Off the Kuff | Knowledge Is Good

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

Friday random ten: A royal welcome

Posted on July 26, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

In honor of little Prince Hashtag (*), here are ten songs about male royalty – you know, the kind that Tina Brown approves of.

1. Prince Charles – Christine Lavin
2. Prince Nez – Squirrel Nut Zippers
3. Prince of Darkness – Indigo Girls
4. Some Day My Prince Will Come – Sinead O’Connor
5. Two Princes – Spin Doctors
6. It Was A’ For Our Rightfu’ King – SixMileBridge
7. King Henry – Flying Fish Sailors
8. The King Of My Mountain – Trout Fishing In America
9. King Of Spain – Lager Rhythms
10. King Of The Road – Roger Miller

Bonus track: Kings And Queens – Aerosmith

Because, I must confess, to the extent that I was paying attention, I was rooting for them to have a girl. Be that as it may, a healthy baby and a healthy mother are the only things that matter. Mazel tov, y’all.

(*) – Okay, fine Prince George Alexander Louis. Hashtag would have been way more fun.

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

Justice Department to push for Section 3 in Texas

Posted on July 26, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Bring it.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced on Thursday that the Justice Department would ask a court to require Texas to get permission from the federal government before making voting changes in that state for the next decade. The move opens a new chapter in the political struggle over election rules after the Supreme Court struck down a portion of the Voting Rights Act last month.

In a speech before the National Urban League in Philadelphia, Mr. Holder also indicated that the court motion — expected to be filed later on Thursday — is most likely just an opening salvo in a new Obama administration strategy to try to reimpose “preclearance” requirements in parts of the country that have a history of discriminating against minority voters.

His statements come as states across the South, from Texas to North Carolina, have been rushing to enforce or enact new restrictions on voting eligibility after the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Shelby County v. Holder case, which removed that safeguard.

“This is the department’s first action to protect voting rights following the Shelby County decision, but it will not be our last,” Mr. Holder said. “Even as Congress considers updates to the Voting Rights Act in light of the court’s ruling, we plan, in the meantime, to fully utilize the law’s remaining sections to subject states to preclearance as necessary. My colleagues and I are determined to use every tool at our disposal to stand against such discrimination wherever it is found.”

[…]

In his speech, Mr. Holder said that evidence submitted to a court last year that the Texas Legislature had intentionally discriminated against Hispanics when redrawing district lines was sufficient to reimpose on that state the “preclearance” safeguard for a decade, noting that the court — in blocking the map — had said the parties “provided more evidence of discriminatory intent than we have space, or need, to address here.”

Mr. Holder said: “Based on the evidence of intentional racial discrimination that was presented last year in the redistricting case, Texas v. Holder — as well as the history of pervasive voting-related discrimination against racial minorities that the Supreme Court itself has recognized — we believe that the State of Texas should be required to go through a preclearance process whenever it changes its voting laws and practices.”

The department may also soon bring similar legal action against Texas over its voter identification law, which was also blocked by a federal court last year. Hours after the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Shelby County case, the state said it would begin enforcing the law.

Richard L. Hasen, a University of California at Irvine professor who specializes in election law, said that the move was a “huge deal showing that the department is going to be aggressive in seeking to resurrect what it can of the old preclearance regime,” but he also said the so-called “bail-in” process of Section 3 alone could not restore the previous sweep of the preclearance regime because the Justice Department “can only go after those jurisdictions found to be recently discriminating intentionally in voting on the basis of race.”

Still, he said, “getting the State of Texas covered again would be important not just symbolically but practically, as it would put its tough new voter ID law back on hold.”

That would indeed be a big deal. I presume the filing in question has to do with the ongoing redistricting litigation in San Antonio, and indeed it is.

In the filing, the Justice Department argues that “Section 3(c) relief is warranted in this case because existing evidence establishes intentional voting discrimination and other proceedings provide overwhelming evidence of constitutional violations in and by the State.”

The pleading asks the San Antonio court to “impose Section 3(c) coverage on the State of Texas as to all voting changes for a ten-year period following entry of a coverage order” with the option to extend coverage beyond ten years “in the event of further discriminatory acts.” If granted as requested by DOJ, the order would cover “any voting qualification or voting-related standard, practice, or procedure that the State enacts or seeks to administer that differs ‘from that in force or effect’” on May 9, 2011 (including Texas’ voter ID law).

Read the whole thing. The plaintiffs there had already filed Section 3 motions, and it was not clear at the time if the Justice Department would be joining them. Now we know, and it’s good to see that they are backing them up. Texas Redistricting outlines the plaintiffs’ briefs and legal theories, and previews the state’s likely response. Note that the voter ID litigation would also be affected by the Justice motion; according to TPM, it appears they will file another motion for that case as well. Whatever the San Antonio court rules, I am certain that this will be back before SCOTUS before you know it. Texas Redistricting has statements from Sen. Rodney Ellis, Greg Abbott, Rick Perry, Rep. Trey Martinez-Fischer, and various others, as well as Holder’s full remarks. The Trib, SCOTUSBlog, and BOR have more.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged Eric Holder, Justice Department, lawsuit, redistricting, SCOTUS, Texas, voter ID, Voting Rights Act | 4 Comments

Credit cards at the Tax Assessor’s office

Posted on July 26, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

If you’ve paid your vehicle registration fees in person at the Harris County Tax Assessor’s office, you’ve had to bring cash or check to do so, because they don’t accept credit cards for that. Thankfully, that’s about to change.

Mike Sullivan

More than a decade after the office began accepting credit and debit cards for property tax payments, in person and online, the tax office is preparing to do the same for all things to do with motor vehicles, including registrations and renewals.

Within a month, all counters at the downtown tax office will accept plastic. All 17 locations should be plastic-friendly within three months, [Tax Assessor Mike] Sullivan said, describing the current situation as “horrible, horrible, horrible customer service.”

“It’s going to be a big roll-out when we are able to tell people we accept all forms of payment, bringing the office into the 21st century,” said Sullivan, who took office in January and promised that and other innovations during his campaign. “We’re several years behind where we should be.”

The move is part of a pilot program that will allow the county to input credit and debit card payments directly into the state system. Sullivan said it should reduce the office’s infamously long lines.

The tax assessor said he also plans to post an experienced employee at the front door of each of the five busiest locations to make sure people have all the necessary forms, notarizations and other items to complete their transactions.

While all Texas residents have been able to use credit and debit cards to renew their vehicle registrations online through the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles since 2001, those who visit the Harris County tax office in person have been able to use only cash or checks.

Some county tax offices already take plastic for motor vehicle fee payments in person, including in Dallas County, which first began allowing residents to use credit and debit cards for property and vehicle taxes more than two years ago, a spokesman said.

I pay my registration fees by mail so this hasn’t affected me personally, but as we know long lines at the Tax Assessor’s office is a problem that has needed solving, so kudos to Sullivan for taking this step. It’s a bit mind-boggling to think that in the year 2013 credit cards weren’t an option for something as basic as this – Harris County was one of the first counties to accept credit card payments for property taxes, after all. The state and the way it accepts payments from counties is partly responsible for this, but still. We’re two years behind Dallas. That’s embarrassing. Of course, given who our Tax Assessor was for those two years, it’s not terribly surprising. Consider it yet another reminder that elections do have consequences.

Anyway. Since as noted I do my payments by mail this doesn’t affect me, but it does make me wonder when those of us who pay this way will get the same service as well. It’s not a big deal from a time management perspective, but it would be nice to have the option to pay by credit card. Looking ahead, the next step would be online and mobile payments. Is someone working on an app to pay one’s vehicle registration fees? Surely we don’t want to hear that Dallas has beaten us again. Houston Politics has more.

Posted in Local politics | Tagged credit cards, Dallas County, Don Sumners, Harris County, Harris County Tax Assessor, Mike Sullivan, vehicle registration | 1 Comment

Testing waiver sought

Posted on July 26, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

It’s a follow up for a bill passed during the regular legislative session.

In a letter sent [last] week to Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Education Commissioner Michael Williams is seeking clarification on whether the federal agency has the authority to grant a waiver on the No Child Left Behind Act, formally called the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

The waiver request would allow the state to comply with House Bill 866, which would allow high-performing elementary and middle school students to skip reading and math tests if they had aced them in previous years.

[…]

Williams’ letter said the bill would allow students ahead of the curve to “focus their time and energy on learning new material and not focusing every year on a test where there is a high likelihood that they would demonstrate success.”

HB 866 won’t take effect this year and the letter is not an official request for a waiver, agency officials said.

See here, here, and here for the background. I figure this is likely to be a formality, but we’ll see how it plays out.

Posted in School days | Tagged Michael Williams, STAAR, standardized testing, Texas, Texas Education Agency, The Lege, US Department of Education | 1 Comment

Just a reminder that women’s health isn’t the only thing they don’t care about

Posted on July 26, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

In case you needed one.

It’s constitutional – deal with it

Texas officials have declined to establish a state-based health insurance marketplace, a major provision of the federal Affordable Care Act. So private organizations are working to educate Texans about coverage options through the federal health insurance exchange, which opens on Oct. 1.

Of the more than 6.3 million uninsured Texans — the state has the country’s highest rate of uninsured residents — almost half will be eligible to buy insurance through the federal exchange, an online tool for coverage shopping.

But Texans suffer from a “general lack of knowledge” about the law, said Allison Brim, a director at the Texas Organizing Project, one of several groups working to reach uninsured families before the federal exchange’s rollout.

“Folks just don’t have a lot of information about the exchanges and what their options will be,” she said.

The Texas Department of Insurance has made no extra effort to publicize the federal exchange, said John Greeley, an agency spokesman. In 2010, it conducted a federally financed campaign about health insurance options but has done nothing comparable since, he said, adding that those with questions could use the department’s website or telephone service.

Brim criticized the state for not promoting the exchange, saying its help would make it possible to reach all eligible Texans by October.

“The state has, as far as we know, done nothing to spread the word to uninsured Texans about the exchanges or the Affordable Care Act,” she said. “It leaves a mountain of work for us.”

In response to questions about publicizing the exchange, Lucy Nashed, a spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry, wrote in an email that the state was “not interested in implementing Obamacare, including the exchange.”

That pretty much sums it up. You know the old joke about how God must love the poor because He made so many of them? Rick Perry must love uninsured people, because he’s doing everything he can to make sure there will always be plenty of them.

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged health care, health insurance, insurance exchanges, Rick Perry, Texas, Texas Department of Insurance, Texas Organizing Project | Comments Off

How I would campaign against Greg Abbott

Posted on July 25, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

If you’ve been following Greg Abbott’s gubernatorial campaign kickoff, you’ve probably noticed that in addition to being light on substance, the Attorney General has been hitting his personal story hard, in an attempt to portray him as some kind of empathetic figure.

Who needs policies when you have destiny?

Over nearly two decades of public appearances as a political figure, Greg Abbott has not shied from noting the obvious: He uses a wheelchair.

During speeches, the Texas attorney general, who is now a gubernatorial candidate, is known to pre-emptively address any questions on the topic — often humorously — with an explanation of the 1984 accident that left him partially paralyzed. At campaign events dating back to 2002, he has shown brief video clips describing how a falling oak tree crushed his spinal cord while he was jogging with a friend through the Houston neighborhood of River Oaks.

He emerged on the statewide political scene in 1995, when, after Gov. George W. Bush appointed him to the Texas Supreme Court bench, the court building updated its facilities to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“Court builds ramp to justice, for a justice,” reads one headline from the Austin-American Statesman.

Now, the adversity that Abbott has faced has become the symbolic centerpiece of his recently launched gubernatorial campaign, which he announced on Sunday — the 29th anniversary of his accident.

“My greatest fight began on this date,” he said to a crowd gathered in San Antonio. “It was a challenge that made my even being here, highly improbable.”

In a five-day, 10-city tour across the state since then, Abbott has been introducing himself as a fighter for strong Texas values, a candidate with a literal spine of steel. As someone who uses a wheelchair, he says, he knows what it means to struggle with physical and emotional challenges.

“I demonstrate what every Texan exemplifies every day — the ability to overcome adversity,” he said at a campaign stop in Houston.

See his heartwarming intro campaign video for a distilled version of this. Now we both know that the only thing Abbott fights for is the interests of the powerful. But a lot of people don’t know Greg Abbott well, and they don’t know that he’s never done a thing for regular Texans. To someone who doesn’t know Greg Abbott and is just tuning in now, he might look like an underdog himself, and as long as he manages to avoid talking about his actual record and his beliefs, he might sound downright appealing. The key is making sure that people know about the real Greg Abbott.

Whether Abbott can sway blue-collar voters is uncertain.

Joe Silva, 54, a worker at the boot factory and a lifelong El Pasoan, said he would probably vote for Abbott despite not knowing a lot about him.

“He’s a good man, I heard. He went through that tough accident,” he said.

But when asked if Abbott’s opposition to the federal health care reform legislation or support for the voter ID law mattered to him, Silva paused.

“Oh, I didn’t know that,” he said. “ I guess we’ll see what he has to say. I don’t know much about him.”

