary of placing any kind of provisions that could be seen as placing limits on the Rainy Day Fund. State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, said House Democrats held a caucus meeting on Thursday and appeared largely united in opposition to a deal that includes the Republican-controlled LBB controlling the implementation of a Rainy Day Fund floor.

Two-thirds of both chambers must vote for HJR 2 for the measure to be sent to voters. House Democrats could block it from passing if most of them are united against it.

“I guess we’ll have to extend our leases for another month,” Martinez Fischer said, referring to the prospects of a third special session.

Hard to know how serious a threat that is, but for sure it ain’t over till it’s over. Still, I thought the difference was fundamental enough that there wasn’t a middle ground to be reached, and yet there was. One quirk of this compromise is that the vote on it would be deferred until November of 2014, so as not to cause confusion with the water infrastructure fund vote. I presume there’s a political calculation in that, but it’s mighty subtle if you ask me. Be that as it may, it’s nice to see some progress being made, but let’s not mistake this for a whole solution. While this is going on, TxDOT is making plans to convert some asphalt roads to gravel because we are unwilling and/or unable to come up with the means to properly maintain them. Boy, nothing says “world class infrastructure” like gravel roads, am I right? Why does Rick Perry even need to try to entice businesses to move here when we can promise them this level of service? Maybe the Lege can address that in 2015.

Posted in That's our Lege | Tagged budget, constitutional amendments, David Dewhurst, Joe Pickett, Kevin Eltife, rainy day fund, Rick Perry, Senate, special session, Texas, The Lege, Tommy Williams, TxDOT | 2 Comments

Google energy

Posted on July 27, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Fascinating.

Google may not seem like an energy company, but it sure is acting like one.

Through more than $1 billion in investments and through large contracts for renewable power, Google has become the most significant player in the energy business outside of actual energy companies and financial institutions.

The Internet search giant’s efforts to transform the world’s use of power and fossil fuels have included a $200 million investment in a Texas wind farm and the purchase of a company that makes innovative flying wind turbines. It has invested $168 million in a solar project in California and is funding the development of an offshore grid to support wind turbines off the Atlantic coast.

In total, it has an ownership stake in more than 2 gigawatts of power generation capacity, the equivalent of Hoover Dam, said Rick Needham, Google’s director of energy and sustainability.

Google even has a subsidiary, Google Energy, that’s authorized by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to sell wholesale electricity that it generates from its power assets.

Analysts say it is the only company other than energy businesses and financial institutions that has taken large ownership stakes in major stand-alone power projects.

Read the whole thing – try this FuelFix link if the houstonchronicle.com one is not available to you – it’s quite a story. It’s great to see an innovator and big investor like Google pushing renewable energy for business reasons as well as altruistic ones. I hope a lot of other companies follow their lead.

Posted in Technology, science, and math | Tagged Google, renewable energy, solar energy, wind energy | Comments Off

No more RFID for Northside ISD

Posted on July 27, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Nortside ISD in San Antonio has quit using RFID trackers in student IDs to keep tabs on them, and has embraced an alternate technological solution to the problem of ensuring an accurate headcount instead.

Northside Independent School District spokesman Pascual Gonzalez told me that the microchip-ID program turned out not to be worth the trouble. Its main goal was to increase attendance by allowing staff to locate students who were on campus but didn’t show up for roll call. That was supposed to lead to increased revenue. But attendance at the two schools in question—a middle school and a high school—barely budged in the year that the policy was in place. And school staff found themselves wasting a lot of time trying to physically track down the missing students based on their RFID locators.

Andrea Hernandez, the student whose family unsuccessfully sued the district on religious grounds and referred to the IDs as “the mark of the beast,” is reportedly thrilled by the decision. She had ended up transferring to another school to avoid the IDs.

But the backlash and the lawsuit weren’t the deciding factors, Gonzalez told me. “While [privacy groups] are extolling the fact that they won, the fact is that that was a very minor part of our conversation, because the federal court and the court of appeals both upheld Northside’s position on that. We were on solid ground.”

Indeed, the district never acknowledged that the chips posed legitimate privacy concerns, adhering all along to the reasoning that Gonzalez expressed to me when I first talked to him about this last fall: “By virtue of the fact that you are a student at school, there is no privacy.” No doubt other schools will echo that line when they adopt RFID or similar technologies in the years to come, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a high court rule on a similar case at some point in the future. Gonzalez is right that students on a campus have less expectation of privacy than adults, but “no privacy” seems a little extreme. The question of how much offline tracking is too much is also likely to arise in workplaces as employers use RFID tags to bust workers for, say, spending too much time in the bathroom.

Meanwhile, Gonzalez told me Northside plans to capture the safety and security benefits of RFID chips through other technological means. “We’re very confident we can still maintain a safe and secure school because of the 200 cameras that are installed at John Jay High School and the 100 that are installed at Jones Middle School. Plus we are upgrading those surveillance systems to high-definition and more sophisticated cameras. So there will be a surveillance-camera umbrella around both schools.”

See here, here, and here for the background. The Lege took a look at restricting RFID use by school districts to track students in this manner, but the bill never made it to the House floor. The outcome here doesn’t mean they won’t try again, however. I thought Northside had a legitimate reason for doing what they did and wasn’t particularly bothered by it, so I have no strong feelings about this new solution one way or the other. Both the student plaintiff and her legal squad seem happy with this, so I’ll leave it to you to decide if this is “better” from a privacy perspective or not.

Posted in School days | Tagged Andrea Hernandez, cameras, lawsuit, Northside ISD, RFID, San Antonio, schools, The Lege | Comments Off

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