It’s the Hotze Show again

Posted on April 25, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Oh, my God.

For old time’s sake

For over a decade, Americans with private health insurance have enjoyed free access to dozens of types of preventive health care: cholesterol medication, prenatal care, and many types of cancer screenings, as well as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), the “miracle drug” that prevents HIV infection. But on Monday, the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that could gut the part of the Affordable Care Act that requires insurers to cover these services at zero cost to patients.

Kennedy v. Braidwood Management is at least the eighth time the Supreme Court has weighed in on a major element of the ACA since the health law was passed during the Obama administration in 2010. The lawsuit—filed by a group of Christian businesses and individuals who object to PrEP on religious grounds and Obamacare on ideological ones—takes aim at the US Preventive Services Task Force, a panel of independent, volunteer experts who rate the effectiveness of different types of preventive care. The ACA requires insurers to fully cover services rated “A” or “B” by the task force.

Currently, members of the task force are appointed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. But the case being heard by the Supreme Court argues that the Constitution requires officials who wield that level of power to be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

The legal argument is highly technical, and oral arguments on Monday barely touched on the case’s potentially vast consequences for public health. If the justices agree with the plaintiffs, the task force and its recommendations for the last 15 years could be thrown out, and insurers could start denying coverage or imposing out-of-pocket costs on dozens of currently free preventive screenings and services—meaning many fewer patients would choose to get them.

“The people who are going to be hurt most are the people who can’t just pull out a credit card and pay full cost for a service, or pay a $50 co-pay or an $80 co-pay,” says Wayne Turner, senior attorney at the National Health Law Program. “It is a literal lifesaver for people to be able to have some early detection.”

Among the threatened services are free HIV screenings for all, and PrEP for those at increased risk of contracting the virus. While HIV has become much less deadly since the mid-1990s, when more than 40,000 people in the United States were dying of related causes annually, there are still nearly 32,000 new infections and 8,000 HIV-linked deaths in the US every year, according to the health policy think tank KFF. PrEP—first approved by the FDA as a daily pill in 2012—lowers the risk of acquiring HIV through sex by 99 percent, and through injection drug use by 74 percent.

But the drug can cost up to $1,800 per month, so when the Preventive Services Task Force gave it an “A” rating in 2019, making it 100% covered by insurance, use of the drug appears to have soared. In 2015, 3 percent of people recommended for a PrEP prescription got one; in 2022, 31 percent did, according to the HIV and Hepatitis Policy Institute. Kennedy v. Braidwood threatens to reverse this progress.

At the center of the lawsuit are a trio of Texans who have become conservative heroes in the culture wars against LGBTQ and reproductive rights: A powerful anti-LGBTQ activist, a lawyer known for masterminding Texas’ abortion vigilante law, and the judge they like to bring their cases to.

The lead plaintiff, Braidwood Management, is owned by 74-year-old doctor Steven Hotze, a Houston-area alternative medicine guru, conservative powerbroker, far-right activist, and Republican megadonor. As my Mother Jones colleague Tim Murphy has written, Hotze—a former anti-abortion lobbyist—has a history of being very publicly anti-gay going back to at least the 1980s, when he campaigned to make it legal to discriminate against queer people in housing and employment.  In 1985, he endorsed a mayoral candidate who said that the best way to fight the AIDS epidemic was to “shoot the queers.” Years later, Hotze crusaded against same-sex marriage, backing Texas’ statewide ban in 2005 and filing a Supreme Court brief in 2015 arguing that gay marriage was “against the Bible.” (Hotze did not respond to a request for comment.)

In 2020, Hotze—who had reportedly become fond of Covid conspiracies and QAnon slogans—allegedly paid a former Houston police captain over $260,000 to conduct a private investigation into voter fraud in Harris County. The investigator pursued the outlandish theory that an air conditioner repairman was using his truck to transport more than 750,000 forged mail ballots signed by undocumented Hispanic children, per a lawsuit filed by the repairman. So the investigator ran the repairman’s truck off the road, then held him at gunpoint while an associate searched the truck, which contained only air conditioner parts. Hotze was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, among other crimes, for his alleged role in commissioning the private investigation and knowledge of the ex-cop’s plan to confront the repairman. He has pleaded not guilty and says the prosecution is part of a conspiracy against him.

Now, he’s at the center of a case that could dismantle a key part of the ACA.

Hotze has sued over Obamacare before, challenging the law in 2013 on the grounds that taxation bills must originate in the House, whereas parts of the ACA were first introduced in the Senate. (He also released two techno tracks around that time, with lyrics like: “What would Davey Crockett do? I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to fight Obamacare.”) But lower court judges threw out the case, and in 2016 the Supreme Court declined to hear his appeal.

In 2020, Braidwood Management and other plaintiffs sued over the ACA again, this time claiming their religious freedom was being violated by the law’s zero-cost preventive services requirement. Hotze specifically objected to mandatory insurance coverage for PrEP medications, which the lawsuit claimed “facilitate behaviors such as homosexual sodomy, prostitution, and intravenous drug use, which are contrary to Dr. Hotze’s sincere religious beliefs.”

Representing Hotze and the other plaintiffs was none other than Jonathan Mitchell, the legal strategist and former Texas solicitor general known for crafting Texas’s “bounty hunter” anti-abortion law, SB 8, which cut off most abortion access in his state even before the fall of Roe v. Wade. Last year, Mitchell served as President Donald Trump‘s lawyer in front of the Supreme Court, arguing (successfully) against Colorado’s attempt to exclude Trump from the 2024 ballot.

For as great a city as Houston is, it’s like every single one of us violated a crypt or something in a past life, and we’re cursed with the existence of Steven Hotze as a result. I can’t think of a better explanation for it than that. I remember the 2013 lawsuit, but I missed the more recent one other than a brief mention in passing in 2022. Sorry, there’s only so much room in my brain for this asshole.

LawDork did us the favor of paying attention to the arguments. Good news, SCOTUS seems unimpressed by Hotze’s case, though for the uncomfortable reason that ruling in his favor would weaken the executive branch, which as we know is not something they like to do, at least not while a Republican is in office. The bad news is thus that defeating Hotze would give a boost to RFK Jr; I’ll leave it to you to read the analysis for why. This is why we can’t have nice things.

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Dispatches from Dallas, April 25 edition

Posted on April 25, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

This is a weekly feature produced by my friend Ginger. Let us know what you think.

This week, in news from Dallas-Fort Worth: protests; the Lemon on Stemmons; deaths at both the Dallas and Tarrant County jails; the firestorm surrounding a teen’s death in Frisco; a roundup of area election news; the latest on water plans and how locals can put their $0.02 in; more trouble in Irving around the Sands deal; a big step forward for Oak Cliff’s deck park; the Dallas connection of the Camerlengo, a major Catholic official who’s highly visible in the wake of the recent death of the Pope; movie and book news; and the ladies of Dallas get their bonnets on for the Arboretum. And more!

This week’s post was brought to you by the music of Kraftwerk, who I am going to see tonight and will have already seen by the time you read this post.

We have a grab bag, so let’s dive right in:

  • On April 19, we had a second mass day of protests in the Metroplex against the Trump administration’s policies. The DMN has the story of a number of the local protests after missing the last round completely; the Star-Telegram and the Fort Worth Report have the protests in Fort Worth. There was also a separate protest on April 15 against the detainment of Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia grad student whose jailing by ICE kicked off the current round of imprisonment of pro-Palestinian protestors and cancellations of student visas.
  • It looks like the city is going to sell “the Lemon on Stemmons”, the permitting building that was purchased without due diligence that turned out to be uninhabitable by employees. Per the DMN, the city didn’t have a proper process in place for acquiring the building and property investments of that size, so the City Manager is going to have to work on that. Meanwhile, the Stemmons building is for sale. More details from local real estate site Candy’s Dirt.
  • Speaking of building purchases, Dallas city council has also approved buying the old DMN building as part of the revitalization of the area around the Kay Bailey Hutchison convention center. The vote was 13-2, with Mayor Eric Johnson one of the holdouts. I hope they have a better plan for how to use this building in place.
  • And on the subject of Mayor Johnson and being on the downside of things, the DMN has an analysis of how partisanship will affect the May council elections. Council elections are officially nonpartisan but after the mayor’s change of parties, this year’s elections has seen both Republicans and Democrats express more interest in and put more effort toward the council elections with Republicans making sure as many seats as possible were contested. Republican gadfly Allen West is currently the chair of the Dallas County GOP; we’ll have to see if his strategies go anywhere. (If he thinks his candidate in D10, my council district, is a good candidate, he’s got a different idea of what good looks like than I do.) DMN political analyst Gromer Jeffers contributed to this report. It’s worth your time.
  • The DMN got five minutes to talk to new Dallas Police Chief Daniel Comeaux.
  • DMN editorial columnist Robert Wilonsky would like to ask Ken Paxton why, exactly, do you need to bring a gun to a concert? in response to his lawsuit to allow guns at Fair Park and the Majestic Theatre, where I am seeing that Kraftwerk concert tonight. I’m with Wilonsky, especially since the Majestic sells booze during these shows.
  • I mentioned the tragic death of Austin Metcalf at a UIL track meet in Frisco recently. That story continues across local front pages, not least because the suspect in the stabbing is a Black teen, Karmelo Anthony, and Metcalf was white. Both families have been harassed and Metcalf’s family members have been swatted twice. Meanwhile, an out-of-state organization called Protect White Americans rallied in the parking lot of the stadium where Metcalf died. The leader of the protest called Metcalf’s father, who, to his credit, told the protestors that he didn’t condone what they were doing. Local journalist Steven Monacelli covered the protest (Bluesky, also warning: photos of racist signs). The DMN’s editorial board thinks everybody is behaving badly (except maybe Austin Metcalf’s father, for telling off the white supremacists) and social media is to blame. I can’t say that but I have seen a lot of talk about it on the Dallas and Texas subreddits, with speculation about how the incident between the two youths started and why Anthony was in the wrong place and had a weapon in the first place. It’s an ugly and sad story; the DMN is right about that.
  • There was also a shooting last week at Wilmer-Hutchins High School in which four students were wounded after the shooter, another seventeen-year-old, was let in with his gun through an unsecured door. Students returned to school on Tuesday, a week after this shooting, which follows a previous shooting in which a student was wounded in 2024. The shooter is in the Dallas County jail, waiting for trial.
  • Back in March, an inmate named Andra Adkins died at the Dallas County Jail. The medical examiner’s office failed to perform an autopsy on the grounds that the inmate apparently died by suicide. The inmate also had a number of serious medical conditions. His death is being investigated by (sigh) the Tarrant County Sherriff’s Office, so at least someone is looking into it, as required by state law.
  • There has also been another death at the Tarrant County Jail: a 57-year-old woman with multiple health conditions. The Star-Telegram story is concise but not particularly informative; KERA has more and more context, including the reminder that this is the 71st death of an inmate in jail custody since Sherriff Bill Waybourn took office in 2017; the DMN story falls between the other two. This is the third death at the Tarrant County Jail this year. No cause of death has been released in any of the deaths.
  • On the subject of Chasity Bonner, who died last May in the Tarrant County Jail, we have some changing of stories about video evidence requested by the family and the press. The late release of the video is one of a long line of delays that Bonner’s family says is an attempt to wait out the deadline for a wrongful death suit.
  • It’s also been a year since Anthony Johnson Jr’s death in the Tarrant County jail and no trial date has been set for the two jailers accused of killing him. The civil trial is also in limbo.
  • Bolts Magazine also has a story about the Tarrant County Jail and all the deaths and investigations. Since 2021, more than two dozen people have died in the jail without the legally required investigations into their deaths following on. The whole article repeats a lot of things I’ve talked about here and draws it together very well. This one is also worth your time.
  • Moving on to election-related news: early voting has started and Dallas County is confident in its new pollbook software, the software that checks in voters. After the pollbook software failed in some precincts in the November election, the software was decertified and replaced by new pollbooks from KNOWiNK. KNOWiNK isn’t a new vendor; their pollbooks are used in 29 states and checked in about a quarter of the voters in last November’s election.
  • Frisco’s bond propositions for its new arts center are the hot topic in its election.
  • KERA asks who Families for Irving, the PAC behind city council candidates, is. The answer seems to be they’re an astroturf Republican group but KERA doesn’t tell us who’s funding them. That’s what I want to know.
  • The Mansfield mayoral race, which is nominally nonpartisan, features a nonpartisan incumbent and a challenger who’s rallying with Bo French, Allen West, and the True Texas Project. These nominally nonpartisan races in the Metroplex are all turning partisan over time.
  • Local blogger Mark Steger reports on the League of Women Voters candidate forum for Richardson City Council.
  • Meanwhile, Richardson first-day early voters had a ballot error that won’t affect the outcome of the vote: the four races that were omitted had only one incumbent candidate each.
  • 2026 watch: Rep. Jasmine Crockett raised $1.68 million in the first quarter of 2025. Not putting up with any crap pays off big.
  • The latest on the Marvin Nichols Reservoir planned to supply east Texas water to the Metroplex: East Texas has asked the Texas Water Development Board to declare the reservoir an interregional conflict and solve it.
  • Meanwhile, our north Texas 2026 water plan, covering the next 50 years, is open for public comment. Click through to find out about public meetings and how to comment online or by mail.
  • The Irving-Sands business dealings over the new resort the Sands folks want just got messier: an Irving resident has accused the Irving-Las Colinas Chamber of Commerce of making a backroom deal with the Las Vegas Sands Corp. to sell the Sands the old Texas Stadium site. The resident has filed a pre-suit discovery petition to gather evidence. The Sands deal is also a major factor in the Irving city council elections mentioned above; the DMN story at the link has context for the accusations.
  • Ken Paxton’s latest harassment of the EPIC City developers demands records of any contacts Plano ISD has had with the mosque. Nobody knows what he’s talking about.
  • Earlier this week a Denton County Commissioner and her husband were attacked by their 23-year-old grandson. She survived and was hospitalized; her husband was killed. The DMN has details of this tragedy and tributes to the commissioner, who is expected to survive, and her late husband.
  • Denton County put a faith-based nonprofit in charge of its homeless shelter and they’re not living up to their contract with the county. The county is also bad at dealing with homeless encampments.
  • On Earth Day, the city officially renamed the deck park over I-35 in Oak Cliff, near the Dallas Zoo. Halperin Park also got its first trees. This is an attempt to build the equivalent of Klyde Warren Park in Oak Cliff; the big question is whether the Zoo can anchor the park and provide regular parkgoers the way the Arts District does for Klyde Warren.
  • This week I learned that Amber alerts were originally suggested by a Fort Worth woman. Like most of us, Diana Simone now thinks Amber Alerts need reform to make them useful again.
  • North Texas had Weather over the weekend: nine possible tornadoes west of Fort Worth on Saturday night, five of which have been confirmed. In east Dallas, where I live, the thunder this week has been strong enough to rock my pier-and-beam 1960s home, which is a lot more impressive when the piers are made of brick than it is for piers made of wood.
  • The Camerlengo, a senior catholic official who acts as interim pope and prepares the papal conclave for the election of the new pope, is Cardinal Kevin Farrell, formerly the Bishop of Dallas. He was in Dallas from 2007 until he was called to the Vatican in 2016, where he served in a number of offices and advanced to the position of Camerlengo in 2019.
  • The Dallas International Film Festival starts this weekend and Texas Monthly has the scoop. It’s now an Oscar-qualifying festival, which has meant a lot more interest in exhibiting. In other local film news, our reputation as a movie town got us an advance screening of the new Marvel movie, Thunderbolts.
  • In other film-adjacent news, Texas Christian University plans to give Taylor Sheridan an honorary doctorate. Sheridan has been filming Landsman, based on a Texas Monthly podcast, in Fort Worth recently.
  • This week I learned that Melinda French Gates grew up in Dallas and graduated from Ursuline Academy. She was interviewed by D Magazine as part of the publicity for her new memoir.
  • Last, but not least, if you admire the crazy hats British women wear to Ascot, you’ll love the Dallas version: The Mad Hatter’s Luncheon at the Dallas Arboretum. The photos of the fundraiser are unsurprisingly over-the-top.
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Just another reminder that abortion bans kill women

Posted on April 24, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

In case you needed it.

Pregnant people living in states with abortion bans are almost twice as likely to die during pregnancy or soon after giving birth, a report released Wednesday found. The risk is greatest for Black women in states with bans, who are 3.3 times more likely to die than White women in those same states.

The Gender Equity Policy Institute, a nonprofit research and policy organization that put out the report, found that pregnancy-related death rates have increased in states with abortion bans since Roe v. Wade was overturned; meanwhile, death rates have declined in states that protect abortion access. The report found that pregnant Black women, White women and Latinas are all at greater risk of death in states with abortion bans than they would be if they lived in states that protect abortion rights.

“There are two Americas for reproductive-aged women and people who can become pregnant in the United States,” said Nancy Cohen, founder of the Gender Equity Policy Institute. “One America, where you’re at serious risk of major health complications or death if you become pregnant, and one where you’re most likely to have a positive birth experience, a healthy pregnancy and a healthy child.”

Researchers compared pregnancy-related deaths in states where abortion is almost completely banned and where it is protected. (The World Health Organization defines pregnancy-related deaths as ones experienced while pregnant or within 42 days of the pregnancy ending, and only if the death was “from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management.”) The report relies on data from the federal government’s National Vital Statistics Section, analyzing pregnancy-related deaths from 2019 through 2023. The data focused on people who identified as “mother” and did not specifically study pregnancy-related deaths for transgender and nonbinary people.