Remember, Abbott isn’t used to talking to people who don’t habitually vote in Republican primaries. That’s why he thinks that wooing voters by bragging about the things he’s done that they don’t like is a good idea. He just has no experience talking to non-true believers. That’s all to the good, but we can’t count on that. More to the point, we can’t let Abbott get away with using his personal story as a way to smooth out his extremely rough and, well, extreme edges. To borrow a page from the Karl Rove playbook, we need to turn his strength into a liability.

How to do that? There’s no question that Abbott has overcome a great deal of adversity in his life, the kind of adversity that most of us are fortunate to never face. That speaks well of his character and inner strength, but there’s an aspect to his success at overcoming that adversity that I have not yet seen mentioned anywhere. I don’t know Abbott’s medical history, but I think it’s safe to say that it includes surgeries, medication, physical therapy, medical equipment, and other things that undoubtedly cost a lot of money to provide. I have to wonder where Greg Abbott might be today if he had been one of the millions of Texans that don’t have health insurance at the time of his awful accident. Medical bills force millions of people into bankruptcy every year. Many other people deal with the problem by simply not getting the help and treatment that they need. Last week, Dear Prudence ran a letter from a woman who lost several teeth during a prolonged stretch of unemployment for her and her husband because she just couldn’t afford to go to the dentist. I guarantee you, there are a lot more stories like that in Texas than there are stories like Greg Abbott’s, and it’s not because the people behind those stories lacked character.

Thankfully for Greg Abbott, he never had to deal with any of that. Yet he has spent the past three years doing everything he can to keep the millions of Texans who lack health insurance from getting it by his relentless litigation against the Affordable Care Act. If he has any alternate ideas how to alleviate this longstanding problem, he’s not talking about it now, and never once in his ten plus years as Attorney General has he used his platform – never mind his personal experience as someone who relies heavily on quality medical care – to advocate for those in that position. In short, he would deny the same type of care that he himself has benefited from to millions of people who could not now receive it. His personal story may be admirable, but it sure hasn’t helped him to learn empathy. If Democrats don’t start pointing that out now, he might just be able to get through this campaign without people realizing that. We cannot let that happen.

Note that I made it this far without mentioning the multi-million dollar award that the strongly pro-tort “reform” Abbott received after his injury. Lisa Falkenberg talked to him about that, and somewhat to my surprised threw him off his talking points a bit. I say “somewhat to my surprise” because Sen. Kirk Watson tried to make an issue of this in the 2002 AG race and it largely backfired on him. That was before the strict med-mal cap was adopted, though, so perhaps another go at it might be worthwhile. It’s clear from reading Falkenberg’s piece that Abbott has the same lack of insight about just how far removed his own experience has been from so many other people’s as he does with health insurance. The point remains that there are some very tough questions that Abbott can and should face, and the sooner the better.

Posted in Election 2014 | Tagged Attorney General, Election 2002, Election 2014, Governor, Greg Abbott, health care, health insurance, Kirk Watson, lawsuit, Texas, tort reform, videos | 4 Comments

Council to consider wage theft ordinance

Posted on July 25, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Good.

The Houston City Council may step up its efforts to combat wage theft, sanctioning companies that deny workers pay to which they are entitled and monitoring firms accused of doing so, regardless of whether they do business with the city.

City Attorney David Feldman laid out a proposed ordinance to a City Council committee on Tuesday, receiving a generally positive reaction from council members and worker advocates, who flooded the chamber in yellow or teal T-shirts, representing the Fe y Justicia Worker Center and Texas Organizing Project.

Workers who believe they have been improperly denied pay can file civil complaints with the Texas Workforce Commission or in a justice of the peace court, or pursue criminal complaints with police or prosecutors. Feldman said most workers who file complaints choose the state agency.

The city’s best chance to help, Feldman said, is to create a database of companies found guilty of wage theft and to keep a watch list of firms accused of the practice, in the hopes of using its leverage as a source of contracts, permits and licenses as a deterrent.

“Obviously, we do have a large amount of buying power, purchasing power, a large number of contracts, and, obviously, we want to make sure the city of Houston says, ‘We’re not going to be doing business with somebody that’s found to be guilty of this type of activity,'” Councilman Ed Gonzalez said.

Existing city rules state that firms who commit wage theft can be barred from city work, but do not specify how the city would identify offending companies, Feldman said.

Stace was on this earlier and then again afterward. This is a very basic premise: People who do work deserve to get paid for it, and they deserve to get paid what they were promised, without delays or extra conditions or any other BS. Denying someone the pay they were promised is wrong and should carry consequences. This has been a huge national problem lately, and it’s a disgrace. What was especially encouraging about this proposal was the overwhelming agreement that this ordinance would do good. It’s a shame that it’s needed, but it will be good to have it. Contact your Council member and let him or her know that you support this, too.

Posted in Local politics | Tagged David Feldman, Ed Gonzalez, Fe y Justicia Worker Center, Greater Houston Partnership, Houston, Houston City Council, Texas Organizing Project, wage theft | 1 Comment

CSCOPE still in scope

Posted on July 25, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Every once in awhile, whether they intend to or not, the SBOE does something worthwhile.

Thomas Ratliff

The State Board of Education concluded its July meeting without providing further guidance as to whether Texas school districts continued to use lessons from CSCOPE, the controversial state-developed curriculum system.

“It’s not up to the state board,” chairwoman Barbara Cargill, R-The Woodlands, said after the meeting. “I don’t know who it is up to, but it’s not up to us.”

Though she added that legislators are the ones who need to clarify whether districts can still use CSCOPE lesson plans, which are now in public domain, Cargill said the board will discuss CSCOPE at its Sept. 18 meeting.

Meanwhile, the Texas Attorney General’s office, along with Education Chairman Dan Patrick, has requested an official state audit of the program.

“After months of research, once again with the tireless help of the grassroots, it appears that CSCOPE may have spent millions of dollars outside of normal government rules and regulations,” said Patrick in a post on his Facebook page Friday.

Patrick also said in that post that he disagreed with the conclusion that, since CSCOPE material is now in the public domain, districts could continued to use it. He said he would check into it further.

After the Friday meeting, board member Thomas Ratliff, R-Mount Pleasant, issued a release praising Cargill for placing CSCOPE on the September agenda.

“This artificial controversy has gone on too long without someone at the state level taking charge and performing a review of these lessons and separating myth from reality and education from politics,” he said.

Ratliff and Patrick have been slugging it out over CSCOPE for some time now. I think it’s safe to say there’s no love lost there. I didn’t follow this closely during the session, but from what I can see Ratliff is in the right. If the SBOE does review this in September, it will be a good thing. However, Dan Patrick will not give up.

An extended drama over a controversial curriculum tool used by Texas public schools took a new turn Wednesday as Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst entered the fray with a letter to the State Board of Education and a key state senator pushed to add the issue to the special session agenda.

“We were all told that our CSCOPE problems were behind us,” Dewhurst said in the letter. “Over the past few weeks I have learned this could not be further from the truth.”

The statement could be interpreted as swipe at Patrick, one of Dewhurst’s 2014 Republican primary opponents. Near the end of the recently concluded regular session, Patrick declared the “end of an era” for the CSCOPE lessons, which grassroots activists have relentlessly pushed to eliminate because of a perceived liberal, anti-American agenda. At the time, Patrick, R-Houston, announced that the coalition of state-run education service centers that develops the lessons had agreed to stop producing them.

[…]

In his letter to the state board, Dewhurst joined those expressing their dismay, saying he was “deeply troubled” that the state’s public schools may continue to use the lessons. The board is already set to address confusion over CSCOPE at a Sept. 18 meeting, but in the letter, Dewhurst urged the board to hold a hearing sooner so that it could help districts find ways to avoid using the lessons or to “at least provide transparency for parents and local voters to know what their local districts are using to educate their children.”

Patrick responded late Wednesday afternoon with a press release asking Gov. Rick Perry to add legislation banning the use of CSCOPE lessons to the special session agenda. In the release, Patrick said he also thought the issue had been resolved.

Josh Havens, a spokesman for Perry, said in a statement that it was “premature to talk about adding to the call” until the Legislature finished its current business.

Did we mention that there might be a third special session because the conference committee remains at loggerheads over how to pay for transportation funding? So adding yet another wingnut issue to the endless legislative summer is not out of the question. Burka has more.

Posted in School days | Tagged Attorney General, Barbara Cargill, CSCOPE, Dan Patrick, Greg Abbott, schools, Texas, textbooks, The Lege, Thomas Ratliff | Comments Off

Texas blog roundup for the week of July 22

Posted on July 25, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

The Texas Progressive Alliance supports the call for justice for Trayvon as it brings you this week’s roundup.

Continue reading →

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

Uber writes to the city about its taxi demand study

Posted on July 25, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

You can see the letter here. They make two basic points: One, the $70 minimum fare for private car trips “serves neither the driver community nor the riding public, and should be eliminated as a matter of public interest regardless of any study”. I agree that this is an excessive level and that it doesn’t need to wait on the outcome of a study on demand for taxi services to be taken up by Council. Two, they charge that the firm conducting the study is a “paid advocate for the taxi industry”, and they call the impartiality of the lead consultant doing the study in question. Read the whole thing and see what you think.

As I’ve written before, I think Uber makes a strong case for changing the city’s taxi ordinances to allow it and its app entry into the market. Since that was published, I have been contacted by one of the people representing the local cab companies, and we are making arrangements to get together so I and perhaps some of my blogging colleagues can learn their perspective. My inclination in these matters is to lean in the direction of whatever makes things better for consumers – see, for example, the saga of Texas’ microbreweries and the effect of consumer choice it had – so I will be very interested to hear what they have to say.

UPDATE: I received the following from Christopher Newport, the Council Liaison and Public Information Officer for the Department of Administrative and Regulatory Affairs:

I appreciate the tone of Uber’s most recent missive, however Mr. Owen’s letter and his subsequent commentary on the City’s study rests on a pretty important assumption: the scope of the study currently underway is limited to taxicabs.

While it is true that the scope of the work being conducted by a contractor we have engaged is limited to taxicabs, that is not the scope of the study we (ARA/City) are conducting.

With respect to the taxicab study, the primary responsibility of the contractor is to collect and analyze data that we do not currently have. I think it is to the City’s benefit that the taxicab industry is being solicited by someone they might be comfortable with; that only increases the probability that we will get a sufficient quantity of high quality information. I have not heard Uber state, yet, that they don’t believe the City is capable of independent analysis of raw data.

The set of aspects of this industry being examined currently is comprehensive in nature. Any revisions to taxicab regulations can potentially have feedback effects on the other categories of vehicles for hire. Furthermore, the vehicle for hire app “universe” is larger than Uber (see Sidecar, Lyft, Taxi Magic, MyTaxi). We have to look at the entire picture. Well, we don’t have to I guess, but it would not be very bright to not take a comprehensive view.

Hope that helps clarify things. My thanks to Christopher Newport for the feedback.

Posted in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles | Tagged black cars, Houston, Houston City Council, taxis, Uber | 3 Comments

Once again with Wendy and the odds

Posted on July 24, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Ross Ramsey in The Trib has his turn with the “what office should Sen. Wendy Davis run for?” question.

Sen. Wendy Davis

Abbott, the Republican attorney general, is his party’s favored candidate at the moment, in spite of the presence of Tom Pauken, a former state party chairman, in the race. Abbott has scads of money in his political account and seems, for now, to be in the spot Arthur was in when he pulled Excalibur out of that legendary boulder: everything is in place but the crown.

That has some insiders talking about the next race down — the one for lieutenant governor. Instead of taking on Abbott, the best-financed Republican candidate in years, Davis, D-Fort Worth, would face one of a quartet of Republican candidates for lieutenant governor, a group that includes a politically vulnerable incumbent and a conservative state senator who might give moderate Republican voters pause.

That race does not have a pre-emptive favorite, and two of the candidates could be attractive foils for Davis. David Dewhurst, the incumbent, has been looking for his mojo since his loss a year ago to Ted Cruz in a Republican runoff for the U.S. Senate. One of his three challengers is that conservative senator, Dan Patrick, R-Houston.

[…]

However the Republicans decide, the contrast between general election candidates would be simple to make.

The contrast would be simple to make in almost every race on the ballot. But a statewide race at or near the top of the ticket — even a losing one — could build a foundation for future campaigns.

And if Abbott doesn’t have a tough challenge, voters looking for a debate will go to the next race.

It’s not like Davis has a cakewalk waiting at home. If she runs for re-election to her Tarrant County Senate seat in 2014, she’ll face a headwind.

Her district was drawn to favor a Republican candidate. But she defied that in 2008 and 2012, years when the ballot was headed by a Democratic presidential candidate who helped draw her voters to the polls. Her team is surprisingly confident she will do it again next year, if that’s the route she goes.

The headwind could be stronger now, however, and it is the candidate’s fault. Davis got the attention of the Republicans, too, and they will come after her whether she runs for re-election or for something higher on the ballot.

The lieutenant governor’s race might be the one to run. It will almost certainly go to the Republicans, but “almost” is a big word in politics. Losing a re-election bid could put her out of circulation.

Might as well go big.

Robert Miller explored this same possibility last week; I blogged about it here. That post got a lot of reaction on Facebook, with the main concern being that the Lite Guv race would not be as high profile as the Governor’s race, which negates the advantages Davis has made for herself. It’s a legitimate question, but I think Davis’ presence on the ballot, especially if paired against either Dewhurst or Patrick, automatically ensures a minimum level of attention. I’d feel better about this if I knew the Dems were also going to have a good candidate for Governor as well – Cecile Richards, Rodney Ellis, Henry Cisneros, Leticia Van de Putte, you know the drill – but there’s no guarantee of that. I guess what it comes down to for me is that a full ticket of decent candidates is better than relying on Wendy Davis to carry the whole thing, whatever office she chooses.

Couple other points: Ramsey suggests that either Todd Staples or Jerry Patterson could be tougher competition for Davis, if either can win the Republican nomination for Lite Guv. That’s primarily because neither was directly involved in the abortion debate and the famous filibuster. I can buy that – I particularly think Patterson, who has the best record of actual accomplishment among GOP candidates, and who has a straightforward style that is likely to be appealing, would be a strong competitor – but Davis starts out ahead of Patterson in cash on hand, and can likely catch up to Staples by March. Plus, at this point I’d say she has better name ID than either of them – heck, she might have higher name ID than Greg Abbott right now – and that helps offset any advantage they may have.

Ramsey also suggests that Davis might have a hard time being re-elected in SD10 next year, as it is not a Presidential year. I’ve already dealt with that question, and I stand by my assertion that it’s not clear that the Presidential year was an asset for Davis. More Republicans come out in Presidential years, too, after all.

Finally, some people are now suggesting that maybe David Dewhurst should switch races. Like many other GOPers blocked by Rick Perry, what he’s always really wanted to be is Governor, and he alone has the financial resources to challenge Abbott on that score. His run for Senate in 2012 showed that he’s ready to be something other than Lite Guv. If not 2014 for Governor, then when? Just a thought.

Posted in Election 2014 | Tagged Dan Patrick, David Dewhurst, Election 2014, fundraising, Governor, Jerry Patterson, Lite Gov, Texas, Todd Staples, Wendy Davis | 1 Comment

We’ll always have Kinky

Posted on July 24, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Like cicadas on a four-year cycle, he keeps coming back.

Bi-polar and tri-partisan

Kinky Friedman doesn’t know if he’s ready to jump back into Texas politics.

But the cigar-chewing humorist and musician — known for the black attire and cowboy hats he normally dons — said he may soon create an exploratory committee to help him decide whether to run for office again.

And if so, for which one.

“Maybe I should do what Rick Perry does and pray for an answer on what to do,” Friedman, 68, said with a chuckle Tuesday during a telephone interview with the Star-Telegram.

Some political observers say they wouldn’t be surprised to see Friedman throw his hat into the ring for nearly any statewide office.

“A comedian needs an audience,” said Harvey Kronberg, editor and publisher of the Austin-based Quorum Report, an online political newsletter.

Friedman said he probably will run for office as a Democrat, as he did during his unsuccessful 2010 bid for Texas agriculture commissioner, rather than as an independent, as he did in his failed 2006 gubernatorial bid.

“I’m keeping my options open,” said Friedman, a self-proclaimed Jewish Cowboy who lives in the Hill Country.

Yes, well, what else is new? If you need a reminder why Friedman is rather less than beloved among Democrats, read this blast from the recent past. Of course, he went from that to being a Wendy Davis for Governor cheerleader, which I suppose at least shows he’s capable of learning. I’m tired of bashing Friedman all the time, so let me make him a deal. If he promises to run for Railroad Commissioner, or Land Commissioner if John Cook decides against it, I’ll shut up about him through next November, assuming he doesn’t say anything too stupid. Hell, he can run for Attorney General if he wants to, on the premise that even a non-lawyer jokester like him would do a better and less detrimental job than a blinkered partisan hack like Greg Abbott, and I’ll be okay with that. Just stay the hell out of the Governor’s race, and don’t go up against a better Dem in anything else, that’s all I ask.

On Tuesday, he outlined his top two political priorities if elected to office: Legalize marijuana use and casino gambling in this state.

“Texas is going to do all this in the next ten to 15 years,” he said. “But by then, he will be the caboose on the train.”

Making his top two priorities reality, Friedman said, will provide a key boost for Texas’ economy.

Legalizing casinos in Texas would “stop the bleeding from all the billions of dollars that are walking out of the state for gambling,” he said.

And making marijuana use legal in Texas, he said, “would put a real crimp in the Mexican drug cartels — and make Willie Nelson very happy.”

I admit, Railroad Commissioners don’t have much to do with either of these things. He’d have to learn some actual policy stuff to be RR Commish, not that that was a prerequisite for the likes of David Porter or Elizabeth Ames Jones. But he could possibly get elected to the Railroad Commission, and that would give him a real platform to advocate for these things. Best I can do, sorry.

On a side note, since I mentioned the office of Attorney General, I’ll note that State Rep. Dan Branch announced his intention to run, a move that was almost as widely expected as Greg Abbott running for Governor. In doing so, Rep. Branch did his best Abbott impersonation, promising to protect the right of unborn babies to carry assault weapons so they can defend themselves from a rapacious federal government, or something like that. I might be a bit fuzzy on the details. I’m not sure if it’s more a pity or just pathetic that a generally low-key legislator who’s built a fairly solid reputation as a policy wonk has to spout such pablum – I suspect he didn’t sound much more genuine in saying it than I would have – but these are the times we live in. And as a result, and because Branch’s main competition is people like the more ludicrous and less substantive Barry Smitherman, you can see why Kinky for AG isn’t such a crazy idea after all. It’s not that hard to sound sensible opposite the likes of that. Kinky is downright statesmanlike in comparison.

Posted in Election 2014 | Tagged Attorney General, Barry Smitherman, casinos, Dan Branch, Election 2014, Governor, Greg Abbott, John Cook, Kinky Friedman, Land Commissioner, marijuana, Railroad Commission, Rick Perry, Texas, Wendy Davis | 5 Comments

LIBOR lawsuit

Posted on July 24, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

This ought to be interesting.

The City of Houston filed suit today for financial damages suffered from the manipulation of the interest rates on its investments against the banks that set the benchmark interest rate known as the London Interbank Offered Rate, or LIBOR. The lawsuit was filed in federal court in the Southern District of Texas by Richard Mithoff, of Mithoff Law Firm, the California law firm Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, LLP, and the Houston law firm The Chevalier Law Firm, PLLC, against more than 16 current and former financial institutions that set LIBOR, including Barclays, UBS, Bank of America, Royal Bank of Scotland, JP Morgan, and Citigroup.

“I have instructed the city legal department to aggressively pursue any monies owed the city,” said Mayor Annise Parker. “Any manipulation of rates paid by the taxpayers must be corrected.”

“The complaint filed in federal court specifically notes three examples of transactions in which the LIBOR manipulation was detrimental to the City of Houston,” said Mithoff. “Damages to the city resulting from this global interest rate manipulation could be substantial.”

Mayor Annise Parker and City council approved hiring Mithoff earlier this year. Mithoff currently represents the Texas Heart Institute in its contractual dispute with St. Luke’s Hospital System, and serves as well as lead co-counsel for shareholders in their class action suit against BP.

“Nobody questions the existence of the conspiracy, nobody questions that the rigging took place,” City Attorney David M. Feldman said. “The question is the amount of damages.” By bringing the case under federal antitrust laws, Feldman said, the city can seek three times the actual damages, plus attorney’s fees.

ABOUT LIBOR

LIBOR is the world’s benchmark interest rate used for setting short-term interest rates on a wide range of financial instruments– from simple consumer car loans to complex municipal derivative investments by public entities. LIBOR-based investments are in the trillions of dollars annually.

LIBOR is set every day by the British Bankers’ Association (BBA), based on an average of the interest rates that each LIBOR member bank reports it could borrow money from other LIBOR member banks. Until the manipulation scandal broke, LIBOR was accepted by the global financial system as the true cost of borrowing between financial institutions because it was believed to represent the true interest rate at which banks are able to borrow money.

LIBOR member banks reported an interbank borrowing rate that each bank “self-certified” to be the interest rate that it might pay to borrow funds from a fellow member bank; it was not an actual borrowing rate. Until recently, a LIBOR member bank’s reported interbank borrowing rate was believed to reflect its credit worthiness because a bank that could borrow money at a lower interest rate was believed to be more credit worthy. This “self-certified” or self-regulated market proved too tempting to the LIBOR member banks and was ripe for manipulation.

In March 2011, government regulators in the United States, United Kingdom, Switzerland and Japan announced they had launched investigations of LIBOR rate manipulation affecting global financial markets. LIBOR member banks were under scrutiny for manipulating LIBOR upward to increase their own profits, and for manipulating LIBOR downward to report suppressed borrowing rates to create the illusion of financial strength.

More than $2.5 billion in penalties have been paid by only three LIBOR member banks: In June 2012, Barclays agreed to pay $450 Million after admitting it manipulated LIBOR with other member banks; in December 2012, UBS agreed to pay more than $1.5 billion; and in February 2013, Royal Bank of Scotland agreed to pay $610 Million. In June 2013, a former UBS and Citigroup trader was criminally charged by British prosecutors for LIBOR manipulation involving eight LIBOR member banks and interdealer brokers, following December 2012 criminal charges by U.S. prosecutors. Charges against numerous others are pending.

As a result of the LIBOR manipulation, many Texas public entities and other investors have received reduced interest payments on interest rate swaps, corporate bonds, and other investments that were tied to LIBOR as a benchmark interest rate.

As Houston Politics notes, City Council authorized the filing of this lawsuit in March. It was a unanimous vote, which is rather a rarity on Council these days. The Houston Business Journal has a chat with attorney Richard Mithoff, who will be among those representing the city, who says that the target figure the city hopes to recover is $9 million. We’ll see how it goes.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged Annise Parker, David Feldman, Houston, Houston City Council, lawsuit, LIBOR | 1 Comment

Remember how concern for women’s health was supposed to be a thing?

Posted on July 24, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Now that the omnibus anti-abortion bill has been passed and signed, the Republicans can quit pretending to care about the state of health care access for women in Texas as before.

Right there with them

Three Planned Parenthood family planning clinics in Southeast Texas announced plans Thursday to close at the end of August. The closures result from reduced family planning funds and the removal of Planned Parenthood from the state Women’s Health Program, said Melaney Linton, CEO of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast.

While the closures were announced the same day as Gov. Rick Perry’s signing of omnibus abortion legislation, House Bill 2, the closures are “a completely separate issue” from that new law, Linton said.

Linton said many patients who visit the three clinics cannot afford to pay for services and therefore would “go without the care they need.” She said the decision by the state not to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act was “the final straw” that rendered the clinics unable to serve patients.

“This has been a long time coming,” she said.

But John Seago, legislative director for Texas Right to Life, said he believes women in that region will still have access to health programs, noting the recent legislative move to restore funds to participants in the Women’s Health Program.

In the 2013 session, the Legislature voted to add $71 million to the program.

“The Legislature has more than restored the funding that was effective last session,” Seago said.

It’s certainly good that the Legislature restored funding for the WHP after it was decimated in 2011, but the damage has already been done. Some sixty clinics closed their doors statewide after the 2011 budget cuts. and the number of clinics funded by the Texas Department of State Health Services dropped from 300 to 136 in the year following those cuts. If you burn my house down, then build me another two years later, you can claim you’ve made me whole but I was still homeless in the interim. Even if you could credibly claim that there are now as many clinics that provide health care and family planning services for women as there were in 2011 – I have no idea if this is true, and neither does John Seago; what’s more, I’m sure he doesn’t care – the fact remains that hundreds of thousands of Texas women had their health care disrupted. Even if every single one of these women now has a clinic that’s as close to them and as convenient for them and as affordable for them that they’re aware of and comfortable visiting, it still wasn’t their choice to make that change. It was done to them by Rick Perry, David Dewhurst, Greg Abbott, and the Republican friends of people like John Seago in the Texas Legislature. What was done can be ameliorated but it can never be undone. PDiddie has more.

Posted in Show Business for Ugly People | Tagged abortion, budget, contraception, David Dewhurst, Greg Abbott, Medicaid, Melaney Linton, Planned Parenthood, Rick Perry, Texas, The Lege | 1 Comment

What it takes to win statewide

Posted on July 23, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Via Ed Kilgore comes this analysis that tries to paint an especially bleak picture for Texas Democrats in 2014.

First of all, Democrats have yet to win more than 44 percent of the total vote in any recent statewide election in Texas, and actually have been heading in the wrong direction since reaching a height of 43.6 percent in 2008. Moreover, Democratic performance among white voters is even worse, averaging just 26 percent from 2004 to 2010. During off-years, white voters tend to make up an even bigger part of the electorate, meaning that their impact is amplified (for example, whites made up 67 percent of the electorate in 2010 versus 63 percent in 2008).