[…]

In Texas, the largest state to ban abortion, the trend is most pronounced: In 2022, the first full year Texas had outlawed most abortions, pregnancy-related deaths went up by 56 percent, the report found — a much larger jump than the national increase of 11 percent. In states with abortion protections, the report found pregnancy-related deaths declined by 21 percent since the end of Roe.

The impact in Texas was most visible among White women, who typically have far lower rates of pregnancy-related deaths — but who, in 2022, saw a 95 percent increase in deaths. In 2023, the report found, White women and Latinas in Texas were 1.7 times more likely to die because of their pregnancy compared to their peers in states with laws protecting abortion rights. This is especially stark when compared to pregnant people in California, which has the lowest rate of pregnancy-related death: Latinas in Texas were three times more likely to die, and White women were twice as likely.

“The spike in White maternal mortality in Texas is a canary in the coal mine, because White women typically have far lower rates of maternal mortality,” Cohen said. “We know from some of the reporting of individual cases in Texas that these are women with insurance, they’re middle class. And what it suggests is the breadth of the potential impact of abortion bans.”

Still, giving birth in Texas remains most perilous for Black women — who in 2023 were 2.5 times more likely to die because of pregnancy compared to White women in the state. Nationally, Black women in states with abortion bans are at the greatest risk of pregnancy-related death; the analysis found that among Black women, 60.9 die for every 100,000 live births, compared to 18.2 White women and 18.2 Latinas.

See here for the report. We have discused this subject before. This data is likely to be harder to come by now because of DOGEbag antics and the Trump administration’s hostility to science, medicine, and of course women. You can make the truth harder to find, but you can’t erase it.

On a related note:

A bill seeking to clarify Texas’ abortion laws has passed out of a Senate committee, with amendments attached that aim to appease criticism from the left and the right.

Texas law bans abortion except to save the life of the pregnant patient, with penalties of up to life in prison, $100,000 fines and loss of licensure. But the law is confusing and vague, doctors and hospitals say, forcing them to delay or deny medically necessary abortions for fear of triggering the strict penalties.

Senate Bill 31 is intended to clarify when doctors can legally intervene. It aligns language between the state’s three abortion bans, removes any requirement that a medical crisis be imminent before a doctor can act, and requires doctors and lawyers to undergo training on the laws.

The original bill was closely negotiated between anti-abortion groups and medical associations, but in the weeks since it was introduced, abortion advocates and conservative groups have pushed for changes to the language of the legislation.

One set of amendments addresses concerns about whether the clarifying bill would change the legal status of the state’s pre-Roe abortion statutes. These laws, passed in the 1800s, allow for criminal charges to be brought against someone who has an abortion, as well as anyone who “furnishes the means” for an abortion.

Some conservative lawmakers have argued these statutes are in effect and have threatened to prosecute abortion funds, nonprofit groups that help pay for Texans to get abortions out-of-state, under this statute, although a federal judge has ruled the law is likely “repealed by implication,” and their work is likely protected.

Abortion funds and other advocates worried that amending the pre-Roe statutes in this clarifying bill would serve to revive them. The amended version of the bill says the legislation is neutral on the question of whether the pre-Roe statutes are in effect, while legal battles play out to resolve that question.

The bill is written “solely to clarify statutory text and to ensure medical care may be provided to a pregnant woman in a medical emergency … without prejudice to, or resolution of, any question concerning any provision within” the pre-Roe statutes, the committee substitute says.

See here for the background. I don’t know enough yet to say whether the original concerns were adequately addressed or not. For obvious reasons, I don’t trust the bill’s author, and while the doctors’ concerns are very real, they’re not the same as the abortion rights advocates’ concerns. The Current covers this angle.

During a Tuesday press conference, members of the group Free & Just, said the Republican lawmakers behind the proposal agreed to amend it so it couldn’t be used to target pregnant people for criminal prosecution. The organization is made up of plaintiffs in the Zurawski v. Texas case, in which women who experienced severe pregnancy complications sued Texas to seek clarification on when abortions are permissible under state law.

“We are cautiously optimistic that once we see the language, and that hopefully when it passes, that this is a step in the right direction,” Texas abortion advocate Kaitlyn Kash said during a Tuesday press conference in Austin. “We still have a long way to go to ensure that what happened to me and my family and my friends and their families does not continue to happen.”

Kash, who was forced to carry her dead fetus for weeks as a result of the Texas abortion ban, is one of dozens of women who argue they have been denied necessary medical care due to the law.

[…]

After lobbying lawmakers Tuesday, Kash and other plaintiffs told reporters their concerns didn’t fall upon deaf ears — at least, not this time. She credited media coverage of the effects of the Texas abortion ban on their lobbying success.

“To be quite honest, people don’t want to see women dying, and so unfortunately, it took stories like Amanda [Zurawski’s] and the women that passed away to have an impact,” she added.

Zurawski, who attended Tuesday’s press conference, went into septic shock twice and was left with a permanently closed fallopian tube after doctors refused to perform an abortion on her fetus. The fetus suffered a preterm pre-labor rupture of membranes, but because it had a detectable heartbeat, physicians feared being criminally prosecuted.

“I am encouraged today,” Zurawski said. “When I was fighting for my life in the hospital for three days, I was terrified. My family was terrified, and to think that a family going through what we went through would also have to fear going to jail on top of potentially losing their child, their wife, their daughter is absolutely terrifying.”

That helps, but I’d still like to hear from more activists, including the abortion funds. Sorry, I’m just way too cynical here. Reform Austin and the Chron have more.

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Another Texas Lottery Commission director resigns

Posted on April 24, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Interesting.

Ryan Mindell, the embattled executive director of the Texas Lottery Commission, has resigned, according to a terse press release published on the agency’s website Monday afternoon.

Mindell’s departure comes almost exactly one year to the day after he took over the top job at the agency, in the wake of the abrupt resignation of longtime director Gary Grief. Prior to that, Mindell, an attorney, had served as deputy executive director, operations director and assistant general counsel.

Mindell could not be reached for comment. A spokesman for the lottery commission said the agency would have no further information because it does not comment on personnel matters.

State Sen. Bob Hall, an Edgewood Republican and a longtime lottery critic, hailed the move as a step forward. “I am in favor of doing anything that puts an end to lottery in Texas while we protect the money that was going to veterans,” Hall told the Austin American-Statesman. Most lottery proceeds — nearly $2 billion a year — fund public schools.

Despite his nearly decade-long tenure at the lottery commission, Mindell landed at the top spot at one of the most challenging eras the agency has experienced since the Texas Lottery began more than 30 years ago. Through bad timing, Mindell became the face of the commission’s growing problems.

The Houston Chronicle has spent the last year detailing a controversial Lotto Texas game in 2023, when a single buyer essentially purchased the $95 million jackpot by buying up virtually every possible number combination — 25.8 million in all. The big prize was worth a one-time payment of $58 million. Experts consulted by the newspaper calculated the winner — an anonymous corporation called RookTX — cleared more than $20 million after expenses.

As the Chronicle has reported, the big buy was arranged by a man from Malta and through a London betting company that was founded by a banker-turned professional gambler named Bernard Marantelli and a mysterious Tasmanian gambler named Zeljko Ranogajec, who had a history of buying, or trying to buy lottery draws.

Recently, the Wall Street Journal confirmed the two were behind the big Texas buy.

The bigger problem for the Texas Lottery Commission, however, was the agency’s role in abetting the operation. One of the organizers testified to legislators that when the gamblers first approached his company — a struggling online corporation called Lottery.com — for help carrying it out, he felt sure the state agency would say no.

“We fully expected that they would laugh at us and say, ‘Well, no, of course you can’t do this,’” said chief operating officer Greg Potts. Instead, the lottery commission gave its approval, Potts said.

[…]

As the new director, Mindell was left to face lawmakers’ growing wrath about the tilted lotto game, as well as the agency’s failure to corral couriers. In the first months of this year, it seemed as though Mindell was being hauled up in front of another legislative panel every week for yet another tongue-lashing.

In an effort to catch up and mollify lawmakers, Mindell changed lottery rules to prevent another bulk buy operation by professional gamblers. He also wrote new rules to prohibit courier companies from operating in Texas.

Legislators still have several pending bills to reform the lottery agency. One would ban players from acquiring “substantially all winning combinations.” Another would simply end the lottery.

Meanwhile, two civil lawsuits have been filed seeking to recover money from players who felt they were cheated out of money in the April 2023 game. Gov. Greg Abbott has ordered the Texas Rangers to investigate the 2023 game. Attorney General Ken Paxton has announced his office is also conducting its own inquiry.

See here, here, here, and here for some background. The Chron has done a lot of deep reporting on this story, not all of which I’ve blogged about, so read this article and follow its links to get the fullest picture. The thing to note is that outgoing director Mindell wasn’t the guy in charge when a lot of this was going down. He was trying to fix some of the problems that had been created, as the Trib story notes.

The lottery commission is also currently under review by the Sunset Commission. The commission, which reviews an agency before legislators choose to either pass a bill extending the agency or allow it to be abolished, criticized former director Grief in reports as comfortable operating in “gray areas” of the law to allow couriers to flourish in the state.

The report also stated, however, that evidence suggested Mindell had raised concerns about Grief’s decisions. In the wake of the “bulk purchase” of over 25 million tickets in April 2023, Mindell worked to implement policies restricting mass ticket printing, largely under the scrutiny of legislators. Mindell released a policy statement in February indicating the lottery commission now believed couriers violate current statutes, a switch from years of the agency’s claims it lacked the authority to do so.

“I think that when I became executive director, there were certainly things that I wanted to change about the tone, tenor and approach of the agency, and that’s what I’ve been focused on,” Mindell said during a House Licensing Committee hearing in March.

So I’m curious if Mindell was forced out for some reason, if he’d just had enough of this crap, or if there’s some other shoe about to drop. Maybe everyone was mad enough at the Lottery Commission that going full clean slate is the current consensus. Whatever the case, it’s interesting that it happened this way. Reform Austin has more.

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Former principal sues Miles and HISD

Posted on April 24, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Interesting.

A former Houston ISD principal has filed a $3 million lawsuit alleging defamation, emotional distress, and intolerable work conditions, among other claims, against the district, state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles, the appointed Board of Managers and a Houston-based law firm representing the district.

Jessica Berry, the former principal at Herod Elementary School, filed the complaint in March for the district’s alleged violation of employment law and requested $3 million in damages. The lawsuit also asks for sanctions against the district, board and superintendent, as well as the termination of Miles and the termination of the board.

Berry alleged eight counts: intentional infliction of emotional distress; defamation; falsification of books and records; that the district’s actions created intolerable working conditions violated state labor laws; Family Medical Leave Act violations; Texas Labor Code violations; and Texas Whistleblower Act and Department of Education Whistleblower Protections violations.

The filing references Berry becoming aware that Miles put half of the district’s principal on notice for low performance after the Houston Chronicle published an article about the list in spring 2024. (Community pressure ultimately led the superintendent to backtrack.) Her school’s executive director, ranking above her, told her on April 23 of that year that the district was not in compliance with operating procedures required by the Texas Education Agency, according to this complaint filed by the 11-year educator.

The filing also covers memos Berry received on April 23 and 24 from the district alleging six violations of Employee Standards of Conduct occurring from March 22 through April 24. This appears to reference notice she received for expressing concern to supervisors about printing special education documents with confidential information.

Her filing indicates the district told Berry to resign or be terminated by the board on May 8 and offered her three months of salary despite her contract already outlining that she could be terminated without cause upon the payment of her unpaid base salary for the remainder of her contract term, with a minimum of three-months base salary. Berry did not sign the May document.

On June 6, she sent a certified letter to Miles and the district’s general counsel, Catosha Woods, asking the district to remedy violations of the Family Medical Leave Act, the Texas Labor Act and the Texas Whistleblower Act before she signs any agreement. That same day, Berry filed a Whistleblower Complaint with the Texas Education Agency. In August, the agency found that her whistleblower allegations submitted in June had merit, according to the complaint.

That sure is a big swing. I am by nature skeptical of large actions like this, especially when they seem to come out of nowhere, but I don’t know enough to judge it beyond that. We’ll see how far this gets.

Posted in Legal matters, School days | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Former principal sues Miles and HISD

Texas blog roundup for the week of April 21

Posted on April 24, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

The Texas Progressive Alliance stands with Kilmar Abrego Garcia as it brings you this week’s roundup.

Continue reading →

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Measles update: Hello, Montana

Posted on April 23, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Put another state on the board, Johnny.

Montana is the ninth U.S. state to have an active measles outbreak.

The U.S. was up to 800 cases of measles nationwide on Friday. Texas is driving the high numbers, with an outbreak centered in West Texas that started nearly three months ago and is up to 597 cases. Two unvaccinated elementary school-aged children died from measles-related illnesses near the epicenter in Texas, and an adult in New Mexico who was not vaccinated died of a measles-related illness.

Other states with active outbreaks — defined as three or more cases — include Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Oklahoma, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Mexico. The U.S. has more than double the number of measles cases it saw in all of 2024.

[…]

Montana state health officials announced five cases Thursday in unvaccinated children and adults who had traveled out of state, and confirmed it was an outbreak on Monday. All five are isolating at home in Gallatin County in the southwest part of the state.

State health officials are working to trace exposures in Bozeman and Belgrade.

They are Montana’s first measles cases in 35 years. Health officials didn’t say whether the cases are linked to other outbreaks in North America.

That was from Friday, so the overall case numbers are now out of date. Here’s your Tuesday update.

The measles outbreak centered in the South Plains region of Texas surpassed 600 cases on and spread to one new county on Tuesday, health officials said.

The state has now seen 624 cases since the outbreak began in late January, according to latest update from the Texas Department of State Health Services. Most cases have been in children who have not received the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, or whose vaccination status is unknown.

The state added 27 new measles cases since the last DSHS update on Friday. The update includes the first two cases in Bailey County, located just south of the Panhandle.

Sixty-four people have been hospitalized for treatment amid the outbreak and two children, an 8-year-old girl and a 6-year-old girl, died after contracting the virus.

Fewer than 10 of the Texas who have contracted the virus — less than 2% of the total — are believed to be actively infectious, according to the DSHS. An individual may be infectious up to four days before a rash appears and up to four days after it’s gone.

The Texas outbreak has also been linked to cases in neighboring states. New Mexico reported 65 measles cases on Tuesday, while Oklahoma reported 13. New Mexico has reported one suspected measles death, an unvaccinated adult who tested positive for the virus after dying.

Fifteen of the 27 new cases reported on Tuesday are in Gaines County, the epicenter of the outbreak. The county has now seen 386 cases, nearly 62% of all cases associated with the outbreak

Five new cases are in Lubbock County, which has now seen 47 during the outbreak.

El Paso, Terry and Bailey counties each reported two new cases. Ector and Midland counties each reported one.

The update removed one case from Dawson County, which has now seen 23 cases during the outbreak. The DSHS has said its numbers are provisional, and cases may be removed if further investigation reveals the person did not have measles.

The DSHS said there is ongoing measles transmission in 10 counties across the state: Cochran, Dallam, Dawson, Gaines, Garza, Lynn, Lamar, Lubbock, Terry and Yoakum.

Of the 624 cases in Texas, 186 have been in children younger than 5 years old and 236 have been in children and teens between 5 and 17, according to the DSHS.

Only 22 cases have been in people who received at least one dose of MMR vaccine prior to an infection.

Texas has seen 25 measles cases in 2025 that are not connected to the South Plains outbreak, most of them associated with international travel, according to the DSHS. Four have been in Harris County and two were in Fort Bend County.

This Bloomberg News headline (paywalled story) says that the “spread is slowing”. I’d agree that the last two weeks or so have seen smaller numbers in the biweekly reports of new cases. I’m cautious about using terms like that because I think it gives people the idea that this means it’s coming to a halt, and that is definitely not the situation. It doesn’t appear to be accelerating, and that is very good. That’s as far as I’ll go for now.

The US is not the only country facing outbreaks.

Canada has documented over 730 cases of measles since the beginning of 2025 until the present. This is one of the most severe outbreaks since the country declared the virus eradicated in 1998.

The outbreak, which began in late 2024, has disproportionately affected Anabaptist communities, stated a New York Times report. The NYT report stated that as per Ontario Ministry of Health, Amish and Mennonite groups ..

The NYT report added that Mexico, in the meanwhile, has reported at least 360 cases. The majority of these occurrences have occurred in the northern state of Chihuahua, with one verified death.

Reportedly, the local health authorities said that the outbreak originated from a nine-year-old in a Mennonite community. The boy, the report stated, had recently travelled to Texas which is reeling under a massive measles outbreak.

I believe this is the NYT story in question; it too is paywalled. Contagious disease + unvaxxed community that travels = outbreaks all over the place.

And we can’t do one of these posts without reminding you again that RFK Jr and his various acolytes are truly terrible people.

A Texas doctor who has been treating children in a measles outbreak was shown on video with a measles rash on his face in a clinic a week before Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. met him and praised him as an “extraordinary” healer.

Dr. Ben Edwards appeared in the video posted March 31 by the anti-vaccine group Kennedy once led, Children’s Health Defense. In it, Edwards appears wearing scrubs and talking with parents and children in a makeshift clinic he set up in Seminole, Texas, ground zero of the outbreak that has sickened hundreds of people and killed three, including two children.