The following four, successively rosier, scenarios show the long odds of a Democratic win in 2014:

Scenario 1. If, as is most likely, the 2014 Texas electorate is 65 percent white, 13 percent black and 18 percent Hispanic, with the remaining 4 percent split between Asian and other ethnic groups, Democrats would only will 41.6 percent of the total vote if they match their typical off-year performance with each group.

Scenario 2. Since scenario 1 does not take into account factors such as the influence of specific candidates, let’s assume that Democrats maximize the hand they have been dealt by reaching their top performance among each group from 2004-2012 and the ethnic percentage of the electorate remains as is. Under this scenario, Democrats would still fall short with only 45.6 percent of the total vote in 2014.

Scenario 3. So then let’s take into account the efforts towards increasing Hispanic turnout. If Democrats can turn out so many Hispanic voters that they become fully one-quarter of the electorate, and whites fall to 56 percent of voters – a stunning 11 percentage point decline from the last midterm election, Democrats would still only garner 44.2 percent of the overall vote in 2014 if their performance were to match their typical performance with each group.

Scenario 4. Lastly, let’s try the rosiest scenario possible, which assumes that Democrats achieve their best voting performance across the board and Hispanics turn out to unexpected levels. In this case, Democrats still fall short of a majority of the vote, reaching 48.8 percent. While this outcome would be remarkable given past recent elections, it would still leave the Democrats short of the governorship. The numbers show that in Texas, even the most ideal Democratic candidate with the most ideal turnout will still likely fall short of victory.

Although things are looking up for Democrats in Texas, they are still a long way off from taking the state. If Democrats want to speed up the process, the path towards turning Texas blue cannot rely solely on Hispanic voters, but must also focus on increasing support among whites, while not alienating Hispanic and African American voters. If Democrats can increase white support levels to 35 percent, a 9-point increase from the average in 2006 and 2008, while continuing to maintain their current advantage among Hispanic and black voters, the baseline Democratic coalition would reach 48 percent of the electorate by 2020. Although a blue Texas will eventually happen if voting patterns and trends continue, Democrats should be careful and not place unrealistic hopes on Senator Davis, or any other Democrat, to deliver in 2014.

There are three things wrong with this analysis.

1. Not to be nitpicky, but the Democratic high-water mark in recent elections is 45.88% in 2008, by Supreme Court candidate Sam Houston. It’s true that Dems fell back from that mark in 2012, thanks to a combination of lower Dem turnout that was commensurate with national results, lower rates of Republican undervoting in downballot races, and fewer ticket-splitters, but if you’re going to make a simple factual claim like that, you could at least spend a few minutes on the Secretary of State Election Returns page and verify that claim. I ain’t asking for much here.

2. That “rosiest possible scenario” is actually a winning scenario for Democrats. You don’t actually need a majority – fifty percent plus one – to win an even-year general election race in Texas. All you need is the most votes. The reason why this makes a difference is that in the vast majority of statewide races there is at least one third-party candidate, and the average third-part vote amounts to about three percent of the total. When there’s only 97% of the vote to split between the R and the D, 48.5% is enough to win. In fact, if you look at all of the races since 2002 in which there was at least one third party candidate, that “rosiest possible scenario” 48.8% would have won a large majority of the time:


Year        Race  Third%  Min Win%
===================================
2010    Governor   2.72%     48.64%
2010      Lt Gov   3.37%     48.32%
2010    Atty Gen   2.27%     48.87%
2010   Land Comm   3.04%     48.48%
2010     Ag Comm   3.37%     48.32%
2010     RR Comm   4.35%     47.83%
2010    Sup Ct 3   2.85%     48.56%
2010    Sup Ct 5   2.98%     48.51%
2010    Sup Ct 9   4.03%     47.99%
2010       CCA 6   2.89%     48.56%

2008   US Senate   2.34%     48.83%
2008     RR Comm   3.51%     48.26%
2008   Sup Ct CJ   3.10%     48.45%
2008    Sup Ct 7   3.02%     48.49%
2008    Sup Ct 8   3.04%     48.48%
2008       CCA 3   2.82%     48.59%
2008       CCA 4   3.28%     48.36%

2006   US Senate   2.26%     48.87%
2006      Lt Gov   4.35%     47.83%
2006    Atty Gen   3.25%     48.38%
2006 Comptroller   3.51%     48.26%
2006   Land Comm   3.90%     48.05%
2006     Ag Comm   3.44%     48.28%
2006     RR Comm   4.22%     47.89%
2006    Sup Ct 2   4.06%     47.97%

2004     RR Comm   3.59%     48.21%

2002   US Senate   1.36%     49.32%
2002    Governor   2.21%     48.90%
2002      Lt Gov   2.19%     48.91%
2002    Atty Gen   2.18%     48.91%
2002 Comptroller   2.91%     48.55%
2002   Land Comm   5.35%     47.33%
2002     Ag Comm   2.63%     48.69%
2002     RR Comm   3.69%     48.16%
2002   Sup Ct CJ   1.83%     49.09%
2002    Sup Ct 1   2.35%     48.83%
2002    Sup Ct 2   1.75%     49.13%
2002       CCA 1   3.18%     48.41%
2002       CCA 3   1.73%     49.14%

“Third%” is the percentage of the vote that went to Libertarian and/or Green candidates. “Min Win%” is the minimum percentage required to have won that race, given the third party share of the vote. Of the 40 races shown, 48.8% would have been enough to have won 27 of them, and eight of the thirteen losers were in 2002. Note that I did not include the 2006 Governor’s race, which had five candidates counting the Libertarian and which was won by Rick Perry with 39%. Author Stefan Hankin intended this “rosiest” scenario to demonstrate just how hopeless things are for Dems right now, but actually proved the opposite. A Dem who could get to 48.8% of the vote has close to a 70% chance of winning, historically speaking, and that’s probably an underestimate given more recent trends. Just getting to 48% would have won six of these forty race, or a 15% chance. That’s better odds than Vegas will give you. I’m not saying it would be easy to get to 48.8% of the vote. Heck, I’m not even saying there is a path to 48.8% of the vote. But if there is one, I’ll take my chances with it. The hill is steep, but it’s not as steep as Stefan Hankin portrays it.

3. Since we’re talking about off-year elections, it’s important to remember that Republican turnout is a variable as well. Remember, in 2006 Republicans not named Rick Perry collected between 2.1 million and 2.6 million votes. In 2010, the range was 2.7 million to 3.1 million, and in 2002 it was 2.3 million to 2.9 million. The level of base Republican turnout will be a huge factor. I believe demography, enthusiasm, and the efforts of Battleground Texas et al are capable of pushing Democratic turnout into the 2.1 million to 2.3 million range, with the possibility of more if the intensity level can be maintained. (Less is also a possibility, perhaps the most likely possibility, but we’re being optimistic for these purposes.) A good candidate may be capable of taking 100,000 or more votes from the Republican – Bill White took over 200,000 votes from Rick Perry in 2010. Hillary–mania aside, Dems’ chances in the short term may be better in an off year race because Republican turnout isn’t going to be maximized, and there’s more slack to pick up people who do vote in Presidential years but not other years. That’s basically what the Rs did in 2010, after all. Obviously, Dems can’t control the level of Republican turnout, but there’s no need to fear it or to expect it to be optimized.

It’s been three weeks since the Wendy Davis filibuster that got Texas Dems (and Dems elsewhere) all fired up and talking about turning the state blue, and after a slew of articles that fawned over Davis and the newfound activist energy in the state we’ve had the inevitable backlash stories apparently meant to pop the balloons. Besides this one, there’s been not one, not two, but three stories in the Trib reminding us, as if we didn’t already know it, that Texas is a red state and that Democrats face many difficult challenges in changing that. I suppose there are a few Dems here who have their heads in the clouds, but most of us quite familiar with all this, thanks. Difficult is not the same as impossible, however, and if we’ve learned anything over the past decade it’s that no two election cycles are the same. No one had ever seen half a million Presidential year voters come out in a midterm election until it happened in 2010. No one expected Team Obama to replicate its 2008 success with low-propensity voters in 2012 until it did. The safe bet is that things will be as they have been, until the day that they aren’t. It is tough to talk about what may happen with Democrats in Texas in 2014 right now because so far none of them have announced their candidacy for any statewide office. It may well be that 2014 will be another same-old same-old year for Dems, with little more than small-bore gains in the Legislature and local governments attempted. Or it may be something completely different. The past will tell us something about the future, but it won’t tell us everything.

Posted in Election 2014 | Tagged Battleground Texas, Election 2002, Election 2004, Election 2006, Election 2008, Election 2010, Election 2012, Election 2014, Governor, Latino voting, Rick Perry, Texas, turnout, Wendy Davis | 5 Comments

Uber

Posted on July 23, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Mark me in favor of this.

A smartphone app could be the subject of the year’s most spirited regulatory battle at City Hall, as lobbyists line up for a fight that pits taxicab companies against a car-service technology company called Uber.

The firm’s entry into more than 20 U.S. cities has sparked lawsuits and cease-and-desist letters from taxi owners concerned for their livelihoods and regulators accusing the firm of skirting the law. Uber says it is merely a broker between riders and drivers, using a smartphone app to make getting a ride more efficient.

Uber must seek a change in ordinance for its business model to work in Houston, said Uber CEO Travis Kalanick. Company representatives first met with city officials in May; a social media marketing push launched in recent days.

The service the San Francisco-based startup wants to offer in Houston is UberBLACK, which would allow riders to hail town cars – also known as black cars or sedans – using the Uber app, alerting the nearest participating driver to respond. The fare is based on speed and distance using each smartphone’s GPS technology, with the fare charged automatically to the customer’s credit card.

Drivers who want to participate are given smartphones with the Uber app installed, said company spokeswoman Nairi Hourdajian, and must pass a background check and comply with all city licensing rules. Drivers continue to work for their limousine company or themselves; they do not work for Uber.

Houston is the last major U.S. city in which Uber does not operate, largely because of the city’s “draconian” regulations, Kalanick said, calling the city’s rules typical of those negotiated by taxi companies to protect themselves at the expense of riders.

“I don’t think taxis in Houston are as readily available as other cities, and (I’d like) to have something like this where you can call, it’s on-demand, they’re there, they’re always very reliable, very respectful,” said Houstonian Natalie Petratis, who uses Uber when visiting her native Chicago.

Uber wants to drop the minimum fare for a sedan ride in Houston from $70 to $5.50; wants regulations changed to enable on-demand service, as opposed to rides arranged at least 30 minutes in advance; and wants to delete the four-car minimum required for new limo and sedan companies, among other tweaks.

This is a no-brainer to me. Regulations that inflate prices while limiting choices are regulations in need of overhaul. Christopher Newport of the city’s Administrative and Regulatory Affairs department correctly noted the parallels between Uber and things like pedicabs, REV Houston, and the Washington Wave. To that list, I’d also add food trucks and their ongoing fight to be allowed to operate downtown.

I have no issue with the cab companies working to protect their interests, and I’m sure Uber will be disruptive to them, but I see no reason to stifle this kind of innovation. I presume cabs continue to exist in the cities where Uber already operates. As such, I see no need to fear it operating here. Uber sent me some information about what has gone on so far and what they’re specifically seeking to change. Here’s the letter from Administrative and Regulatory Affairs that outlines the relevant ordinances; Uber’s response to ARA’s letter; and Uber’s briefing statement about what it does and where it does it. If all that doesn’t have you convinced, note that in addition to using Uber to arrange a ride, you can also use Uber to request an ice cream truck on demand. Need I say more? Hair Balls was on this as well.

Posted in Local politics, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles | Tagged black cars, cellphones, deregulation, food trucks, Houston, Houston City Council, taxis, Uber, Washington Wave | 6 Comments

Transportation bill heads to conference committee

Posted on July 23, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

There’s still that fundamental disagreement in approach to be worked out somehow.

Representatives from the House and Senate are preparing to spend the next week informally negotiating a compromise proposal to boost funding for the Texas Department of Transportation, with the goal of fully passing a measure by next Friday.

Senators convened briefly Friday to accept House Joint Resolution 2, a transportation funding measure passed by the House a day earlier. Senate Transportation Chairman Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, made clear that version was dead on arrival in the Senate by immediately amending the bill to replace its text with language similar to a proposal the Senate had passed earlier. Senators voted unanimously to accept Nichols’ amendment and then passed that new version of HJR 2.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst then appointed Nichols and four other senators — Kevin Eltife, R-Tyler; Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, D-McAllen; John Whitmire, D-Houston; and Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands — to represent the Senate in negotiations on working out differences between the two proposals. The House is not scheduled to convene again until Thursday, preventing House Speaker Joe Straus from formally appointing members to a conference committee on the bill until then. Dewhurst said he has arranged with Straus for members from both chambers to negotiate informally in the interim, with the hope that a compromise can be reached by Wednesday and presented to both chambers on Thursday.

“As of today, we have 11 days left in the special session to address some significant policy differences with the House on transportation … I believe that time is of the essence,” Dewhurst said.

They could have passed something in the last special session if Dewhurst hadn’t been so pigheaded about the abortion bill, but whatever. There is time to deal with this now, if there is a deal to be made. Time isn’t really the issue here, it’s whether or not the House and Senate can work out their differences. After that, if it happens, it’ll be up to the voters.

Posted in That's our Lege | Tagged constitutional amendments, David Dewhurst, rainy day fund, Robert Nichols, Senate, special session, The Lege, TxDOT | 1 Comment

Film incentive lawsuit

Posted on July 23, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

I can’t wait to see what happens with this.

A lawsuit filed by Austin-based filmmaker Robert Rodriguez and the production company behind his film Machete accuses The Texas Film Commission of denying agreed-to financial incentives after the commission decided the film was “inappropriate.”

Machete Chop Shop Inc. says in a suit filed July 13 in Travis County that the Texas Film Commission backed out of partially reimbursing the cost of the film after coming under fire for the film’s violence and depiction of Texans.

Before the movie was released in September 2010, anti-immigration groups were upset over the film’s trailer, citing its violent imagery and Robert De Niro’s cartoonish role as a senator who kills illegal immigrants.

According to court documents, the Machete producers’ application for a grant under the Texas Moving Image Industry Program was approved in May 2009, one month after Gov. Rick Perry signed the program into law at Rodriguez’s Troublemaker Studios in Austin.

At the bill signing, Rodriguez announced that the bill would allow him to make films in Texas, including Machete.

The complaint states that former commission head Bob Hudgins verified that the script complied with content requirements and also claims that an attached email shows Hudgins’ approval of the incentive package.

Once filmmakers knew they had additional state funding they increased their budget, the complaint says, banking on a state contribution of nearly $8 million.

Had filmmakers not had this funding, they would have made the film elsewhere, said the complaint.

According to my archives, the Texas Film Commission denied granting the incentives for the film in December of 2010; Hudgins resigned from the Commission in November of 2010. The complaint states that no other film has been denied funds post-production. I have no information on that, but I do know that at least one other filmmaker was turned away for fear than his movie would not portray Texas in a positive light. I’m just going to add this to my list of reasons why the whole Texas Moving Image Industry Program idea is a bad one that should be scrapped.

Posted in Legal matters, TV and movies | Tagged Austin, lawsuit, Robert Rodriguez, Texas, Texas Film Commission, Texas Moving Image Industry Program, The Lege | Comments Off

July 2013 finance reports for district Council candidates

Posted on July 22, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

We move now to the remaining Council races, which are the district races. Here are the July finance reports for candidates in District Council races. Please note that all reports now appear on my newly-published Election 2013 page. Refer to that page for future updates, candidate interviews, and so forth.


Dist  Candidate     Raised     Spent    On Hand    Loan
-------------------------------------------------------
A         Brown     67,446    29,633     46,674       0
A     Stardig *     56,650    21,206     60,439       0
A          Knox     41,666    13,139     35,624  12,500
A          Peck      4,481     3,526      9,163   5,000
A          Hale      2,670     3,438        137       0

B         Davis     52,600     7,990    104,820       0
B     B-Daniels      5,000     2,564      5,000   5,000

C         Cohen    128,064    33,716    106,696       0
C          Sosa

D       Boykins    150,155    52,262    100,592       0
D      Richards     37,108    10,318     18,294       0
D       Provost     20,916    17,618      2,378   9,000
D         McGee      4,560     4,570      1,369       0
D         White        780       780        780       0
D      Caldwell      2,725     2,234        490       0

E        Martin     53,950     6,225     23,710   5,000

F         Hoang     13,480     2,100     11,399       0

G    Pennington    185,500    44,455    249,059       0
G          Taef        150       755        150       0

H      Gonzalez     79,639    20,524     73,364       0

I       Mendez      94,632    43,092     12,048       0
I        Ablaza     27,230     4,574     16,582       0
I      Gallegos     16,945     7,649      9,295   4,379
I        Garces     18,917    13,195      4,272       0

J        Laster     66,403    12,916     80,858       0

K         Green

For reasons unclear, CMs Cohen and Green do not have finance reports posted as yet. I’m sure they will show up eventually. I was able to inquire with CM Cohen’s staff and get a copy of her report, which they had submitted on time; I did not get to do that with CM Green. There are several other candidates in District D, including Lana Edwards, wife of At Large #3 candidate and former State Rep. Al Edwards, and perennial candidate Larry McKinzie; I’ve just listed the candidates whose reports I could find. Let’s go through these in some more detail.

District A

Brown report
Stardig report
Stardig SPAC report
Knox report
Peck report
Hale report

Note that former District A CM Brenda Stardig filed two reports, one of which is for a special purpose PAC. That one had all the contributions and a portion of her expenditures, while the other one, which is the same basic form everyone else submitted, had the bulk of her expenditures. She’s clearly spending more on actual campaign outreach, which stands in contrast to her July 2011 report. Stardig took in $6,500 in PAC money, and also received $1,000 from Peter Brown, $1,000 from Rusty Hardin, and $20 from Orlando Sanchez.

I may have to recalibrate my estimate of CM Helena Brown and her odds of winning, because that’s a pretty decent haul she’s got. Only $4,750 of it was PAC money, which is less than what former CM Stardig got. You can look at that as the establishment being unwilling to back her, or as evidence of her ability to connect with individual supporters. She got no money from incumbent officeholders, but did get donations from activist types like Steven Hotze, Don Sumners, and Dave Wilson. Unlike last time, when she filed at the last minute and came out of nowhere based on pure disgruntlement and dissatisfaction with the incumbent, Brown has to run a “real” campaign this time around. Towards that end, she spent $9,600 on consulting services, mostly to an outfit called Colonnade. I don’t recall seeing that name on other forms, so we’ll see if this is their breakout moment, or their fleeting moment of fame.

Mike Knox also had a good report. Among his contributions were several with oddly specific amounts, which showed up more than once, including such figures as $92.25, $471.25, and six donations of $47.13 each. I have no idea what that’s about. $2,100 of his contributions were in kind. Most of his expenditures, including $2,900 for consulting services, were made from personal funds with the intent to seek reimbursement.

I’m puzzled by Amy Peck’s lack of fundraising success. You’d think the District Director for Sen. Dan Patrick would have more connections to utilize. She did receive $500 from SBOE Member Donna Bahorich, but there was nothing and no one of interest beyond that. In what may be a sign of a newer-generation approach to campaigning, she spent $463.05 on Facebook ads, and $438.90 on T-shirts. Make of that what you will.

Ron Hale contributed $730 to his campaign, and spent a bit more than $900 from personal funds.

District B

Davis report
Blueford-Daniels report

While at least two other district Council members have opponents so far (Cohen in C and Pennington in G), I consider first term CM Jerry Davis’ situation to be more like Brown’s than like theirs, since Davis won as an outsider in 2011, and there are members of the establishment in B that don’t like him. He has a credible opponent in Kathy Blueford-Daniels, who didn’t make the runoff in 2011 but was the Chron’s endorsed candidate in November. He’s definitely taking his task seriously, judging by his report. Of his contributions, $21,000 came from PACs, including $250 from Planned Parenthood PAC. I note that mostly because I don’t recall seeing anyone else receive money from them as yet. He also received $750 from Peter Brown. No major expenditures – mostly event sponsorships and other related expenses. The only entry I saw that had anything related to consulting in it was $8 for a birthday cake for his consultant. Awww.

Kathy Blueford-Daniels had nothing particularly notable on her report. She had $5K in pledges in addition to her contributions. She hasn’t been campaigning for long – I got a note to like her campaign Facebook page on June 25 – so perhaps her 30 day report will tell a different story.

District D

Boykins report
Richards report
Provost report
McGee report
White report
Caldwell report

This is Dwight Boykins’ fourth run for Council, and first time vying for a district seat. He finished third in At Large #5 in 1997, lost in the runoff to Gordon Quan in 1999, and lost to Michael Berry in At Large #5 in 2003. He’s clearly separated himself from the pack here, however. Of his astonishingly large haul, $14K of it is PAC money, with another $8,375 in business donations. He spent $20,051 on consulting fees, some of which were “field operations” and “printing expenses”. He probably doesn’t have to raise another dime the rest of the way, but what he can do is aim for 50% in the first round by flooding the district with name recognition-boosting ads.

Assata Richards’ total would have been a standout in some other years. As it was, she did receive $3,500 from Peter Brown, $1,500 from David Mincberg, plus another $324 in kind, $100 from Sue Lovell, and $50 from Sue Davis, who is one of the key members of Team Annise Parker. She spent most of her money on advertising – website design, push cards, yard signs, and the like.

Georgia Provost had the distinction of receiving a $1,000 donation from Ben Hall. She also put a lot of her money into advertising, but she was a bit more old school than Richards, with ads on radio station KCOH and in the Forward Times, in addition to push cards, yard signs, and robocalls. She also donated $25 to Battleground Texas, which bumps her up a notch in my estimation. The loan she received was from Justin Jordan.

District I

Mendez report
Abalaza report
Gallegos report
Garces report

Ben Mendez had the most complicated non-Mayoral report so far. Of his generally impressive total, $37,100 was in kind, most of which appears to be items for a fundraising auction. That includes items such as $100 for a yoga mat and $150 for an hourlong massage, both of which strike me as overvalued, though that doesn’t really make much difference to the bottom line. There were also in kind donations of $5K for website design and $3500 for campaign advertising/digital marketing, the former of which also strikes me as high. Most of the other reports had website design figures in the $1000 to $2000 range. Mendez also received contributions of $500 from State Rep. Ron Reynolds, and $100 from HCDE Trustee Erica Lee. He spent $19,500 for consultants.

Leticia Ablaza is back for a second try at District I, with a solid if not terribly interesting report. $7,660 of her contributions were in kind, and she received a $100 donation from At Large #3 candidate Chris Carmona. Not much of interest beyond that.

Neither Robert Gallegos nor Graci Garces did anything spectacular. Gallegos, a former staffer for now-Sen. Sylvia Garcia, received $500 from her and from Peter Brown, plus a few bucks from some current Garcia staffers. $2K of the loan he reported is from James Dinkins. Garces got $500 from Drayton McLane and spent $6,800 on consulting fees.

Other districts

Cohen report
Martin report
Hoang report
Pennington report
Gonzalez report
Laster report

The lobby made newest CM Dave Martin feel welcome, with $30,200 in contributions to him from PACS. He spent $1,500 on consultants.

I don’t quite understand why CM Al Hoang doesn’t have more campaign cash. Be that as it may, he got $7,500 from the PACs, and also spent $1,500 on the same consultants as CM Martin, Blakemore and Associates.

CM Oliver Pennington continues to be a fundraising machine. He got $30,900 in PAC and business donations, and many, many four-figure contributions from individuals, among them $1000 each from Patricia Dewhurst and Bob McNair. I just scanned his expenses since his form was so long, and spotted recurring fees of $3K to Sarah Tropoli (his daughter) and $2K to Richard Cron for consulting; $2500 and $500 to Walden and Associates for fundraising and office rent, respectively. Clearly, the fundraising fees are money well spent.

Also a prodigious fundraiser is CM Ellen Cohen, and she keeps that up here. In addition to $24,900 from PACs, she got $100 each from Kathryn McNeil, the campaign consultant for CM Stephen Costello; Sallie Alcorn, CM Costello’s chief of staff; and Sue Davis. She also got $100 from Ann Johnson, the 2012 Democratic nominee for HD134, Cohen’s former legislative seat, $500 from Peter Brown, and $20 from Stuart Rosenberg, Mayor Parker’s campaign manager.

CM Ed Gonzalez, my Council member, had another one of those solid reports that didn’t have anything terribly interesting to blog about. He took in- $28,500 from PACs and $20 from Stuart Rosenberg. He spent $8,321 on consulting fees.

Last but not least is CM Mike Laster, another solid performer. He received $250 from Peter Brown, $100 from Sue Lovell, $100 Rodrigo Canedo, who was one of his opponents in 2011, and the customary $20 from Stuart Rosenberg. He also got $31,750 in PAC money, and spent $4,644 in consulting fees.

And that’s all I’ve got for this report. Still to come are a look at the reports filed by people not running in 2013, a closer look at the Mayoral reports, and looks at the reports filed by officeholders and candidates in HISD, HCC, Harris County, and the Legislature. Did I mention that July was a busy time of year? As always, any questions or requests, leave ’em in the comments.

Posted in Election 2013 | Tagged Al Hoang, Amy Peck, Assata Richards, Ben Mendez, Brenda Stardig, campaign finance reports, Dave Martin, District A, District B, District C, District D, District E, District F, District G, District H, District I, District J, Dwight Boykins, Ed Gonzalez, Election 2013, Ellen Cohen, Georgia Provost, Graci Garces, Helena Brown, Houston, Houston City Council, Jerry Davis, Kathy Blueford Daniels, Leticia Ablaza, Mike Knox, Mike Laster, Oliver Pennington, Robert Gallegos, Ron Hale | 3 Comments

On Jon Buice and Paul Broussard

Posted on July 22, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Grits has a provocative guest post from Michael Berryhill, an author and journalism professor, about the murder of Paul Broussard, the way it has been portrayed by the media, and the effort of convicted killer Jon Buice to win parole for himself. It’s worth reading and thinking about, and it’s also worth responding to.