Edwards is asked whether he had measles, and he responded, “Yes,” then said his infection started the day before the video was recorded.

“Yesterday was pretty achy. Little mild fever. Spots came in the afternoon. Today, I woke up feeling good,” Edwards said in the video.

Measles is most contagious for about four days before and four days after the rash appears and is one of the world’s most contagious diseases, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Doctors and public health experts said Edwards’ decision to go into the clinic put children, their parents and their community at risk because he could have spread it to others. They said there was no scenario in which Edwards’ conduct would be reasonable.

Kennedy met with Edwards about a week after the video was posted by Children’s Health Defense, the group Kennedy led for years until December. In an April 6 post on X, Kennedy said he “visited with these two extraordinary healers,” including Edwards and another doctor, and praised their use of two unproven treatments for measles.

Even as measles has exploded in Texas and spread across the country, Kennedy, the nation’s top health official, has declined to consistently and forcefully encourage people to vaccinate their children and remind them that the vaccine is safe. Kennedy’s post drawing attention to Edwards is inappropriate but unsurprising given Kennedy’s record, said Dr. Craig Spencer, a medical doctor who is also a professor at the Brown University School of Public Health.

“I think is unfortunately perfectly on-brand for how he thinks that medicine should be practiced,” Spencer said. “And that is what makes me remarkably uncomfortable and extremely concerned and scared for the next three-and-a-half years.”

Same. But you know, the people that flock to this guy have agency. They have all of the facts available to them. They just choose not to believe them. It’s absolutely true that this guy sucks and that he’s working every day to make things worse for the rest of us. We still have to decide whether or not to follow him. Too many people get that wrong.

Anyway. The Trib has some charts for you. I’ll have another update on Saturday.

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Measles update: Hello, Montana

Whiny sore loser election contest appeal denied

Posted on April 23, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

I didn’t even know there was an appeal. And having read the story and the opinion, there kind of wasn’t, not in any real sense.

The 14th Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that “no evidence” was found to support a Republican-backed challenge of the 2022 district clerk election results.

Chris Daniels was one of 21 Republican candidates who filed election contest lawsuits after the results of the 2022 Harris County midterm elections. Daniels, who ran for Harris County District Clerk against Democratic incumbent Marilyn Burgess, alleged ballot paper shortages at several polling locations constituted “voter suppression,” and asked the court to overturn the results.

Following a November 2023 trial court ruling in favor of Burgess, Daniels’ legal team filed an appeal. Republican chief justice for the 14th Court of Appeals, Tracy Christopher, wrote in an opinion that while some residents may have been prevented from voting, Daniels’ attorneys did not provide sufficient evidence to prove he would have won the election had they been able to cast ballots.

“Daniels bore the burden to produce legally sufficient evidence from which a reasonable factfinder could infer that the mistakes or misconduct of Harris County election officials prevented at least 25,640 eligible Harris County voters from voting on November 8, 2022,” the 14th Court of Appeals’ opinion read. “Because he did not do so, we affirm the trial court’s judgment.”

This lawsuit was filed, along with many others, in January 2023. It was tossed, along with all but one of the others, that November. The margin of victory here was not particularly close; the amount of fraud or error to obviate the result would have to be so massive that basically every race on the ballot would need to be tossed as well. Nobody came close to providing such evidence.

The opinion, written by the Republican Chief Justice with concurrence from a Republican associate justice and a visiting judge whose name I don’t recognize, makes it clear that this whole exercise was a waste of time. District Clerk Burgess, the defendant in the original case, moved for summary judgment on the grounds that plaintiff Chris Daniel provided “no evidence that the number of eligible voters who were prevented from voting was at least as large as Burgess’s margin of victory.” Here’s the crux of the ruling:

Daniel has never attempted to quantify the number of eligible Harris County voters he contends were prevented from voting on November 8, 2022. To the contrary, he asserts that he is not required to “quantify an[] impossibility.” He cites no authorities that support his position, but instead states that his appeal requires this Court to answer a question of first impression that no Texas case has previously addressed: “in what way should a Contestant establish that behavior at issue under [Texas Election Code] § 221.003(a)(2) . . . makes the result of the election unknowable?”

But in fact, that question was answered over a hundred years ago.

[…]

Daniel asserts that section 221.003(a)(2) of the Texas Election Code “asks the trial [court] to focus on whether or not the official created an impediment to voting, and not the number of ballots that may be discounted.” But Daniel is mistaken. Section 221.003(a) instructs the tribunal to decide “whether the outcome of the contested election, as shown by the final canvass, is not the true outcome.” TEX. ELEC. CODE § 221.003(a). The actual outcome of the election was that Burgess defeated Daniel by 25,640 votes. To show that this was not the true outcome, Daniel had to offer legally sufficient evidence of one of two things. To have himself declared as the winner of the election, Daniel would have had to show that the election’s true outcome can be ascertained, and that the majority of votes were cast for him. Daniel made no such allegations. Alternatively, to have the election declared void and hold a new election, Daniel had to show that so many eligible voters were prevented from voting that it cannot be determined which candidate received the majority of votes. Thus, even if Daniel had presented legally sufficient evidence that misconduct by election officials prevented 20,000 eligible voters from voting, the outcome of the 2022 race for Harris County District Clerk would still be ascertainable, and Burgess still would have received the majority of votes. That the additional votes may have reduced Burgess’s margin of victory is immaterial.

In his brief, Daniel seems to suggest that he met his burden with other data, such as by showing that voters were prevented from voting at 20% of Harris County polling places on election day, or that “voters were openly turned away at 129 polling locations because of insufficient paper supplies,” or that 37 polling places did not open on time. We do not consider the effect those assertions might have had if they were supported by evidence, because no evidence supports them.

If that wasn’t enough, the opinion notes that Daniel misreads the trial judge’s opinion and cites it as evidence in his favor, when in fact it says the opposite. As the SportsCenter guys might say when showing a highlight of a batter striking out on three pitches: good morning, good afternoon, good night.

One more thing:

While Tuesday’s ruling does mark a favorable end for Harris County elected officials in 20 of the 21 suits filed by Republican challengers, one particularly narrow judicial race was overturned.

Republican Tami Pierce contested the results of the 2022 election for 180th District Court judge, which she lost to DaSean Jones by just 449 votes. Judge David Peeples, who also oversaw Daniels’ case, voided the election in 2024 and ordered a re-do election scheduled for May 5.

Yeah, no. First, the May election is set for May 3, the uniform election date for this May. May 5 is a Monday, and I for one have never heard of an election being held on a Monday, and neither has the Elections Code. I’m sure this is a typo, but this is also why God created copy editors. And as we have discussed, there is no Jones/Pierce election on the May ballot. Jones’ appeal of that ruling put a pause on the redo election, and since the matter is still being considered by the First Court of Appeals, it ain’t happening at this time. Maybe not ever, given where we are in the calendar. Can we get a cleanup on Aisle 3 here?

Posted in Election 2022, Legal matters | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

On immigration and the 2026 World Cup

Posted on April 23, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Yeah, there are some big issues that we need to talk about.

Last month, Dallas officially announced the procurement of the 2026 FIFA World Cup International Broadcast Center. It will turn downtown’s Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center into a “nerve center” for thousands of international journalists broadcasting dispatches on the beautiful game back to their home countries.

While the tournament is slated to take place across 16 cities in the United States, Canada and Mexico starting next June, the swath of journalists reporting on the games will start arriving in Dallas in January 2026. However, officials within the U.S. Department of State have begun to worry about the effect federal policies on immigration could have on the international tournament, The Athletic reports.

Specifically, those officials are concerned that extended wait times for visa applications, President Donald Trump’s “America First” rhetoric and the administration’s hardline approach to deportation could threaten what FIFA President Gianni Infantino has claimed will be the “most inclusive World Cup ever.”

With Dallas’ head start on international arrivals only eight months away, the city could be the first to grapple with the complications a buckled-down immigration system during what could be the largest World Cup in history. The Observer was told by several individuals involved with North Texas’ World Cup planning that these are questions some have started asking, but concrete answers have yet to arrive.

“This is not FIFA’s first World Cup,” council member Omar Narvaez told the Observer. “Human rights are a huge tenet of FIFA. So I know that it’s been brought up, but not in a formal way. And as we learn more information, I know there are council members who will continue to ask those types of questions.”

The Observer contacted the North Texas FIFA World Cup Organizing Committee to ask if recent changes to immigration and deportation policy had been discussed. We were directed up the chain of command to FIFA.

The organization has previously stated to national outlets asking these questions: “It is worth noting that the current administration was in office during the successful bid process for 2026, and signed the government guarantees as part of that process. We continue to work with various departments and agencies of the U.S. Government to ensure the U.S. can capitalize on this once-in-a-generation opportunity to tap into billions of dollars in positive financial benefits and goodwill and bring millions of people from different nations and communities together to celebrate in the United States.”

Concerns range from the amount of time that it is taking now to get a visa, for journalists as well as for the teams, the steep dropoff in foreign visitors in recent months, the reports of foreign travelers with valid visas being harassed and detained at airports and border entry points, and so on and so forth. You can make the same list of concerns for the 2026 World Baseball Classic, but this article was all about the FIFA event in North Texas. I can imagine a world in which things are more or less the same as they are now, and I can imagine a world where it’s much worse for everyone involved, but it’s hard for me to imagine a world in which things are substantively better. The wild card is our idiot President and whatever the meth-addled weasels that inhabit his brain are fixated on at any time. As a fan, I am eagerly awaiting the 2026 Cup and thoroughly dreading it in equal measure. Good luck to the various committees trying to make it all work. May you have as much inner peace and bottles of Tums as you can stand.

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CityCast Houston talks to Recall Houston

Posted on April 22, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

We’ve talked before about Recall Houston and how that effort may play out, given the many obstacles that any such effort faces. I’ve been very curious to learn more about who is behind this effort and where they believe they are in moving it forward. On Monday, CityCast Houston produced an interview with one of the people behind Recall Houston, which answered some of my questions.

Please note that the Share function I used to embed the above defaults to putting the latest episode at the top. Scroll down for the episode entitled “Can These Houstonians Really Kick Mayor Whitmire out of Office?”, which as of Tuesday, April 22 is the second episode listed.

In short, Alejandro Alegria is the person speaking on behalf of Recall Houston. In terms of the issues and grievances, and the mechanics of doing a recall, there’s not much new. Alegria says they’re fundraising and hopes to have paid and volunteer canvassers out there soon collecting signatures, in neighborhoods that have protested against Whitmire’s car-centric priorities, and at places like Daikin Park and Shell Energy Stadium where there are big crowds. He did say that they were in conversation with some local politicians but couldn’t give any details. The impression I got is that they would like to put something on the November 2025 ballot. Once they start collecting signatures that 30-day deadline to get enough of them kicks in, so when and if that happens we’ll know where we are,

I can’t say I heard anything that made me less skeptical of this effort. I mean, Dallas couldn’t mount a successful effort against their turncoat Mayor, who I’d guess has a lower approval rating than Mayor Whitmire and a much more partisan reason to be targeted for this kind of thing. This stuff is just hard, and takes a lot of money to get going. Whether signature-gathering is in effect soon or not, we’ll surely know something by early July when the June finance reports are in. Either Recall Houston has raised a bunch of money to enable them to do the things they want to do, or, well, we’ll see you in 2027. Stay tuned.

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Early voting for the May elections starts today

Posted on April 22, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

I don’t have a written press release from the Harris County Clerk about early voting for the May 3 election to share with you, but they did send out this all-graphics email that tells you what you need to know. Basically, early voting runs from today through next Tuesday, April 29, so eight days total. Hours are 7 AM to 7 PM every day except Sunday the 27th, when it will be 12 PM to 7 PM. Check to see if you have an election to vote in by visiting the What’s on my ballot page. Most likely, outside of some important school board races, you don’t have an election to vote in because of the continued postponement of the DaSean Jones sore loser do over election. But do check, there are some important races for various local school boards.

On that note, it’s important to remember that in these school districts, the all-At Large voting system has made it a lot easier for far right candidates to take over the school boards, and in doing so impose all kinds of terrible anti-LGBTQ+, anti-library, pro-censorship policies. If you live in places like Katy or Spring Branch, this is your chance to do something about it. Lone Star Left has done you the favor of highlighting the worthy candidates in a ton of local races, both for school board and City Council where applicable. For Harris County that includes Humble and Pasadena in addition to Katy and Spring Branch. Fort Bend County, your school board has been doing some bad stuff, too. Do not sleep on these races if you have the privilege of voting in them. If you know someone in one of those places, make sure they know.

City elections include the massive cattle call for San Antonio Mayor, plus Mayoral elections in Fort Worth and some other places. Dallas has City Council elections but somehow not Mayor; more’s the pity. If you live in Mansfield, a suburb of Fort Worth mostly in Tarrant County, the Lone Star Report has an important message for you about who not to vote for in your Mayoral race.

That’s the fifty cent tour of the May elections. Those of you who have a ballot to cast, please do so and do so wisely. Thank you.

UPDATE: And just in right after I hit Save is the May 2025 Book Lover’s Guide to the elections, with even more school board recommendations and anti-recommendations. Check ’em out.

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More on the new women’s pro softball league

Posted on April 22, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Former Miami Marlins GM Kim Ng will be the first commissioners of the new Athletes Unlimited Softball League (AUSL).

Kim Ng’s three decades in Major League Baseball were relentless and unprecedented. Her departure was swift and unexpected. She remains, 18 months later, a sports executive like no other, still envisioning opportunities that have never before existed.

On Wednesday, Athletes Unlimited announced that Ng, the former Miami Marlins general manager, will serve as commissioner of the upstart Athletes Unlimited Softball League, a professional circuit that held its inaugural draft in January, opens it regular season in June, and already is planning an expansion for next summer.

“You’re not going to see too many general managers make this kind of pivot,” Ng said in a phone interview. “I can’t say any of my other comrades in arms would be able to make this kind of move.”

It is, for now, a true transition for Ng, who left the Marlins in October of 2023 and said she is not actively looking for another job in Major League Baseball. She will not rule out a return in the future, but at 56 years old, her focus is back where it was at 16 — on softball.

[…]

The moment is right, Ng believes, for softball to take a step forward in the American sports landscape. She sees evidence in the viewership and attendance data from the College World Series. She sees it in reports of growing participation among young girls across the country. She sees it in Texas Tech ace NiJaree Canady signing a million-dollar NIL deal, and she sees it in Tennessee flamethrower Karlyn Pickens throwing the fastest pitch in recorded NCAA history. She sees it all in the context of women’s sports in general receiving more attention than in the past, and with an eye toward softball returning to the Olympics in 2028.

“I think it all adds up to this being a great foundation for pro softball to jump on the scene,” Ng said.

Athletes Unlimited was founded in 2020 and has previously launched women’s softball, volleyball, basketball and lacrosse leagues with unusual structures that award individuals within team competition. Rosters change regularly. Teams are untethered. The focus is on individual players and competition.

The AUSL is more like a standard professional league with set teams chasing a collective championship. The league already announced managers, general managers and advisors for the upcoming season, and the list includes some of the biggest names in the sport’s history — Lisa Fernandez, Jennie Finch, Jessica Mendoza, Cat Osterman, Natasha Watley — presenting a united front pushing for this league’s success. The AUSL will open as a 2025 tour, with each team playing 24 games in 12 different cities, and ESPN broadcasting 33 of the games across various platforms. The league plans to expand to six teams and give each a home city in 2026. It’s using this season as a testing ground for the various markets to determine which cities are most receptive to professional softball.

“Knowing what an established, mature system of governance looks like, I think will be really helpful in establishing this league,” Ng said.

See here for the background. The tour runs for a bit more than six weeks in June and July, with the closest games to Houston being played in Round Rock from July 17-20. I’m going to do my best to catch some of the action on TV, to see what they’ve got. I’m rooting for their success and for a team to maybe eventually end up here in Houston.

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April 2025 campaign finance reports – Congress

Posted on April 21, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Well, just CD18, really. I said when I posted the January 2025 reports that I was going to wait on the Congressional reports until July because there wasn’t going to be anything of interest to report on. And then Rep. Sylvester Turner passed away and we got a flock of candidates line up for the now-set-for-November special election, and I couldn’t wait that long to see what was happening. So here we are.

Amanda Edwards – CD18
Isaiah Martin – CD18
Christian Menefee – CD18


Dist  Name             Raised      Spent    Loans    On Hand
============================================================
18    Edwards         375,023     25,337        0    350,900   
18    Martin           71,728     28,075        0    215,288
18    Menefee         391,603     16,815        0    374,787

There are more candidates listed on the FEC Congressional candidates page than this, but only those three had any money to report. That’s not too surprising given the timing. I’ll include more reports in July, with some discretion on my part based on how seriously I’ll be taking the candidates. I should note I’m only going to pay attention to the Democratic candidates. There are several Republicans and independents, none of whom reported any money and none of whom will have any chance to even sniff the runoff.

Among the names that are on the candidate list but not shown above are:

Peter Filler, a non-entity who “ran” as a Democrat in CD02 last year.

Robert Slater, the third candidate in the 2024 Dem primary for CD18.

TJ Baker, who ran as a Republican for CD18 some time ago. I don’t care to look to remember when, it’s not worth it. She’s running as a Dem now.

James Joseph, former Houston City Council candidate who has been mentioned before as he was one of the first people to file a statement of intent to run.

Rain Eatmon, Acres Homes community activist who was profiled by the Houston Press last week. Of the names on the not-yet-raised-any-money list, she’s the one I’ll be taking the most seriously.

Other names may yet appear. State Rep. Jolanda Jones and Houston City Council Member Letitia Plummer are both still officially “thinking about it”, and State Rep. Christina Morales, who was in the precinct chair election last year, was included as a candidate in the way-too-soon UH Hobby Center poll for CD18, though I have not seen any indication from her one way or the other. You never know who else might show up. We’ll see what the July reports tell us.

Anyway, on to the three candidates who did raise money in time for the reporting period. Amanda Edwards is the candidate everyone expected to be here, as she ran for CD18 in 2024, at first when it looked like the late Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee would not be running again and then still when she jumped back in. Edwards raised a bunch of money for that race, over $1.6 million, but had spent down her previous balance as of the July 2024 reports. I’m sure she didn’t expect to be back in the saddle again so quickly, but here we are and she got right back on track.

I last reported on Isaiah Martin as of the January 2024 reports, at which point he still had $230K on hand but was no longer a candidate. He’s obviously spent some of that since then but is in good fiscal shape. Fun story, my old college roommate, an El Paso native who now lives in Chicago, texted me last week to ask what Congressional district I live in. Turns out his daughter, my god-daughter, had found Isaiah Martin’s TikTok account and was a fan, and she wanted to know what I knew about him. I was able to tell her that I’d actually had a conversation with him – I am still a precinct chair, so he had reached out to me – and that he made a favorable impression on me. I also told her there were other good, young candidates in the race.

Which brings me to Christian Menefee, who made a big splash when he entered the race. He’s gotten off to the strongest start on the fundraising front, though only by a little over Edwards. I’ll be very interested to see how they’re doing in July. Menefee is still the acting Harris County Attorney, as Commissioners Court deferred naming a replacement (and thus accepting his resignation) until the election was officially set. Now that it is I have to assume they will get back to that bit of business. I have no insight at all about who they will name to fill out the term – I’ve not heard a single name mentioned. We’ll discuss that more in the coming days, I’m sure.

That’s it for now. I’ll be back in July with another full slate of campaign finance reports.

Posted in Election 2025, Election 2026 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Nate Paul avoids prison

Posted on April 21, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

The whimpering end of this saga, barring anything extraordinary in the future.

An Austin real estate developer who was central to Attorney General Ken Paxton’s impeachment case was sentenced on Wednesday to supervised release and a $1 million fine for bank fraud.

A judge allowed Nate Paul to avoid prison time after he pleaded guilty in January to lying to a lending institution as part of a deal with federal prosecutors. In exchange, prosecutors agreed to drop 11 other charges against him.

U.S. District Judge David Ezra could have imposed a sentence of anywhere from zero to six months. The probation office had recommended six months. He chose to sentence Paul to a one-day sentence, but he applied 10 days that Paul served in state court as part of a separate civil case, meaning he will not have to serve any additional time.

“Mr. Paul has been a very active, and I should say, quite successful real estate developer in this community,” Ezra said. “Unfortunately, at some point, Mr. Paul lost his way. I have no evidence to indicate that Mr. Paul has been doing this all along throughout his entire career.”

One of Paxton’s defense attorneys had at one time speculated that the Paul case might have been federal prosecutors’ attempt to extract information on Paxton; however, case documents never publicly mentioned any connection to Paxton.

Ezra said he was moved by the words of Paul’s lawyer, Tobin Romero, who described Paul as a dedicated and humble family man who loves his kids and contributed to his community through a youth basketball league that he funded. He said he weighed that along with the fact that Paul did pay back the money that he owed to the lending institution.

He added that Paul becoming a convicted felon is, in and of itself, a “form of punishment to a businessman.”

Paul will be subject to five years of supervised release, and he will also have to submit to home confinement from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., but he will be allowed to work during the day and request exceptions for medical and other reasons. Ezra said he would not make Paul wear an ankle monitor because he found it “demeaning” for a nonviolent criminal.

Whatever. Paul took that plea in January, and despite the ignominious end of the Paxton case, you cannot make me believe there was no connection. Maybe there wasn’t enough evidence to bring charges, maybe the coverup was successful, maybe the prosecution bungled it, who knows. I will die believing Ken Paxton got away with it.

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Houston’s bridges are not falling down

Posted on April 21, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

But an assessment to see how they’d do in the event a ship crashed into them would be a good idea.

By Patrick Feller from Humble, Texas, USA – originally posted to Flickr as Sam Houston Tollway Ship Channel Bridge 0804091506BW, CC BY 2.0

Some Houston area bridges are among those that a new report says should be evaluated to determine whether they’re at risk of collapsing if hit by a vessel such as the one that caused the devastating Baltimore bridge collapse in 2024.

The National Transportation Safety Board released a report Tuesday identifying 68 bridges across the U.S. that could be at risk of collapse from a vessel strike because the structures haven’t undergone a recent vulnerability assessment and were likely not built to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials Guide specifications issued in 1991.

The report noted the Sidney Sherman Bridge and Buffalo Bayou Toll Bridge, also known as the Houston Ship Channel Bridge, in Houston. Other bridges in the greater Houston area were also named, such as the Fred Hartman Bridge, Rainbow Bridge, Veterans Memorial Bridge, and Gulfgate Bridge.

The NTSB recommended that the Texas Department of Transportation and the Harris County Toll Road Authority conduct a vulnerability assessment on high-risk bridges for safety. The assessment would determine the risk of a bridge collapsing due to a vessel collision.

However, the NTSB officials explained that the recommendation doesn’t suggest that the bridges are certain to collapse. A Thursday news release states that the owners should evaluate “whether the bridges are above the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials’ acceptable level of risk.”

TxDOT said in an email that it is reviewing the report.

The Harris County Toll Road Authority will review any recommendations provided by the NTSB for existing bridges and comply with the guidance, according to spokesperson Tracy Jackson.

We still have a National Transportation Safety Board? Who knew. Anyway, there have been some ship-on-bridge collisions in the past, so a vulnerability assessment seems like a good idea. What happens if one or more of these bridges needs to be replaced is a subject we can cover when and if that happens.

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Weekend link dump for April 20

Posted on April 20, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

“All in all, this is Trump’s formula for reviving stateside manufacturing: punishing tariffs on other nations, more expensive input parts for the factories and machines needed here, fewer government supports for existing facilities, an overall climate of uncertainty and distrust when it comes to safe investments and long-term contracts, and domestic industries that are neither willing nor able to do the types of work that foreign workers are trained and ready to do.”

A few tips on how to travel abroad as an American these days.

“But as dangerous to democracy as the outside-in authoritarian meddling, perhaps worse (and more disturbing) is the increasing use of disinformation from actors within once-stable democracies.”

“The Executive Orders are unconstitutional. They violate the First Amendment right of lawyers and their clients to speak, petition, and associate. They are also designed to discourage lawyers from representing unpopular clients—even clients with meritorious cases—and in so doing, they profoundly distort the judicial system. If anyone should be standing on principle and attempting to vindicate the rule of law, it is our nation’s lawyers.”

The original version of the Serenity Prayer is not the same as the one we all now know.

“Iguanas have invaded a Florida island. One man is on a quest to stop them.”

“The public should anticipate significant negative repercussions for both the land and user experiences.”

“Donald Trump has long railed against everything from low-flow showerheads to LED lightbulbs. After failed attempts to undo appliance regulations in his first term, he may have found a new end-run to achieve his goal — but for now confusion reigns.”

“This is like the one of the 15 round heavyweight fights I used to watch with my dad back in the 1970s. It’s a slog. Your goal is to win but it almost certainly won’t be by a knock out. You’re going to punch a lot and you’re going to get hit a lot. And sometimes you’ll take some punches to wear your opponent out or to shepherd your own strength. It’s not a purity thing. It’s a survival and winning thing. As long as you’re fighting that’s all fine.”

Sadly, there will be no Gathering of the Kyles this year. Hopefully next year.

RIP, Don Mischer, 15-time Emmy-winning director of live TV events.

“TV Writing Jobs Fell by 42 Percent in 2023-24 Season, WGA Says”.

“Living here in America right now feels like that time. Stuck riding shotgun in a car with a drunk driver.”

“As stupid as I thought it would be, it was even stupider.”

“My point here isn’t to say these agreements are fine. It’s that they amount to agreements to lie to each other. And everyone else.”

Even cybersecurity professionals can fall for phishing emails. Be careful out there.

“Our findings indicate that political connections, in the form of campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures, have an impact on the likelihood of firms being approved for trade-tariff exemptions.”

“There is much absurdity and much shame to go around here. None more so than the fact that Rachel Robinson—the 102-year-old widow of one Jack Roosevelt Robinson—woke up to an affront on her dead husband’s legacy by the very country he served with honor, only to rise a few weeks later and witness not just the utter silence of the league he integrated, but her husband’s old employer specifically fawning over the brute who ordered the whole thing. A week has passed since that spectacle. Tuesday is the 22nd annual leaguewide celebration MLB formed in Robinson’s honor. Players and coaches of all backgrounds, hues, nationalities, and creeds will wear across their backs, this afternoon and evening, his number, 42. If the events of the last month are any proof, his team, his sport, even some of the folks who are his most direct inheritors will each be largely undeserving of the privilege of that association.”

RIP, Wink Martindale, disc jockey, singer, and legendary game show host.

RFK Jr doesn’t know jack shit about autism.

“The “Katy Perry Goes to Space” Debacle Has Now Taken the Most Hilarious Turn Possible”.

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Harris County gets its refugee health grant back

Posted on April 20, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Good.

The Trump administration restored funding for a $10.5 million refugee health grant a little over a week after Harris County Attorney Christian D. Menefee sued the federal government for freezing payments to its Refugee Medical Screening Program, according to a Thursday news release.

Menefee and Precinct 4 Commissioner Lesley Briones announced the suit during an April 9 news conference. After a a federal court hearing in D.C., a judge ordered the Trump administration to provide a “clear timeline” for funding the grant, which was approved under the Biden administration in October. The Trump administration has since agreed to begin immediately funding the program, according to the release.

“We shouldn’t have had to sue the federal government to get what Congress already approved,” Menefee said. “President Trump’s actions endangered refugee communities and our broader public health. But we fought back — and now those funds are flowing again. This shows what happens when local governments stand up to federal overreach.”

The program operates out of Precinct 4, and provides vaccinations and preventative care to refugees who entered the U.S. legally. Briones said the program is the largest in the state, and played a critical role in ensuring herd immunity and public health for residents across the county. It served 24,000 patients and administered 36,000 vaccinations in 2024, according to an April 9 news release.

Funding for the Refugee Medical Screening Program was cut in January following President Donald Trump’s executive order terminating the U.S’ Refugee Admission’s Program.

Despite the January funding freeze, the county continued providing services and had incurred $1.25 million in expenses that had not been reimbursed, Menefee said. He warned that if the Trump administration did not reverse course, the county would be forced to lay off employees and significantly scale down operations under the program.

See here for the background, and here for a statement from Christian Menefee. I have no idea what caused the quick reversal, but whatever. It is indeed the case that we shouldn’t have had to sue for these already appropriated funds, but we did and we won and that’s the best you could hope for in this situation. Good job, y’all.

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Let’s hear it for the pro-11th Street people

Posted on April 20, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Get out of your bubble, Mr. Mayor.

PXL_20250418_195210929

Small business owners, community advocates and residents are rallying together to fight against Houston Mayor John Whitmire’s proposal to reverse 11th Street’s 2023 redesign.

The coalition sent a letter last week—authored by Gerald Fuentes, an organizer of the “I Love 11th Street Neighborhood Festival”—urging Whitmire not to reverse the addition of protected bike lanes and lane reductions on 11th Street.

“What was once a high-speed, dangerous thoroughfare is now a thriving and safe corridor,” Fuentes wrote in the letter addressed to Whitmire and the Houston City Council. “We witness more residents and visitors walking, biking, running, shopping, dining, rollerblading, pushing strollers, connecting with neighbors and enjoying community events.”

The letter urges Whitmire and city council members to maintain the elements of the design implemented in 2023 and to proceed with the planned installation of a HAWK pedestrian crossing signal at Nicholson Street.

State Rep. Christina Morales (D-Houston) and city council members Abbie Kamin and Mario Castillo have signed the letter supporting the community’s calls.

Kamin has criticized the possible deconstruction of what she describes as a $2.4 million “nationally recognized” safety project, particularly given the city’s projected $320 million budget deficit.

“I don’t understand the Mayor’s obsession with attacking kids and parents on bikes—we have much more pressing issues in our city—but this project was not even about that,” Kamin told The Leader. “11th Street was about safety improvements through the heart of neighborhoods…and it’s working.”

Whitmire recently signaled the redesign could be reversed, citing concerns from residents and local businesses—including a nearby doughnut shop—about the impact of bike lanes. He pointed to past emails from fire department officials that stated emergency response times could improve if the lane were removed.

“When I have fire department officials tell me, ‘We don’t go down 11th, we go down 10th, a residential neighborhood, because of parked cars and narrow space,’ that’s not my controversy,” Whitmire said. “I’m just trying to solve it.”

Whitmire has declined to confirm if he planned to officially remove the bike lane, instead opting to say he was listening to the public and public safety officials.

[…]

Houston Public Works evaluated the redesign’s impact. In a memo obtained by Axios, the department found that the project had dropped vehicle speeds, increased pedestrian and cyclist crossings, and failed to significantly impact travel times. The Houston Fire Department also confirmed no safety impacts to its operations from the redesign.

It’s the combination of claiming to listen to public safety officials and then lying about what they say that really chaps me. I’m so, so tired of trying to argue facts and data with people who just don’t care about them.

Anyway. Here’s a copy of the letter, with the signers at the bottom. The embedded photo is one I took on Friday of the marquee at Someburger. They misspelled the URL for I Love 11th, but their heart’s in the right place. Look, all we can do is make as much of a fuss as we can, and hope that Whitmire eventually moves on to some other obsession. The waiting is the hardest part.

(Also spotted on Friday on 11th, it looks like that HAWK light at the Nicholson trail crossing is in place and awaiting activation. Whether that’s a safety enhancement or a consolation prize remains to be seen. And, to circle back to a previous post, I saw one of those Evolve connectors, turning north from Pecore, which is what 11th becomes east of Studewood, onto Beauchamp on Friday afternoon. So I can confirm that they do exist. We’ll see how often that happens.)

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Galveston ghost wolves update

Posted on April 20, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Checking in on my new favorite local species.

Long the object of intense interest among residents and a thorn in the side of developers, Galveston’s so-called “ghost wolves” have become something akin to the island’s unofficial mascots. As interest in preserving their habitat continues to escalate, T-shirts, hoodies, and beanies emblazoned with these enigmatic canines were all the rage on local holiday gift lists. (Proceeds benefit the Gulf Coast Canine Project).

Earlier this month, Moody Gardens’ 3D IMAX theater held a “Ghost Wolves Town Hall” meeting, the third in as many years. The theater’s large size signals the level of public interest in the animals, a cluster of coyotes scientists have found share genetic material with the highly endangered red wolf. The big takeaway this time was a $2.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to continue studying the unique animals, researchers and GCCP co-directors Bridgett vonHoldt and Kristin Brzeski announced.

Possible uses of the money include moving some ghost wolves to a facility in St. Louis for further study, the Galveston County Daily News reported. Rebutting arguments that a possible solution could be relocating the clan estimated at around 55 members strong elsewhere off the island, Galveston Island Humane Society director Josh Henderson said a radio collar on one ghost wolf allowed it to be tracked from Galveston’s West End to Matagorda Bay, traveling 731 miles in 184 days—the kind of range that makes moving the pack somewhere else implausible.

Some developers are also tentatively factoring the ghost wolves’ needs into their future projects on the island. According to the Daily News, Royal Crown Enterprise plans to incorporate a 200,000-square-foot nature preserve as part of its Sachs Avenue development, a 16-acre project on the West End that includes a hotel, apartments, restaurants, and two condominium towers with an ocean-facing courtyard.

However, the builders behind the new Margaritaville resort now underway on the island’s East End have gone quiet after initially promising to at least consider adding a 150-foot corridor along the 300,000-square-foot project’s eastern flank. Leaving that strip of land untouched would grant ghost wolves unfettered access to the beach and a nearby lagoon, the Daily News reported. Their ongoing silence stands in stark contrast to the swell of public support after a ghost wolf was struck and killed by a car in the island’s West End last June.

“These animals are part of the island’s natural heritage; if any can proudly claim to be ‘BOI’ (born on the island), it is the ghost wolf who has been here for generations,” vonHoldt and Brzeski wrote in a guest column for the Daily News last August. “Every part of the island is their home, and every part plays a critical role in their survival. Many islanders already embrace the uniqueness and beauty of ghost wolves as integral to island pride and identity.”

See here and here for some background. This was from February, well before the dire wolf news. You’ll note that the linked story there that four red wolves had also been cloned, and these Galveston ghost wolves are a variation on those red wolves that were thought to be extinct in this part of the country.

I don’t really have any point to make, I just want to say that I think these red wolves/”ghost wolves” are cool, I support what the Gulf Coast Canine Project is doing, and I hope we learn lots about these creatures and take the steps we need to help them thrive. Oh, and I hope that the carnage going on in Washington doesn’t affect that NSF grant.