Paul Broussard

To the Readers of Grits for Breakfast,

Last summer I wrote a letter of support for the parole of Jon Buice, a young man who pleaded guilty to the stabbing death of a 27-year-old gay man named Paul Broussard in 1991. Buice comes up for parole again this summer, and chances are his case will again become a public spectacle. Broussard’s mother, Nancy Rodriquez and her ally, the Houston victims rights advocate, Andy Kahan, will continue to argue that Buice should serve 27 years, one year for every year his victim lived. What follows is a revised version of that letter to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles.

I became intrigued by his case during the summer of 2011 when his parole was approved and subsequently reversed after a great deal of publicity. I decided to make Buice’s case the subject of a graduate seminar in journalism at Texas Southern University, where I am associate professor and chair of the department of journalism. The title of our project was “The Death of Paul Broussard, the Parole of Jon Buice,” and the subtitle was “How the News Media Have Played and Were Played.” Six graduate students and I delved into the history of the case. In addition to researching the media history of Buice’s story, we interviewed Jon Buice’s father, Jim Buice; the gay activist who drew media attention to the Broussard’s murder, Ray Hill; and the victims’ activist who is determined to keep Buice from obtaining parole, Andy Kahan.

Our goal was to understand how the news media works: how Hill used the news media to see to it that Buice and other young men who were with him were characterized and captured, and how Kahan has used the news media and politicians to see to it that Buice continues to stay in prison. Jon Buice is caught in the middle, as is, I believe, the parole board.

The theme is this: What is the meaning of forgiveness, legally, morally, religiously, ethically and politically? And how will the Texas parole board respond to the pressures of politics and publicity in this case? Will it do the right thing?

This story is about messages, and Andy Kahan, the City of Houston victims’ advocate said it best during an interview in November 2011. Kahan took credit for the reversal of Buice’s parole in the summer of 2011. He is proud of doing whatever it takes in using the news media to make Buice an example of his power. During our interview he questioned whether Buice should even be brought up for parole annually.

“It’s disappointing there haven’t been more setoffs,” Kahan said. “I’ve been barking in the media about this.”

Paroling Jon Buice “sends the wrong message,” Kahan said. But question is who is supposed to receive that message? Does paroling Jon Buice send the wrong message to teenaged boys out on a drunken night on the town? Are kids like this likely to even know of Jon Buice, much less connect his tragic actions to themselves?

[…]

The question the parole board has to answer, is not whether Andy Kahan will create so much bad publicity and political pressure that Buice should be held longer. The question is whether imprisoning Buice longer serves any purpose in his rehabilitation. Is Buice likely to come out of prison and commit a similar crime? Is he a rabid hater of homosexuals who will return to the Montrose and look for someone to kill? Who is Jon Buice today?

We know a few things for certain about him. At the age of 17 he pleaded guilty to stabbing Paul Broussard in a Montrose parking lot near a gay nightclub called Heaven. On July 4, 1991 Buice and nine other friends had driven in two cars from their homes in the Woodlands to the Montrose area. They had been drinking heavily and taking drugs. They challenged three men walking down the sidewalk and got into a fight and chased the men. Paul Broussard, 31, was cornered in a parking lot, and was defending himself well. Buice took a pocket knife and stabbed Broussard twice.

Broussard lay conscious on sidewalk for a long time before the EMS showed up. He asked the drivers to take him to the St. Joseph Hospital Emergency Room rather that one of the better-known trauma hospitals such as Ben Taub. According to medical records, it took several hours for Broussard to be diagnosed. He had showed few signs of external bleeding, but was bleeding internally and died the next morning, some would argue from medical negligence as well as the stab wounds.

The question about the mission of the Parole Board is a valid one, and I have no particular sympathy for Andy Kahan. What I find most interesting about Berryhill’s essay is that while he on the one hand condemns “the media” for sensationalizing aspects of the murder, he himself does a pretty good job of minimizing aspects of the murder. Consider:

“Paul Broussard, 31, was cornered in a parking lot, and was defending himself well.” Defending himself against ten attackers who were trying to kill him. Would it have made any difference if Broussard had curled into a fetal position instead, crying for his God and his mother to save him? Would it have made any difference if Broussard had managed to land a few good punches against his attackers, perhaps bloodying a nose or breaking a jaw before Buice stabbed him to death? To imply that this was somehow a fair fight seems more than a little slanted to me.

“Broussard lay conscious on sidewalk for a long time before the EMS showed up. He asked the drivers to take him to the St. Joseph Hospital Emergency Room rather that one of the better-known trauma hospitals such as Ben Taub.” The implication here is that Broussard couldn’t have been that badly hurt, even if he didn’t have the strength to get up. Berryhill is pushing the idea that Broussard himself bears some responsibility for his death. Let that be a lesson to the next poor soul who gets jumped by ten thugs from The Woodlands: Be sure you know which hospital to ask for.

“He had showed few signs of external bleeding, but was bleeding internally and died the next morning, some would argue from medical negligence as well as the stab wounds.” Again, Berryhill is trying to deflect the blame. Some would argue he’s playing the role of defense attorney here and not media critic.

I’m not here to argue the facts of the case, or whether the media did in fact report some things that weren’t true. We can certainly argue about the effect of media and public opinion on the parole process. I’d agree that the Andy Kahans of the world play an outsized role in the process, and that parole boards should be better shielded from such pressure. But the facts as Berryhill presents them, once stripped of their own bias, just aren’t that compelling to me.

Recent stories in the Houston Chronicle and the Austin American Statesman have high-lighted the improvements to Texas parole. Texans have come to realize that incarceration is expensive and not necessarily the best option for many criminals. Wouldn’t it be better to have Buice out on parole earning a living and paying taxes, rather than costing the state at least $18,000 a year to house in prison?

[…]

If Buice had killed a man in a bar fight, chances are would have long ago been paroled. Most murders are crimes of passion, committed under duress and intoxication. But he did not commit an ordinary murder. He committed a publicized crime, a crime with labels and exaggerations.

By 2010, Buice had become an invaluable member of the work team at Wynne prison, which rehabilitated old computers. Microsoft had awarded him certificates for his technical expertise, certificates that would enable him to work in the free world. Prison officials at Wynne constantly called on him to help them with computer problems. He had completed an undergraduate college degree in prison and was in line to be accepted in a graduate program. His disciplinary record was good. He was doing everything the prison system expected of an inmate to win parole.

But Buice didn’t kill a man in a bar fight. He killed a man that he and nine of his friends attacked without provocation. It was a deliberate act, not a heat of the moment reaction. I absolutely agree that more incarceration in general is a bad thing that has contributed to massive overspending on prison building and way too many people being locked up for things that aren’t worth being locked up for. I agree that many inmates are served better by things other than being locked up, and I commend Buice for his efforts to make a better person out of himself. But rehabilitation and public safety aren’t the only aspects of incarceration. Punishment is a part of it as well, and I am not particularly sympathetic to the argument that Buice has been punished enough. Berryhill suggests that denying Jon Buice parole sends a message to other offenders that the system is unfair, and that if theirs is a highly publicized case there may not be anything they can do to help themselves. Some would argue that by denying him parole, there’s a message being sent to would-be offenders that the penalty for killing someone is greater than they’d want to pay. Which message will be heard more clearly is another thing we can argue about.

Posted in Crime and Punishment | Tagged Board of Pardons and Paroles, Houston, Jon Buice, Michael Berryhill, murder, parole, Paul Broussard, Ray Hill, Texas | 3 Comments

Judge assigned in complaint about Perry veto of Public Integrity Unit

Posted on July 22, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Moving along slowly.

Rosemary Lehmberg

A San Antonio judge on Tuesday was assigned to hear a complaint that alleges Gov. Rick Perry committed coercion, bribery and official oppression by vetoing funding for the Travis County District Attorney’s Public Integrity Unit.

Senior Judge Robert Richardson of the 379th District Court will hear the complaint, which was filed byTexans for Public Justice after the Austin American-Statesman reported that Perry threatened to veto funding for the unit unless embattledTravis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg resigned.

[…]

Lehmberg recused herself from hearing the complaint in late June, and it was assigned to Judge Julie Kocurekof the 390th District Court in Travis County. Kocurek then also recused herself, and on Tuesday, 3rd Circuit Presiding Judge Billy Ray Stubblefield assigned the case to Richardson, who was defeated in 2008.

See here for more on the complaint. I thought at first that the first sentence in that last paragraph above contained an error, then I realized that the complaint had been filed with the Travis County DA’s office, so of course Lehmberg had to recuse herself, and her office, from deciding whether or not it merited further investigation. I presume handing such things off to a judge is the standard procedure in this kind of situation. I have no idea what kind of hearing there will be, whenever one is set. Who actually presents the case for the complaint, and is there some kind of defense representative? If the judge decides there’s something actionable here, who would then handle the case? My guess would be the Travis County Attorney, but I have no idea about the other questions. I’d love to hear from the lawyers about that. Texas Vox has more.

Posted in Crime and Punishment | Tagged Bexar County, budget, District Attorney, Rick Perry, Rosemary Lehmberg, Texas, TPJ, Travis County, Travis County Attorney, veto | 7 Comments

Austin wins X Games

Posted on July 22, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Congrats, Austin.

The X Games are going from the glitz of Los Angeles to deep in the heart of Texas.

Athletes with skateboards and motorcycles will be competing in the Texas capital after ESPN announced Wednesday that Austin will be the next North American host city for the X Games.

“Austin over the last several years has really become synonymous with supporting big events,” said Scott Guglielmino, senior vice president, ESPN programming and X Games. “The music scene is fantastic. The night life is fantastic and definitely a young, active town.”

Austin also has the new Circuit of the Americas sports and entertainment complex, which will be the primary site for X Games Austin. The 1,500-acre complex opened in November by hosting the Formula One U.S. Grand Prix and held a MotoGP motorcycle race in April.

Austin was selected over three other finalists: Chicago, Detroit and Charlotte, N.C. There were initially 13 qualified bids for the Olympic-style selection process, with Austin picked to host for four years starting next May 15-18.

“X Games is a great action sports competition and is an ideal fit for the city of Austin, which has a tremendous fitness orientation, a tremendous action sports community,” said Steve Sexton, president of Circuit of the Americas.

See here for some background. Well done, Austin. Hope you enjoy the experience. If nothing else, at least you’ll have something else to complain about after SXSW ends.

Posted in Other sports | Tagged Austin, ESPN, Texas, X-Games | Comments Off

Weekend link dump for July 21

Posted on July 21, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

“Because [Rex] Reed makes no efforts to hide the fact that he’s a big, snotty baby, the whining id of white male privilege, there’s little reason to take him, or by extension any other critic, as an authority.” That’s from an article defending him, by the way.

If you’re deliberately hurting someone, you have no grounds to complain about how they point this fact out to you.

Even factoring out his “Oops” moment, Rick Perry would not have been a strong Presidential candidate in 2012. He won’t be a strong Presidential candidate in 2016, either.

Microsoft is imitating Apple in new and innovative ways.

The legend of Johnny Football continues to grow.

JK Rowling publishes pseudonymously successfully.

At least the war on childhood obesity appears to be going well.

I suppose if I were in Antarctica for the long term, I’d get drunk often, too.

How not to be a creep at conventions.

Wal-Mart is still awful, in case you were wondering.

If you thought that Sharknado needed to be debunked, you missed the point by a lot.

“Carrying a deadly weapon in public should carry unique responsibilities.”

I don’t get the whole smart watch thing. Most devices have clocks in them, and they will all have bigger screens than the smart watch. What exactly is the point?

If you think mosquitoes like you, you’re probably right.

Another reason to not eat at McDonald’s, if you needed one.

If you like lead poisoning, you’ll love the Congressional Republicans’ budget.

“The odds that a white-on-black homicide is ruled to have been justified is more than 11 times the odds a black-on-white shooting is ruled justified”.

“The cubs are the first giant pandas to be born in the U.S. in 2013 and the first twins to be born in the U.S. since 1987.”

“Like it or not, the Hispanic media perceives that approving or rejecting immigration reform is in the hands of John Boehner. When you listen to local radio stations and even national media, most of us are concentrated on John Boehner. We don’t even have a problem pronouncing his name.”

Don’t forget Anita Martini when you talk about the history of female sports journalists.

RIP, Talia Castellano. Cancer truly sucks.

If you log onto your Tumblr account on your iPhone or iPad, you’ve been sending your password in clear text. Better get it fixed ASAP.

Giving balanced coverage to fringe beliefs is the worst way to do it.

“You know the stereotype of the arrogant Porsche driver? Well, science says there’s some truth to it.”

Jose Canseco, comic book hero? I’ll stick with Batman, thanks.