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Measles update: RFK Jr sucks

Posted on April 19, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

We’ll get to that in a minute. But first, here’s something else to worry about.

As Texas battles against its largest measles outbreak in decades, immunization data obtained by Houston Landing shows that more than 1,000 kindergarten and seventh grade students in the Houston ISD either had vaccination exemptions or lacked proof they were fully immunized against the highly contagious virus.

The data, which is from mid-December, indicates that 91 schools across HISD – the largest school district in Texas – may be at increased risk of a measles outbreak because of pockets of children who are not fully vaccinated.

At these schools, fewer than 95 percent of the kindergarten or seventh graders were up-to-date on their measles shots – the percentage the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says is needed to create “herd immunity,” which prevents the onward spread of the disease.

Some HISD elementary schools had particularly low levels of measles protection, with fewer than 80 percent of kindergarteners listed as fully vaccinated for their age, the Landing found.

The measles virus, which is particularly dangerous for babies and young children, causes a high fever, rash and sometimes serious complications such as pneumonia, brain swelling and loss of hearing or speech. The current outbreak has so far killed two children in West Texas and a third person in nearby New Mexico.

Texas statewide school immunization requirements mandate that children who lack proof of vaccination against measles and several other communicable diseases be excluded from class until they are either up-to-date on their shots, or they provide a form exempting them from vaccination for medical, religious or other reasons of personal conscience.

But HISD told the Landing that the district’s schools aren’t enforcing these rules.

The district’s records indicate that the vast majority of students who weren’t up-to-date on their measles shots had no exemption, no evidence of being fully vaccinated, and they also weren’t in the process of getting immunized or transferring records.

“At this time, we are not excluding students from learning based on vaccine status,” the district said in an emailed statement, which noted its schools “are focused on ensuring all students have access to high-quality instruction every day.”

District officials did not grant interviews. In their emailed statements, they emphasized that district-wide – when students at all schools in all grades are combined – current data shows that students are “96.6% compliant” for the MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccine. That includes students who are fully immunized with this vaccine – as well as those who aren’t, but who have a vaccine exemption on file.

The district acknowledged that some of its individual schools have lower measles vaccination rates – including below the 95 percent level health experts say is needed to prevent outbreaks.

The data analyzed by the Landing was gathered by the district in December as part of annual state reporting requirements. It represents a snapshot in time of the measles immunization status of students in two key grades – kindergarten and seventh grade – that nationally are used as benchmarks for assessing vaccine coverage.

HISD said that throughout the school year it has tried to address low measles immunization rates at individual schools by sending information to parents and providing “targeted immunization efforts” in partnership with healthcare providers.

Yet between December and mid March, the district had only managed to reduce by 133 students the number of kindergarten and seventh graders who were at risk of measles infections.

At that time, there were still 1,011 students in these two grades who were either not up-to-date on their measles shots or were exempt from vaccination against the disease, according to information HISD provided in response to the Landing’s questions.

Many of these students are clustered at specific schools, making those locations more vulnerable to outbreaks if one of the students becomes infected.

Did you need another reason to be mad at Mike Miles? You’re welcome. There’s a searchable table in the story, so you can see what the immunization levels are for the kindergarten near you. There’s still time this school year to do better, if HISD cares enough to try.

Anyway. Here are the latest numbers.

Texas health officials reported 36 new measles cases on Friday, bringing the total number of confirmed cases since late January to 597.

The state’s public health department estimates that fewer than 30 of the confirmed cases — about 4% — are “actively infectious.”

Ten counties remain under “ongoing measles transmission” status: Cochran, Dallam, Dawson, Gaines, Garza, Lynn, Lamar, Lubbock, Terry and Yoakum.

Lamar County in northeast Texas is closest to the Dallas-Fort Worth area and has reported 11 measles cases. Gaines County, near the New Mexico border, where the measles outbreak began, has reported the majority of measles cases, with 371.

More than 30 measles cases have been reported in Kansas, which public health officials believe may be linked to the Texas outbreak, The New York Times reported.

In North Texas, a measles case was confirmed in Rockwall County on Tuesday. The illness was confirmed in an adult who recently traveled to West Texas and may be connected to the outbreak because of the person’s travel history, according to a public health alert issued by the county’s health authority.

The first confirmed measles case in Rockwall County, which was reported in late February, was not believed to be connected to the West Texas outbreak.

El Paso County now has 18 cases, and Collin County may have some cases; this has not been officially confirmed yet, as far as I can tell. And let’s not forget the other states.

Michigan officials confirmed a new measles outbreak Thursday near Grand Rapids, bringing the U.S. to eight states with active outbreaks of the vaccine-preventable disease. Earlier this week, Pennsylvania declared an outbreak in Erie County as well.

[…]

States with active outbreaks — defined as three or more cases — include Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Oklahoma, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and New Mexico.

The multistate outbreak across Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Kansas confirms health experts’ fears that the virus will take hold in other U.S. communities with low vaccination rates and that the spread could stretch on for a year. The World Health Organization has said cases in Mexico are linked to the Texas outbreak.

This may have felt like a relatively quiet week in Texas as far as the measles went, but we’re probably underestimating the case count.

The Trump administration has been busy hacking away at the Department of Health and Human Services, and the results have been devastating.

David Sugerman, a senior scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that a large number of measles cases are going unreported—and that the government’s ability to respond has been strained by recent federal budget cuts.

“We do believe that there’s quite a large amount of cases that are not reported and underreported,” Sugerman said during a rare meeting of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices Tuesday.

“In working very closely with our colleagues in Texas, in talking with families, they may mention prior cases that have recovered and never received testing, other families that may have cases and never had sought treatment,” he explained.

Sugerman is the first CDC official the Trump administration has allowed to directly address the public about the growing measles outbreak.

“We are scrapping to find the resources and personnel needed to provide support to Texas and other jurisdictions,” he said.

Sugerman pointed to the $11.4 billion in COVID-19 funding cuts ordered by President Donald Trump and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy last month, which he said has created “funding limitations” in places like Texas.

The funding previously supported clinics that treated illnesses like measles and supported vaccination programs.

[…]

Sugerman estimated that each measles case may end up costing the government between $30,000 and $50,000 for a public health response.

Meanwhile, Kennedy was once again pushing misinformation about the measles vaccine, calling it “leaky” and saying that it “wanes,” during a separate press event on Tuesday.

“He’s dead wrong, the measles vaccine protects you for the rest of your life. The notion that it’s a leaky vaccine is dead wrong,” Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia told USA Today.

NBC News also reported on the latest RFK Jr follies. In addition to lying about vaccines and displaying astonishing ignorance about autism, the Brainworm in Chief has some highly sketchy friends who are undermining the already weak messaging he is bringing to this crisis.

As Kennedy tries to respond to the spread of measles cases in the United States — more than 700 cases have been reported in at least 25 states as of April 10, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — medical experts say that messaging has been mixed. But any focus on vaccination is also being undermined by CHD, the anti-vaccine nonprofit Kennedy chaired from 2015 to 2023, the year he launched a presidential campaign.

As of December 2024, Kennedy has said he is no longer officially affiliated with the group, which has repeatedly questioned the safety of vaccines, including through lawsuits. But CHD still prominently displays its former ties to Kennedy. The secretary has a standalone tab on the group’s “About” section, which credits him as its founder. Its video site features public appearances that Kennedy has made in his current role as secretary, including a recent trip to Indiana and his first major news conference in the role.

This year, CDH published a website that mimicked the design of a CDC site — with nearly identical layout, logos and typefaces — that laid out what it called research that vaccines cause autism (they do not) alongside some data debunking the theory. The InfoEpi Lab Substack first reported on the existence of the mock site.

When asked about the site by The New York Times, a spokesperson for Kennedy said the secretary would send a request to ask the group to take down the site.

[…]

The scope of the CHD messaging — including interviews with parents expressing vaccine skepticism — shows how so-called anti-vaxxers may be weaponizing tragedy to promote an agenda, said Kelsey Suter, a partner at Upswing, an opinion research and strategy firm that supports Democratic candidates and progressive causes. Suter has monitored online disinformation about vaccines since around the start of the pandemic for several clients.

“This group in particular has long cherry-picked individual stories and sort of held them up to represent a broader trend that doesn’t exist,” she said, noting that CHD has shared parent-centered videos in the past about purported vaccine injuries.

Kennedy is a longtime vaccine skeptic who tried to distance himself from that record during his contentious Senate confirmation process earlier this year to lead the country’s expansive health department. Before Kennedy’s longshot bid for the Democratic presidential nomination — which culminated in an independent candidacy and subsequent endorsement of Republican President Donald Trump — he was closely tied to the Children’s Health Defense.

The nonprofit, previously known as the World Mercury Project, says it aims to end “childhood health epidemics by eliminating toxic exposure.” Kennedy, also its former chief litigation counsel, took a leave from CHD in 2023 to run for office. During a Wednesday news conference, Kennedy speculated that environmental toxins could play a role in autism — a framing that autism groups have strongly denounced. (CHD has publicly linked vaccines to autism, a debunked claim.)

CHD’s messaging — which includes a standalone site for “news and views” and an accompanying newsletter — highlights an evolution of how misinformation and disinformation over vaccines is being directed at parents at a time when vaccination rates for kindergarteners is declining. Parents are already targeted by social media influencer accounts about their children’s health and wellness. Some of that information is packaged in video that can be more widely shared than in previous eras of vaccine skepticism, a phenomenon that has existed since the development of the first vaccine more than 200 years ago.

Some of the misinformation circulating online is that measles was not a dangerous disease when it spread rampantly in the 60s. (In the decade before a vaccine was available in 1963, an estimated 3 million to 4 million Americans were infected with measles each year. Between 400 and 500 died and thousands were hospitalized each year at the time.)

“It’a this kind of broader lifestyle perspective that incorporates vaccine hesitancy and is being sort of packaged up and targeted for moms in particular, but parents generally,” Suter said.

Read also this Trib story about the more local efforts, and get yourself all worked up again. Which brings us back to where we started, with not enough children getting vaccinated, sometimes because their parents have been brainwormed and sometimes because they face obstacles in getting their kids vaccinated and no assistance or consequences along the way. That is something we all can do something about right now. Call a principal, call Mike Miles, call your favorite member of the Board of Managers and/or your Trustee, hell call your City Council member. HISD can damn sure make an effort to improve its own numbers here.

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Federal grant to Amtrak for Texas high speed rail planning rescinded

Posted on April 19, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

My reaction to this was “bad”, but I might be wrong.

President Donald Trump’s administration on Monday terminated a federal grant to help fund a long-sought high-speed rail line between Dallas and Houston — saying that if the embattled project moves forward, it will have to do so without federal help at this stage.

The U.S. Department of Transportation nixed a $63.9 million planning grant for the proposed Texas Central route under an agreement between the Federal Railroad Administration and Amtrak. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the two agencies “are in agreement that underwriting this project is a waste of taxpayer funds and a distraction from Amtrak’s core mission of improving its existing subpar services.”

“The Texas Central Railway project was proposed as a private venture,” Duffy said. “If the private sector believes this project is feasible, they should carry the pre-construction work forward, rather than relying on Amtrak and the American taxpayer to bail them out.”

Kleinheinz Capital Partners, the lead investor in Texas Central, said Monday’s announcement is “good news for the overall project.”

“We agree with Secretary Duffy that this project should be led by the private sector, and we will be proud to take it forward,” the company said in a statement. “This project is shovel-ready and will create significant new jobs and economic growth for Texas as part of President Trump’s efforts to boost the U.S. economy.”

[…]

Texas Central had shown signs of life in recent years when Amtrak revived the project following a leadership exodus.

The company bought its Japanese investors out of the project in January, Andy Jent, a Texas Central representative, told state lawmakers in March. Fort Worth investor John Kleinheinz is now the lead investor in the project, Jent said. Texas Central has acquired about 25% of the parcels needed to build the route, he said.

Peter LeCody, who heads the organization Texas Rail Advocates, was optimistic that the project would move forward despite the lost federal funds.

“Can the private sector do this? Probably,” LeCody said. “Will it need help from any other source? Maybe.”

See here for the previous update. Kleinheinz Capital’s reaction makes me gag – and I have to admit, that’s a new name to me – but whatever. Finance bros gonna finance bro. If this doesn’t derail things – yeah, I said it – then I don’t care if they kiss Trump’s ass. We’ll see if they can live up to their words. The Chron and the Fort Worth Report, which has more on Kleinhenz Capital, have more.

UPDATE: Those Kleinheinz Capital guys sure are sure of themselves.

Texans could ride high-speed rail from Houston to Dallas as soon as 2032.

The new investors behind Texas Central offered that positive outlook to state lawmakers on Thursday, saying the beleaguered bullet train is still viable and shovel-ready even after the Trump administration pulled a $64 million grant this week and cancelled a partnership with Amtrak.

John Kleinheinz, the CEO of Fort-Worth based Kleinheinz Capital Partners that recently assumed a controlling interest in the project, cast the latest developments as a good thing.

“Amtrak has been trying to get control of our deal and it would have been terrible for Texas,” Kleinheinz said in an interview. “ It would’ve been terrible for us because government procurement rules make it so expensive to do a project like this.”

Kleinheinz said he believes the Trump administration is “interested in this deal” if it comes from the private sector.

On Wednesday, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy appeared to agree.

“I love high-speed rail,” he told Fox News. “Let’s try to find projects in America where we can build high-speed rail but do it efficiently and bring in the private sector to make those investments, not the taxpayer.”

[…]

Peter LeCody, the president of Texas Rail Advocates, a nonprofit dedicated to developing rail service across the state, said Kleinheinz’s involvement puts “the high-speed rail project back in the game again. They’re down to the 10-yard line.”

The last play of that game, LeCody said, is securing financing for the project — last estimated at $30 billion — and getting final approval from the federal Surface Transportation Board. The project already has completed a full environmental review, required by federal law.

Kleinheinz said he intended to follow in the model of Brightline, a private company that recently launched a high-speed rail line between Miami and Orlando and is pursuing a second project between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The Florida project was largely funded through private investments.

Texas Central owns about 25% of the right-of-way needed to construct the project. Kleinheinz said eminent domain would be required for only “four or five percent” of the land that still needs to be acquired.

“Seventy percent of this route is underneath high voltage utility lines,” he said. “People don’t live underneath high-voltage utility lines.”

[…]

On Thursday, state Rep. Dennis Paul, a Houston Republican, asked Andy Jent, an investment adviser at the firm, if the project had a schedule. Jent said the company wasn’t ready “to say go,” but when it did, he anticipated six months to finalize planning and secure financing, and another 80 to 86 months — roughly seven years — for construction.

There was a time when this kind of confident talk would have thrilled me. Now, let’s just say I’m a bit more circumspect. Let’s see where they are in that six month time frame for planning and funding.

Posted in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Federal grant to Amtrak for Texas high speed rail planning rescinded

Dispatches from Dallas, April 19 edition

Posted on April 19, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

This is a weekly feature produced by my friend Ginger. Let us know what you think.

This week, in news from Dallas-Fort Worth, we have measles, but not an epidemic (yet); new police and fire chiefs in Dallas; Ken Paxton suing Dallas over guns at the State Fair; the Dallas planning department losing $8.6 million; more on Tarrant County redistricting; the Ten Commandments coming to the Tarrant County Courthouse (with a bonus wish from Bo French); the DMN owning up to missing an important story; the Mavs ownership trying to sell the media and the fans on the new post-Luka team; the Wings getting a superstar in the WNBA draft; a great April Fools’ prank from 1986; and the best and worst BBQ in the Metroplex. And more!

This week’s post was brought to you by the music of cellist Julia Kent.

We haven’t had measles in the Metroplex break out widely, yet, but it’s clearly only a matter of time. We had a possible exposure in Grapevine a couple of weeks ago; this week we have a report of a case in Rockwall County after the patient had traveled to West Texas; we have another potential set of exposures in three strip malls in Plano. There’s also all sorts of gossip about potential exposures that haven’t been substantiated; friends of mine in Plano got their MMR updates after reading about a rumored ER closure on Reddit.

Statewide we’re at almost 600 confirmed cases. And in case you didn’t know, the long-term results of measles are gruesome, including brain swelling, hearing loss, and “immune amnesia”, which is when you lose all your immunity to diseases you’ve had and/or been vaccinated against. There is no cure for measles, but you can keep from getting it with a single shot. Y’all reading this almost certainly have already done this yourselves, but if you have friends and family who aren’t vaccinated, or are in the age group that may have to revaccinate, get them to the pharmacy to update their MMRs. Shots are no fun, but measles can kill you.

Meanwhile, in other news:

  • Dallas has a sort-of-new fire chief: interim chief Justin Ball got the nod. The DMN will tell you five things you need to know about him, including that he’s an immigrant from the UK.
  • Dallas also has an actually new police chief: Daniel Comeaux won the five-way contest for the DPD job. The DMN will also tell you five things you need to know about him, including that he spent most of his career in Houston. Interim Chief Michael Igo, who was also on the short list, retired after Comeaux’s selection was announced.
  • Speaking of DPD, the training center controversy continues. The Dallas Observer has a timeline to help you figure it out; D Magazine and KERA have the latest. Part of the problem is that the police academy will need areas for firearm and driving lessons that shouldn’t be on the UT Dallas campus where the rest of the academy will be. But those facilities will run up the cost.
  • In a fourth departure, the head of Dallas’ civil pensions is retiring after 20 years.
  • You knew it was coming, and here it is: Ken Paxton is suing Dallas over gun restrictions at Fair Park, the Music Hall, and the Majestic Theatre. As mentioned in the article, there are already bills out there to keep Fair Park from restricting guns at the Fair. As a visitor to all three venues, where drinks are served, I don’t want gun gropers waving their weapons around. But that’s common sense, which has nothing to do with the red meat Ken Paxton is throwing to the base in preparation for his Senate primary next spring.
  • The Dallas planning department has screwed up a lot in the last few years. Another error has just come out: a consultant screwed up the formula for a hike in fees. Instead of hiking fees, the new fees were lower, to the tune of $8.6 million since May 2024. The linked DMN story and this item at local real estate site Candy’s Dirt show just how bad things have gotten for Dallas’ planning crew.
  • The Dallas Observer would like to tell you which Dallas neighborhoods have the biggest increase in housing costs. My zip code, which is zoned to Richardson ISD schools, is just behind Preston Hollow in terms of rising costs. I just got my tax bill from Dallas County and they know all about the increase in prices around here. Ouch.
  • RIP Edna Pemberton, known as Mrs. P, a South Dallas civic leader. Among her long list of achievements is helping more than 80,000 refugees after Hurricane Katrina.
  • In 2019, not long after I moved here, the Texas Department of Transportation decided to build the “I-30 canyon” to bury the part of I-30 between I-35 and I-45 and let southern Dallas link up to downtown. Since the project was announced, its estimated cost has tripled to $890 million. Most recently the estimate has jumped by another $196 million, split three ways between the North Central Texas Council of Governments’ Regional Transportation Council and TxDOT. Every one of these deck projects is expected to turn out like Klyde Warren Park, and that’s not realistic. Klyde Warren has significant community support and oil money to buy facilities, plus it’s in the Arts District. That’s not the case for that section of I-30.
  • I always report these cases for Tarrant County and Fort Worth, so here’s one for Dallas: City Council approved $65,000 to pay off a man who was beaten by a DPD officer who was later sacked. The officer in question had two use-of-force complaints before he was caught on camera punching this man in the face.
  • Dallas County has a new pollbook provider for the May election and they tested the new software on Friday. Fingers crossed that next week I can report on a successful test. The new vendor is KNOWiNK, LLC; the old vendor, Election Systems and Services, was decertified after problems with the November election.
  • Dallas County is above state and national averages for food insecurity, aka hunger. A quarter of kids in Dallas were food-insecure in 2022. Black and Latino folks are more than twice as likely to be food-insecure as white folks. And that’s without recent cuts to federal money.
  • There’s more on Tim O’Hare’s effort to redistrict Tarrant County in the middle of the decade. KERA has some information about the rules for mid-decade redistricting, which the article correctly describes as a political process. The Star-Telegram also has an analysis of the issues and an editorial from the paper against redistricting, which I was surprised but pleased to see. I don’t think anything like public opinion will stop Tim O’Hare and Manny Ramirez from picking their voters if they can, but it’s nice to see someone saying they shouldn’t.
  • Meanwhile there are also some change to precincts in Tarrant County for the upcoming May election required under state law. They won’t change the ballots, though.
  • The latest from the Tarrant County Jail is fortunately not another report of a death. Instead they’re trying to develop a compassionate release policy. There’s currently an inmate with terminal stomach cancer and if he’s not released, he’ll be another in-custody death.
  • The Ten Commandments are coming to Tarrant County: a nonprofit is donating a monument almost identical to the one on the grounds of the Capitol in Austin and Commissioner’s Court voted to accept the gift. I’m never thrilled to see religious statuary on public grounds, but the real corker is what Tarrant County GOP leader posted on Xitter afterwards, screencapped by local journalist Steven Monacelli: Next can we put a gallows up?. Classy.
  • Ken Paxton’s investigation into Dallas ISD over their trans student athletes policy is unsurprisingly ending with a whimper instead of a bang. DISD says they’ll follow the law, they’re putting out a memo, and whoever it was that said you could get a birth certificate changed out of state is gone. More red meat for the upcoming Senate primary.
  • Speaking of red meat for the base, as one does when mentioning something Ken Paxton does, both Paxton and Senator John Cornyn are now investigating EPIC City, the Muslim-led development in Collin County. While there are a bunch of stories in local news about it, they all amount to the same thing: the usual suspects have their underwear in a knot because Muslims are doing something the same people support when Christians do it. The New York Times has picked up Governor Abbott’s crusade against EPIC City but haven’t picked up on the part our Senator and Attorney General are now playing in fanning the fire.
  • You may recall that I’ve talked about the good work of Dallas attorney Mark Melton in preventing landlords from evicting renters without legal representation. Texas Monthly talked to Melton about HB 32, the “anti-squatters” bill that passed the Texas Senate last week. The powers that be are going to keep Melton and his allies from representing people at eviction hearings by removing the hearing requirement. You know what to do: call your reps.
  • Let’s talk about regional transit in North Texas. As I’ve mentioned several times, a number of cities in the Metroplex are annoyed they have to pay money to DART. So the Regional Transportation Council wants to make a new plan which sounds like they’re going to vamp until the next decision point. Meanwhile, the Trump administration pulled the grant for high-speed rail between Dallas and Houston; the loss of funds might also kill the Dallas-Fort Worth high-speed train. The Texas Tribune has more on the Dallas-Houston funding cut and efforts in the Lege to kill the whole project.
  • The Latter Day Saints are heading back to Fairview with a proposal for a smaller temple instead of a lawsuit.
  • You may recall that we had big “Hands Off” protests across the country on April 5. The Dallas Morning News completely failed to cover them. The Public Editor of the paper answers for their failure and talks about how that screw-up happened. What I get from this is, first, they didn’t think protest against the Trump administration would be important to cover. Second, I notice they answer when former Mayor Laura Miller tells them to get their act together. There are more protests on April 19, and maybe the DMN will cover them.
  • Why is it that when we find election shenanigans, it’s Republicans? Out in Hood County, a former Granbury city council candidate was arrested for election fraud and perjury of certain election procedures (the latter of which is a state jail felony) for lying about her address. The candidate is also a Hood County GOP official.
  • As our host noted, self-driving semis are coming to I-45 between Dallas and Houston. I’m less sanguine than our host about the near-term arrival of these trucks, if only because the Trump administration tariffs are about to upend our trucking industry in a bad way.
  • Unsurprisingly, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas and Southwestern Health Resources signed a three-year contract four days after the previous contract expired, accomplishing nothing but upsetting their joint customer base. The DMN has the story of one patient who would have been really screwed if he had to find new doctors on short notice: a young heart patient who’d had emergency surgery at a Texas Health hospital. Imagine that scare multiplied by everyone on those plans, including the half-million educators on the Teacher Retirement System of Texas’ self funded plans.
  • I mention this DMN article on the upcoming Republican Senate primary because they name my House Rep, Beth Van Duyne, as a potential wild card. I can’t say anything about the other two potential spoilers, but I think if Van Duyne runs, she’s just raising her profile statewide. She has nothing to offer than Cornyn and Paxton don’t also have except being a woman, which is not a benefit in Republican politics.
  • Marc Veasey’s quest to get answers from ICE about that white supremacist prosecutor the Texas Observer found gets some coverage in Salon. I wish him all the luck in the world but they’re going to continue to stonewall him.
  • Former Dallas HERO frontman Pete Marocco is out at the State Department, having destroyed USAID. He’s a bad penny who’ll turn up somewhere; I hope it’s not here in Dallas again.
  • Wondering who’s behind the upcoming Texas Stock Exchange, which is expected to launch next year? Per SEC filings, the majority owner is local oilman Kelcy Warren.
  • This week there was an exclusive Dallas Mavericks media roundtable and D Magazine’s representative has all the details. It sounds awful: awfully hilarious if you’re not a Mavericks fan, and awfully painful if you used to be. It’s clear the Sands people think the fans need to get over Luka. It’s also clear the fans want the head of GM Nico Harrison and will be satisfied with nothing less. The Sands people also want to take the Mavs to Irving, but pissing off the Dallas fans so bad they don’t care if the Mavs leave isn’t the best way to go about it.
  • In happier sports news, the Dallas Wings, our local WNBA team, got first pick in the draft and picked up superstar Paige Bueckers. The DMN has ten things you should know about her. I’m excited and am looking forward to attending a Wings game to watch her play. Also, based on this Go Fug Yourself slideshow, the WNBA’s new players, including Paige, are stylin’.
  • Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited a north Texas wildlife safari park, the kind where you drive through with your windows open, with his family recently and got himself pecked by an ostrich. There’s video. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer, though I’m glad the toddler in the video didn’t get pecked as well.
  • This story about D Magazine’s April Fools 1986 story about Madonna moving to Dallas and the prank that supported it gave me a laugh.
  • The historic Oakland Cemetery in South Dallas has been cleaned up and given a historical marker.
  • Fort Worth has named a new housing complex with more than half of its 338 units reserved for affordable residences after Grandmother of Juneteenth Opal Lee.
  • D Magazine has written up its top 50 BBQ joints in North Texas. My neighborhood favorite, One90, got an honorable mention! But it’s the story about the worst BBQ that was really worth reading.
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House passes Abbott’s voucher bill

Posted on April 18, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Welp.

The Texas House gave initial approval early Thursday to a bill that would create a $1 billion private school voucher program, crossing a historic milestone and bringing Gov. Greg Abbott’s top legislative priority closer than ever to reaching his desk.

The lower chamber signed off on its voucher proposal, Senate Bill 2, on an 85-63 vote. Every present Democrat voted against the bill. They were joined by two Republicans — far short of the bipartisan coalitions that in previous legislative sessions consistently blocked proposals to let Texans use taxpayer money to pay for their children’s private schooling.

“This is an extraordinary victory for the thousands of parents who have advocated for more choices when it comes to the education of their children,” Abbott said in a statement, vowing that he would “swiftly sign this bill into law” when it reached his desk.

The vote came more than 10 hours after the chamber gave preliminary approval to its sweeping $7.7 billion school funding package, which would give local districts more money per student and raise teacher salaries. House Bill 2, which passed on a 144-4 vote, also aims to improve the quality of special education services by allocating funding based on the individual needs of children with disabilities.

Democrats argued the funding boost barely scratches the surface of what districts need to come back from budget deficits or to cover growing costs after years of inflation, but they ultimately supported the bill after a few hours of debate.

The more dramatic showdown came over the voucher bill, which Democrats tried to thwart with an amendment that would have put school vouchers up for a statewide vote in November. But the last-ditch maneuver attracted support from only one Republican — Rep. Dade Phelan of Beaumont, the former House speaker — spelling the demise of Democrats’ one major play to derail the bill.

The landmark voucher vote marks the first time since 1957 that the Texas House has approved legislation making state money available for families to use on their children’s private schooling. The outcome validated Abbott’s crusade to build a pro-voucher House majority during last year’s primary by targeting Republicans who tanked his previous proposal in 2023. Now, all that is left is for Republicans in both chambers to iron out the differences between their voucher plans, leaving Abbott and his allies on the brink of victory.

The House’s plan would put $1 billion to create education savings accounts, a form of vouchers that families could use to pay for private school tuition and other school-related expenses, like textbooks, transportation and therapy. The bill would tie the voucher program’s per-student dollars to public education funding so the amount available to each participating student would increase when public schools receive more money and dip when public education funding declines.

[…]

​The House also gave initial approval to its priority school funding legislation. Two years ago, public schools missed out on nearly $8 billion, which Abbott had made conditional on the approval of vouchers.

This year’s public education spending bill would increase schools’ base funding by $395 — from $6,160 to $6,555. That amount, known as the basic allotment, would automatically go up every two years by tying it to property value growth. Forty percent of the allotment would go to non-administrative staff salaries, with higher pay increases reserved for teachers with more than a decade of classroom experience.

In addition, the bill would limit schools’ use of educators who lack formal classroom training, barring uncertified teachers from instructing core classes. It would change the current settings-based model for special education funding by providing schools money based on the individual needs of students with disabilities. Two students placed in the same classroom but who require different levels of support receive the same dollars under the current settings-based model.

Republicans, during hours of debate, celebrated the bill as a worthwhile investment in public education. Democrats also voiced support for the legislation but argued that it barely scratches the surface of what districts need. Many school districts are currently grappling with challenges ranging from budget deficits and teacher shortages to campus closures.

Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, pressed Buckley, the bill’s author, on whether the measure’s $8 billion would be enough to solve Texas schools’ struggles, which have been fueled by stagnant funding and inflation.

Buckley did not directly acknowledge that his bill would fall short of addressing all the financial pressures facing districts. He instead focused on the multibillion-dollar funding boost the Legislature hopes to provide this session, which includes money through HB 2 and other legislation under consideration.

“I just want to emphasize, members, you have an opportunity today to cast a vote for the largest investment in public education in the history of our state, and so we will continue this process as this body returns session after session to make sure the resources are there for our schools,” Buckley said.

Members of the public viewing the debate from the House gallery erupted in laughter and applause in support of Talarico’s questioning. Talarico and those in the gallery did not appear content with Buckley’s answers.

“I’m going to take that as a no until I get a yes,” Talarico said.

Given the outcome of the 2024 Republican primaries, not to mention the November general election, this was to be expected. Amazing what can be done when you win more elections. I stand by my recommendation that Dems make tariff chaos the main point of the 2026 elections, but we can include the message that private school vouchers, Greg Abbott’s top priority, won’t do a damn thing to help just about anyone.

With vouchers and the budget mostly done, we’ll probably start seeing more bills come up for a vote. That will also be bad, it’s mostly a question of how bad. Will Dems hold the line on those constitutional amendments? I sure hope so. They’ve done a good job fighting so far, it would be dispiriting to see them fall apart after that bitter but expected defeat. The Chron, the Texas Signal, and The Barbed Wire have more.

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Taral Patel takes a plea

Posted on April 18, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Interesting.

Taral Patel, a former Fort Bend County staffer and commissioner candidate, pleaded guilty Tuesday to two misdemeanor charges after he was accused of creating fake social media profiles to post racist messages about himself, according to the Fort Bend County District Attorney’s Office.

Patel also admitted in his plea deal to committing one of the misdemeanors along with Fort Bend County Judge KP George. George is accused of working alongside Patel to sway the outcome of an election. He is also accused of money laundering an amount of more than $30,000 but less than $150,000.

Patel agreed to a two-year deferred adjudication probation on the misdemeanors, which includes a “litany of conditions,” a statement from the district attorney’s office said.

The agreement requires Patel to complete 200 hours of community service, have no contact with the victims or contact with the elected officials he maligned, and to write letters of apology to each victim and the Fort Bend community at large.

Patel also promised to cooperate in any future legal proceedings. In exchange for his plea, the remaining misdemeanor charges were dismissed.

Patel was indicted in September on four felony counts of online impersonation with intent to injure a candidate, court documents show. He was also indicted on misdemeanor charges of online impersonation and harassment for a total of nine charges.

[…]

“Justice and accountability were achieved today when Taral Patel accepted responsibility and pled guilty to the offenses,” said District Attorney Brian Middleton in a statement. “We believe the terms of the plea bargain are fair for the community and for the defendant. Now we can all move forward.”

See here for some background. That mention of Judge KP George and the agreement by Patel to cooperate in any future proceedings is a clear message to Judge George, and he responded to it.

George’s lawyer, Jared Woodfill, released a statement Wednesday disputing Patel’s claim. Woodfill blasted Fort Bend County District Attorney Brian Middleton for “cutting backroom deals” and using Patel as a “pawn.”

“Mr. Patel’s plea agreement, which is a mere slap on the wrist, appears to be the DA’s effort to further manufacture a case against George cutting backroom deals in exchange for testimony,” the statement said. “The case is about DA Middleton capturing the news headlines in an effort to influence an election in his favor.”

Patel was indicted in September on four felony counts of online impersonation with intent to injure a candidate, court documents show. He was also indicted on misdemeanor charges of online impersonation and harassment for a total of nine charges.

Patel in court documents admitted that he “freely and voluntarily confess that I did commit the offense of misrepresentation of identity/candidate in Fort Bend County on or about 9/26/22 along with Kyle Prasad George.”

See here and here for some more background. And all I can say right now is wait a damn minute, he’s being represented by Jared fucking Woodfill? Dude, could you not find a more respectable lawyer than that? Oh my God. I’m going to go sit down for a minute. Talk among yourselves.

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Carbon capture permit granted

Posted on April 18, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Of interest.

The Environmental Protection Agency has approved a Texas company’s application to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and inject it underground, becoming the first project in the state to be awarded such a permit.

Occidental Petroleum Corporation, a Houston-based oil firm, will start storing 500,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide in deep, non-permeable rock formations 4,400 feet underground as soon as this year. The facility will be located 20 miles southwest of Odessa.

“This is a significant milestone for the company as we are continuing to develop vital infrastructure that will help the United States achieve energy security,” Vicky Hollub, the company’s president and CEO, said in a statement. She said these permits will help energy companies “address their emissions or produce vital resources and fuels.”

Carbon dioxide is a byproduct of oil and gas production and the largest contributor to climate change. Oil and gas facilities leak or vent the greenhouse gas, which traps heat in the atmosphere and prevents it from cooling. Environmentalists and the oil and gas industry are divided over the environmental benefits of carbon capture.