Oh, who needs education, anyway?

“F–k it, I’m going to tell you how Sherlock survived … I know you guys like your spoilers and I feel so much better telling you. Freedom!”

Ted Cruz wins by losing. I say he can keep it up.

Nate Silver signs a free agent contract with ESPN.

RIP, Helen Thomas, longtime White House journalist.

Posted in Blog stuff | Tagged linkdump | 1 Comment

Petitioning for Early To Rise

Posted on July 21, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

This arrived in my inbox a couple of days ago:

With only two weeks to go, we really need your help! We are working to get an initiative on the ballot in November 2013 to fund the Early to Rise Program.

The Early to Rise is a program designed to help young children up to age 5 get ready for Kindergarten through increasing the quality of early childhood education in Harris County. Here’s how you can help:

1. Get the petition, sign it, complete it and MAIL it back or CALL US (713-614-8812) and we’ll pick it up!

–OR–

2. Get the petition, sign it, complete it and pass it around among your friends and coworkers who are registered voters in Harris County. Then MAIL it back or CALL US (713-614-8812) and we’ll pick it up!

3 Vote for the program on November 5^th, 2013.

Early to Rise Flyer (more Information on the program)

Early to Rise Petition (the Petition itself)

Petition Instructions (more instructions on the petition)

Please call Eva Calvillo at Texans Together at 713-782-8833 or email Eva Calvillo If you have any questions about these materials or need help in getting started.

You can mail signed petitions to:

Texans Together Educational Fund
P.O. Box 1296
Houston, Texas 77251

It’s time to stand up for toddlers in Harris County and we can on the November ballot!

See here and here for the background, and here for more on the petition effort. Lisa Falkenberg notes the rather convoluted politics of all this.

Ed Emmett should have been one of the first people to find out about a petition drive seeking to put a penny tax on the November ballot to improve early childhood education and teacher training in Harris County.

After all, as county judge, he’s the guy the petition directs to place the tax increase generating $25 million a year on the ballot.

But Emmett got the news from another source: “Gwen, my wife, comes in and says ‘I just got an e-mail asking me to sign a petition to the county judge.’ And I’m going ‘what?’ Obviously, I didn’t know anything about it.”

While the lack of heads-up signaled disorganization to Emmett, it was the petition’s reliance on an antiquated state law, the unchecked administrative role of a private nonprofit, and the requirement that the tax be collected by the politically controversial Harris County Department of Education that led Emmett to brand the initiative a “fiasco.”

“This has been handled politically about as poorly as any issue I’ve ever seen in my life,” he told me a few weeks ago in a phone interview.

I followed up this week to see if this thinking had “evolved” since he’s been able to talk with interested parties.

Yes, he told me. He’d gone from being “bemused and bewildered” to a point where he now says unflinchingly: “What they’re trying to do is just nutty. I can’t put it any other way. And I totally support doing everything we can for early childhood education. It’s put me in a real awkward situation.”

Falkenberg noted that there was going to be an open house by Early To Rise, the group behind this effort, on Friday. The Chron covered that as well, including an appearance by Judge Emmett, attending on his own.

The newly formed nonprofit Harris County School Readiness Corp., with the help of a variety of organizations and paid canvassers, has gathered about 40,000 of the 78,000 petition signatures it says it needs to require Emmett to put a 1-cent property tax hike on the upcoming election ballot. The increase would generate $25 million a year for a program called “Early to Rise,” designed to improve child-care centers in the county serving children up to age 5 by training teachers and buying school supplies.

“There’s been an outpouring of support,” said Jonathan Day, a member of the corporation’s board and a former Houston city attorney, expressing optimism the group will meet its mid-August deadline.

[…]

The statutes say Emmett would have to call an election to increase the property tax rate of the Harris County Department of Education if he receives a petition with a sufficient number of signatures.

Emmett said he has asked the county attorney’s office for an opinion on the petitioning laws and plans to ask the state attorney general for the same. First Assistant County Attorney Robert Soard said his office has concluded that the laws are “still applicable” but that the final opinion may not reflect that “in light of a whole lot of statutes that apply to this situation.”

Day conceded the laws no longer are codified but says they still apply.

“We hope that he’ll reconsider,” said Day, who criticized Emmett for not offering an alternative to the proposal on Friday when his group, whose membership includes former Houston first lady Andrea White, held its first formal information session at the United Way of Greater Houston, which co-hosted the event with the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University and the Center for Houston’s Future.

“I think we have to come up with a better answer,” said Emmett, who went to the session to share his position with the dozens of attendees.

I really don’t know what to make of all this. I support doing everything we can for early childhood education, too, but I understand Judge Emmett’s concerns. The likelihood of a lawsuit, whatever County Attorney Vince Ryan and AG Greg Abbott say about the law in question, is basically 100%. There are still questions about governance of this program, if it comes to be; HCDE Board of Trustees Chair Angie Chesnut has said she can’t support it if HCDE doesn’t get to name at least one member of the corporation. Judge Emmett has pointed out that the one penny tax increase in the plan would make what HCDE levies exceed its statutory maximum, which will likely be another lawsuit magnet. There’s just so many questions to be answered. The goal of universal early learning programs is laudable and worthwhile. The path to get there has been strange, to say the least.

All questions about this aside, the fact remains that as with the New Dome Experience plan, petitions would have to be collected and certified in time for the item to be placed on the November ballot. They have a bit more time since Commissioners Court won’t be involved, but the signatures still need to be verified, and that takes time. The information is there if you want to participate, or go to the Early To Rise Facebook page for more. If this gets to the ballot, will you vote for it? Leave a comment and let me know.

Posted in Election 2013 | Tagged Commissioners Court, Early To Rise, Ed Emmett, Election 2013, Harris County, Harris County School Readiness Corp, HCDE, petitions, pre-kindergarten, property taxes, Texans Together | 3 Comments

Ashbys all over

Posted on July 21, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Here’s that Chron story that I mentioned yesterday, which talks about increasing neighborhood resistance to multi-story residential projects in areas that mostly have single-family houses.

Tension mounted as 20 or so Morrison Street residents, armed with city documents and Internet research, squared off with a developer building a midrise apartment complex in their midst.

In a small music room at the Zion Lutheran Church, the residents and developer Terry Fisher debated whether the Woodland Heights neighborhood, known for its century-old bungalows and quirky charm, would be diminished by the apartments.

“It’s a wonderful neighborhood,” Fisher agreed at the meeting last month. “We saw a lady walking down the street with a St. Bernard, twirling a leash with the sun setting behind. It was a revelation that I should build in that location.”

For an hour, neighbors pressed Fisher about traffic, potential sewage problems and property values. One neighbor stormed out; another allowed that she had no plans to be “professional or courteous.”

Fisher kept stressing that he broke no city rules and had every right to develop the property into a five-story, 36-unit apartment complex. Construction is underway and expected to be completed in eight to nine months.

“I moved to Spring for the specific reason I don’t want to live next to a high-rise,” Fisher told the room at one point. “At the end of the day, there is no zoning in Houston.”

“I’m not rolling over anyone,” he continued. “I’m building what is legal for my lot.”

That blunt answer is being invoked more often, as pent-up demand gives way to building projects across the city and into the suburbs – and as neighbors fight back, worried about the impact of the new, often high-density projects.

As I said yesterday, the key issue here is one of location, just as it has always been with the infamous Ashby Highrise. Morrison is a little side street. It’s surrounded by houses. A five story apartment complex will stand out like a zit on a forehead. The developer, who from what I understand is as charming as he comes across in this story, doesn’t care that people bought into this neighborhood for the same reason he moved to Spring. It’s not his problem, and other than putting up websites and Facebook pages, there’s not much anyone can do about it.

I suppose there is one thing that could eventually do something about development like this, and it inevitably comes up in the comments to this post on the Blight In The Heights Facebook page. I’m talking about zoning, of course, that magic yet forbidden word in Houston that means what you want it to mean. We couldn’t have another charter referendum until May of 2015 at the earliest, so even if such a movement were to take place it would happen far too late to affect a project like this. I don’t expect such a thing to happen, and I’m not sure I’d support it if it did, but I bring it up to note that the last time there was an effort to enact zoning in Houston was 20 years ago, and as Campos notes, the vote for it didn’t lose by much. I have no idea what such a vote would look like now, in a very different Houston.

That makes for interesting speculation, but not much more. In the meantime, this is the reality. I think the best you can hope for as a resident near this thing is that it will fail as a business venture, which might have the effect of making other developers a little more leery about building in places where they’re really not wanted. I still don’t know why anyone would want to live in a place like the Ashby Highrise when they must know how much all their neighbors hate it. Maybe after it and the Morrison complex are built, we’ll find out if that is a factor in the where-to-live decision making process.

Posted in Elsewhere in Houston | Tagged Ashby highrise, construction, density, Election 1993, Heights, Houston, zoning | 6 Comments

From the “Wooing Latino Voters: You’re Doing It Wrong” department

Posted on July 21, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Greg Abbott visits McAllen and gives the locals his best reason why they should vote for him.

Gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott called for unity between Republican candidates and Hispanics in McAllen on Monday, with the promise of being in South Texas much more.

As evidence voters should elect him governor in 2014, Abbott cited the 27 lawsuits he’s brought against the federal government as Texas attorney general, and he spoke of fighting against human trafficking in the Rio Grande Valley.

McAllen is in Hidalgo County, which in 2012 voted 70.3% to 28.6% for President Obama. Many of those lawsuits involve the Affordable Care Act, the environment, and the Voting Rights Act. Latinos – Hidalgo County is 90.9% Latino – are among the strongest supporters of Obamacare, and will be the main focus of its rollout, since so much of the nation’s – and the state’s – uninsured population is Latino. Latinos are also big supporters of having the EPA set standards to reduce air pollution, and of President Obama using executive power to fight climate change. And of course Latinos also strongly support the Voting Rights Act.

So go right ahead, Greg Abbott. Talk about those 27 lawsuits and how deeply committed you are to fighting President Obama and his efforts to expand access to health care, clean up the environment, and protect voting rights. I’m sure Latino voters will be listening.

Posted in Election 2014 | Tagged Barack Obama, Election 2012, Election 2014, Environmental Protection Agency, Governor, Greg Abbott, health insurance, Hidalgo County, lawsuit, McAllen, Medicaid, Texas, Voting Rights Act | 3 Comments

Remembering the bad old days

Posted on July 21, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

We’re headed back to them if the courts don’t intervene.

Dr. Howard Novick winces as he recalls treating two and three women a week for infections and complications from botched abortions. It was the early 1970s, before the procedure was legalized, and the experience persuaded him to devote his life to this area of medicine.

Now, more than 40 years later, new abortion restrictions passed by the Texas Legislature could force Novick to close the Houston abortion clinic he opened in 1980 because, he says, he does not have $1 million to $1.5 million to convert his run-of-the-mill medical office into a fully loaded surgical center with wide corridors and sophisticated air-flow systems.

“I have saved some women’s lives. They are so grateful we’re here for them and nonjudgmental,” Novick said. “I really feel a kinship for this.”

The legislation, passed late Friday following weeks of mass protests and a high-profile filibuster, allows abortions only in surgical centers, requires doctors who perform them to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals, dictates when abortion pills are taken and bans abortions after 20 weeks unless the woman’s life is in imminent danger.

Abortion-rights advocates argue the costs associated with converting clinics into surgical centers are so high they will force more than 35 clinics to close, possibly leaving only a handful of facilities across the vast state. In rural areas such as the farthest reaches of West Texas or the Rio Grande Valley, that could put the closest facility 300 or more miles away.

The law could also create a backlog so great in the remaining clinics that women seeking abortions will miss the 20-week deadline, said Amy Hagstrom Miller, president and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health, a company that runs five clinics in Texas.

Abortion opponents insist, however, that the new rules are designed to guarantee the best health care.

“All we’re asking for is better surgical care for women seeking these procedures,” said Christine Melchor, executive director of the Houston Coalition for Life.

[…]

Novick says the law is medically unnecessary. The Texas Medical Association, the Texas Hospital Association and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology agree.

“It’s been years and years since we had to send someone to a hospital,” Novick said of his clinic.

This has never been about safety, or women’s health. The unanimous opposition from doctors’ groups speaks to that, not that it had any influence over the Republicans. Remember, a big part of the strategy all along has been about delaying access to abortion as much as denying access to it. Waiting periods, sonograms, requiring multiple office visits, now requiring a doctor to dispense abortifacient drugs, it’s all about making it increasingly difficult to get an abortion early on, when it is the least invasive and thus the least medically risky. And of course, carrying a child to term and giving birth is far more medically risky than an abortion at one of Texas’ existing clinics.

Texans should be made aware of the state’s grimmest medical statistic: women are more likely to die from childbirth than from an abortion. That’s according to a study published in the February 2012 issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology Medical Journal. The study, conducted by Dr. David Grimes, a clinical professor in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, found that nationally the risk of death associated with a full-term pregnancy and delivery is 8.8 deaths per 100,000, while the risk of death linked to legal abortion is 0.6 deaths per 100,000 women. That means a woman carrying a baby to term is 14 times more likely to die than a woman who chooses to have a legal abortion.