While the industry has hedged its climate goals on the technology, environmental policy experts remain skeptical about whether it significantly reduces air pollution, saying the world should transition to other fuel sources to slow climate change. Some Texas scientists say the injection method has been tested and proven to work for years and now needs to be implemented.

[…]

Virginia Palacios, executive director of Commission Shift, an oil and gas watchdog group, said Oxy’s permit application did not include details regarding the layers where the carbon dioxide would be stored. She said that omitting this information gives residents no assurance that the gas will stay put, adding that the public should have been allowed to evaluate that information.

Occidental had previously received a grant from the Department of Energy to support the development of direct air capture technology. There’s no mention of that in this story – the grant was awarded in October 2023, so who even knows if they have received or will receive all of the promised funds – but it seems likely that there’s a connection. I expressed my opinion of carbon capture in that post, and it’s the same now as it was then, so click over if you’re curious. I hope this works.

Posted in Technology, science, and math | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Houston can defer the drainage settlement spending

Posted on April 17, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Can successfully kicked down the road.

Mayor John Whitmire

Mayor John Whitmire and plaintiffs in Houston’s drainage lawsuit have reached a deal on how the city will fund future street and drainage projects, slashing a third of its $330 million budget deficit.

The news was first reported late Tuesday evening by ABC13.

The Texas Supreme Court in January struck down the city’s appeal in the case, which requires Houston to put millions more toward street and drainage projects each year. Bob Jones and Allen Watson, two engineers who helped pioneer a city ordinance to put a certain percentage of property taxes aside for such projects, had sued the city arguing it was shortchanging the drainage fund.

The case pinged back and forth between courts before the city accepted the denial in January. Whitmire has said previously the city intended to comply with the court’s decision.

The dropped appeal ballooned what was once a deficit of $230 million to $330 million for this fiscal year alone. Houston would have had to shell out $100 million to fund projects before the end of June. Members of Whitmire’s team have been in talks with Jones and Watson about phasing in the expenditures to soften the blow to this year’s budget.

ABC13 reported that the deal reached with the plaintiffs will allow Houston to give $16 million to the fund this fiscal year and $48 million the following year. Houston should have the full amount paid by 2028, ABC13 reported.

Chris Newport, the mayor’s chief of staff, said funding will come from three main pots — Metro, ad valorem taxes and the drainage charge. City leaders plan to incrementally charge a percentage of the 11.8 cents per $100 of property tax evaluation required by the city law for the next two years, then charging the full 11.8 cents from 2028 onward to fully stock the drainage fund.

That math will get Houston $490 million in its drainage fund in 2026, $525 million in 2027, $540 million in 2028 and $585 million in 2029, Newport said.

See here and here for the background. Can-kicking jokes aside, this is good. It takes some of the pressure off for this year, and it gives us time to repeal or revise the stupid revenue cap so that we can better absorb the extra costs in future years. Kudos to all for hammering this out. Houston Public Media has more.

Posted in Local politics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Short term rental ordinance passes

Posted on April 17, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Now we get to see how well it works. Future revisions may be needed, and that’s fine.

Starting Jan. 1, all houses and apartments rented out for fewer than 30 days must be registered with the city’s Administration and Regulatory Affairs Department for an annual fee of $275 per unit. Those licenses are subject to revocation if the unit owners, operators or tenants repeatedly are cited for breaking sound, litter or health codes.

Some Houston residents have pushed for such legislation for more than a year and asked the City Council to limit the number of units that could be on a single block or in a multifamily property. The council, however, was restricted by the lack of zoning in Houston, which limits how the city regulates property use.

Council members on Wednesday said the ordinance would act as the start of a larger conversation about enforcement, and they could return later to make it stronger if needed.

“We have to enforce this now,” At-Large Councilmember Julian Ramirez said. “If we don’t take the steps necessary to enforce it then people will still be unhappy.”

Neighbors will be able to report units that break the ordinance and unruly behavior through an online portal next year, ARA Chief of Staff Billy Rudolph said last week.

Citations from police, fire and Public Works will be reported on a monthly basis to ARA, and the director will have discretion through the ordinance to revoke a rental’s license.

If a rental owner or operator has three or more registrations revoked within a two-year period, the ARA director can decide to revoke all of their registrations.

See here and here for the background. Houston Public Media adds some details.

The ordinance requires owners “and/or” operators to register properties with the city for a fee of $275. It also provides criteria for the revocation of registrations, including instances of renters committing certain crimes, like reckless discharge of a firearm, disorderly conduct, prostitution or multiple violations of the city’s noise ordinance.

City council members introduced several amendments, including one to allow the city to revoke all registrations for operators or owners who accrue three or more convictions within a two-year period based on the actions of their renters.

“We’re trying to narrowly tailor this while giving the city some leverage,” Council member Abbie Kamin said. “We’re trying to tread as lightly as possible while still addressing the concerns and needs of the city of Houston.”

A violation of the ordinance classifies as a misdemeanor carrying a fine of up to $500.

The rules are intended to address complaints about noise, parties, crime and other nuisances associated with some short-term rentals.

[…]

Ursula Jessee operates a portfolio of short-term rentals and was part of a “responsible landlords” group pushing for changes to the ordinance.

“I’m not furious, I’m not thrilled,” Jessee told Houston Public Media after the ordinance was approved. “I understand the intent behind it. I do think that some of these things are a bit of an overreach.”

Jessee said the group was concerned about the inclusion of disorderly conduct as grounds for potential revocation of registration as well as the lack of language in the ordinance allowing operators or owners off the hook if they take proactive measures to remove problematic guests.

She also said the group didn’t have time to review the updated amendments introduced by council members, such as the rule allowing revocation of all registrations in an owner or operator’s portfolio if three or more properties lose their registrations in a two-year period. She argued the rule doesn’t take into account owners or operators with large portfolios, and she said the city should have included a timeframe for regaining the right to host short-term renters.

“I personally am uncomfortable with anything that takes away landlord rights,” Jessee said. “So in this case, it makes me a bit uncomfortable that, like, all of a sudden you wouldn’t be able to rent out your properties for less than 30 days. I recognize why they’re doing it, though, and what I would have preferred is that there was a cap.”

[…]

Council member Letitia Plummer called for the creation of a task force consisting of community leaders, owners and operators “that can share with us what they’re experiencing on the back end of this and how it’s either positively affecting them or negatively affecting them.”

Council member Julian Ramirez, who chairs the quality of life committee that first considered the rules, said the ordinance could change in the future. He also said the city needs to ramp up enforcement of not just the new rules but also existing ordinances, like those regulating loud noise in residential areas.

“This is not final. We can always amend it,” Ramirez said. “We have to enforce this now. And so we can pass this, but if we don’t take the steps necessary to enforce it, then people will still be unhappy.”

I think Council did a lot of work on this and produced an ordinance that should be workable. It will almost certainly need some refining as we get data on its effects, and for sure it will only be as good as its enforcement capabilities are. The ordinance comes online in January, so we will have plenty of time to get ready for it. We’ll see how it goes.

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Microtransit comes to the Heights

Posted on April 17, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Whoopie.

Houston transit officials on Monday said on-demand microtransit would expand to provide rides in the Heights.

Metro, with the city of Houston and Evolve Houston, expanded the Community Connector service, which has been serving downtown Houston, Second Ward and Third Ward through a program offering free rides.

Microtransit is part of the MetroNow Plan, which officials say could improve mobility by using small vehicles designed for short distances. Board Chair Elizabeth Gonzalez Brock said in February that MetroNow had $10 million to expand microtransit services.

The microtransit shuttle can provide seating for up to five people, and riders can reserve three seats.

The Heights service will operate Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Rides are requested within the designated zone by using the Ride Circuit app.

See here, here, and here for the background. Among many other things, I’m very curious as to how they define “the Heights” for these purposes. Depending on how strict your construction is, that could be a pretty significant portion of the upper west Inner Loop quadrant. I’m also curious as to why we were next on the list, since in other contexts (like sidewalks and bike paths), Mayor Whitmire has carped about how the Heights and Montrose have been over-prioritized by previous administrations. And yet here we are getting this thing none of us asked for or knew was coming. Funny how that works.

Someone who has already used it is Chron deputy opinion editor and Heights neighbor Raj Mankad, who shares his experience.

That was how I intended to use the Community Connector shuttle: to get me to the Quitman light rail stop where I’d continue my morning commute. Unfortunately, the app gave Davenport bad directions, and we took an unintentional tour of the Near Northside. (Later, Casey Brown, Evolve’s executive director, told me he would get the first-day glitch fixed.)

But we got there. I enjoyed the ride. And assuming that they work out the glitches, I’ll use it again.

What about all of you who don’t live in the Heights, Third Ward, Second Ward or Downtown? Will the service come to your neighborhood any time soon?

That depends on the cost per rider.

One of the most expensive parts is paying the driver. And obviously, a driver of a full-sized bus or train can move a lot more passengers than the driver of an itsy-bitsy vehicle that carries a maximum of five people.

The subsidy per ride for the microtransit pilot in Los Angeles was a whopping $43 per ride according to reporting by the Los Angeles Times in 2023, and two years later, the costs there remain high. Yes, all public transit is subsidized by tax dollars, but that’s boggling.

Metro does not include microtransit in its monthly ridership reports, so it’s hard to compare its costs. Casey Brown, the head of Evolve, told me that in Houston “we’ve consistently achieved a cost per passenger of under $10 for several months” in one zone, though the average across the pilot program is higher. He said Evolve keeps costs down in part by using smaller vehicles and tighter coverage zones than other cities. As ridership and efficiency go up, he says the subsidy per rider drops.

The total number of microtransit rides from June 19, 2023, until the end of this April was a little over 44,000. To put that in perspective, almost every single METRO bus line carries more riders each year than the entire microtransit program — even those buses you see midday with hardly anyone in the seats.

[…]

Piloting microtransit now could prepare Houston for the upheaval ahead. Instead of letting tech companies dictate the future, jamming up our roads with robotaxis, the public can take some control and shape what kind of city we want.

But here’s the problem: Even if we manage to get microtransit right, those darling shuttles won’t be enough. Remember how microtransit is supposed to close the gaps with full-sized transit? To supplement it, not substitute for it?

To put it plainly, Houston’s main system isn’t good enough. Even if every neighborhood were magically served by its own fleet of irresistible fun-size transit, those little shuttles wouldn’t have the big system they need to feed into. It’d be like having great capillaries but clogged arteries.

We need more dedicated lanes for people who share vehicles, whether that’s shuttles, buses or trains. That includes HOV lanes. We need Metro to un-cancel its plans for the University Line, especially the crucial east-west section of the bus rapid transit connection. We need to move more people, fast, pleasantly and cost-effectively.

Don’t forget the Inner Katy Line, which would also serve the Heights. Assuming that whatever they’re doing to I-10 hasn’t permanently killed this possibility. And hey, you know what else fills in the gaps for the larger transit system, at a much lower cost? Bike lanes and good sidewalks. I’m just saying.

Be that as it may, here we are again at the total lack of numbers with this service. Maybe someday we’ll find out how many people have actually used this service, in its various locations, and thus maybe get some idea of the value it provides. Heck, even knowing how many people have downloaded the app and how many of them have ever reserved a ride would be nice. Until then, I’ll be on Microtransit Watch, to see how often I personally encounter one of these things. I’ll do my best to take a picture the first time I do, and post it here. I’m sure you’re full of anticipation.

UPDATE: Via the Weird Sh*t in the Heights (Houston) Facebook group, I learn the following:

The heights has two areas. North of 11th and south of 11th. East to 45 and west to shepherd. South to I-10 and north to 610. Within each box the ride is direct. If you go outside the box then you have to put in a transfer. So if you live on the 1500 block of harvard and want to go to the heights theater there’s no transfer. But if you live on the 1500 block of harvard and want to go to Donovan Park at 7th/Heights then you will need to transfer at 11th. It’s mainly for short trips if you don’t want to have the hassle of transfers.

The definition of “the Heights” as I-10 to 610 and Shepherd to I-45 makes sense. Dividing it into north of 11th and south of 11th and requiring a transfer to get from one side to the other is a bit ridiculous, and means there are at least two of these bespoke shuttles in the greater neighborhood during its hours of operation. A few people in the comments have spotted them around. I’m still looking.

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Texas blog roundup for the week of April 14

Posted on April 17, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

The Texas Progressive Alliance stands with the students who have had their visas revoked as it brings you this week’s roundup.

Continue reading →

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Measles update: More on how we’ve done this to ourselves

Posted on April 16, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

From the Associated Press:

The measles outbreak in West Texas didn’t happen just by chance.

The easily preventable disease, declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, ripped through communities sprawling across more than 20 Texas counties in part because health departments were starved of the funding needed to run vaccine programs, officials say.

“We haven’t had a strong immunization program that can really do a lot of boots-on-the-ground work for years,” said Katherine Wells, the health director in Lubbock, a 90-minute drive from the outbreak’s epicenter.

Immunization programs nationwide have been left brittle by years of stagnant funding by federal, state and local governments. In Texas and elsewhere, this helped set the stage for the measles outbreak and fueled its spread. Now cuts to federal funding threaten efforts to prevent more cases and outbreaks.

Health departments got an influx of cash to deal with COVID-19, but it wasn’t enough to make up for years of neglect. On top of that, trust in vaccines has eroded. Health officials warn the situation is primed to get worse.

Recent cuts by the Trump administration have pulled billions of dollars in COVID-19 related funding — $2 billion of it slated for immunization programs for various diseases. Overseeing the cuts is Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who rose to prominence leading an anti-vaccine movement. While Kennedy has said he wants his agency to prevent future outbreaks, he’s also declined to deliver a consistent and forceful message that would help do so — encouraging people to vaccinate their children against measles while reminding them it is safe.

At the same time, lawmakers in Texas and about two-thirds of states have introduced legislation this year that would make it easier to opt out of vaccines or otherwise put up barriers to ensuring more people get shots, according to an analysis by The Associated Press. That further undercuts efforts to keep infectious diseases at bay, health officials said.

[…]

Lubbock receives a $254,000 immunization grant from the state annually that can be used for staff, outreach, advertising, education and other elements of a vaccine program. That hasn’t increased in at least 15 years as the population grew.

It used to be enough for three nurses, an administrative assistant, advertising and even goodies to give out at health fairs, Wells said. “Now it covers a nurse, a quarter of a nurse, a little bit of an admin assistant, and basically nothing else.”

Texas has among the lowest per capita state funding for public health in the nation, just $17 per person in 2023, according to the State Health Access Data Assistance Center.

Vaccines are among the most successful tools in public health’s arsenal, preventing debilitating illnesses and lowering the need for expensive medical care. Childhood vaccines prevent 4 million deaths worldwide each year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which says the measles vaccine will save some 19 million lives by 2030.

U.S. immunization programs are funded by a variable mix of federal, state and local money. Federal money is sent to every state, which then decides how much to send to local health departments.

The stagnant immunization grant funding in Texas has made it harder for local health departments to keep their programs going. Lubbock’s health department, for example, doesn’t have the money to pay for targeted Facebook ads to encourage vaccinations or do robust community outreach to build trust.

In Andrews County, which borders Gaines County, the biggest cost of its immunization program is personnel. But while everything has gotten more expensive, the grant hasn’t changed, Health Director Gordon Mattimoe said. That shifts the burden to county governments. Some kick in more money, some don’t. His did.

The problem: keeping people safe from outbreaks requires high vaccination rates across a broad region, and germs don’t stop at county borders.

Andrews County, population 18,000, offers a walk-in vaccine clinic Monday through Friday, but other West Texas communities don’t. More than half the people who come to the clinic travel from other counties, Mattimoe said, including much larger places and Gaines County.

Some had to drive an hour or more. They did so because they had trouble getting shots in their home county due to long waits, lack of providers and other issues, Mattimoe said.

“They’re unable to obtain it in the place that they live. … People are overflowing, over to here,” Mattimoe said. “There’s an access issue.”

That makes it more likely people won’t get their shots.

In Gaines County just 82% of kindergartners were vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella. Even in Andrews County, where, at 97%, the vaccination rate is above the 95% threshold for preventing outbreaks, it has slipped two percentage points since 2020.

Andrews County is Gaines County’s neighbor to the south. They were doing pretty well before all this, despite being as small and in the middle of nowhere as Gaines is. So much for that.

From the KFF Health News.

More than a dozen vaccination clinics were canceled in Pima County, Arizona.

So was a media blitz to bring low-income children in Washoe County, Nevada, up to date on their shots.

Planned clinics were also scuttled in Texas, Minnesota, and Washington, among other places.

Immunization efforts across the country were upended after the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention abruptly canceled $11.4 billion in covid-related funds for state and local health departments in late March.

A federal judge temporarily blocked the cuts last week, but many of the organizations that receive the funds said they must proceed as though they’re gone, raising concerns amid a resurgence of measles, a rise in vaccine hesitancy, and growing distrust of public health agencies.

“I’m particularly concerned about the accessibility of vaccines for vulnerable populations,” former U.S. surgeon general Jerome Adams told KFF Health News. Adams served in President Donald Trump’s first administration. “Without high vaccination rates, we are setting those populations and communities up for preventable harm.”

[…]

In Pima County, Arizona, officials learned that one of its vaccination programs would have to end early because the federal government took away its remaining $1 million in grant money. The county had to cancel about 20 vaccine events offering covid and flu shots that it had already scheduled, said Theresa Cullen, director of the county health department. And it isn’t able to plan any more, she said.