In Texas, the statistics are worse. In 2011 Texas women died in childbirth at a rate of 24.63 per 100,000. “It’s alarming,” said Dr. Donald Dudley, Obstetrician & Gynecologist at the UTHSC San Antonio.

Texas should be seeing only about 5 deaths per 100,000 said Dudley, and the present rate is comparable to a developing nation.

Childbirth morbidity is seen as the most sensitive indicator of the general health of a population, especially in urban conditions.

In the last legislative session, two bills were passed and signed into law by Gov. Rick Perry, forming a Texas Childhood Morbidity Task Force and creating levels of care designations for hospitals that provide neonatal and maternal services.

The task force will look for answers as to why giving birth in Texas is so deadly. Researchers say they already know: lack of prenatal care; women giving birth later in life; obesity; diabetes, and lack of access to quality lifelong health care. The task force will gather the data to back those observations up.

The goal of HB2 is to force more women to give birth. State Sen. Dan Patrick, who I remind you is running for Lt. Governor, is quite explicit in his desire to end all abortions in Texas. It’s about the health and safety of the mothers, you see. What have he and his colleagues done to improve the health and safety of women who do give birth in Texas? Not a damn thing, and though their refusal to expand Medicaid they have actively worked to make it worse. Patrick and his cronies can say they care about women’s health all they want. Their actions speak very clearly otherwise.

Posted in Show Business for Ugly People | Tagged abortion, Dan Patrick, health care, health insurance, Medicaid, Texas, The Lege | 2 Comments

Saturday video break: Hazy Shade Of Winter

Posted on July 20, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Song #10 on the Popdose Top 100 Covers list is “Hazy Shade Of Winter”, originally by Simon & Garfunkel and covered by The Bangles. Here’s S&G:

This one I’d heard before – I’m pretty sure I knew The Bangles’ version was a cover of S&G back when I was hearing it on the radio in the 80s. I love me some S&G, and I like this version, but their enunciation on the phrase “hazy shade of winter” is…odd. Anyway, here are The Bangles:

It’s not easy to improve on S&G, but that’s what the ladies have done here. Their straight ahead rock and roll version, with a hint of 80s pop thrown in, just nails it. I wasn’t much of a Bangles fan back in the day, but their catalog has held up pretty well, and I really like the stuff Susannah Hoffs has done solo and with Matthew Sweet. I need to put some of this stuff on Olivia’s iPod, I think she’d like it as well.

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

We may have our first Democratic statewide candidate

Posted on July 20, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

And it’s John Cook, outgoing Mayor of El Paso.

Former El Paso Mayor John Cook will seek the Democratic nomination for Texas land commissioner in 2014, he told the El Paso Times Wednesday night.

“I think it’s an embarrassment to the city of El Paso, being one of the largest cities in the United States, that we’ve never had a candidate elected to a statewide office,” Cook said after attending a talk at the Wyndham Hotel by the Rev. Barry Lynn of Citizens United for Separation of Church and State.

There’s a brief video clip at the link, in which Cook adds that other than Judge Bill Moody, there have basically been no candidates for statewide office from El Paso. I’m glad he has decided to change that. Among the things Cook was known for as Mayor of El Paso was passing a domestic partner benefits ordinance, which led to a recall effort against him and two other Council members that he ultimately survived after a court threw out the petitions. The HuffPo had a great story about Mayor Cook and the fight he led for domestic partner benefits in El Paso.

John Cook

Deep in the heart of Texas, Cook has taken a stance on rights for gay and lesbian couples. And the former Catholic seminarian and Brooklyn native is arguing with his opponents in the words of a man who’s unafraid of a fight.

“To me this was always about bigotry,” Cook said. “Intolerance is bigotry.”

The path toward the recall efforts began in 2009, when the city council approved benefits for domestic couples — both gay and straight. Religious leaders quickly caught on, and in the ensuring firestorm they proposed a referendum to ban those benefits. It passed with 55 percent of the vote in 2010. But Cook wasn’t done just yet — with the help of most of the city council, he had a different partner benefits ordinance approved.

[…]

Cook said he is willing to fight — and in terms that might surprise some. He noted that “all of my education in New York City, all the way up through Saint Francis College, was in Catholic school.” He even spent a year in seminary after college.

“I read the Bible every day,” he said. “I’m challenging the argument that the other side is using, which is trying to make this a moral and spiritual issue. And if they want to argue on that basis, I’m very capable of doing that, too.”

More than 50 percent of El Pasoans do not have health coverage, he noted, and it would violate everything he stands for if the number of people who do have coverage decreased. And the government, he added, has no business enforcing an Old Testament moral code on its citizens.

“Where do I stop?” he asked. “Do I all of a sudden say … when you call 911 when you’re divorced, committing adultery, you ain’t going to get no ambulance or fire truck? And don’t expect me to pick your trash up, because that would be condoning sin?”

“It’s time for elected officials to start taking what they believe in and make it popular, not taking what’s popular and making it what they believe in,” Cook said.

I don’t know about you, but I could sure get behind that. Cook would of course be running against Republican cover boy/dynast George P. Bush. I wish Mayor Cook all the best and hope that he soon has plenty of company on the ticket. Texpatriate has more.

Posted in Election 2014 | Tagged El Paso, Election 2014, George P. Bush, John Cook, Land Commissioner, Texas, videos | 5 Comments

The Mexican abortion option

Posted on July 20, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Get ready for it.

At the Whole Woman’s Health center here, a young woman predicted what others would do if the state’s stringent new abortion bill approved late Friday forces clinics like this one to close: cross the border to Mexico to seek an “abortion pill.”

“This law will lead a lot more women to try self-abortion,” said Jackie F., a 24-year-old food server and student who was in the health center last week for a follow-up medical examination after getting a legal abortion.

The woman, who requested that her last name not be used to avoid stigma, was referring to a drug that can induce miscarriages and is openly available in Mexico and covertly at some flea markets in Texas.

In Nuevo Progreso, only yards past the Mexican border, pharmacists respond to requests for a pill to “bring back a woman’s period” by offering the drug, misoprostol, at discount prices: generic at $35 for a box of 28 pills, or the branded Cytotec for $175.

When asked how women should use the pills, some of the pharmacists said they did not know and others recommended wildly different regimes that doctors say could be unsafe.

“The women see it as “a pill to make my period come,’” said Andrea Ferrigno, a vice president of Whole Woman’s Health, which runs a network of abortion clinics. “Often in their minds, it’s not abortion.”

No question, if the new law is upheld you will see a large increase in border crossings for the purpose of acquiring abortion drugs. I predict that within six months of the law taking effect there will be a feature story about it in Texas Tribune. I also predict that if this happens there will be an even greater focus on “border security” by Republicans, in Congress and in Austin, to crack down on this practice. It’s just a question of who gets to author the bill that makes carrying misoprostol across the border a felony. Anyone disagree with me on this?

Lacking health insurance or fearing the stigma of being seen at an abortion clinic, thousands of Texas residents every year are already making covert use of this pill or trying other methods to induce abortions on their own, according to Dr. Dan Grossman, an obstetrician in the San Francisco Bay Area and vice president of Ibis Reproductive Health, a nonprofit research group.

When used properly in the early weeks of pregnancy, misoprostol, which causes uterine contractions and cervical dilation, induces a miscarriage about 85 percent of the time, according to Dr. Grossman. But many women receive incorrect advice on dosage and, especially later in pregnancy, the drug can cause serious bleeding or a partial abortion, he said.

The looming limits on legal abortion follow deep cuts in state support for family planning. Planned Parenthood clinics here in Hidalgo County do not perform abortions, but in 2010 provided subsidized contraception to 23,000 men and women at eight centers; as financing dried up, four of them have been closed. This year, the group will serve only 12,000 clients, and other organizations have not taken up the slack, said Patricio Gonzales, chief executive of the Hidalgo County chapter of Planned Parenthood.

If legal abortions become inaccessible in this part of the state, Mr. Gonzales said, “Planned Parenthood may have to step up” and try to raise $1.5 million or more to build a new surgery center that meets the requirements of the new law.

Lucy Felix, a community educator here with the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, said that many of the women she works with do not have legal residency and cannot drive north in Texas through Border Patrol checkpoints or even cross the southern border to buy the pill directly for fear that they may not be able to return to their families in Texas.

“The only option left for many women will be to go get those pills at a flea market,” Ms. Felix said. “Some of them will end up in the E.R.”

[…]

In a tour of the Whole Woman’s Health clinic here, Ms. Ferrigno noted some of the design and equipment requirements in the new law that would force the clinic to shut down. The clinic, part of a chain in Texas and other states, performs about 1,900 abortions a year using doctors that fly in from other states.

The clinic, like most in Texas, performs abortions only through the first 15 weeks of pregnancy, using medications or a suction method that takes 10 to 15 minutes and involves no incisions. The center uses donations to offer subsidies to many women, Ms. Ferrigno said.

The suite does not have the wide hallways required of a surgery center to facilitate the movement of stretchers in an emergency. In nine years and thousands of abortions, she said, the McAllen clinic has sent only two patients to the hospital, both for readily-treated bleeding.

Remember, this is all about the health and safety of women. Because Texas Republicans care so much about those things.

Posted in Show Business for Ugly People | Tagged abortion, Mexico, misoprostol, Planned Parenthood, Texas, The Lege | Comments Off

More construction on Yale

Posted on July 20, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

It’s Alexan Heights II: Midrise Boogaloo.

The first Alexan Heights on Yale

For residents near Yale and 6th street, Independence Day fireworks were nothing compared to the sparks flying when news of another proposed apartment complex came to light July 5.

A heads-up notification from District C Council Member Ellen Cohen’s office to various residents, land use groups and neighborhood organizations told of Trammell Crow Residential’s proposed plan to build a second upscale apartment complex in the area. Reportedly dubbed “Alexan Yale,” the development would be located on Yale between 5th and 6th streets.

The 4.9-acre site is currently home to Fixtures International and is a block south of TCR’s further-along luxury apartment project, Alexan Heights, which fronts Yale St. at 6th and 7th streets.

TCR did not respond to requests for information on the proposed Alexan Yale.

As described in Cohen’s letter, however, the new project is “expected to include four stories of units over two levels of parking, with one level of parking below grade. TCR has the site under contract and is currently performing preliminary due diligence, and they expect to close the purchase of the property by the end of the year. Once TCR establishes a site plan and unit count, they will perform a new traffic study that will include roadways and intersections included in their previous TIA, while also including new intersections on Yale St., Heights Boulevard, and I-10, as well as pedestrian counts.”

See here and here for some background. As you might imagine, neighborhood residents as a whole aren’t particularly thrilled by this. But there’s only so much that can be done about this, and there’s only so much that should be done about it. Dense development is coming, to the Heights and other desirable neighborhoods. It’s where people want to live, and there’s a lot more demand than there is supply. Condo and apartment developments like these help to fill the gap. Unlike the Ashby highrise, this is an appropriate location for a multi-story structure – Yale is basically a thoroughfare, and it’s right near a highway. If you can’t build a six-story complex there, where can you build them?

(Yes, I saw that Chron story yesterday about the five-story development on Morrison Street in my neighborhood that has my neighbors up in arms. I’ll have more on that tomorrow. That’s a completely different situation, since Morrison is a little side street and there are houses all around the property, while Yale is a thoroughfare and these lots are not close to many houses.)

I get why people are concerned about this. My advice would be not to fight this with the intent of trying to prevent it from being built, because that’s at best a longshot. I mean, if Ashby can get built, what reason is there to disallow this? What neighborhood folks could do, and should do, is engage with the developer and the city to push for some specific improvements that would make the overall development better and would help mitigate the traffic impact. For example:

– Good, sufficiently wide sidewalks running along Yale from at least I-10 to the bike trail at 7th. This is still a sore point from the Wal-Mart development, so let’s not make the same mistakes here.

– Install that pedestrian-controlled traffic light where the bike trail crosses Yale, which Trammel Crow has previously said they’d be willing to pay for.

– Talk to TxDOT about adding that dedicated right turn lane on Yale to I-10 westbound, which should help a bit with traffic flow at that light.

– Longer term, engage with Metro and Super Neighborhood 22 to ensure that the area will have suitable bus service as Metro redesigns its bus routes, and that when and if a rail or streetcar line is designed for the Washington Avenue corridor that this high-density cluster between Heights and Yale, and Koehler and 6th is taken into account as well.

This is unlikely to have a large effect in the immediate term, but it will be better than nothing, and it will position the area for future growth, since surely this is not the last such project to be planned – I mean, no one expects that orange juice distribution warehouse on the east side of Yale to be there forever, right? As I see it, it’s this or be forced to react to the announcement of the next project. You tell me which is preferable. Swamplot has photos of the development area, and Hair Balls has more.

Posted in Elsewhere in Houston | Tagged bicycles, construction, density, Heights, Houston, I-10, pedestrians, sidewalks, traffic, Yale | 6 Comments

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