The county is home to Tucson, the second-largest city in Arizona. But it also has sprawling rural areas, including part of the Tohono O’odham Nation, that are far from many health clinics and pharmacies, she said.

The county used the federal grant to offer free vaccines in mostly rural areas, usually on the weekends or after usual work hours on weekdays, Cullen said. The programs are held at community organizations, during fairs and other events, or inside buses turned into mobile health clinics.

Canceling vaccine-related grants has an impact beyond immunization rates, Cullen said. Vaccination events are also a chance to offer health education, connect people with other resources they may need, and build trust between communities and public health systems, she said.

County leaders knew the funding would run out at the end of June, but Cullen said the health department had been in talks with local communities to find a way to continue the events. Now “we’ve said, ‘Sorry, we had a commitment to you and we’re not able to honor it,’” she said.

Cullen said the health department won’t restart the events even though a judge temporarily blocked the funding cuts.

“The vaccine equity grant is a grant that goes from the CDC to the state to us,” she said. “The state is who gave us a stop work order.”

The full effect of the CDC cuts is not yet clear in many places. California Department of Public Health officials estimated that grant terminations would result in at least $840 million in federal funding losses for its state, including $330 million used for virus monitoring, testing, childhood vaccines, and addressing health disparities.

“We are working to evaluate the impact of these actions,” said California Department of Public Health Director Erica Pan.

Jerome Adams, who seems to be a pretty normal dude despite having been Surgeon General during Trump I, has a quote at the end of that story about how none of this is making America healthy, saying you “can’t die from chronic diseases when you’re 50 if you’ve already died from measles or polio or whooping cough when you’re 5”. I mean, he’s right.

And here’s your Tuesday update.

Texas health officials reported Tuesday that the state’s measles outbreak grew to 561 cases and spread to one new county.

The latest update from the Texas Department of State Health Services includes 20 new cases since the agency’s last update on Friday. Among the new cases is the first in Reeves County, in West Texas.

Fifty-eight people have been hospitalized for treatment since the outbreak began in late January.

[…]

The Texas outbreak has also spread several neighboring states. New Mexico reported 63 cases on Tuesday, while Oklahoma reported 12. New Mexico has reported one suspected measles death, an unvaccinated adult who tested positive for the virus after dying.

Nine of the 20 new cases reported on Tuesday are in Gaines County, the epicenter of the outbreak. The small county along the New Mexico border has now seen a total of 364 cases.

El Paso County reported four new cases, raising its total to seven. The state’s westernmost county reported its first cases on Friday.

Three new cases were reported in Lubbock County, which has now seen 41 during the outbreak.

Reeves County reported its first case associated with the outbreak. Andrews, Cochran, and Midland counties also reported one new case.

The DSHS said there is ongoing measles transmission in 10 counties across the state: Cochran, Dallam, Dawson, Gaines, Garza, Lynn, Lamar, Lubbock, Terry and Yoakum.

Of the 561 cases in Texas, 175 have been in children younger than 5 years old and 206 have been in children and teens between 5 and 17, according to the DSHS.

Only 11 cases have been in people who received at least one dose of MMR vaccine prior to an infection.

Texas has reported a total of seven measles cases in 2025 that are not connected to the South Plains outbreak, including four in Harris County and one in Fort Bend County. Most of those cases are associated with international travel, according to the DSHS.

Yesterday was a bit of a dumpster fire for me, so I didn’t go out looking for more stories; the first two I found before Tuesday. Two things to note: One is the outbreak now reaching into more populated areas – El Paso, Lubbock, Midland – which may provide a lot more kindling for the fire. You can hope the vax rates are better in those places than they are in the likes of Gaines County, but those three have a lot more people in them, and even a small percentage of a big number is still a big number. And two, the story says that the DSHS estimates about four percent of the affected people – about 25 in total – are actively infectious. That’s not a lot, but on average a person with the measles is capable of passing it on to 18 other people, and that is a lot. Remember, the best guess is that this will last for a year or so. We’ve got a long way to go.

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A possible wrench in the voucher engine

Posted on April 16, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

I approve.

House Democrats are threatening to kill all constitutional amendments for the rest of session unless the House votes to put school vouchers before voters in November. They appear to have the numbers to make good on that special session-inducing threat.

More than 50 House Democrats have signed on to that plan, according to at least four Democrats and Capitol staffers briefed on the tally, enough to handcuff the Legislature on constitutional amendments. The move comes as Gov. Greg Abbott is attempting to squash any changes to his top legislative priority, Senate Bill 2, including a bill amendment that would have voters weigh in on the proposed education savings account program.

Blocking constitutional amendments is one of the last bits of leverage Texas Democrats have left after House Republicans this session undid the decades-long tradition of giving the minority party committee chairmanships. Killing vouchers is Democrats’ top legislative priority, and Democrats say they are prepared to pull all the stops to thwart the measure and others they oppose.

Constitutional amendments require at least 100 votes from the House’s 150 members to pass the chamber before going before Texas voters. With 62 Democrats in the House, Republicans need at least 12 Democrats to make any constitutional amendment happen.

Several top Republican and bipartisan priorities hinge on the passage of constitutional amendments. One of those priorities would allow judges to deny bail for certain violent level offenses. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has threatened to force a special session if the Legislature fails to pass that measure.

Already, proposed constitutional amendments appear to be at a bit of a standstill in the House, and Democrats claim responsibility. The House has not adopted any constitutional amendment proposals since the start of the month, when the House adopted its proposals to lower property taxes on businesses (House Joint Resolution 1) and ban taxes on financial transactions (House Joint Resolution 4).

Yesterday, House Joint Resolution 5 author Rep. Stan Lambert, — a Republican from Abilene who so happens to oppose vouchers — postponed that resolution addressing funding for the Texas State Technical College system till next week. The House will go through another test today, when the chamber is supposed to take up previously postponed measures banning “death taxes” (House Joint Resolution 2) and capital gains taxes (House Joint Resolution 6).

All proposed constitutional amendments must earn voters’ support in November to take effect. If Democrats get their way, the education savings account program would similarly appear on the November ballot.

Democrats have been searching for a Republican to carry the ballot measure amendment to SB 2 when the House takes up the measure tomorrow. Quorum Report first reported the existence of the amendment yesterday, as well as Abbott’s attempts to keep Republicans in line.

I’d like to see Dems continue to stand firm against that bullshit bail measure, and it would be fine by me if they sunk HJRs 2 and 6 as well, but forcing a popular vote on vouchers as a price for whatever level of support they give those resolutions is a reasonable goal. Naturally, Greg Abbott is throwing a fit.

According to reporting by Scott Braddock at Quorum Report, GOP sources say Abbott has told lawmakers that putting the issue on the ballot would be unconstitutional — even though there’s precedent for statewide votes on similar matters. In the past, Texans voted on horse racing and a proposal by then-Gov. Mark White to gain appointment power over the State Board of Education, neither of which were constitutional amendments.

Braddock reports that some lawmakers believe there may be as many as 80 to 85 votes — from both Republicans and Democrats — in favor of the ballot proposal. The governor, however, is said to be calling members into his office and threatening to veto unrelated bills if they offer or support amendments to his voucher legislation on the House floor.

“For Republican lawmakers who have long been on the record against school vouchers in any form, Abbott has not renewed threats to veto unrelated legislation if all they do is vote ‘no’ on final passage,” Braddock wrote. “But even among those members, Abbott could decimate their legislative agendas with blanket vetoes of all their bills if any of them were to lead the charge to amend the voucher legislation on the floor this week.”

Frustrations are also mounting over transparency. Braddock reports that Public Education Committee Chair Brad Buckley told legislators they could pick up physical copies of school finance “runs” — spreadsheets detailing how districts would fare under the plan — at the Capitol between 7 and 9 p.m. Monday night. In previous sessions, such materials were distributed publicly online to allow school districts and lawmakers time to review and respond.

“Even some Republican members who support ‘school choice’ were grumbling about why the meeting was not broadcast online on the House website,” Braddock wrote, referring to a recent Public Education Committee meeting that passed both HB 2 and the voucher bills to the Calendars Committee.

Though technically not violating the state’s rules on transparency, the move drew condemnation from Democrats on the committee, who livestreamed their own recording of the meeting in response.

“If this is landmark legislation that we’re proud of, why aren’t we opening this up for all to see?” one frustrated GOP member told QR.

The Texas House GOP Caucus informed members in an email that Abbott will attend their meeting on Wednesday. Several lawmakers told QR that the governor has already begun one-on-one meetings to press his case and discourage changes to the legislation.

The minority has got to do what it’s got to do to exert influence. This is a situation where their influence isn’t subject to a future rules change or special session circumstances. This puts the Republicans in a tough spot, and that’s great. It’s exactly what you want to do to them.

Objectively, Abbott should give the Dems this relatively small win and then get his billionaire enablers to blanket the airwaves with pro-voucher propaganda and hope to win the vote in the fall. But it’s not guaranteed, even with a small electorate turning out, and I’m sure this just chaps his hide – the very idea, giving the Dems even a procedural win. Up to you, Greg. Do you accept the challenge or put even more of a squeeze on your supposed allies? We’ll know soon enough.

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RIP, Houston Landing

Posted on April 16, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Major bummer.

The board of Houston Landing has voted to shut down the nonprofit newsroom in the face of financial challenges. Although Houston Landing launched with significant seed funding, it has been unable to build additional revenue streams to support ongoing operations.

The newsroom anticipates it will cease publishing by mid-May of this year. This timeline will enable Houston Landing to facilitate a thoughtful transition.

“We are proud of the Landing’s coverage of Greater Houston and continue to believe deeply in the need for more free, independent journalism in our region,” said Ann B. Stern, board chair of Houston Landing. “This decision was difficult but necessary. Houston Landing’s reporting has made a meaningful impact in the community, but it struggled to find its long-term financial footing.”

The Houston Landing board continues to believe there is a strong need for nonprofit local news in Houston and a viable path to sustaining it. The board has entered into discussions with The Texas Tribune, which is exploring the possibility of establishing a Houston news initiative as part of its broader strategy to expand local journalism and serve more Texans.

“We have great respect for Houston Landing’s work in delivering high-quality, nonpartisan journalism to its readers,” said Sonal Shah, CEO of The Texas Tribune. “We also understand the profound challenges facing local newsrooms today — journalism is a public service and needs a strong ecosystem to thrive. We look forward to exploring how we can learn from what the Landing started and create a sustainable model that serves the Houston community. We will take time to explore the right path forward to ensure sustainability.”

Here’s the letter from their CEO. I’ve obviously been a fan of their reporting – they’ve especially done strong work on schools and school districts in general, and HISD in particular – and it sucks to have such a good resource go away. Maybe the Texas Tribune, which has been setting up local newsrooms, can hire some soon-to-be-former Landing staffers and fill the gap a bit. Maybe another startup can do better. Maybe this was just bad timing and the next try will have better luck. Whatever the case, I’ll miss the Houston Landing when it’s gone. Thanks for all the good work and I wish you the best with whatever comes next.

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An early progress report on the new DA

Posted on April 15, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Sounds good so far.

Sean Teare

Harris County’s jail population declined 6% since February, and District Attorney Sean Teare secured more than $7 million in funding from the county Thursday to keep the trend going.

The $7.6 million in funding, approved by all Harris County Commissioners, with Harris County Judge Hidalgo abstaining from the vote Thursday, is intended to help prevent drivers of violent crime, support victims, decrease the jail population and cut into the county’s backlog of cases.

Around $2.6 million will go toward expanding the DA’s office’s domestic violence bureau and mental health and diversion bureau to provide more support to victims and defendants and prevent large drivers of crime.

“We will never be able to prosecute our way out of some of the things we’re seeing … We have to work with stakeholders outside to give individuals the mental health care they need so we’re not just keeping people in jail,” said Chandler Raine, first assistant to Teare.

The rest of the funding will go toward forensic investigations, more prosecutors and staff expansion, with the hope that prosecuting more cases will lead to more violent offenders going to state prison, instead of staying in the county jail along with people awaiting trial who can’t afford to make bond. Commissioners said the current case clearance rate is around 30%.

The hope is also that prosecuting more cases could cut back on the tens of millions of dollars the county has to spend to outsource inmates to private prisons.

“The fact that we spend nearly $50 million annually outsourcing people to private prisons appalled me,” said Precinct 4 Commissioner Lesley Briones. “I know it’s necessary given the current reality, but the key to changing the current reality is here … I’d rather invest my money in justice than private prisons.”

Just having the District Attorney on the same page as Commissioners Court is a positive development. I don’t want to draw too many conclusions this early on, but I like what I see so far. Let’s keep it going.

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Fully autonomous trucks set to hit the road

Posted on April 15, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

For realsies.

Autonomous freight trucks are slated to hit the Dallas highways this month. The self-driving heavy-duty semi-trucks running on technology formulated by Aurora, a Pittsburgh-based self-driving vehicle tech company, will roll back and forth along the Interstate 45 corridor connecting Dallas and Houston. This busy stretch of freeway will be the launch site for Aurora’s fleet of self-driving trucks, with an additional route between Fort Worth and El Paso, already planned.

“Opening a driverless trucking lane flanked by commercially-ready terminals is an industry-first that unlocks our ability to launch our driverless trucking product,” said Sterling Anderson, co-founder and chief product officer of Aurora in a 2023 press release announcing local Aurora terminals were ready for driverless operations. “With this corridor’s launch, we’ve defined, refined, and validated the framework for the expansion of our network with the largest partner ecosystem in the autonomous trucking industry.”

In a March shareholder letter, Aurora outlined its progressive plan for trucks on the highway, calling it a “crawl, walk, run approach.”

“During launch, we expect to deploy up to 10 driverless trucks in commercial operations, starting with one driverless truck and then transitioning the balance to driverless operation,” reads the letter.

According to a report from the National Transportation Research Group, Texas moved more freight than any other state in 2022, about 3.4 billion tons valued at $3.1 trillion. More than half of all truck freight that moves through Texas takes the strip of I-45 that Aurora’s trucks will navigate.

Aurora is partnered with several vehicle manufacturers, including the Denton-based Peterbilt, installing their software and hardware on pre-built trucks, enabling self-driving features. The tech company is also partnered with freight companies like FedEx and Uber Freight. Aurora’s self-driving tech, named Aurora Driver, includes a mix of radar, light detection and a series of cameras, removing the need for human intervention.

“We are on the cusp of a new era in transportation,” reads a press release from Aurora’s head of government relations, Gerardo Interiano. “Autonomous vehicles are no longer just a concept — they are being deployed in trucking, passenger mobility, agriculture, and mining, paving the way for a safer, more efficient future. Aurora’s plans to deploy self-driving trucks onto public roads in Texas will bring the benefits of autonomy directly to our supply chain and economy.”

See here for the previous update, which in January of 2024 promised we’d have these autonomous trucks with no human backup drivers on the road by the end of that year. The timing slipped a little, but here we are. There was a long story in the business section of the Thursday print edition that went into a lot of detail about this, but for some annoying reason it’s not on the Chron site or visible in Google news. We do have this Chron story from March 31 that gave a bit of a preview.

Aurora, a developer of self-driving vehicles, has released its report during its final preparations to launch self-driving trucks without a safety driver on Texas highways.

The Driverless Safety Report includes information on safety engineering, cybersecurity and risk management, according to Aurora in the news release. The report is an expanded version of the Voluntary Safety Self-Assessment — documents encouraged by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for companies who develop and launch automated driving systems.

“Our safety approach spans both product and organization, and in this report, we’ve shared a behind-the-scenes look into our safety systems,” said Nat Beuse, chief safety officer at Aurora, in a statement.

The NHTSA has a voluntary safety guidance document that notes 12 elements, including system safety, object and event detection and response, human-machine interface, crashworthiness, and compliance with federal, state and local laws.

When the NHTSA becomes aware of a new assessment publication, it’s added to the Voluntary Safety Self-Assessment index online and made available to the public.

Aurora has been partnering with FedEx, Uber Freight, Hirshbach and Schneider for its self-driving system, the Aurora Driver, on the Dallas to Houston route. The company has not yet announced who will be a part of the fleet for the driverless operations, according to Jake Martin, spokesperson for Aurora.

Aurora officials will also have to close its safety case framework before the launch.

Amy Witherite, founder of the Witherite Law Group and a traffic safety expert in Texas, said that although she applauds Aurora’s efforts, she is still concerned about the report’s lack of specific details about how often or under what circumstances the company’s automation had failed or required human intervention.

“With literally billions of dollars at stake, it is fair to ask whether companies who will potentially profit from this technology should be the ones who decide whether it is safe to put on our highways,” she said in a statement.

Martin said in an email that Aurora submits safety incidents to the NHTSA and the company doesn’t publish them independently.

The company plans to have full driverless operations on Texas highways in April. The trucks were traveling with a safety driver present to monitor the self-driving system’s performance. Aurora’s full report can be read online.

I figure there will be more coverage once the trucks are actually on the road. KVUE has a video story if that interests you. These trucks with the safety drivers have been on the road since 2021 with a sufficiently good track record that you probably weren’t aware of their presence on I-45. According to that so-far-print-only Chron story, the safety drivers have rarely had to intervene, and most of the time that they did they were being more cautious than was necessary. The basic idea here is that while this will reduce the need for long-haul truckers, for which there’s a shortage, it will open up opportunities for short-haul drivers. We’ll see how this goes.

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